Ben
Is Dennett saying (a) there is no real sense of awareness associated with human consciousness, or only (b) that --- in a manner similar to the way in which life is created out of the complexity of biochemistry --- the human sense of consciousness is a construct created out of the complexity of the computations that take place in the human brain. The two are different. Position (a) strikes me as stupid statement (unless Dennett is a p-zombie, which is theoretically possible). But (b) is quite reasonable, although not necessarily provable. I believe all of reality is "aware," in the sense that all its parts individually, in effect, sense and reacts to their surroundings, often creating complex feedback loops and vibes. Presumably it would be clear, even according to position (b) above, that consciousness would be crafted out of such lower level consciousness. But it is not clear that the basic levels of awareness that the laws of physic tell us reality has within its own computing is sufficiently similar to the sense of awareness we humans call consciousness, to consider that our consciousness comes directly from that lower level awareness --- other than by the fact that the existence and computing of physical reality provides the substrate for layers of complexity and self-organization, that allow modeling and computations based on of the regularities of sensed reality --- modeling and computations that operate at such a much higher level of organization than the basic level of awareness inherent in all of reality --- that human consciousness would appear to be something very different indeed. I have seen no aspect of brain science or other scientific information that indicates there is any direct connect between the level of awareness experienced by basic physical particles, atoms, and molecules, and subjective sense of awareness created in the human mind, other than that basic physical reality provides the foundations of being and computation upon which the much higher levels of organization that provide human awareness are built. If you have communicable evidence to the contrary, please enlighten me. Ed Porter -----Original Message----- From: Ben Goertzel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 2:57 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [agi] Entheogins, understainding the brain, and AGI On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 1:30 PM, Ed Porter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Since I assume Ben, as well as a lot of the rest of us, want the AGI > movement to receive respectability in the academic and particularly in the > funding community, it is probably best that other than brain-science- or > AGI-focused discussions of the effects of drugs should not become too common > on the AGI list itself. Ben, of course, is the ultimate decider of that. I'm never one to be overly concerned about "image" ;-) ... the question for me, regarding this topic on this list, is what the discussion contributes to the pursuit[Ed Porter] of building AGI? If use of mind-expanding drugs, or study of their neurological effects, reveals something of use in creating AGI, then discussion of the topic here is certainly welcome! For me, my experimentation with these substances did cement my previous inclination toward a panpsychist view of consciousness ... which led me to feel even more strongly that "engineering raw awareness" is something AGI designers don't need to worry about. Raw awareness is already there, in the universe .. and different entities focus/manifest it in different ways. However, others may come to the conclusion that "engineering raw awareness" is not something they need to worry about in AGI design from a totally different direction ... for instance, because they don't believe raw awareness exists at all in any meaningful sense (this would seem to be Dennett's perspective). That's OK too ... it seems to suggest he and I could find the same AGI designs acceptable for totally different reasons! Ben G ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
