On Saturday, October 6, 2012 1:56:33 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: > > On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 6:29 PM, Craig Weinberg > <whats...@gmail.com<javascript:> > > wrote: > >> >> >>I'm openly saying that a high school kid can make a robot that behaves >>> sensibly with just a few transistors. >>> >> >> > Only because he lives in a universe in which the possibility of >> teleology is fully supported from the start. >> > > We know with absolute certainty that the laws of physics in this universe > allow for the creation of consciousness, we may not know how they do it but > we know for a fact that it can be done. >
Absolutely not. We know no such thing. Quite the opposite, we know with relative certainty that what we understand of physics provides no possibility of anything other than more physics. There is no hint of any kind that these laws should lead to any such thing as an 'experience' or awareness of any kind. You beg the question 100% and are 100% incapable of seeing that you are doing it. So how on Earth does that indicate that a conscious computer is not > possible? Because it doesn't fart? > Computers which have been programmed thus far don't have conscious experiences. Would you agree that is a fact? I sympathize with the promise that someday we could have them, but I understand that the capacity to have a conscious experience is inversely proportionate to the capacity fro that experience to be controlled from the outside. You don't understand that and are not interested in why, so you will go on assuming that someday your iPhone will bring you to the airport and put its finger up your GI port and call its friends. > >> > you have erroneously assumed that intelligence is possible without >> sense experience. >> > > No, I am assuming the exact OPPOSITE! In fact I'm not even assuming, I > know for a fact that intelligent behavior WITHOUT consciousness confers a > Evolutionary advantage, > Which fact is that? Which intelligent behavior do you know that you can be certain exists without any subjective experience associated with it? > and I know for a fact that intelligent behavior WITH consciousness confers > no additional Evolutionary advantage (and if you disagree with that point > then you must believe that the Turing Test works for consciousness too and > not just intelligence). > Yet you think that consciousness must have evolved. No contradiction there? You think that every behavior in biology exists purely because of evolution - except consciousness, which you have no explanation for whatsoever, yet you know that mine is wrong and that physics will eventually get it right. > And in spite of all this I know for a fact that Evolution DID produce > consciousness at least once, therefore the only conclusion is that > consciousness is a byproduct of intellagence. > A byproduct that does what??? > > > Adenine and Thymine don't have purpose in seeking to bind with each >> other? >> > > I don't even know what a question like that means, who's purpose do you > expect Adenine and Thymine to serve? > The purpose of their attraction to each other. > > > How do you know? >> > > I know because I have intelligence and Adenine and Thymine do not know > because they have none, they only have cause and effect. > Where do you think your intelligence to know this comes from? Surely it is the result in large part of Adenine and Thymine's contribution to the intelligence of DNA. > > How is it different from our purpose in staying in close proximity to >> places to eat and sleep? >> > > And to think that some people berated me for anthropomorphizing future > supercomputers and here you are anthropomorphizing simple chemicals. > I'm not saying that molecular purpose has the same depth as human purpose. You are saying instead, that purpose arises spontaneously at some level of description...some fuzzy area between firing patterns of neurons and hereditary patterns of evolution. > > >> Why is everything aware, why isn't everything not aware? >>> >> >> Because then we wouldn't be aware of having this conversation. >> > > And we are aware of having this conversation because everything is aware, > except of course for computers. > The substances that make up the parts of our computers are primitively aware, just not aware of the human level mappings and interpretations of their activities. Unless you think that your computer is following the discussion? Shall we test your theory? Yoo hoo! Computers of the interwebz! Is this thing on? What say ye? (space intentionally left blank for the supercomputers of the future to come back in time with their super conscious intelligence and join the conversation) > >> >> Robots are something >>> >> >> > No, they aren't something. >> > > That is just a little too silly to argue. > You think that a picture of a pipe is a pipe, so you think that a machine made of things is also a thing. You are incorrect. > > >> > Everything is awareness > > > Are you certain, I thought everything is klogknee, or maybe its everything > is 42. > I don't experience anything other than awareness, so you can't be right. > > > evolution requires that something be alive to begin with. >> > > Evolution requires something that can reproduce itself, there is no > universally agreed on definition of "life" so if you want to say that > viruses and RNA strings and crystals and clay patterns and Von Neumann > Machines are alive I won't argue with you and will agree that Evolution > requires that something be alive to get started. > Fair enough. Now all you have to do is see that something can't reproduce 'itself' unless there is some kind of awareness which discerns the difference between that and 'not-itself'. Craig > > John K Clark > > > > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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