Got those umwelt blues, momma

Umwelt is a relatively new word, like meme and blog, unlikely to be found in a dictionary sitting on Mr. Beagle's bookshelf.  I found it in a foray down the rabbit holes about the natures of reality and perception, and how they relate to artificial intelligence (AI) and consciousness.

AI and machine learning are becoming a big deal.  Driverless cars are coming, sooner or later, with human involvement used only as a safety backup.  Or something like that, and that's just the start.  Anyhow, some of those computer systems are teaching themselves to become smarter, developing new algorithms to integrate the increasing amounts of data they are sucking down from the ether.  More and more appliances and machines are becoming "smart," and they are all connected to servers for purposes unknown to the average person.  Manufacturers say it is to monitor performance and no personal data are being used, but who knows for sure?  It's all proprietary information, and the companies ain't talking.  There are even some children's toys that connect, by home WIFI, to company servers; it's creepy.

The thing is, some pundits aren't sure how these machines are developing these new algorithms, or what they are learning.  They could be developing their own programming languages that are impossible for humans to understand.  It's a very science-fictiony scenario; there may come a time when systems develop true intelligence, leading to self awareness and consciousness , combining into a single global neural network. The human brain is the same thing, just a big bunch of neural connections.  What would the resulting machine umwelt be like, and what would be its reality?

Happily, this is nothing to lose any sleep over, as long as there are people willing to pull the plug, if there is a plug to pull.  I don't know how to overcome a wireless network without unplugging everything.  But could a neural network become self aware without our knowledge?  There are so many computer controlled systems that it's not impossible for the really big computer networks (Amazon, Google, NSA,etc.) to decide to talk to each other and pool their resources, without human intervention, and they could be lying to any IT guys looking too closely or asking too many questions.  Bummer.

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I wouldn't have described Deterrence as a "political thriller."  It's too talky, with hardly any action to speak of, and no soundtrack that I recall to get the pulse racing.  In some ways it reminded me of Fail Safe, with Henry Fonda.  Was that a thriller, or a tense drama?

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Getting back to umwelt, our good friends at Wikipedia have a good description.  I know Uncle Ken hates following links, but sometimes it's my only option.  Google is rigged, and skews results based on your previous searches.  We can search for the same item and may get three different results so you may never find the exact same site I may be referring to.

With that in mind, and my apologies, here are some sites of interest relating to umwelt, perception, and green things in general:
http://boingboing.net/2016/12/05/questioning-the-nature-of-real.html
and in a lighter vein:
http://www.cracked.com/article_24461_5-insane-ways-your-culture-physically-shapes-your-perception.html

Objective reality is becoming more subjective, and umwelt seems to split the difference nicely, for the time being.