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Comment by thih9 | Hacker News Reader

> There are no equivalents of function calls. All events happen is the same space and there is always a likelihood of interference.

Proof that code with all functions inlined, with only global variables, with bugs and happy accidents all over the place, eventually gains sentience and becomes self aware.

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This isn't proof. Its wishful thinking. We don't yet understand the data structure of DNA fully, we don't know how a chemical storage system that is inherantly inert and relies on nanomachines (that it itself is responsible for providing the code for creating) to be useful even exists, let alone how it was made. How many happy accidents would it take to create cloudflare? This is overwhelmingly more complex than cloudflare and yet it works, and not only works robustly, but with exquisite UX.

Looks like we understand it enough to say it's all a big ball of mud[1], at least based on that SO comment. Or are you saying that the comment is wrong? And yes, the effect is more complex than cloudflare. Then again, it is a ~6Gb (~0.85GB) executable blob[2]; this doesn't include the training sets and it took a bit to get there. Who knows, if cloudflare spent 4.5 billion years and a whole planet of resources on their next version, the result might have exquisite UX too (plus an ability to write tangental HN comments, and many more).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pattern#Big_ball_of_mud

[2]: "In humans, the total female diploid nuclear genome per cell extends for 6.37 Gigabase pairs (Gbp)", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA#Amount

Evolution is a wonderful algorithm - open ended, and yet in a single run it created all life, including human culture and technology.

What I find fascinating about evolution is that it is entirely un-intentional. There is no-one/nothing directing it yet its outcome presents (and can be discussed as) a design.

There is an imperative force internal to evolution - self replication. Information must propagate (replicate) from the past into the future. But this leads to competition for resources, and hence drives evolution.

How would you know if a higher dimensional being was directing it? We can't easily detect something outside our current physical dimensions.

We know that for our math to work there have to be a number of higher dimensions. I think it's more logical to believe this came from something instead of from nothing.

Single run?

Signal transduction is async amplification. And those pathways can branch. Close enough.

Maybe that's the true way how to create an AGI...

We are the AGI :)

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