Sunday 1 April 2018

#490 Life as a pool table - part 13

The concept of beliefs
The robots' memories grow, allowing them to develop beliefs about the world around them. For instance, the belief that food should be eaten and that predators are to be avoided. There is no truth in these beliefs beyond the minds of the robots. The predators, for example, believe that it's the robots that should be eaten. However the beliefs, like other concepts that we've introduced so far, become an inheritable feature of the robots because they help with survival.

Specifically, beliefs allow for a wider range of responses to situations than would be the case if the robots relied on their mechanical drives alone. For example, the belief that a robot should drink water when it's ill - even though it doesn't feel like doing so - allows it to stay hydrated.

The concept of societies
However, it's not just the robots' own needs that their beliefs promote. Each robot has a fairly direct experience and understanding of the most important things that it has to avoid and pursue in its own life. Its interactions within its society on the other hand, are less clear and less easy to represent.

This is especially true when the robots start operating within groups of a larger size than that of the average family. They have not physically evolved to do so but by chance, smaller groups can meet and merge to form a new larger entity, in just the same way that the first two dust balls met and combined back in part one.

To be continued

4 comments

Fizzfan said...

Beliefs are interesting. They’re a mixture of fact and fiction, or I suppose what we choose them to be, or suits our purposes.
Branching out to form bigger groups would make them better protected from other groups, but they would need a shared set of beliefs to bond initially.
Having said that, useful beliefs from other groups could make them even stronger......Do they steal the ideas and kill them, invite them into the group to form a bigger community or build a wall?

Must realised I forgot hot cross bun day:(

Profound Familiarity said...

My robots ain't gonna build no wall :) :)

You might still be able to find some buns.

Fizzfan said...

Chortle, chortle.
Not even a really great big beautiful yuge one?

I was too lazy to venture out on a bun hunt:(

Happy Easter by the way:)

Profound Familiarity said...

Not even that, no.


Happy Easter!!!