Intro

I can't really intro this topic without you just reading the whole post as it's very deep and wide subject. All I can really tell you is that The Frame Problem is probably one of the most important concepts I've ever learned.

Explaining The Frame Problem

This post is a conversation and reply of my post yesterday, figured it could be useful as it's own post.

/u/Z33ger :

Man thanks for sharing this. I remember when you did those stoned theories and all but got laughed out of the community...it's cool to see you return and share this reflection.

 

Me:

Ya I should have waited just a week or two to write that. I ended up finding a perfect explanation of it in my reading. What I was trying to convey was a section of Chaos and order psychology. Jordan B Peterson conveys it well via theology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdrLQ7DpiWs

It's the idea of trying to teach someone the pitfalls and shortcomings of something they can't see in themselves or in others. basically teaching someone to see into something outside of their frame of existence or total world view. It's a complicated mess of a thing to teach but a hell of a thing to be aware of. best thing I've ever learned as far as improving self awareness.

It's also referred to as The Frame Problem in Artificial Intelligence.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frame-problem/

 

/u/JustDoMeee :

It's good to see you back. Can I get an ELI5 of what you're talking about, it sounds incredibly interesting.

 

Me:

Frame of Existence

Think of a baby and how they have object permanency. When you walk out of the room the baby cries because they perceive you to no longer be in existence. This overarching idea is called frame of existence. You as a human being never really lose this frame phenomenon psychologically however, it's interwoven into your subconscious from the day you're born till the day you die. As you grow older it just grows larger. Every piece of knowledge, every place you've traveled, every technique, person, thing, entity you've ever meet, learned or acquired has expands your frame of existence.

However your frame of existence is totally dynamic every second. Like right now you're reading TRP, your frame is concentrated to the screen. You're not thinking about that fly sitting on your wall, or what color is the shoes you are or what your ex girlfriend is doing right now. But the mere fact that I said these things means they are now inside your frame because you're thinking about them. Your frame is dynamically changing every second and it has since the day you were born. Random thoughts are coming in and out of your head, events are happening all around you, in your house, on your street, in your city, your state government, people are moving and things are happen every second but somehow your mind knows what to focus on at any given moment, totally autonomously.

 

The Problem with AI

As far as artificial intelligence goes, computers always try to calculate every possible parameter they are giving to solve a problem. The classic example of Frame Problem is place a sentient AI bomb defusing robot in a room and tell it to defuse the bomb before it goes off. Well, that robot will sit there till infinite trying to calculate every possible outcome and it's probability of happening. It will figure the likelihood of touching it one way, will it explode? What if the walls change colors, probability of explosion? What's the probability of the wall changing color? What if it backs up an inch, what's the probability? It will try to calculate everything it can unless programmed otherwise.

From the moment a human is born it can dynamically adjust their frame and egocentricity. This is one of the reasons we have consciousness and we do it totally subconsciously. There are deeply rooted networks in the brain that tell you what you need to be focusing on at any given moment. Cortisol levels connect to fear and danger. Oxytocin will make you focus on those you care about. Dopamine will make you more or less erratic(ADD). And there a million other things that all control and change your frame at any given moment. And that's not even getting into were thoughts generate in the mind or how memory recall and memory reassociation works. Have you ever thought about were your thoughts come from? Go through the day and start paying attention to why the hell you just though what you did? Do your thoughts just come out of thin air or was there a trigger/cascade effect to bring you to where you are right now?

This is a... confusing and hard problem to recreate with AI. The Frame problem was discovered in 1969 and it still hasn't been solved.

Westworld - Consciousness does not exist, Anthony Hopkins

What's interesting is you'll start to see The Frame Problem explained in many different ways, by different people and at different time periods. I'm a big fan of studying every genius that's ever lived. Inventors, physicists, chemists, philosophers, etc. Einstein, Van braun, Crate, Richard Feynman, Epictetus, Tyson, Socrates, Hawkings, etc. and pretty much every hyper intelligent individual will tell you that you are and always will be an idiot. What they are referring to is you can never know everything.

 

The Frame of Unknown

An interesting conclusion is that no matter how large your frame of existence grows, no matter how much information, experiences or things you can possibly attain physically or mentally, there will always be more you don't know or haven't experienced. This is the Frame of Unknown. In fact, as your existence frame expands, theoretically the frame of unknown will square to infinite. For every piece of information you know, 10 more questions might arise from it and a billion possibilities of each. This is an extremely useful thing to realize, one it humbles you and humility can be flattering and two, your options are now limitless. If you become curious about something, you can imagine how deep that rabbit hole could possibly go, who you could meet, what you could learn. However you never truly know know till you start exploring.

 

Stoicism

Another example in history and probably one of the first times the frame idea was written down was Epictetus and Stoicism. The first line of Enchiridion which is the stoic handbook and condensed version of Epictetus: Discourses writings, says,

"There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power. Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own. beyond our power are body, property, reputation, office, and, in one word, whatever are not properly our own affairs."

Epictetus was a student of Crate and Crate was a Student of Socrates. This was probably the first time the Frame Problem was idealized in writing. Or at least the first one to be preserved till today. In fact stoicism pretty much entirely revolves around learning your frame and controlling what you can. Any time you spend on things outside your control is considered time wasted, which you can never get back. So it's half learning frame and half improving time efficiency.

Earlier I ask you; "Do your thoughts just come out of thin air or was there a trigger or cascade effect to bring you to where you are right now?" Well this idea can be compounded to the choices and decisions you've made in your life as well. All the problems in your life right now, how much of it is your fault? How much of it was in your existence but you didn't see or how much was in your unknown frame? How much control do you really have over these issues? Is your ego to fragile to admit that maybe you could done things differently? How much control do you have in the future?

This can be a touching line of thinking depending on how much you've fucked up in life or how egotistical you are. Stoicism would tell you not to worry too much about the past though, instead learn from it, identify what you can control and build your life into what you want with what you can. With more knowledge comes a greater capacity to weld and mold your future. You're reading TRP to control your future with women. Btw, why did you start reading TRP in the first place? What lead you here? What events happened that you couldn't control then, but now you see you could?

 

Jordan B Peterson, Chaos & Order

If you're interested in this stuff I highly recommend watching Jordan B Peterson in the link above. He's a Psychologist who has pretty much spent his entire life trying to figure this out. He ever wrote a very extensive book on it called "Maps of Meaning: The Architeture of Belief". That book he also teaches as a class in the university of Toronto and you can access all his lectures on youtube. He posts every one of them for the semester. I even believe you can get the syllabus and worksheet stuff on his website.

Jordan B Peterson takes a bit of a different approach to the frame problem however. He ties in the history of humanity, the stories we've told from generation to generation for millennia, theology and human nature to explain how your frame exist. his work is also heavily tied in with teachings of Stoicism.

He explains how the stories we tell each other aren't just random stories, their metaphors that are interconnected to the subconscious mind and they will show you a glimpse of human nature as well as teach you a great deal about yourself. Think of any movie you've ever watched when looking at it through a redpill lense, you're probably deciphering the human dynamic, the movie is just a story portraying subconscious behavior or thought. Jordan takes it a bit farther though by using the frame problem to explain what is called Chaos & Order. Chaos being The Frame of Unknown and Order being your Frame of Existence. The idea that everything outside your frame is unknown, and when unknown things come into your existence that are negative, they are chaos and they can wreck your life if you aren't aware of them or don't see them. Like you dating a crazy thot you thought was a princess till you realized she wasn't.

Biblical Series II: Genesis 1: Chaos & Order

Peterson also talks about theology and the idea of God a lot. God is the true, first incarnation of consciousness however. No matter what religion or time period you look at as far as theology, the God or Gods are always all knowing and powerful, thus they they have an absolute frame of infinity, or at least finite to the ends of the universe, time and dimensions of space. This is also why subconsciously, most people are terrified of the idea of AI, what if the AI is capable of computing everything it knows?

Westworld: The Bicameral Mind

A really good book if your into physics is Just Six Numbers. These are the parameters that created the universe. The mathematical equations to everything that's ever or will exist. If these number were to ever change, gravity wouldn't work, atoms would fall apart, existence would cease to be existence. They are based off of the Dimensionless Physical Constants. An interesting read if you want a glimpse at the absolute bounds of the universe.

The conundrum with AI thought is, if it can calculate everything then it isn't truly conscious like a human, thus it isn't true AI. it's just another computer, because that's what computers do.

Closing

Self improvement is in a way is an active expansion of your frame, even if the subconscious mechanisms that drive it you didn't think about till I just explained it to you. Thus all of this is now in your frame, but you'll definitely forget about this post eventually. Till you think about it again. Why'd that happen?