On Saturday, February 9, 2013 6:52:46 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: > > On 2/9/2013 3:39 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > > On Saturday, February 9, 2013 6:29:54 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: >> >> On 2/9/2013 3:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: >> > Evolution would have no need for generating values, since values are a >> subjective >> > motivation. >> >> "Subjective motivation" is just a quantitative value seen from the >> inside. >> > > Why would quantitative values have an inside though? The only reason that > we might presume that is because we are looking at it retrospectively. If > you turn it around though, and assume quantitative mechanisms can exist > without awareness, then there is no possibility of any interior experience > being generated. How and why would such a thing arise? > > >> >> > All evolution would have to do is simply impose a script that assigns a >> high priority to >> > protecting ones own children and ones own life. >> >> And that's what happened and that's what you feel as love of life and >> love of children. >> > > I understand why that makes sense to you, but you are making that up by > taking the undeniable existence of love and drawing a straight line to what > you presume, unquestionably, to be the cause. It's an unfalsifiable > misconception which begs the question. Lets say you wanted to make a > computer program that did not feel anything, but just reproduced and > survived. Are you suggesting that is impossible? > > > Yes. Just like a philosophical zombie is impossible because intelligence > entails consciousness, goals and purposes (like survival) plus intelligence > entails values and emotions. >
It's circular reasoning. You are assuming that function is intelligence, and then projecting your own human goals, purposes and consciousness onto that function. Then, realizing that your own consciousness doesn't make any sense as far as assisting function in any way, so you affirm the consequent by concluding that there can't be a philosophical zombie. In reality, every machine that human beings have ever built is a potentially philosophical zombie, it's entirely up to the beholder who determines how deeply they subscribe to the pathetic fallacy. > Are you saying that whenever a sufficiently complex machine is > programmed to avoid specific conditions that avoidance conjures an > experience of pain out of nowhere? > > > Pain and pleasure. > Can you explain why that would happen and how it could happen? 1+1 = pain? > > > >> >> > Like any computer program, a quantitative equivalence which is >> unsentimental and >> > unconscious would always be more effective. >> >> Unsentimental, maybe. But not unemotional. For example, rage is very >> useful in defense >> of one's children. >> > > No it isn't. You are only looking at it retrospectively. The effectiveness > of rage is not in the experience of rage, it is in the boost of strength, > endurance, aggressive behavior, etc. All of that could be engineered > without inventing some kind of ridiculous 'emotional state' as a theatrical > presentation. > > > That's what you say. But what do you think is an emotional state except > the boost in adrenaline, the focus on objective, etc? > I think that an emotional state is a sensory-motor experience in which we participate directly. Adrenaline is a substance, it has no emotional qualities. A dead person's body could be filled with adrenaline and there would be no emotion there. > You are simply imagining the two can be separated because you have > different words and viewpoints to describe them. > No, I am observing that there are different words for them because they have absolutely nothing in common except a spatiotemporal correlation. > > Look at it prospectively instead. You are trying to make an effective > replicator. Why would you ever need to do anything but optimize its > behaviors? > > > You wouldn't, but that would entail it having values and emotions. > Values and emotions don't exist yet. That's what I mean by looking at it prospectively. You have to justify the creation of 'values and emotions', but you can't. You can only claim blindness to the obvious difference between a machine acting rapidly and forcefully, and an experience of anger and strength. It may not be your fault. I don't know if I have every come across someone who has the Western orientation who is able to shift their perception. It's a foreground-background shift, which you may not be wired to be able to do, in which case I apologize for expecting you to be able to do that. Craig > Brent > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
