Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought

[steve smith]

I find this nicely referential to Jeff Hawkins (Palm Pilot, Redwood) 
SensoriMotor learning based in his (poorly named?) 1000 Brains theory 
and his (new to me) concept/project of applying those Neurological 
Models of the NeoCortex to developing AI.

   https://spectrum.ieee.org/jeff-hawkins
On a nearly orthogonal tangent referential to Dave's throwdown in 
haptics and VR:

   https://www.bhaptics.com/

Reminiscent of Haptek's *original* mission to provide VR haptic suits 
suitable for at least virtual combat sports if not military training.   
The founders include Chris and Robert Shaw (yes, of Chaos Cabal 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Shaw_(physicist)> fame) but they 
made an abrupt kink in their trajectory developing PeoplePutty for 
building lifelike VR Avatars.  Chris visited sfX a couple of times 
before *we* went defunct!

FWIW, Chris drew the image that was printed on the posters and T-shirts 
for the first Evolution, Games and Learning conference in Los Alamos 
(leading toward the ALife conferences) in roughly 1985 or 1986?  It was 
a human hand drawing a robot hand ala Escher. My T-shirt got repurposed 
into an art project by my partner in the 90s... I haven't seen it (or 
found an image of the drawing) in decades excepting for tripping over 
Steen's Son Leif visiting back from college at El Parasol in Pojoaque 
(10 years ago?) wearing Steen's copy of the shirt... surreal, no?

I thought PeoplePutty had gone totally defunct but it appears it evolved 
(or got folded) into character.ai which I have only followed one link 
deep... Chris is their Chief Creative Officer or somesuch.

Riffing or tangenting on DaveW's VR-Sex angle, many of us here may have 
tested or even owned a Novint Falcon device...   docking molecules and 
folding proteins was the killer app IMO.   Before they went totally out 
of business (theme here, VR businesses failing?) I tried to acquire a 
suite of them for a specific telecollaboration project and found that 
the production line had been bought out for over a year in the future.   
I probed around and found that there was a startup company adapting them 
for a "teledildonics" product aspiration.  I couldn't tell if they ever 
made it.  I'm guessing not, too absurd to imagine.


I think my aspirational project was well before this, but this DailyMail 
reference suggested the "dark" project went forward (or another took it up):

There was also a "pistol grip" used widely for first-person shooter 
games (a whole new twist on the bump-stock concept?)   The mechanism is 
basically a "stewart platform".

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_platform

FriXion Cyber-Dildonics:

   
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2908819/The-social-network-SEX-TOYS-New-network-aims-link-smart-toys-online-couples-play-together.html


And then there is the less prurient for teleHandholding:

   https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/396691740/frebble-hold-hands-online

Apt for COVID lockdown romances?

Mumble,

- Sieve



long time ago, in the early days of "virtual reality" I consulted for 
W Industries, a company in England that made full body suits with 
thousands of tiny sensors and effectors for the purpose of cyber-sex. 
They worked well enough but suffered from a "lack of resolution" just 
as early CRT monitors. Unlike monitors, like Apple's Retina displays, 
where the 'pixel density' could be increased sufficiently to be 
convincing; the body suits would have had to have a "pixel' density" 
several orders of magnitude greater than that required to build a 
convincing display.

davew

On Sun, Jul 7, 2024, at 1:50 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
Stephen,

During the four years I worked at the Robotics Institute I worked on 
the Factory of the Future project. This involved sensors, including 
cameras, temperature sensors, viscosity, conductivity and whatever 
else was relevant.  Also actuators which controlled inputs to the 
different subprocesses in the manufacture of fluorescent light 
bulbs.  We implemented some subsystems related to automated 
inspection of coatings inside the bulbs but conceptually we designed 
the whole factory.  During that project Westinghouse sold all of its 
lightbulb manufacturing plants and IP to Phillips of the Netherlands 
and they stopped our work. The point is I am familiar with the 
concepts you mention.  Even if that project had resulted in a factory 
that could manufacture light bulbs with minimal human supervision it 
would not have occurred to me that there was any consciousness 
involved.  Intelligence yes.  As for embodied intelligence?  Sort of.

Frank
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, Jul 7, 2024, 12:23 PM Stephen Guerin 
<stephen.gue...@simtable.com> wrote:

    Frank,

    embodied where? in our shared world? if it uses sensors and
    actuators like Marcus's Waymo that perceives him and hopefully
    acts to avoid him?

    Consider the Simtable that uses structured light
    <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_light> in a
    perception-action loop (ala the neo-Gibsonians in ecological
    psychology) with the projector camera feedback to recover a
    dynamic 3D model of its world and watch with its camera for human
    interaction (laserpointers, object tracking etc) to trigger
    corresponding behaviors with the projector to interact with the
    user. Is it embodied?



    On Sun, Jul 7, 2024 at 12:08 PM Frank Wimberly
    <wimber...@gmail.com> wrote:

        So you think of software running on a computer as being embodied?

        ---
        Frank C. Wimberly
        140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
        Santa Fe, NM 87505

        505 670-9918
        Santa Fe, NM

        On Sun, Jul 7, 2024, 9:12 AM Nicholas Thompson
        <thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:

            I think of large language models as the most embodied
            things on the planet, but let that go for a moment.  Back
            to baby steps.

            Can you lay out for me why you believe that language is
            essential to self-awareness.  Does that believe arise
            from ideology, authority, or some set of facts I need to
            take account of.  To be honest here, I should say where I
            am coming from.  A lot of my so-called career was spent
            railing against circular reasoning in evolutionary theory
            and psychology.  So, if language is essential to
            self-awareness, and animals do not have language, then it
            indeed follows that animals do not have self-awareness. 
            But what if our method for detecting self awareness
            requires language? Now we are in a loop.  Are we in such
            a loop, or are there facts of some matter, independent of
            language, convince you that animals are not self-aware. 
            Is self awareness extricable from language?

            It is an old old trope that animals are automata but that
            humans have soul.  Descartes swore by it.  Is "language"
            the new soul?

            Nick



            On Sun, Jul 7, 2024 at 7:29 AM Jochen Fromm
            <j...@cas-group.net> wrote:

                I would say cats, dogs and horses don't have
                meta-awareness because they lack language. They live
                in the present moment, in the here and now. Without
                language they do not have the capability to reflect
                on their past or to think about their future. They
                can not formulate stories of themselves which could
                help to form a sense of identity. Language is the
                mirror in which we perceive ourselves during "this is
                me" moments. Animals lack this mirror completely. One
                dimensional scents trails do not count as language.

                Large languages models lack consciousness because
                they do not have a body which is embedded as a actor
                in an environment. These two things are necessary:
                the physical world of bodies, and the mental world of
                language. When both collide in the same spot we can
                get consciousness.

                -J.


                -------- Original message --------
                From: Nicholas Thompson <thompnicks...@gmail.com>
                Date: 7/6/24 5:05 AM (GMT+01:00)
                To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
                Group <friam@redfish.com>
                Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness
                Is Deeper Than We Thought

                Well, that's because Socrates claimed not to know
                what he thought, and since I genuinely don[t know
                what I think until I work it out, the conversation
                has the same quality.  I apologize for that.  my
                students found it truly distressing.

                So, if you will indulge me, why don't you think your
                cat has meta=awareness? Authority, ideology, or is
                there some experience you have had that leads you to
                think that.   It would be kind of odd if it she
                didn't because animals have all sorts of ways of
                distinguishing self from other. They have ways of
                knowinng that "I did that".  (e.g., scent marking?)


                On Fri, Jul 5, 2024 at 3:19 PM Jochen Fromm
                <j...@cas-group.net> wrote:

                    Well yes, if meta-awareness is defined as acting
                    in response to one's own awareness then I would
                    say animals like a cat don't have it but humans
                    have. As an example I could say this almost feels
                    like I am a participant in a dialogue from Plato...

                    I would be surprised if it can be described in
                    simple terms. If the essence of consciousness is
                    subjective experience then it is indeed hard to
                    describe by a theory although there are many
                    attempts. Persons who perceive things differently
                    are wired differently. And what is more
                    subjective than the perception of oneself?

                    
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/what-is-consciousness/


                    If we can describe it mathematically then
                    probably as a way an information feels if it is
                    processed in complex ways, ad infinitum like the
                    orbits of a strange attractor.

                    https://chaoticatmospheres.com/mathrules-strange-attractors


                    -J.



                    -------- Original message --------
                    From: Nicholas Thompson <thompnicks...@gmail.com>
                    Date: 7/5/24 6:56 PM (GMT+01:00)
                    To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
                    Group <friam@redfish.com>
                    Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of
                    Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought

                    ,

                    Great!  Baby steps. "If we aren't moving slowly,
                    we aren't moving." So, can I define some new
                    terms, tentatively, /per explorandum/ ? Let's
                    call acting-in-respect-to-the-world, "awareness".
                      Allowing this definition, we certainly seem to
                    agree that the cat is aware.  Lets define
                    meta-awareness as acting i respect to one's own
                    awareness. Now, am I correct in assuming that you
                    identify meta-awareness with consciousness and
                    that you think that the cat is not meta-aware and
                    that I probably am?  And further that you think
                    that meta-awareness requires consciousness?

                    Nick

                    On Fri, Jul 5, 2024 at 12:17 PM Jochen Fromm
                    <j...@cas-group.net> wrote:

                        I would say a cat is conscious in the sense
                        that it is aware of its immediate
                        environment. Cats are nocturnal animals who
                        hunt at night and mostly sleep during the
                        day. Consciousness in the sense of being
                        aware of oneself as an actor in an
                        environment requires understanding of
                        language which only humans have ( and LLMs now )
                        
https://www.quantamagazine.org/insects-and-other-animals-have-consciousness-experts-declare-20240419/

                        -J.


                        -------- Original message --------
                        From: Nicholas Thompson <thompnicks...@gmail.com>
                        Date: 7/5/24 5:02 AM (GMT+01:00)
                        To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
                        Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
                        Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of
                        Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought

                        Jochen,

                        /I think the first step in any conversation
                        is to decide whether your cat is conscious. 
                        If so, why do you think so; if not,
                        likewise.  I had a facinnationg conversation
                        with  GBT about  whether he was conscious and
                        he denied it "hotly", which, of course, met
                        one of his criteria for consciousness. /

                        /So.  Is your cat connscious?/

                        /Nick/

                        On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 7:26 PM Jochen Fromm
                        <j...@cas-group.net> wrote:

                            I don't get Philip Goff: first we send
                            our children 20 years to school, from
                            Kindergarten to college and university,
                            to teach them all kinds of languages, and
                            then we wonder how they can be conscious.
                            It will be the same for AI: first we
                            spend millions and millions to train them
                            all available knowledge, and then we
                            wonder how they can develop understanding
                            of language and consciousness...
                            
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mystery-of-consciousness-is-deeper-than-we-thought/

                            -J.

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