Le 21-juin-07, à 01:07, David Nyman a écrit :
> > On Jun 5, 3:12 pm, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Personally I don' think we can be *personally* mistaken about our own >> consciousness even if we can be mistaken about anything that >> consciousness could be about. > > I agree with this, but I would prefer to stop using the term > 'consciousness' at all. Why? > To make a decision (to whatever degree of > certainty) about whether a machine possessed a 1-person pov analogous > to a human one, we would surely ask it the same sort of questions one > would ask a human. That is: questions about its personal 'world' - > what it sees, hears, tastes (and perhaps extended non-human > modalitiies); what its intentions are, and how it carries them into > practice. From the machine's point-of-view, we would expect it to > report such features of its personal world as being immediately > present (as ours are), and that it be 'blind' to whatever 'rendering > mechanisms' may underlie this (as we are). > > If it passed these tests, it would be making similar claims on a > personal world as we do, and deploying this to achieve similar ends. > Since in this case it could ask itself the same questions that we can, > it would have the same grounds for reaching the same conclusion. > > However, I've argued in the other bit of this thread against the > possibility of a computer in practice being able to instantiate such a > 1-person world merely in virtue of 'soft' behaviour (i.e. > programming). I suppose I would therefore have to conclude that no > machine could actually pass the tests I describe above - whether self- > administered or not - purely in virtue of running some AI program, > however complex. This is an empirical prediction, and will have to > await an empirical outcome. Now I have big problems to understand this post. I must think ... (and go). Bye, Bruno > > > On Jun 5, 3:12 pm, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Le 03-juin-07, à 21:52, Hal Finney a écrit : >> >> >> >>> Part of what I wanted to get at in my thought experiment is the >>> bafflement and confusion an AI should feel when exposed to human >>> ideas >>> about consciousness. Various people here have proffered their own >>> ideas, and we might assume that the AI would read these suggestions, >>> along with many other ideas that contradict the ones offered here. >>> It seems hard to escape the conclusion that the only logical response >>> is for the AI to figuratively throw up its hands and say that it is >>> impossible to know if it is conscious, because even humans cannot >>> agree >>> on what consciousness is. >> >> Augustin said about (subjective) *time* that he knows perfectly what >> it >> is, but that if you ask him to say what it is, then he admits being >> unable to say anything. I think that this applies to "consciousness". >> We know what it is, although only in some personal and uncommunicable >> way. >> Now this happens to be true also for many mathematical concept. >> Strictly speaking we don't know how to define the natural numbers, and >> we know today that indeed we cannot define them in a communicable way, >> that is without assuming the auditor knows already what they are. >> >> So what can we do. We can do what mathematicians do all the time. We >> can abandon the very idea of *defining* what consciousness is, and try >> instead to focus on principles or statements about which we can agree >> that they apply to consciousness. Then we can search for >> (mathematical) >> object obeying to such or similar principles. This can be made easier >> by admitting some theory or realm for consciousness like the idea that >> consciousness could apply to *some* machine or to some *computational >> events" etc. >> >> We could agree for example that: >> 1) each one of us know what consciousness is, but nobody can prove >> he/she/it is conscious. >> 2) consciousness is related to inner personal or self-referential >> modality >> etc. >> >> This is how I proceed in "Conscience et Mécanisme". ("conscience" is >> the french for consciousness, "conscience morale" is the french for >> the >> english "conscience"). >> >> >> >>> In particular I don't think an AI could be expected to claim that it >>> knows that it is conscious, that consciousness is a deep and >>> intrinsic >>> part of itself, that whatever else it might be mistaken about it >>> could >>> not be mistaken about being conscious. I don't see any logical way >>> it >>> could reach this conclusion by studying the corpus of writings on the >>> topic. If anyone disagrees, I'd like to hear how it could happen. >> >> As far as a machine is correct, when she introspects herself, she >> cannot not discover a gap between truth (p) and provability (Bp). The >> machine can discover correctly (but not necessarily in a completely >> communicable way) a gap between provability (which can potentially >> leads to falsities, despite correctness) and the incorrigible >> knowability or knowledgeability (Bp & p), and then the gap between >> those notions and observability (Bp & Dp) and sensibility (Bp & Dp & >> p). Even without using the conventional name of "consciousness", >> machines can discover semantical fixpoint playing the role of non >> expressible but true statements. >> We can *already* talk with machine about those true unnameable things, >> as have done Tarski, Godel, Lob, Solovay, Boolos, Goldblatt, etc. >> >> >> >>> And the corollary to this is that perhaps humans also cannot >>> legitimately >>> make such claims, since logically their position is not so different >>> from that of the AI. In that case the seemingly axiomatic question >>> of >>> whether we are conscious may after all be something that we could be >>> mistaken about. >> >> This is an inference from "I cannot express p" to "I can express not >> p". Or from ~Bp to B~p. Many atheist reason like that about the >> concept of "unameable" reality, but it is a logical error. >> Even for someone who is not willing to take the comp hyp into >> consideration, it is a third person communicable fact that >> self-observing machines can discover and talk about many non >> 3-provable >> and sometimes even non 3-definable true "statements" about them. Some >> true statements can only be interrogated. >> Personally I don' think we can be *personally* mistaken about our own >> consciousness even if we can be mistaken about anything that >> consciousness could be about. >> >> Bruno >> >> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---