On Tuesday, October 15, 2013 3:59:33 PM UTC-4, Jason wrote: > > > > On Oct 15, 2013, at 7:26 AM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com<javascript:>> > wrote: > > > > On Monday, October 14, 2013 11:14:36 PM UTC-4, Jason wrote: >> >> >> >> >> On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 9:59 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com>wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On Monday, October 14, 2013 4:37:35 PM UTC-4, Jason wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 10:54 AM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com>wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Wednesday, October 9, 2013 8:08:01 PM UTC-4, Jason wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 4:52 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> On 10 October 2013 09:47, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> It's not that computers can't do what humans do, it's that they >>>>>>>> can't experience anything. Mozart could dig a hole as well as compose >>>>>>>> music, but that doesn't mean that a backhoe with a player piano on it >>>>>>>> is >>>>>>>> Mozart. It's a much deeper problem with how machines are >>>>>>>> conceptualized >>>>>>>> that has nothing at all to do with humans. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> So you think "strong AI" is wrong. OK. But why can't computers >>>>>>> experience anything, in principle, given that people can, and assuming >>>>>>> people are complicated machines? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> I think Craig would say he does think computers (and many/all other >>>>>> things) do experience something, >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> You're half right. I would say: >>>>> >>>>> 1. All experiences correspond to some natural thing. >>>>> 2. Not all things are natural things. Bugs Bunny has no independent >>>>> experience, and neither does Pinocchio. >>>>> 3. Computers are made of natural things but, like all machines, are >>>>> ultimately assembled unnaturally. >>>>> 4. The natural things that machines are made of would have to be very >>>>> low level, i.e., not gears but the molecules that make up the gears. >>>>> >>>>> Unless a machine used living organisms, molecules would probably be >>>>> the only natural things which an experience would be associated with. >>>>> They >>>>> don't know that they are part of a machine, but there is probably an >>>>> experience that corresponds to thermodynamic and electromagnetic >>>>> conditions. Experiences on that level may not be proprietary to any >>>>> particular molecule - it could be very exotic, who knows. Maybe every >>>>> atom >>>>> of the same structure represents the same kind of experience on some >>>>> radically different time scale from ours. >>>>> >>>>> It's not really important - the main thing is to see how there is no >>>>> substitute for experience and a machine which is assembled from unrelated >>>>> parts has no experience and cannot gain new experience in an alien >>>>> context. >>>>> >>>>> I think that a machine (or any inanimate object or symbol) can also >>>>> serve as a vehicle for synchronicity. That's a completely different thing >>>>> because it is the super-personal, holistic end of the sensible spectrum, >>>>> not the sub-personal, granular end. The creepiness of a ventriloquist >>>>> dummy >>>>> is in our imagination, but that too is 'real' in an absolute sense. If >>>>> your >>>>> life takes you on a path which tempts you to believe that machines are >>>>> conscious, then the super-personal lensing of your life will stack the >>>>> deck >>>>> just enough to let you jump to those conclusions. It's what we would call >>>>> supernatural or coincidental, depending on which lens we use to define >>>>> it.. <http://s33light.org/post/62173912616>http://s33light.org/post/* >>>>> *62173912616 (Don't you want to have a body?) >>>>> >>>> >>>> After reading this ( <http://marshallbrain.com/discard1.htm> >>>> http://marshallbrain.com/**discard1.htm ) I am not so sure... >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> just that it is necessarily different from what we experience. The >>>>>> reason for this has something to do with our history as biological >>>>>> organisms (according to his theory). >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Right, although not necessarily just biological history, it could be >>>>> chemical too. We may have branched off from anything that could be made >>>>> into a useful machine (servant to alien agendas) long before life on >>>>> Earth. >>>>> >>>>> >>>> What if humanity left behind a nano-technology that eventually evolved >>>> into mechanical organisms like dogs and fish, would they have animal like >>>> experiences despite that they descended from "unnatural" things? >>>> >>> >>> The thing that makes sense to me is that the richness of sensation and >>> intention are inversely proportionate to the degree to which a phenomenon >>> can be controlled from the outside. If we put nano-tech extensions on some >>> living organism, then sure, the organism could learn how to use those >>> extensions and evolve a symbiotic post-biology. I don't think that project >>> would be controllable though. They would not be machines in the sense that >>> they would not necessarily be of service to those who created them. >>> >> >> >> Craig, >> >> Thanks for your answer. That was not quite what I was asking though. >> Let's say the nano-tech did not extend some living organism, but were some >> entirely autonomous, entirely artificial cell-like structures, which could >> find and utilize energy sources in the environment and reproduce >> themselves. Let's say after millions (or billions) of years, these >> self-replicating nanobots evolved into "multi-cellular" organisms like >> animals we are familiar with today. Could they have experiences like other >> biological creatures that have a biological lineage? If not, why not? >> > > No, I don't think that they could have experiences like biological > creatures. If they could, then we should probably see at least one example > of > > > Can you explain how the impossibility of evolved nanomachine life becoming > conscious leads to the non-observance of the following? > > 1. a natural occurrence of inorganic biology > > > Maybe they did evolve but DNA life was more fit. Or maybe machine life is > harder to bootstrap itself as it requires a rarer set of precincitions. > (such as a technological race). >
Or maybe it's because there is no such thing as inorganic biology? All that we know for sure is that there does not seem to be a single example of an inorganic species now, nor does there seem to be a single example from the fossil record. It doesn't mean that conscious machines cannot evolve, but since it appears that they have not so far, we should not, scientifically speaking, give it the benefit of the doubt. There may be a very good reason why it doesn't happen. > > > 2. an organism which can survive only on inorganic nutrients > > > Self driving hydrogen fueled cars, mars rovers. > They aren't organisms. They don't survive. If they run out of fuel, they don't die, they just stop until they get more energy. What I was referring to is a biological organism - why don't we see any species that can live on sand or sulfur? Again, it doesn't mean its impossible for it to happen, but the fact that it appears to have never happened means that we are not compelled to assume that it could. It suggests that there may be something materially different about the kinds of things that happen in the pre-biotic universe and the kinds of things that happen after large chains of molecules emerge. > > > 3. a successful experiment to create life from basic molecules > > > People are desiging new life forms by writing new DNA. > DNA is not a basic molecule. Hacking into an organism's blueprints is not the same as coaxing simple molecules into autopoiesis, which is what I mean by creating life from basic molecules. All of those experiments that Carl Sagan showed scientists working on 30 years ago to electrocute a prokaryote out of a primordial ooze didn't produce any result that would conclusively indicate that biology could be created that way, or created a second time. It may be the case that abiogenesis is a once-per-universe event, like a second Big Bang. > > 4. a machine which seems to feel, care, and have a unique and unrepeatable > personal presence > > > Watson seems to have some kind of presence. > Not an unrepeatable one. If mass produced, everyone would have the same Watson, just as they have the same Siri. > > > 5. a mechanized process which produces artifacts that seem handmade and > unique > > > There was a lens designed by a computer which was awarded a patent. > Computers can be used to design all kinds of exceptional things, things which humans would have never thought of - but they are not things which contain any kind of personal aesthetic to them. A lens is a precision instrument of mathematical perfection, the precise opposite of anything that is truly proprietary. > > > 6. two separate bodies who are the same person > > > Luke a split amoebia or human embryo? > An amoeba isn't a person. A human embryo which is an identical twin is not the same person as anyone else, even the twin. 7. an organism which reproduces by transforming its environment rather than reproducing by cell division Bruno said cigarettes might qualify as such life forms. I'm talking about an actual biological organism which reproduces in some exotic way. You're begging the question by bringing up examples of non-biological entities to support the position that there is no fundamental difference between machines and organisms. If there's no difference, then we should see some species, out of the gazillions of species which have ever lived, who evolved to exploit the environment as a machine could - by programming parts of the world to imitate its mechanism. If the potential for biological quality awareness was only coincidentally limited to biology, shouldn't we see cockroaches who recreate themselves out of the minerals and gasses around them. 8. an organism which emerges spontaneously from Boltzmann conditions in the environment rather than seeded inheritance Boltzman brains are so rare we would never expect to see them. It doesn't have to be a brain, just a cell. 9. an event or observation which leads us to conclude that gathering energy and reproduction are sufficient to constitute bio-quality awareness. The lack of non-physical processes in the brain and the computability of physics points to computationalism. How would you propose to detect a non-physical process with a physical instrument? The computability of physics points to a universe which lacks any conscious experience at all. The only argument that computationalism has going for it is that we are profoundly vulnerable to the pathetic fallacy and symbol grounding confusion. We tend to conflate the map with the territory, especially those of us who have intellectual abilities which have been specialized for working with symbol logic. After a while, it's easy to dream that a program needs no body, or that one body is as good as another, but if that were the case, I think that the universe we live in would be radically different. Craig Jason Craig > Jason > -- 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-li...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com<javascript:> . Visit this group at <http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list> http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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