Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Are there cognitive realms?, published by Tsvi Benson-Tilsen on March 12, 2023 on The AI Alignment Forum.

[Metadata: crossposted from. First completed November 16, 2022. This essay is more like research notes than exposition, so context may be missing, the use of terms may change across essays, and the text may be revised later; only the versions at tsvibt.blogspot.com are definitely up to date.]

Are there unbounded modes of thinking that are systemically, radically distinct from each other in relevant ways?

Note: since I don't know whether "cognitive realms" exist, this essay isn't based on clear examples and is especially speculative.

Realms

Systemically, radically distinct unbounded modes of thinking

The question is, are there different kinds--writ large--of thinking?

To the extent that there are, interpreting the mental content of another mind, especially one with different origins than one's own, may be more fraught than one would assume based on experience with minds that have similar origins to one's own mind.

Are there unbounded modes of thinking that are systemically, radically distinct from each other?

"Unbounded" means that there aren't bounds on how far the thinking can go, how much it can understand, what domains it can become effective in, what goals it can achieve if they are possible.

"Systemically" ("system" = "together-standing-things") means that the question is about all the elements that participate in the thinking, as they covary / coadapt / combine / interoperate / provide context for each other.

"Radical" (Wiktionary) does not mean "extreme". It comes from the same etymon as "radish" and "radix" and means "of the root" or "to the root"; compare "eradicate" = "out-root" = "pull out all the way to the root", and more distantly through PIE wréh₂ds the Germanic "wort" and "root". Here it means that the question isn't about some mental content in the foreground against a fixed background; the question asks about the background too, the whole system of thinking to its root, to its ongoing source and to what will shape it as it expands into new domains.

Terms

Such a mode of thinking could be called a "realm". A cognitive realm is an overarching, underlying, systemic, total, architectural thoughtform that's worth discussing separately from other thoughtforms. A realm is supposed to be objective, a single metaphorical place where multiple different minds or agents could find themselves.

Other words:

systemic thoughtform

system of thought, system of thinking

cognitive style

state of mind

cluster / region in mindspace

mode of being

species of thinking

Realm vs. domain

A domain is a type of task, or a type of environment. A realm, on the other hand, is a systemic type of thinking; it's about the mind, not the task.

For the idea of a domain see Yudkowsky's definition of intelligence as efficient cross-domain optimization power. Compare also domain-specific programming languages, and the domain of discourse of a logical system.

It might be more suitable for a mind to dwell in different realms depending on what domain it's operating in, and this may be a many-to-many mapping. Compare:

The mapping from computational subsystems to cognitive talents is many-to-many, and the mapping from cognitive talents plus acquired expertise to domain competencies is also many-to-many, [...].

From "Levels of Organization in General Intelligence", Yudkowsky (2007).

Domains are about the things being dealt with; it's a Cartesian concept (though it allows for abstraction and reflection, e.g. Pearlian causality is a domain and reprogramming oneself is a domain). Realms are about the thing doing the dealing-with.

Realm vs. micro-realm

A micro-realm is a realm except that it's not unbounded. It's similar to a cognitive faculty, and similar to a very abstract domain, but includes t...