On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 12:59 PM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com>wrote:
>> Only one reason, we can't make a good enough simulation for that because >> we don't have enough INFORMATION. >> > > >If our contemporary knowledge of physics is so complete, then that should > be all the information we need. > I don't know where you got the idea that our information was that complete, if it was scientists would be out of a job because they'd already know everything that was worth knowing. They don't. > Just because the logic of my conscious intellect dictates that it cannot > know anything unless it has been explicitly told doesn't mean that there > aren't other epistemological resources at our disposal. > Besides logic the only other resource at our disposal in dealing with a very complex world is induction, making use of the fact that in the universe we inhabit things usually continue; but I don't see how that can help us directly study consciousness in other people any better than logic can, and at best all induction can say is "X is probably true". > Not analog computing...analog in the sense of 'comparable or conceptually > similar'. > But that's exactly how analog computing works, they use something conceptually similar to the thing you're interested in and measure that thing in various ways to give you a answer that will be of the same magnitude as the thing you want. Rather than count analog computers work by measuring, or I should have said that's the way they worked in the olden days, they're obsolete, nobody makes analog computers anymore. >> generating subjectivity is what the brain is doing. >> > > > As far as we can tell, the brain is doing nothing except biochemistry > and physics. > If I change the biochemistry of your brain your subjective experience will change, it you don't believe me just take a drug that is not normally in your brain, like LSD or heroin, and see if I'm right. Also if you experience intense fear or anger a chemist will be able to detect elevated levels of adrenaline in your brain. So if consciousness can change brain chemistry and brain chemistry can change consciousness then clearly the two do have something to do with each other and are in fact closely linked. >You think that subjectivity was invented by computerphobics? > I think the claim that there is no link between intelligence and consciousness was indeed invented by computerphobics. And as if that wasn't crazy enough you take it a ridiculous step even further into wacko land, you say there is no link between intelligent behavior and intelligence. I don't think there is any way anybody would advocate such counterintuitive and downright nutty ideas unless they were desperately looking for a reason to dislike computers. > Deciding that subjectivity must provide external evidence of itself to > itself to support your prejudice is not the path to understanding, > I don't need evidence to prove to myself that I am conscious, the idea is ridiculous because I have something much better than scientific evidence, direct experience. As for your consciousness, I will never have direct evidence for that and so must learn to make do with evidence that you at least behave as if you were conscious . > it's a category error. > Category error is #11 on my list of odious phrases. To get on my list the phrase must be used in polite society and seem to many to be perfectly acceptable and even clever, but to me seem incorrect, insipid, evil, stupid, or just never used to support a position I agree with. The other 10 on my list are: #10) You can't cry FIRE in a crowded theater. #9) A huge quantum leap. #8) Life is sacred. #7) The exception proves the rule. #6) level the playing field. #5) Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. #4) Almost infinite. #3) Free will. #2) There is a reason it's random. #1) God wants. > I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this > moment." > — Robert Anton Wilson > Nothing, is, it only seems. > I agree, you seem to be conscious and a intelligent computer seems to be conscious and that's all I know and that's all I will ever know on that subject. > The problem with physics is it has no tolerance for 'seems'. > Actually the opposite is true, physics has elevated the status of "seems" and demoted the status of "IS". That photon over there seems like it has no polarization because you haven't bothered to measure it, but modern physics says until you measure it and it seems to be polarized in one particular direction the photon has no polarization. Until it is measured it does not just seem to have no polarization it really has none. And the way you do the measurement is crazy but the universe is crazy so it works; take a pair of polarized sunglasses and spin them at random, lets say the sunglasses end up at 137 degrees, if the photon makes it through the sunglasses (and there is a 50% chance it will) then the photon is polarized at 137 degrees has always been at 137, if the photon doesn't make it through the sunglasses then the photon is polarized at 47 degrees (137-90) and always has been at 47. >> a computation is not made of atoms and neither is thought, only nouns >> are made of atoms. >> > > > 'a computation' is a noun. > More misinformation from your third grade English teacher, the same one who told you that "I" is a pronoun, and she was wrong about that too; but the main point is that neither computation, thought nor consciousness are made of atoms. >> Most?? A HUGE amount? In what scientific journals did you find all these >> mumbo jumbo papers? I'd really like to know. >> > > >Seriously? > Seriously. >People link me to scientific papers all the time > Link? There's your problem right there! I'm talking about peer reviewed scientific journals like Nature or Science or Physical Review Letters. I'm not talking about a link to some jackass's web page that you've never heard of who posts some crap claiming to have found conclusive evidence of ESP or flying saucers or cold fusion. The only thing that sequence of ASCII characters tells me is that the bozo had enough money to buy a computer. No, I'm wrong, it doesn't even tell me that, it could be a homeless man with BO who just wandered into a public library and posted some shit. Sometimes the crackpot even manages to get his ASCII sequence printed on a dead tree, but his article is never cited by real scientists, and even the "journal" he writes in is never cited by anybody worth a damn. > that are all but unreadable > Unreadable by the general public but they were not written for them but for fellow specialists. If you want to read them you've got to learn the language, for example there are no words or phrases in common usage that describe the thousands of parts and processes in a cell that biologists need to talk about, so they have no choice but to make up new words that are unfamiliar to most. The same thing is true for all the sciences. > packed with dense academic formalism and obscuring a single, unremarkable > point under a mountain of justification. Show me a contemporary paper in a > scientific journal that isn't like that. > I think the December 2 2011 issue of the excellent journal "Science" should be contemporary enough for you; look at pages 1245-1249 for the paper "Detection of Pristine Gas Two Billion Years After the Big Bang" by Fumagalli, O'Meara and Prochaska. > Not all species turned into each other. > Of course not. > Chimpanzees never turned into Homo sapiens. > But Chimpanzees and Homo sapiens had a common ancestor about 6 million years ago that turned into both of us. And the common ancestor between gorillas and humans lived about 10 million years ago, and orangutans about 14 million years ago. Actually, genetic studies have shown that chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than they are to orangutangs. >obsolete understanding which you still cling to despite the fact that it > doesn't really make sense. Where 'information' is real and computers are > coming to life but the plain fact of human experience and free will can > only be an 'illusion'. > An illusion is real it is not gibberish, an illusion is a perfectly respectable subjective phenomena, thus "free will" is most certainly NOT a illusion; "free will" is a noise that some members of the species Homo sapiens like to make with their mouth. > If it's one thing that's fundamental, then it's the end of the matter, > but if it's one thing and it's opposite, then you have sense. My view is > that the one fundamental thing can only be reduced to that symmetry of what > it is as defined by what it is not. > I have no idea what that means. >> I will repeat my question, if it's not from my behavior then HOW DO YOU >> KNOW THIS? >> > > > Because I know my own behavior and I know that you are likely similar to > me. > I will repeat my question, if it's not from my behavior then HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS? > It's not something that needs to be consciously deduced. > Yes, it's intuitively obvious that if something is intelligent then it is aware. And it's a tautology that if something does intelligent things then its intelligent. Tautologies get a lot of bad press but they do have one thing going for them, every single one of them is true. > The only think I can think of is to connect the machine up to your brain. > Walk yourself off of your brain and onto the machine - first one > hemisphere, then the other, then both, then back. See what > happens. > But you'd only know what it's like to be half man and half machine not what being a 100% machine is like; in fact it could be argued you wouldn't even know that because if you were half machine you wouldn't be you anymore. So "you" still wouldn't know. > If something is aware, I think it's intelligent. > I'm pretty sure my dog is aware of a milk-bone when I show him one, but he is not aware of Tensor Calculus even though I've tried to teach it to him because he's not intelligent enough. You've got it backwards, you should say "if something is intelligent, I think it's aware". > We believe other people are conscious because we have no reason to doubt > us. > But I am certain you do NOT think other people are always conscious, you don't think they are when they are sleeping or dead. Why is that? Because when they are sleeping or dead they do not behave intelligently. > Just because programmers can't always predict what a computer will do > doesn't mean that anyone off the street couldn't predict what it won't do. > Fall in love. Eat a brownie. Go on vacation. Lay an egg. Lots of things. > I predict you won't lay a egg either, so I guess that proves you're a computer. > Intention is a cause that is neither random nor deterministic. > I see, determinism means cause and effect and intention is a cause but it is not deterministic so INTENTION HAS NO EFFECT. I take it back, I don't see. If your above statement is true then intention does absolutely nothing to anything or anybody and is about as useful to you me or the universe as a screen door on a submarine. >*We create causes*. What is controversial or difficult about that? > So we create causes and if we create those causes for a reason then its deterministic and if we create those causes for NO reason then it's random. OK fine its clear now. >> they don't explain how the human brain produces intelligence and you >> don't make clear why a wet soft brain can produce consciousness but a hard >> dry computer can not. >> > > > Because consciousness is life. Life needs water. > So you base your entire philosophy on the mystical properties of dihydrogen monoxide. > Intelligence is just how a person uses their brain. > As I said, mind is what the brain does. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
