Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Le 28-juin-07, à 17:56, David Nyman a écrit : On 28/06/07, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Bruno The remarks you comment on are certainly not the best-considered or most cogently expressed of my recent posts. However, I'll try to clarify if you have specific questions. As to why I said I'd rather not use the term 'consciousness', it's because of some recent confusion and circular disputes ( e.g. with Torgny, or about whether hydrogen atoms are 'conscious'). I am not sure that in case of disagreement (like our disagreement with Torgny), changing the vocabulary is a good idea. This will not make the problem going away, on the contrary there is a risk of introducing obscurity. Some of the sometimes confused senses (not by you, I hasten to add!) seem to be: 1) The fact of possessing awareness 2) The fact of being aware of one's awareness 3) the fact of being aware of some content of one's awareness So just remember that in a first approximation I identify this with 1) being conscious (Dt?) for those who have followed the modal posts. (Dx is for ~ Beweisbar (~x)) 2) being self-conscious (DDt?) 3) being conscious of # (Dp?) You can also have: 4) being self-conscious of something (DDp?). Dp is really an abbreviation of the arithmetical proposition ~beweisbar ( '~p'). 'p' means the godel number describing p in the language of the machine (by default it is the first order arithmetic language). So now I would prefer to talk about self-relating to a 1-personal 'world', where previously I might have said 'I am conscious', and that such a world mediates or instantiates 3-personal content. This is ambiguous. The word 'world' is a bit problematic in my setting. I've tried to root this (in various posts) in a logically or semantically primitive notion of self-relation that could underly 0, 1, or 3-person narratives, and to suggest that such self-relation might be intuited as 'sense' or 'action' depending on the narrative selected. OK. But crucially such nuances would merely be partial takes on the underlying self-relation, a 'grasp' which is not decomposable. Actually the elementary grasp are decomposable (into number relations) in the comp setting. So ISTM that questions should attempt to elicit the machine's self-relation to such a world and its contents: i.e. it's 'grasp' of a reality analogous to our own. And ISTM the machine could also ask itself such questions, just as we can, if indeed such a world existed for it. OK, but the machine cannot know that. As we cannot know that). I realise of course that it's fruitless to try to impose my jargon on anyone else, but I've just been trying to see whether I could become less confused by expressing things in this way. Of course, a reciprocal effect might just be to make others more confused! It is the risk indeed. Best regards, Bruno David Le 21-juin-07, à 01:07, David Nyman a écrit : On Jun 5, 3:12 pm, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Personally I don' think we can be *personally* mistaken about our own consciousness even if we can be mistaken about anything that consciousness could be about. I agree with this, but I would prefer to stop using the term 'consciousness' at all. Why? To make a decision (to whatever degree of certainty) about whether a machine possessed a 1-person pov analogous to a human one, we would surely ask it the same sort of questions one would ask a human. That is: questions about its personal 'world' - what it sees, hears, tastes (and perhaps extended non-human modalitiies); what its intentions are, and how it carries them into practice. From the machine's point-of-view, we would expect it to report such features of its personal world as being immediately present (as ours are), and that it be 'blind' to whatever 'rendering mechanisms' may underlie this (as we are). If it passed these tests, it would be making similar claims on a personal world as we do, and deploying this to achieve similar ends. Since in this case it could ask itself the same questions that we can, it would have the same grounds for reaching the same conclusion. However, I've argued in the other bit of this thread against the possibility of a computer in practice being able to instantiate such a 1-person world merely in virtue of 'soft' behaviour (i.e. programming). I suppose I would therefore have to conclude that no machine could actually pass the tests I describe above - whether self- administered or not - purely in virtue of running some AI program, however complex. This is an empirical prediction, and will have to await an empirical outcome. Now I have big problems to understand this post. I must think ... (and go). Bye, Bruno On Jun 5, 3:12 pm, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le 03-juin-07, à 21:52,
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 29/06/07, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BM: I am not sure that in case of disagreement (like our disagreement with Torgny), changing the vocabulary is a good idea. This will not make the problem going away, on the contrary there is a risk of introducing obscurity. DN: Yes. this seems to be the greater risk. OK, in general I'll try to avoid it where possible. I've taken note of the correspondences you provided for the senses of 'consciousness' I listed, and the additional one. BM: Actually the elementary grasp are decomposable (into number relations) in the comp setting. DN: Then are you saying that 'action' can occur without 'sense' - i.e. that 'zombies' are conceivable? This is what I hoped was avoided in the intuition that 'sense' and 'action' are, respectively, 1-p and 3-p aspects abstracted from a 0-p decomposable self-relation. The zombie then becomes merely a category error. I thought that in COMP, number relations would be identified with this decomposable self-relation. Ah.but by 'decomposable', I think perhaps you mean that there are of course *different* number relations, so that this would then entail that there is a set of such fundamental relations such that *each* relation is individually decomposable, yes? BM: OK, but the machine cannot know that. As we cannot know that). DN: Do you mean that the machine can't know for sure the correspondence between its conscious world and the larger environment in which this is embedded and to which it putatively relates? Then I agree of course, and as you say, neither can we, for the sufficient reasons you have articulated. So what I meant was that it would simply be in the same position that we are, which seems self-evident. Anyway, as I said, the original post was probably ill advised, and I retract my quibbles about your terminology. As to my point about whether such an outcome is likely vis-a-vis an AI program, it wasn't of course because you made any claims on this topic, but stimulated by another thread. My thought goes as follows. I seem to have convinced myself that, on the COMP assumption that *I* am such a machine, it is possible for other machines to instantiate conscious computations. Therefore it would be reasonable for me to attribute consciousness to a machine that passed certain critical tests, though not such that I could definitely know or prove that it was conscious. Nonetheless, such quibbles don't stop us from undertaking some empirical effort to develop machines with consciousness. Two ways of doing this seem apparent. First, to copy an existing such system (e.g. a human) at an appropriate substitution level (as in your notorious gedanken experiment). Second, to arrange for some initial system to undergo a process of 'psycho-physical' evolution (as humans have done) such that its 'sense' and 'action' narratives 'self-converge' on a consistent 1p-3p interface, as in our own case. In either of these cases, 'sense' and 'action' narratives 'self-converge', rather than being 'engineered', and any imputation of consciousness ( i.e. the attribution of semantics to the computation) continues to be 1p *self-attribution*, not a provable or definitely knowable 3p one. The problem then seems to be: is there in fact a knowable method to 'design' all this into a system from the outside: i.e. a way to start from an external semantic attribution (e.g. an AI program) and then 'engineer' the sense and action syntactics of the instantiation in such a way that they converge on a consistent semantic interpretation from either 1p or 3p pov? IOW, so that a system thus engineered would be capable of passing the same critical tests achievable by the first two types. I can't see that we possess even a theory of how this could be done, and as somebody once said, there's nothing so practical as a good theory. This is why I expressed doubt in the empirical outcome of any AI programme approached in this manner. ISTM that references to Moore's Law etc. in this context are at present not much more than promissory notes written in invisible ink on transparent paper. David. Le 28-juin-07, à 17:56, David Nyman a écrit : On 28/06/07, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Bruno The remarks you comment on are certainly not the best-considered or most cogently expressed of my recent posts. However, I'll try to clarify if you have specific questions. As to why I said I'd rather not use the term 'consciousness', it's because of some recent confusion and circular disputes ( e.g. with Torgny, or about whether hydrogen atoms are 'conscious'). I am not sure that in case of disagreement (like our disagreement with Torgny), changing the vocabulary is a good idea. This will not make the problem going away, on the contrary there is a risk of introducing obscurity. Some of the sometimes confused senses (not by you, I hasten to add!) seem to be: 1) The fact of possessing awareness 2)
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
David, Le 17-juin-07, à 18:28, David Nyman a écrit : IMHO this semantic model gives you a knock-down argument against 'computationalism', *unless* one identifies (I'm hoping to hear from Bruno on this) the 'primitive' entities and operators with those of the number realm - i.e. you make numbers and their relationships the 'primitive base'. But crucially, you must still take these entities and their relationships to be the *real* basis of personal-world 'grasp'. If you continue to adopt a 'somethingist' view, then no 'program' (i.e. one of the arbitrarily large set that could be imputed to any 'something') could coherently be responsible for its personal- world grasp (such as it may be). This is the substance of the UDA argument. All personal-worlds must emerge internally via recursive levels of relationship inherited from primitive grasp: in a 'somethingist' view, such grasp must reside with a primitive 'something', as we have seen, and in a computationalist view, it must reside in the number realm. But the fundamental insight applies. I agree completely, but I am not yet convinced that you appreciate my methodological way of proceeding. I have to ask you questions, but I see you have been prolific during the Siena congress, which is not gentle for my mailbox :). Anyway I will take some time to read yours' and the others' posts before asking for questions that others have perhaps asked and that you have perhaps already answered. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 28/06/07, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BM: I agree completely. DN: A good beginning! BM: .but I am not yet convinced that you appreciate my methodological way of proceeding. DN: That may well be so. In that case it's interesting that we reached the same conclusion. BM: Anyway I will take some time to read yours' and the others' posts before asking for questions that others have perhaps asked and that you have perhaps already answered. DN: I'm at your disposal. David David, Le 17-juin-07, à 18:28, David Nyman a écrit : IMHO this semantic model gives you a knock-down argument against 'computationalism', *unless* one identifies (I'm hoping to hear from Bruno on this) the 'primitive' entities and operators with those of the number realm - i.e. you make numbers and their relationships the 'primitive base'. But crucially, you must still take these entities and their relationships to be the *real* basis of personal-world 'grasp'. If you continue to adopt a 'somethingist' view, then no 'program' (i.e. one of the arbitrarily large set that could be imputed to any 'something') could coherently be responsible for its personal- world grasp (such as it may be). This is the substance of the UDA argument. All personal-worlds must emerge internally via recursive levels of relationship inherited from primitive grasp: in a 'somethingist' view, such grasp must reside with a primitive 'something', as we have seen, and in a computationalist view, it must reside in the number realm. But the fundamental insight applies. I agree completely, but I am not yet convinced that you appreciate my methodological way of proceeding. I have to ask you questions, but I see you have been prolific during the Siena congress, which is not gentle for my mailbox :). Anyway I will take some time to read yours' and the others' posts before asking for questions that others have perhaps asked and that you have perhaps already answered. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Le 21-juin-07, à 01:07, David Nyman a écrit : On Jun 5, 3:12 pm, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Personally I don' think we can be *personally* mistaken about our own consciousness even if we can be mistaken about anything that consciousness could be about. I agree with this, but I would prefer to stop using the term 'consciousness' at all. Why? To make a decision (to whatever degree of certainty) about whether a machine possessed a 1-person pov analogous to a human one, we would surely ask it the same sort of questions one would ask a human. That is: questions about its personal 'world' - what it sees, hears, tastes (and perhaps extended non-human modalitiies); what its intentions are, and how it carries them into practice. From the machine's point-of-view, we would expect it to report such features of its personal world as being immediately present (as ours are), and that it be 'blind' to whatever 'rendering mechanisms' may underlie this (as we are). If it passed these tests, it would be making similar claims on a personal world as we do, and deploying this to achieve similar ends. Since in this case it could ask itself the same questions that we can, it would have the same grounds for reaching the same conclusion. However, I've argued in the other bit of this thread against the possibility of a computer in practice being able to instantiate such a 1-person world merely in virtue of 'soft' behaviour (i.e. programming). I suppose I would therefore have to conclude that no machine could actually pass the tests I describe above - whether self- administered or not - purely in virtue of running some AI program, however complex. This is an empirical prediction, and will have to await an empirical outcome. Now I have big problems to understand this post. I must think ... (and go). Bye, Bruno On Jun 5, 3:12 pm, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le 03-juin-07, à 21:52, Hal Finney a écrit : Part of what I wanted to get at in my thought experiment is the bafflement and confusion an AI should feel when exposed to human ideas about consciousness. Various people here have proffered their own ideas, and we might assume that the AI would read these suggestions, along with many other ideas that contradict the ones offered here. It seems hard to escape the conclusion that the only logical response is for the AI to figuratively throw up its hands and say that it is impossible to know if it is conscious, because even humans cannot agree on what consciousness is. Augustin said about (subjective) *time* that he knows perfectly what it is, but that if you ask him to say what it is, then he admits being unable to say anything. I think that this applies to consciousness. We know what it is, although only in some personal and uncommunicable way. Now this happens to be true also for many mathematical concept. Strictly speaking we don't know how to define the natural numbers, and we know today that indeed we cannot define them in a communicable way, that is without assuming the auditor knows already what they are. So what can we do. We can do what mathematicians do all the time. We can abandon the very idea of *defining* what consciousness is, and try instead to focus on principles or statements about which we can agree that they apply to consciousness. Then we can search for (mathematical) object obeying to such or similar principles. This can be made easier by admitting some theory or realm for consciousness like the idea that consciousness could apply to *some* machine or to some *computational events etc. We could agree for example that: 1) each one of us know what consciousness is, but nobody can prove he/she/it is conscious. 2) consciousness is related to inner personal or self-referential modality etc. This is how I proceed in Conscience et Mécanisme. (conscience is the french for consciousness, conscience morale is the french for the english conscience). In particular I don't think an AI could be expected to claim that it knows that it is conscious, that consciousness is a deep and intrinsic part of itself, that whatever else it might be mistaken about it could not be mistaken about being conscious. I don't see any logical way it could reach this conclusion by studying the corpus of writings on the topic. If anyone disagrees, I'd like to hear how it could happen. As far as a machine is correct, when she introspects herself, she cannot not discover a gap between truth (p) and provability (Bp). The machine can discover correctly (but not necessarily in a completely communicable way) a gap between provability (which can potentially leads to falsities, despite correctness) and the incorrigible knowability or knowledgeability (Bp p), and then the gap between those notions and observability (Bp Dp) and sensibility (Bp Dp p). Even without using the conventional name of
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 28/06/07, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Bruno The remarks you comment on are certainly not the best-considered or most cogently expressed of my recent posts. However, I'll try to clarify if you have specific questions. As to why I said I'd rather not use the term 'consciousness', it's because of some recent confusion and circular disputes (e.g. with Torgny, or about whether hydrogen atoms are 'conscious'). Some of the sometimes confused senses (not by you, I hasten to add!) seem to be: 1) The fact of possessing awareness 2) The fact of being aware of one's awareness 3) the fact of being aware of some content of one's awareness So now I would prefer to talk about self-relating to a 1-personal 'world', where previously I might have said 'I am conscious', and that such a world mediates or instantiates 3-personal content. I've tried to root this (in various posts) in a logically or semantically primitive notion of self-relation that could underly 0, 1, or 3-person narratives, and to suggest that such self-relation might be intuited as 'sense' or 'action' depending on the narrative selected. But crucially such nuances would merely be partial takes on the underlying self-relation, a 'grasp' which is not decomposable. So ISTM that questions should attempt to elicit the machine's self-relation to such a world and its contents: i.e. it's 'grasp' of a reality analogous to our own. And ISTM the machine could also ask itself such questions, just as we can, if indeed such a world existed for it. I realise of course that it's fruitless to try to impose my jargon on anyone else, but I've just been trying to see whether I could become less confused by expressing things in this way. Of course, a reciprocal effect might just be to make others more confused! David Le 21-juin-07, à 01:07, David Nyman a écrit : On Jun 5, 3:12 pm, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Personally I don' think we can be *personally* mistaken about our own consciousness even if we can be mistaken about anything that consciousness could be about. I agree with this, but I would prefer to stop using the term 'consciousness' at all. Why? To make a decision (to whatever degree of certainty) about whether a machine possessed a 1-person pov analogous to a human one, we would surely ask it the same sort of questions one would ask a human. That is: questions about its personal 'world' - what it sees, hears, tastes (and perhaps extended non-human modalitiies); what its intentions are, and how it carries them into practice. From the machine's point-of-view, we would expect it to report such features of its personal world as being immediately present (as ours are), and that it be 'blind' to whatever 'rendering mechanisms' may underlie this (as we are). If it passed these tests, it would be making similar claims on a personal world as we do, and deploying this to achieve similar ends. Since in this case it could ask itself the same questions that we can, it would have the same grounds for reaching the same conclusion. However, I've argued in the other bit of this thread against the possibility of a computer in practice being able to instantiate such a 1-person world merely in virtue of 'soft' behaviour (i.e. programming). I suppose I would therefore have to conclude that no machine could actually pass the tests I describe above - whether self- administered or not - purely in virtue of running some AI program, however complex. This is an empirical prediction, and will have to await an empirical outcome. Now I have big problems to understand this post. I must think ... (and go). Bye, Bruno On Jun 5, 3:12 pm, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le 03-juin-07, à 21:52, Hal Finney a écrit : Part of what I wanted to get at in my thought experiment is the bafflement and confusion an AI should feel when exposed to human ideas about consciousness. Various people here have proffered their own ideas, and we might assume that the AI would read these suggestions, along with many other ideas that contradict the ones offered here. It seems hard to escape the conclusion that the only logical response is for the AI to figuratively throw up its hands and say that it is impossible to know if it is conscious, because even humans cannot agree on what consciousness is. Augustin said about (subjective) *time* that he knows perfectly what it is, but that if you ask him to say what it is, then he admits being unable to say anything. I think that this applies to consciousness. We know what it is, although only in some personal and uncommunicable way. Now this happens to be true also for many mathematical concept. Strictly speaking we don't know how to define the natural numbers, and we know today that indeed we cannot define them in a communicable way, that is without assuming the auditor knows already
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
en passant = one form of 'one size fits all' is shrink wrapping. Some food for thought wrapped up in there somewhere DN: 'MP: That is to say, all our knowledge _of_ the world is embodied in qualia which are _about_ the world. They are our brains' method of accounting for things. Naive realism is how we are when we 'mistake' qualia for the world they represent. DN: OK, if one's self-relating emerges 1-personally as spectrally-rendered 'surfaces', does this carry for you any taste, sniff, glimmer, rustle, or tingle of 'qualia'? Of course, there's nothing 'external' to compare to the 1-personal, even though 'spectra' does carry an implication of relative modality, range and scale at the 3-personal 'message-level'. And we can exchange 'signal' with others to correlate aspects of our 1-personal worlds. But we can find no 'absolute' sense in which it's 'like anything' to be 1-personal, even for the 1-person. It's non-pareil. But, perhaps, the sort of non-pareil that just might emerge from participating in exquisite complexities of self-relativity. MP: The way I deal with this, without magic but sometimes gasping in wonder, is to recognise that a 'quale' is _about_ something. BTW I never normally use the word because it is not plain-English; 'appearance' or 'perceptual quality [plus an example]' are what most people could relate to. I think the key insight needed here is that any item of consciousness, using those words flexibly but not too loosely, must relate something to someone. Depending on the sophistication of the 'someone', the something can be a part of his/her/its body or some abstract construct. For most of the time though the 'something' is a process, person or object in the world. ISTM that this necessarily entails that within the brain there is something which stands for the thing in the external world [or body part, abstract construct,etc], something which stands for 'self', and something which relates these two in a way which adequately deals with the actual real-world relationship between the thing and 'me'. How could it be otherwise? I think Stephan Lehar's cartoon epistemology series at http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/ deals very well with some of the truly practical questions like 'how the hell does it work?' For instance he shows how there IS a homunculus within the brain: the transduction device which drives the skeletal muscles. When I see it spelled out in plain-English with clear and simple diagrams like that I ask: How could it not be like that? Steve Lehar is quick to point out that he doesn't have lots of answers to how the 3D rendition of the environment occurs but as you point out Dave [I hope I am joining your dots correctly], the human brain uses lots and lots of 2D cortical surfaces to create 2D virtual surfaces which embody all the information that composes our experience of the world. I believe this is exactly right, and the connections between the surfaces, the synthesising or merger of the relevant analytical components, the 'binding' as they say, is by means of harmonic resonance. Cortical re-entrant signalling - between all the regions encoding momentarily relevant features of that which we are attending to - is synchronising, stabilising, and maintaining resonant mass action in a distributed topological structure. And we have to say that this structure EXISTS. Without this it is all voodoo and worse. A structure which exists in this manner can: * evoke characteristic consequences, and * prevent other things from happening, and * resist its dissolution by the rest of the brain until its task is fulfilled. The last little bit may sound a tad romantic but the first criterion of 'thingness' is that the thing resist its own destruction for long enough to be noticed. My favourite emblem [? or symbol?] for the dynamic complexity and robustness of this process is the lion stalking and then charging its prey. [Of course it could be any other predator] If you recollect documentaries your have seen, remember how the cat focuses its attention on the prey as it creeps closer. Then remember how the creature charges: its eyes never leave the target; the lion's brain has 'locked-on' to the prey. That brain based lock-on [the term comes from guided missile technology I believe] is a prerequisite for the eventual, climactic, _dental_ lock-on which will secure din dins for the cat. From the time it starts charging, until the prey is within grasp of claws and teeth, the lion cannot take its eyes of the prey and cannot give heed to any distractions. It must navigate around or over obstacles, subordinating its body to the goal of reaching and capturing the target. There is a simplicity in the case of the lion which we have lost because of our use of words. Words allowed copied behaviours to take on an existence of their own and to replicate, and evolve, proliferating into a vast
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
I will try the 'interpolation method' below. Your second may shoot me if I waffle though :-) David Nyman wrote: Mark: Accepting broadly your summary up to this point... MP: But I have to *challenge you to clarify* whether what I write next really ties in completely with what you are thinking. DN: My seconds will call on you! MP: Consciousness is something we know personally, and through discussion with others we come to believe that their experience is very similar. DN: OK, but If you push me, I would say that we 'emerge' into a personal world, and through behavioural exchange with it, come to act consistently as if this constitutes an 'external' environment including a community of similar worlds. For a nascent individual, such a personal world is initially 'bootstrapped' out of the environment, and incrementally comes to incorporate communally-established recognition and explanatory consistencies that can also be extrapolated to a embrace a wider context beyond merely 'personal' worlds. MP2: Yes! Well put. MP: This can be summarised as 'The mind is what the brain does', at least insofar as 'consciousness' is concerned, and the brain does it all in order to make the body's muscles move in the right way. DN: I would say that 'minds' and 'brains' are - in some as yet not-fully-explicated way - parallel accounts of a seamless causal network embracing individuals and their environment. Depending on how this is schematised, it may or may not be possible to fully correlate top-down-personal and bottom-up-physical accounts. Nonetheless, ISTM more natural to ascribe intentionality to the individual in terms of the environment, rather than 'the brain getting the body's muscles to move' - i.e. I move my hand runs in parallel with a physical account involving the biology and physics of brain and body, but both ultimately supervene on a common 'primitive' explanatory base. MP2: OK, my 'the brain makes muscles move' is basically a bulwark against 'panpsychism' or any other forms of mystery-making. The term I like is 'identity theory' but like most labels it usually seems to provoke unproductive digressions. The main reason for the word 'challenge' above is due to the way you were using the word 'sensing' for physical and chemical interactions. I would use 'connection' with effects: action and reaction which include attraction and repulsion. So I would say effects' rather than aff'ect [ie stress is on first syllable] but here, as with everything to do with affect and emotion, common English usage is not helpful [similarly to the way 'love' in English translations of the New Testament is used to translate at least four more precise words of the original Greek]. NB: I don't use the word 'supervene'. To me it always gives the impression that something like a coat of paint is being referred to. 'Identity' does for me. MP: The answer is that the brain is structured so that behaviours - potentially a million or more human behaviours of all sorts - can be *stored* within the brain. This storage, using the word in a wide sense, is actually changes to the fine structures within the brain [synapses, dendrite location, tags on DNA, etc] which result in [relatively] discrete, repeatable patterns of neuronal network activity occurring which function as sequences of muscle activation ...snip. Behaviours, once learned, become habitual i.e. they are evoked by appropriate circumstances and proceed in the manner learned unless varied by on-going review and adjustment. Where the habitual behavioural response is completely appropriate, we are barely conscious of the activity; we only pay attention to novelties and challenges - be they in the distant environment, our close surroundings, or internal to our own bodies and minds. DN: Your account reads quite cogently, and we may well agree to discuss the issues in this way, but crucially ISTM that our accounts are always oriented towards particular explanatory outcomes - which is why one size doesn't fit all. So let's see if this shoe fits MP2: Well, as someone for whom 'standard' means if the collar fits then the cuffs button round my finger tips ... one size will never 'fit all' but diversity is good in company with toleration and healthy scepticism. I am always keen to point out that we humans are always beset with a paradox, which _can_ be seen as a kind of duality. What it amounts to is that we live in a real world, but we live by means of a description. That is to say, all our knowledge _of_ the world is embodied in qualia which are _about_ the world. They are our brains' method of accounting for things. Naive realism is how we are when we 'mistake' qualia for the world they represent. But they exist, and that is a key point. So is the fact that, even if the world 'behind' the appearances is not actually the world
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 6/23/07, David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi John (just your Italics par-s quoted in this reply. Then JM: means present text)): *DN: Since we agree to eliminate the 'obsolete noumenon', we can perhaps re-phrase this as just: 'how do you know x?' And then the answers are of the type 'I just see x, hear x, feel x' and so forth. IOW, 'knowing x' is unmediated** - 'objects' like x are just 'embedded' in the structure of the 'knower', and this is recursively related to more inclusive structures within which the knower and its environment are in turn embedded. * JM: You mean a hallucination of x, when you * 'I just see x, hear x, feel x' and so forth'*. is included in your knowledge? or even substitutes for it? Maybe yes... But then can you differentiate? (or this is no reasonable question?) * *((to JM: ...know if you are NOT conscious? Well, you wouldn't.)) DN: Agreed. If we 'delete the noumenon' we get: How would you know if you are NOT? or: How would you know if you did NOT (know)?. To which we might indeed respond: You would not know, if you were NOT, or: You would not know, if you did NOT (know). * JM: The classic question: Am I? and the classical answer: Who is asking? * *DN: I think we need to distinguish between 'computers' and 'machines'. I can see no reason in principle why an artifact could not 'know', and be motivated by such knowing to interact with the human world: humans are of course themselves 'natural artifacts'.* itself embedded. JM: Are you including 'humans' into the machines or the computers? And dogs? Amoebas? The main difference I see here is the 'extract' of the human world (or: world, as humans can interpret what they learned) downsized to our choice of necessity which WE liked to design into an artifact. (motors, cellphones, AI, AL). Yes, we (humans etc.) are artefacts but 'use' a lot of capabilities (mental etc. gadgets) we either don't know at all, or just accept them as 'being human' (or an extract of human traits as 'being dog') with no urge to build such into a microwave oven or an AI. But then we are SSOO smart when we draw conclusions! * *DN: Bruno's approach is to postulate the whole 'ball of wax' as computation, so that any 'event' whether 'inside' or 'outside' the machine is 'computed'*. JM: Bruno is right: accepting that 'any machine' is part of its outside(?) totality, i.e. embedded into its ambiance, I would be scared to differentiate myself. There is no hermetic 'skin' - it is transitional effects transcending back and forth, we just do not observe those outside the 'topical boundaries' of our actual observation (model, as I call it). *DN:* *The drift of my recent posts has been that even in this account, 'worlds' can emerge 'orthogonally' to each other, such that from their reciprocal perspectives, 'events' in their respective worlds will be 'imaginary'.* JM: I can't say: I have no idea how the world works, except for that little I interpreted into my 1st person narrative. I accept maybe-s. And I have a way to 'express' myself: I use I dunno. Have fun John David Dear David. do not expect from me the theoretical level of technicality-talk er get from Bruno: I talk (and think) common sense (my own) and if the theoretical technicalities sound strange, I return to my thinking. That's what I got, that's what I use (plagiarized from the Hungarian commi joke: what is the difference between the peoples' democracy and a wife? Nothing: that's what we got that's what we love) When I read your questioning the computer, i realized that you are in the ballpark of the AI people (maybe also AL - sorry, Russell) who select machine-accessible aspects for comparing. You may ask about prejudice, shame (about goofed situations), humor (does a computer laugh?) boredom or preferential topics (you push for an astronomical calculation and the computer says: I rather play some Bach music now) Sexual preference (even disinterestedness is slanted), or laziness. If you add untruthfulness in risky situations, you really have a human machine with consciousness (whatever people say it is - I agree with your evading that unidentified obsolete noumenon as much as possible). I found Bruno's post well fitting - if i have some hint what ...inner personal or self-referential modality... may mean. I could not 'practicalize' it. I still frown when abondoning (the meaning of) something but consider items as pertaining to it - a rough paraphrasing, I admit. To what?. I don't feel comfortable to borrow math-methods for nonmath explanations but that is my deficiency. Now that we arrived at thequestion I replied-added (sort of) to Colin's question I - let me ask it again: how would YOU know if you are conscious? (Conscious is more meaningful than cc-ness). Or rather: How would you know if you are NOT conscious? Well, you wouldn't. If you can, you are conscious. Computers? Have a
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 26/06/07, John Mikes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: JM: You mean a hallucination of x, when you * 'I just see x, hear x, feel x' and so forth' *. is included in your knowledge? or even substitutes for it? Maybe yes... DN: I am conscious of knowing x is distinguishable from I know x. The former has already differentiated 'knowing x' and so now I know [knowing x]. And so forth. So knowing in this sense stands for a direct or unmediated 'self-relation', a species of unity between knower and known - hence its notorious 'incorrigibility'. JM: But then can you differentiate? (or this is no reasonable question?) DN: It seems that in the development of the individual at first there is no such differentiation; then we find that we are 'thrown' directly into a 'world' populated with 'things' and 'other persons'; later, we differentiate this from a distal 'real world' that putatively co-varies with it. Now we are in a position to make a distinction between 'plural' or 'rational' modes of knowing, and solipsistic or 'crazy' ones. But then it dawns that it's *our world* - not the 'real' one, that's the 'hallucination'. No wonder we're crazy! This evolutionarily-directed stance towards what we 'know' is of course so pervasive that it's only a minority (like the lost souls on this list!) who harbour any real concern about the precise status of such correlations. Hence, I suppose, our continual state of confusion. JM: The classic question: Am I? and the classical answer: Who is asking? DN: Just so. Crazy, like I say. JM: Are you including 'humans' into the machines or the computers? And dogs? Amoebas? DN: Actually, I just meant to distinguish between 'machines' considered physically and computational processes. I really have no idea of course whether any non-human artefact will ever come to know and act in the sense that a human does. My point was only to express my logical doubts that it would ever do so in virtue of its behaving in a way that merely represents *to us* a process of computation. However, the more I reason about this the stranger it gets, so I guess I really 'dunno'. JM: Bruno is right: accepting that 'any machine' is part of its outside(?) totality, i.e. embedded into its ambiance, I would be scared to differentiate myself. There is no hermetic 'skin' - it is transitional effects transcending back and forth, we just do not observe those outside the 'topical boundaries' of our actual observation (model, as I call it). DN: Yes: all is relation (ultimately self-relation, IMO), and 'boundaries' merely delimit what is 'observable'. In this context, what do you think about Colin's TPONOG post? Regards David On 6/23/07, David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi John (just your Italics par-s quoted in this reply. Then JM: means present text)): *DN: Since we agree to eliminate the 'obsolete noumenon', we can perhaps re-phrase this as just: 'how do you know x?' And then the answers are of the type 'I just see x, hear x, feel x' and so forth. IOW, 'knowing x' is unmediated** - 'objects' like x are just 'embedded' in the structure of the 'knower', and this is recursively related to more inclusive structures within which the knower and its environment are in turn embedded. * JM: You mean a hallucination of x, when you * 'I just see x, hear x, feel x' and so forth'*. is included in your knowledge? or even substitutes for it? Maybe yes... But then can you differentiate? (or this is no reasonable question?) * *((to JM: ...know if you are NOT conscious? Well, you wouldn't.)) DN: Agreed. If we 'delete the noumenon' we get: How would you know if you are NOT? or: How would you know if you did NOT (know)?. To which we might indeed respond: You would not know, if you were NOT, or: You would not know, if you did NOT (know). * JM: The classic question: Am I? and the classical answer: Who is asking? * *DN: I think we need to distinguish between 'computers' and 'machines'. I can see no reason in principle why an artifact could not 'know', and be motivated by such knowing to interact with the human world: humans are of course themselves 'natural artifacts'. * itself embedded. JM: Are you including 'humans' into the machines or the computers? And dogs? Amoebas? The main difference I see here is the 'extract' of the human world (or: world, as humans can interpret what they learned) downsized to our choice of necessity which WE liked to design into an artifact. (motors, cellphones, AI, AL). Yes, we (humans etc.) are artefacts but 'use' a lot of capabilities (mental etc. gadgets) we either don't know at all, or just accept them as 'being human' (or an extract of human traits as 'being dog') with no urge to build such into a microwave oven or an AI. But then we are SSOO smart when we draw conclusions! * *DN: Bruno's approach is to postulate the whole 'ball of wax' as computation, so that any 'event' whether 'inside' or 'outside' the
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 10:17:57PM +0100, David Nyman wrote: Here's what's still not completely clear to me - perhaps you can assist me with this. We don't know *which* set of physical events is in effect selected by the functionalist account, even though it may be reasonable to believe that there is one. Given this, it appears that should we be finally convinced that only a functional account of 1-person phenomena uniquely survives all attempted refutation, we can never in that case provide any 'distinguished' bottom up physical account of the same phenomena. IOW we would be faced with an irreducibly top-down mode of explanation for consciousness, even though there is still an ineliminable implication to specific fundamental aspects of the physics in 'instantiating' the bottom-up causality. Does this indeed follow, or am I still garbling something? David This sounds to me like you're paraphrasing Bruno's programme. The only snag is how you can eliminate the possibility of a non-functionalist model also explaining the same set of physical laws. In fact the God did it model probably indicates this can't be done. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 01:36:56PM +0100, David Nyman wrote: DN: Now this seems to me crucial. When you say that self-awareness emerges from the physics, ISTM that this is what I was getting at in the bit you didn't comment on directly: My claim isthat if (machines) are (conscious), it couldn't be solely in virtue of any 'imaginary computational worlds' imputed to them, but rather because they support some unique, distinguished process of *physical* emergence that also corresponds to a unique observer-world. There is, in a sense, a certain arbitrariness in where one draws the boundaries. But I strongly support the notion that there can be no consciousness without an environment (aka appearance of a physical world to the conscious entity). Only if that environment was shared with our own physical world do we have a possibility of communication. We would have to acknowledge the same self-other boundary as the other conscious process. Furthermore, I would make the stronger claim that self-other boundary must be such that neither the self nor the environment can be computable, even if together they are. We've had this discussion before on this list. Gotta run now - my train's pulling in. -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 26/06/07, Mark Peaty [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: MP: Your second may shoot me if I waffle.. DN: No, he'll just tickle you until you become more coherent ;) MP: The main reason for the word 'challenge' above is due to the way you were using the word 'sensing' for physical and chemical interactions. DN: Yes, it's difficult to find terms that don't mislead somebody by unintended implication. Let's say that I believe it helps to reduce physical and chemical interactions to the logic of 'self-relativity'. Why? Because when we conceptually isolate 'entities' like molecules, atoms, or even quarks or super-strings, the semantics we employ implicitly depend on this 'primitive' logical concept. A simple notion that embodies this is a 'modulated continuum': continuum, because it must be seamless and symmetrical ( i.e. no 'voids'); modulated, because nonetheless this symmetry must somehow be 'broken'. If such 'broken seamlessness' has a flavour of paradox, there's something 'strangely' unavoidable in that. But ISTM that most aspects of our ontology can be intuited by building on (something like) the self-participation of such a modulated continuum. For me, the natural term for this participatory, self-directed, symmetry-breaking is 'self-relativity'. The cool thing about this, is that narratives rooted in such participatory self-relation lend themselves quite interchangeably to 0, 1, or 3-person points-of-view. IOW, whether you want to narrate in terms of (physical) 'action', or (personal) 'sensing', or even (mathematical) 'operations', all can be intuited as built on self-relation. And the distinctive differences between such narratives are then reciprocal perspectives on that self-relativity. This is why I used the term 'sense-action' as a 'bridge' between the 'physical' and 'personal' reciprocals of self-relation. The empirical 'laws' we extract from the consistent features of these relations can in turn be intuited as inheriting from the self-directedness of the original symmetry-breaking: this too, will have 0, 1, and 3-person reciprocity. MP: OK, my 'the brain makes muscles move' is basically a bulwark against 'panpsychism' or any other forms of mystery-making. The term I like is 'identity theory' but like most labels it usually seems to provoke unproductive digressions. DN: Now does it seem possible to you that your notion of 'identity' could be accomplished via 'sense-action' reciprocity? IOW, that 'mind' and 'brain' are reciprocal perspectives on the same structure of self-relations? Panpsychism? Well, brain's perspective is 'psych'; psych's perspective is 'brain'. The 'pan' then depends on how you localise 'psych', and that is a horse of a very different colour. ISTM, very briefly, that 'psych', in the operational sense of a highly-specific set of biospherically-evolved mechanisms for dealing with the environment, is anything but 'pan'. How and 'where' does it then arise? Well, we know from this list alone that theories abound, but nobody knows. This of course won't restrain my speculations! My take would be along the lines that the brain 'hosts' (deliberate ambiguity) 'transduction' that 'renders' information spectrally on a set of virtual 'surfaces'. Metaphorically it's a bit like the telly, (very) loosely, in that the transducer's job is to turn 'signal' into 'message'. But of course there's no-one watching: the 'surfaces' *are* our 'personal worlds'. Such surfaces are the 'medium' of the 1-personal, and the 'messages' it mediates are '3-personal' (always remembering that the medium *is* the message). Also - crucially - the 'surfaces' are *interactive*: messages self-relate, recombine, get re-transduced, and signal flows back into the environment. Now, how the 'transduction-signal' relationship emerges out of computation, EM, chemistry, Bose-Einstein condensate, or GOK* what, I dunno. But if we contemplate this participatively from a self-relating perspective, then we can narrate the story from either 'action' or 'sense' perspectives interchangeably. IOW, things happen in (something like) the 'action' narrative, participatively it feels (something like) the 'sense' narrative, and its 'intentionality' is (something like) self-directedness. And all of this depends ultimately on self-relativity. (* A nurse I used to know told me that doctors would cryptically mark the notes of the most intractable diagnoses: GOK - God Only Knows) MP: That is to say, all our knowledge _of_ the world is embodied in qualia which are _about_ the world. They are our brains' method of accounting for things. Naive realism is how we are when we 'mistake' qualia for the world they represent. DN: OK, if one's self-relating emerges 1-personally as spectrally-rendered 'surfaces', does this carry for you any taste, sniff, glimmer, rustle, or tingle of 'qualia'? Of course, there's nothing 'external' to compare to the 1-personal, even though 'spectra' does carry an implication of relative
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 26/06/07, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RS: This sounds to me like you're paraphrasing Bruno's programme. DN: Yes, but I only realised this after I'd painfully thunk myself into it during my exchange with Brent. But I think I learned something in the process, even tho' I'm not exactly sure what. RS: The only snag is how you can eliminate the possibility of a non-functionalist model also explaining the same set of physical laws. DN: I suppose so. RS: In fact the God did it model probably indicates this can't be done. DN: But would having the possibility of two entirely different causal accounts of the same thing be bug or a feature? - Show quoted text - On Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 10:17:57PM +0100, David Nyman wrote: Here's what's still not completely clear to me - perhaps you can assist me with this. We don't know *which* set of physical events is in effect selected by the functionalist account, even though it may be reasonable to believe that there is one. Given this, it appears that should we be finally convinced that only a functional account of 1-person phenomena uniquely survives all attempted refutation, we can never in that case provide any 'distinguished' bottom up physical account of the same phenomena. IOW we would be faced with an irreducibly top-down mode of explanation for consciousness, even though there is still an ineliminable implication to specific fundamental aspects of the physics in 'instantiating' the bottom-up causality. Does this indeed follow, or am I still garbling something? David This sounds to me like you're paraphrasing Bruno's programme. The only snag is how you can eliminate the possibility of a non-functionalist model also explaining the same set of physical laws. In fact the God did it model probably indicates this can't be done. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 26/06/07, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RS: There is, in a sense, a certain arbitrariness in where one draws the boundaries. But I strongly support the notion that there can be no consciousness without an environment (aka appearance of a physical world to the conscious entity). Only if that environment was shared with our own physical world do we have a possibility of communication. We would have to acknowledge the same self-other boundary as the other conscious process. DN: Yes, and AFAICS this mutual self-other boundary would emerge as an aspect of the 'selection' of the (putatively) conscious functional interpretation that is consistent with our interactions with the physical instantiation. This would presumably remove or reduce any arbitrariness. RS: Furthermore, I would make the stronger claim that self-other boundary must be such that neither the self nor the environment can be computable, even if together they are. We've had this discussion before on this list. DN: I'll try to find it - any idea where? On Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 01:36:56PM +0100, David Nyman wrote: DN: Now this seems to me crucial. When you say that self-awareness emerges from the physics, ISTM that this is what I was getting at in the bit you didn't comment on directly: My claim isthat if (machines) are (conscious), it couldn't be solely in virtue of any 'imaginary computational worlds' imputed to them, but rather because they support some unique, distinguished process of *physical* emergence that also corresponds to a unique observer-world. There is, in a sense, a certain arbitrariness in where one draws the boundaries. But I strongly support the notion that there can be no consciousness without an environment (aka appearance of a physical world to the conscious entity). Only if that environment was shared with our own physical world do we have a possibility of communication. We would have to acknowledge the same self-other boundary as the other conscious process. Furthermore, I would make the stronger claim that self-other boundary must be such that neither the self nor the environment can be computable, even if together they are. We've had this discussion before on this list. Gotta run now - my train's pulling in. -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Wed, Jun 27, 2007 at 03:03:35AM +0100, David Nyman wrote: RS: Furthermore, I would make the stronger claim that self-other boundary must be such that neither the self nor the environment can be computable, even if together they are. We've had this discussion before on this list. DN: I'll try to find it - any idea where? Its a bit scattered, unfortunately. Search the everything list archive using the terms uncomputable, randomness or random oracle. You will find bits and pieces on this. Posters are typically Bruno, Stathis and myself. I have a bit of stuff in my book on randomness (in the Evolution chapter, and in the Consiouness chapter), but don't make a big deal out of this. It is still all somewhat debatable. Cheers -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Sun, Jun 24, 2007 at 08:20:49PM +0100, David Nyman wrote: RS: In some Platonic sense, all possible observers are already out there, but by physically instantiating it in our world, we are in effect opening up a communication channel between ourselves and the new consciousness. I think I must be missing something profound in your intended meanings of: 1) 'out there' 2) 'physically instantiating' 3) 'our world' My current 'picture' of it is as follows. The 'Platonic sense' I assume equates to the 'bit-string plenitude' (which is differentiable from 'no information' only by internal observers, like the Library of Babel - a beautiful idea BTW). Its more actually out there in the Multiverse, rather than the Plenitude, as the Multiverse is a necessary prerequisite of observation. Its at least one level of emergence up from the bitstring plenitude. But I'm assuming a 'hierarchy' of recursive computational emergence through bits up through, say, strings, quarks, atoms, molecules, etc - in other words what is perceived as matter-energy by observers. I then assume that both 'physical objects' and any correlated observers emerge from this matter-energy level, and that this co-emergence accomplishes the 'physical instantiation'. Emergence is entirely a phenomenon of the observer. No observer, no emergence. So I wouldn't really be calling it co-emergence. What must emerge from the physics is the perception of self, or self-awareness. Whether this can be identified with consciousness is rather a moot point, perhaps to be settled much later. Someone like Hoftstadter with his strange loops would probably argue in favour of this however. So would Dennett, if I read him correctly. IOW, the observer is the 1-person view, and the physical behaviour the 3-person view, of the same underlying complex emergent - they're different descriptions of the same events. 3rd person behaviour is that which is shared by all possible observers. There is also first person plural phenomena, sharable between multiple observers, but not necessarily all. Science, as we practise it today, is strictly first person plural, though in principle at least shared by all humans regardless of culture. Some of physics, like quantum laws, and the conservation laws that arise from point of view invariance is however a string candidate for being called 3rd person. If this is so, then as you say, the opening of the 'communication channel' would be a matter of establishing the means and modes of interaction with any new consciousness, because the same seamless underlying causal sequence unites observer-world and physical-world: again, different descriptions, same events. OK - it seems you're talking about supervenience here. If the above is accepted (but I'm beginning to suspect there's something deeply wrong with it), then the 'stability' of the world of the observer should equate to the 'stability' of the physical events to which it is linked through *identity*. This is where I get lost. Stability of the world has to do with the necessary robustness property of observers, as I argue in section 4.2 of my book. I note also in that section that alternative proposals exist as well. Now here's what puzzles me. ISTM that the imputation of 'computation' to the physical computer is only through the systematic correspondence of certain stable aspects of its (principally) electronic behaviour to computational elements: numbers, mathematical-logical operators, etc. The problem is in the terms 'imputation' and 'correspondence': this is surely merely a *way of speaking* about the physical events in the computer, an arbitrary ascription, from an infinite possible set, of externally-established semantics to the intrinsic physical syntactics. The attribution of computation is performed by the observer (otherwise known as user) of the computer, as you say. The attribution of consciousness in any processes can only be done by the conscious observer erself. Attribution of consciousness in any non-self process can never be definite, although it is typically useful to attribute a mind to other processes in the environment to help reason about them (other people, obviously, but also many of the more complicated animals, and perhaps also to computers when they achieve a certain level of sophistication). But by accepting functionalism, we can even make stronger assertions - processes that sufficiently accurately mimic conscious ones, must therefore be conscious. Consequently, ISTM that the emergence of observer-worlds has to be correlated (somehow) - one-to-one, or isomorphically - with corresponding 'physical' events: IOW these events, with their 'dual description', constitute a single 'distinguished' *causal* sequence. By contrast, *any* of the myriad 'computational worlds' that could be ascribed to the same events must remain - to the computer, rather than the programmer - only arbitrary or
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 25/06/07, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RS: Its more actually out there in the Multiverse, rather than the Plenitude, as the Multiverse is a necessary prerequisite of observation. Its at least one level of emergence up from the bitstring plenitude. DN: OK RS: Emergence is entirely a phenomenon of the observer. No observer, no emergence. So I wouldn't really be calling it co-emergence. I just meant that the observer's world, taken with the 'physical' phenomena correlated with it, could then be said to 'co-emerge'. It was this relationship I was emphasising (but see below). RS: What must emerge from the physics is the perception of self, or self-awareness. Whether this can be identified with consciousness is rather a moot point, perhaps to be settled much later. Someone like Hoftstadter with his strange loops would probably argue in favour of this however. So would Dennett, if I read him correctly. DN: Now this seems to me crucial. When you say that self-awareness emerges from the physics, ISTM that this is what I was getting at in the bit you didn't comment on directly: My claim isthat if (machines) are (conscious), it couldn't be solely in virtue of any 'imaginary computational worlds' imputed to them, but rather because they support some unique, distinguished process of *physical* emergence that also corresponds to a unique observer-world. However, perhaps what is significant is the distinction you make above between 'self-awareness', and 'consciousness', which is what I'd been trying to do in previous posts in my unintelligible way. IOW, that some primitive or 'distinguished' form of self-relation is associated with the physics, and that the emergence of 'conscious' observer worlds then equates to a hierarchy of emergence supervening on that. To use a common analogy, observer worlds would emerge by following something like the 'distinguished' explanatory trajectory taken in the emergence of 'life' from 'dead matter'. But, if we accept functionalism, we seem to have a horse of another, and most peculiar, colour. It seems, since there is no unique 'computational' interpretation of the physical level of behaviour, that there can likewise be no unique (and hence 'distinguished') set of self-relations associated with any physical events that would in turn evoke a unique observer world. (But a glimmer of comprehension may be igniting in the dim recesses of my (putative) mind.) Perhaps when you say: RS: The conscious entity that the computer implements would know about it. It is not imaginary to itself. And by choosing to interpret the computer's program in that way, rather than say a tortured backgammon playing program, we open a channel of communication with the consciousness it implements. DN: ...you mean that if functionalism is true, then though any of the myriad interpretations of the physics might possibly evoke an observer world (although presumably most would be incoherent), only interpretations we are able to 'interact with', precisely because of the consistency of their externalised behaviour with us and our environment, are relevant (causally or otherwise) *to us*. And if this can be shown to converge on a *unique* such interpretation for a given physical system, in effect this would then satisfy my criterion of supervening on *some* distinguishable or unique set of physical relations, even if we couldn't say what it was. So this, then, would be the 'other mind' - and from this perspective, all the other interpretations are 'imaginary' *for us*. (As an aside, this reminds me of a story about Nixon's press secretary, Ron Ziegler. The White House Press Corps, having just listened in exasperated disbelief to the nth version of the 'official statement' on Watergate, protested: But Ron, what about all the other statements? Ziegler replied: This is the operative statement; all the other statements are inoperative. Perhaps the 'interaction model' we choose in effect selects the corresponding 'operative consciousness' in terms of our world; all the others are 'inoperative'.) This has a very 'strange' feel to it (but perhaps this is appropriate). It seems to follow that there can still in principle be a 'bridge' between a functional (computationalist) account of a 'conscious' machine, and a 'physicalist' one - i.e. that either explanatory mode could account for the same phenomena. Perhaps this is what you mean by 'downwards' as well as 'upwards' causation? So it then becomes an empirical project - i.e. that it will eventually turn out - or not - that computationalism emerges as the survivor in the competition to be the most Occamishly cogent account of the relation between conscious phenomena and physics, and between a 'conscious being' and its environment. Olympia and Klara type arguments, if I've understood them, seem to exclude any *fixed* relationship between 'physical' events and computational ones, but this appears not to be required by a
Re: Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
David, We have reached some understanding in the 'asifism' thread, and I would summarise that, tilted towards the context of this line of this thread, more or less as follows. Existence - * The irreducible primitive is existence per se; * that we can know about this implies differentiation in and of that which exists; * that we can recognise both invariance and changes and participate in what goes on implies _connection_. I am sure there must be mathematical/logical formalism which could render that with exquisite clarity, but I don't know how to do it. Plain-English is what I have to settle for [and aspire to :-] There are a couple of issues that won't go away though: our experience is always paradoxical, and we will always have to struggle to communicate about it. Paradox or illusion - I think people use the word 'illusion' about our subjective experience of being here now because they don't want to see it as paradoxical. However AFAICS, the recursive self-referencing entailed in being aware of being here now guarantees that what we are aware of at any given moment, i.e. what we can attend to, can never be the totality of what is going on in our brains. In terms of mind, some of it - indeed probably the majority - is unconscious. We normally are not aware of this. [Duh, that is what unconscious means Mark!] But sometimes we can become aware [acutely!] of having _just been_ operating unconsciously and this is salutary, once the sickening embarrassment subsides anyway :-0 For those of us who have become familiar with this issue it is no hardship but there are many who resist the idea. The least mortifying example that is _easy to see in oneself_ is what happens when we look for something and then find it: before we find it the thing is 'not there' for us, except that we might believe that it is really. Then we find it; the thing just pops into view! As mundane as mould on cheese, but bloody marvellous as soon as you start thinking about how it all works! But I have to *challenge you to clarify* whether what I write next really ties in completely with what you are thinking. I'll try it in point form for brevity's sake. Behaviour and consciousness - * Consciousness is something we know personally, and through discussion with others we come to believe that their experience is very similar. * Good scientific evidence and moderately sceptical common sense tell us is this experience is _intimately and exclusively_ bound up with the activity of our brains. Ie the experience - the conscious awareness of the moment as well as the simultaneous or preliminary non-conscious activity - is basically what the brain does, give or take a whole range of hormonal controls of the rest of the organism. This can be summarised as 'The mind is what the brain does', at least insofar as 'consciousness' is concerned, and the brain does it all in order to make the body's muscles move in the right way. * People's misunderstanding about how we are conscious seems to centre around how mere meat could 'have' this experience. * The answer is that the brain is structured so that behaviours - potentially a million or more human behaviours of all sorts - can be *stored* within the brain. This storage, using the word in a wide sense, is actually changes to the fine structures within the brain [synapses, dendrite location, tags on DNA, etc] which result in [relatively] discrete, repeatable patterns of neuronal network activity occurring which function as sequences of muscle activation * For practical purposes behaviours usually involve muscles moving body parts appropriately. [If muscles don't move, nobody else can be sure if anything is going on]. However, within the human brain, learning also entails the formation of neuronal network activity patterns which become surrogates for or alternatives to overtly visible behaviours. Likewise the completely internal detection of such surrogate activities becomes a kind of surrogate for perception of one's own overt behaviours or for perception of external world activities which would result from one's own actions. * Useful and effective response and adaptation to the world requires the review of appropriateness of one's overt behaviour and to be able to adjust or completely change one's behaviours both at very short notice and over arbitrarily long periods depending on the duration of the effects of one's actions. This entails responding to one's own behaviours over whatever time scale is necessary. * Behaviours, once learned, become habitual i.e. they are evoked by appropriate circumstances and proceed in the manner learned unless varied by on-going review and adjustment. Where the habitual behavioural response is completely appropriate, we are barely conscious of the activity; we only pay attention to novelties and challenges - be they in the distant environment, our close
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
David Nyman wrote: On 25/06/07, *Russell Standish* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... RS: The conscious entity that the computer implements would know about it. It is not imaginary to itself. And by choosing to interpret the computer's program in that way, rather than say a tortured backgammon playing program, we open a channel of communication with the consciousness it implements. DN: ...you mean that if functionalism is true, then though any of the myriad interpretations of the physics might possibly evoke an observer world (although presumably most would be incoherent), only interpretations we are able to 'interact with', precisely because of the consistency of their externalised behaviour with us and our environment, are relevant (causally or otherwise) *to us*. And if this can be shown to converge on a *unique* such interpretation for a given physical system, in effect this would then satisfy my criterion of supervening on *some* distinguishable or unique set of physical relations, even if we couldn't say what it was. So this, then, would be the 'other mind' - and from this perspective, all the other interpretations are 'imaginary' *for us*. If I understand you, I would agree with the clarification that this convergence has been performed by evolution; so that for us it is in the most part hardwired at birth. And this hardwired interpretation of the world is something that co-evolved with sensory and manipulative organs. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 25/06/07, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BM: If I understand you, I would agree with the clarification that this convergence has been performed by evolution; so that for us it is in the most part hardwired at birth. And this hardwired interpretation of the world is something that co-evolved with sensory and manipulative organs. DN: Yes, in the biosphere, the physical structures and capabilities on which behaviours supervene must indeed be presumed to be products of evolution. Then if the functionalist account is correct, this in effect 'selects' the unique corresponding interpretation from the infinite set attributable in principle to the physics of such structures, relegating all the others to 'imaginary' status at the level of this account of physical evolution. This doesn't AFAICS present any knock-down proof of functionalism as the correct account of consciousness, which presumably remains an open empirical question. Some quite different 'emergence paradigm' for consciousness - which may or may not entail a unique and distinguishable bottom-up correlation between physical and 1-person events - may win out; or we may never know. But in the case that functionalism pans out, a type of correlation with physical causality seems at least comprehensible to me now, as far as I've been able to think it through. Here's what's still not completely clear to me - perhaps you can assist me with this. We don't know *which* set of physical events is in effect selected by the functionalist account, even though it may be reasonable to believe that there is one. Given this, it appears that should we be finally convinced that only a functional account of 1-person phenomena uniquely survives all attempted refutation, we can never in that case provide any 'distinguished' bottom up physical account of the same phenomena. IOW we would be faced with an irreducibly top-down mode of explanation for consciousness, even though there is still an ineliminable implication to specific fundamental aspects of the physics in 'instantiating' the bottom-up causality. Does this indeed follow, or am I still garbling something? David David Nyman wrote: On 25/06/07, *Russell Standish* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... RS: The conscious entity that the computer implements would know about it. It is not imaginary to itself. And by choosing to interpret the computer's program in that way, rather than say a tortured backgammon playing program, we open a channel of communication with the consciousness it implements. DN: ...you mean that if functionalism is true, then though any of the myriad interpretations of the physics might possibly evoke an observer world (although presumably most would be incoherent), only interpretations we are able to 'interact with', precisely because of the consistency of their externalised behaviour with us and our environment, are relevant (causally or otherwise) *to us*. And if this can be shown to converge on a *unique* such interpretation for a given physical system, in effect this would then satisfy my criterion of supervening on *some* distinguishable or unique set of physical relations, even if we couldn't say what it was. So this, then, would be the 'other mind' - and from this perspective, all the other interpretations are 'imaginary' *for us*. If I understand you, I would agree with the clarification that this convergence has been performed by evolution; so that for us it is in the most part hardwired at birth. And this hardwired interpretation of the world is something that co-evolved with sensory and manipulative organs. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Mark: Accepting broadly your summary up to this point... MP: But I have to *challenge you to clarify* whether what I write next really ties in completely with what you are thinking. DN: My seconds will call on you! MP: Consciousness is something we know personally, and through discussion with others we come to believe that their experience is very similar. DN: OK, but If you push me, I would say that we 'emerge' into a personal world, and through behavioural exchange with it, come to act consistently as if this constitutes an 'external' environment including a community of similar worlds. For a nascent individual, such a personal world is initially 'bootstrapped' out of the environment, and incrementally comes to incorporate communally-established recognition and explanatory consistencies that can also be extrapolated to a embrace a wider context beyond merely 'personal' worlds. MP: This can be summarised as 'The mind is what the brain does', at least insofar as 'consciousness' is concerned, and the brain does it all in order to make the body's muscles move in the right way. DN: I would say that 'minds' and 'brains' are - in some as yet not-fully-explicated way - parallel accounts of a seamless causal network embracing individuals and their environment. Depending on how this is schematised, it may or may not be possible to fully correlate top-down-personal and bottom-up-physical accounts. Nonetheless, ISTM more natural to ascribe intentionality to the individual in terms of the environment, rather than 'the brain getting the body's muscles to move' - i.e. I move my hand runs in parallel with a physical account involving the biology and physics of brain and body, but both ultimately supervene on a common 'primitive' explanatory base. MP: The answer is that the brain is structured so that behaviours - potentially a million or more human behaviours of all sorts - can be *stored* within the brain. This storage, using the word in a wide sense, is actually changes to the fine structures within the brain [synapses, dendrite location, tags on DNA, etc] which result in [relatively] discrete, repeatable patterns of neuronal network activity occurring which function as sequences of muscle activation ...snip. Behaviours, once learned, become habitual i.e. they are evoked by appropriate circumstances and proceed in the manner learned unless varied by on-going review and adjustment. Where the habitual behavioural response is completely appropriate, we are barely conscious of the activity; we only pay attention to novelties and challenges - be they in the distant environment, our close surroundings, or internal to our own bodies and minds. DN: Your account reads quite cogently, and we may well agree to discuss the issues in this way, but crucially ISTM that our accounts are always oriented towards particular explanatory outcomes - which is why one size doesn't fit all. So let's see if this shoe fits MP: I have put this description in terms of 'behaviours' because I am practising how to deal with the jibes and stonewalling of someone who countenance only 'behavioural analysis' descriptions DN: Ahah I confess I've had a little peek at your dialogues with a certain individual on another forum, and I think I discern your purpose and your problem. All I can say is that we conduct the dialogue a little less fractiously on this list. For what it's worth, I probably wouldn't expend much more effort on someone with so entrenched a position and so vitriolic a vocabulary. If you set your mind to it, you can describe anything in 'behavioural' or alternatively in 'structural' terms - A series or B series - 'block' or 'dynamic' - but the form by itself doesn't necessarily explain more one way or the other. And as far as 'stimulus-response' goes, I suppose I could say that when I 'stimulate' the gas pedal, my car 'responds' by accelerating, but that doesn't by itself provide a very productive theory of automotive behaviour. But, if you have fresh energy for the fray. Best of luck David David, We have reached some understanding in the 'asifism' thread, and I would summarise that, tilted towards the context of this line of this thread, more or less as follows. Existence - * The irreducible primitive is existence per se; * that we can know about this implies differentiation in and of that which exists; * that we can recognise both invariance and changes and participate in what goes on implies _connection_. I am sure there must be mathematical/logical formalism which could render that with exquisite clarity, but I don't know how to do it. Plain-English is what I have to settle for [and aspire to :-] There are a couple of issues that won't go away though: our experience is always paradoxical, and we will always have to struggle to communicate about it. Paradox or illusion - I think people use the word
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 23/06/07, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RS: Perhaps you are one of those rare souls with a foot in each camp. That could be be very productive! I hope so! Let's see... RS: This last post is perfectly lucid to me. Phew!! Well, that's a good start. RS: I hope I've answered it adequately. Your answer is very interesting - not quite what I expected: RS: In some Platonic sense, all possible observers are already out there, but by physically instantiating it in our world, we are in effect opening up a communication channel between ourselves and the new consciousness. I think I must be missing something profound in your intended meanings of: 1) 'out there' 2) 'physically instantiating' 3) 'our world' My current 'picture' of it is as follows. The 'Platonic sense' I assume equates to the 'bit-string plenitude' (which is differentiable from 'no information' only by internal observers, like the Library of Babel - a beautiful idea BTW). But I'm assuming a 'hierarchy' of recursive computational emergence through bits up through, say, strings, quarks, atoms, molecules, etc - in other words what is perceived as matter-energy by observers. I then assume that both 'physical objects' and any correlated observers emerge from this matter-energy level, and that this co-emergence accomplishes the 'physical instantiation'. IOW, the observer is the 1-person view, and the physical behaviour the 3-person view, of the same underlying complex emergent - they're different descriptions of the same events. If this is so, then as you say, the opening of the 'communication channel' would be a matter of establishing the means and modes of interaction with any new consciousness, because the same seamless underlying causal sequence unites observer-world and physical-world: again, different descriptions, same events. If the above is accepted (but I'm beginning to suspect there's something deeply wrong with it), then the 'stability' of the world of the observer should equate to the 'stability' of the physical events to which it is linked through *identity*. Now here's what puzzles me. ISTM that the imputation of 'computation' to the physical computer is only through the systematic correspondence of certain stable aspects of its (principally) electronic behaviour to computational elements: numbers, mathematical-logical operators, etc. The problem is in the terms 'imputation' and 'correspondence': this is surely merely a *way of speaking* about the physical events in the computer, an arbitrary ascription, from an infinite possible set, of externally-established semantics to the intrinsic physical syntactics. Consequently, ISTM that the emergence of observer-worlds has to be correlated (somehow) - one-to-one, or isomorphically - with corresponding 'physical' events: IOW these events, with their 'dual description', constitute a single 'distinguished' *causal* sequence. By contrast, *any* of the myriad 'computational worlds' that could be ascribed to the same events must remain - to the computer, rather than the programmer - only arbitrary or 'imaginary' ones. This is why I described them as 'nested' - perhaps 'orthogonal' or 'imaginary' are better: they may - 'platonically' - exist somewhere in the plenitude, but causally disconnected from the physical world in which the computer participates. The computer doesn't 'know' anything about them. Consequently, how could they possess any 'communication channel' to the computer's - and our - world 'out there'? Of course I'm not claiming by this that machines couldn't be conscious. My claim is rather that if they are, it couldn't be solely in virtue of any 'imaginary computational worlds' imputed to them, but rather because they support some unique, distinguished process of *physical* emergence that also corresponds to a unique observer-world: and of course, mutatis mutandis, this must also apply to the 'mind-brain' relationship. If I'm wrong (as no doubt I am), ISTM I must have erred in some step or other of my logic above. How do I debug it? David On Sat, Jun 23, 2007 at 03:58:39PM +0100, David Nyman wrote: On 23/06/07, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RS: I don't think I ever really found myself in disagreement with you. Rather, what is happening is symptomatic of us trying to reach across the divide of JP Snow's two cultures. You are obviously comfortable with the world of literary criticism, and your style of writing reflects this. The trouble is that to someone brought up on a diet of scientific and technical writing, the literary paper may as well be written in ancient greek. Gibberish doesn't mean rubbish or nonsense, just unintelligible. DN: It's interesting that you should perceive it in this way: I hadn't thought about it like this, but I suspect you're not wrong. I haven't consumed very much of your 'diet', and I have indeed read quite a lot of stuff in the style you refer to, although I often find it
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
David Nyman wrote: On 23/06/07, *Russell Standish* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RS: Perhaps you are one of those rare souls with a foot in each camp. That could be be very productive! I hope so! Let's see... RS: This last post is perfectly lucid to me. Phew!! Well, that's a good start. RS: I hope I've answered it adequately. Your answer is very interesting - not quite what I expected: RS: In some Platonic sense, all possible observers are already out there, but by physically instantiating it in our world, we are in effect opening up a communication channel between ourselves and the new consciousness. I think I must be missing something profound in your intended meanings of: 1) 'out there' 2) 'physically instantiating' 3) 'our world' My current 'picture' of it is as follows. The 'Platonic sense' I assume equates to the 'bit-string plenitude' (which is differentiable from 'no information' only by internal observers, like the Library of Babel - a beautiful idea BTW). But I'm assuming a 'hierarchy' of recursive computational emergence through bits up through, say, strings, quarks, atoms, molecules, etc - in other words what is perceived as matter-energy by observers. I then assume that both 'physical objects' and any correlated observers emerge from this matter-energy level, and that this co-emergence accomplishes the 'physical instantiation'. IOW, the observer is the 1-person view, and the physical behaviour the 3-person view, of the same underlying complex emergent - they're different descriptions of the same events. If this is so, then as you say, the opening of the 'communication channel' would be a matter of establishing the means and modes of interaction with any new consciousness, because the same seamless underlying causal sequence unites observer-world and physical-world: again, different descriptions, same events. If the above is accepted (but I'm beginning to suspect there's something deeply wrong with it), then the 'stability' of the world of the observer should equate to the 'stability' of the physical events to which it is linked through *identity*. Now here's what puzzles me. ISTM that the imputation of 'computation' to the physical computer is only through the systematic correspondence of certain stable aspects of its (principally) electronic behaviour to computational elements: numbers, mathematical-logical operators, etc. The problem is in the terms 'imputation' and 'correspondence': this is surely merely a *way of speaking* about the physical events in the computer, an arbitrary ascription, from an infinite possible set, of externally-established semantics to the intrinsic physical syntactics. Consequently, ISTM that the emergence of observer-worlds has to be correlated (somehow) - one-to-one, or isomorphically - with corresponding 'physical' events: IOW these events, with their 'dual description', constitute a single 'distinguished' *causal* sequence. By contrast, *any* of the myriad 'computational worlds' that could be ascribed to the same events must remain - to the computer, rather than the programmer - only arbitrary or 'imaginary' ones. This is why I described them as 'nested' - perhaps 'orthogonal' or 'imaginary' are better: they may - 'platonically' - exist somewhere in the plenitude, but causally disconnected from the physical world in which the computer participates. The computer doesn't 'know' anything about them. Consequently, how could they possess any 'communication channel' to the computer's - and our - world 'out there'? Of course I'm not claiming by this that machines couldn't be conscious. My claim is rather that if they are, it couldn't be solely in virtue of any 'imaginary computational worlds' imputed to them, but rather because they support some unique, distinguished process of *physical* emergence that also corresponds to a unique observer-world: and of course, mutatis mutandis, this must also apply to the 'mind-brain' relationship. If I'm wrong (as no doubt I am), ISTM I must have erred in some step or other of my logic above. How do I debug it? David On Sat, Jun 23, 2007 at 03:58:39PM +0100, David Nyman wrote: On 23/06/07, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RS: I don't think I ever really found myself in disagreement with you. Rather, what is happening is symptomatic of us trying to reach across the divide of JP Snow's two cultures. You are obviously comfortable with the world of literary criticism, and your style of writing reflects this. The trouble is that to someone brought up on a diet of scientific and technical writing, the literary paper may as well be written in ancient greek. Gibberish doesn't mean rubbish or nonsense, just unintelligible.
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
OOPS! I accidentally hit the send button on the wrong copy. Here's what I intended to send below: David Nyman wrote: On 23/06/07, *Russell Standish* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RS: Perhaps you are one of those rare souls with a foot in each camp. That could be be very productive! I hope so! Let's see... RS: This last post is perfectly lucid to me. Phew!! Well, that's a good start. RS: I hope I've answered it adequately. Your answer is very interesting - not quite what I expected: RS: In some Platonic sense, all possible observers are already out there, but by physically instantiating it in our world, we are in effect opening up a communication channel between ourselves and the new consciousness. I think I must be missing something profound in your intended meanings of: 1) 'out there' 2) 'physically instantiating' 3) 'our world' My current 'picture' of it is as follows. The 'Platonic sense' I assume equates to the 'bit-string plenitude' (which is differentiable from 'no information' only by internal observers, like the Library of Babel - a beautiful idea BTW). But I'm assuming a 'hierarchy' of recursive computational emergence through bits up through, say, strings, quarks, atoms, molecules, etc - in other words what is perceived as matter-energy by observers. I then assume that both 'physical objects' and any correlated observers emerge from this matter-energy level, and that this co-emergence accomplishes the 'physical instantiation'. IOW, the observer is the 1-person view, and the physical behaviour the 3-person view, of the same underlying complex emergent - they're different descriptions of the same events. If this is so, then as you say, the opening of the 'communication channel' would be a matter of establishing the means and modes of interaction with any new consciousness, because the same seamless underlying causal sequence unites observer-world and physical-world: again, different descriptions, same events. If the above is accepted (but I'm beginning to suspect there's something deeply wrong with it), then the 'stability' of the world of the observer should equate to the 'stability' of the physical events to which it is linked through *identity*. Now here's what puzzles me. ISTM that the imputation of 'computation' to the physical computer is only through the systematic correspondence of certain stable aspects of its (principally) electronic behaviour to computational elements: numbers, mathematical-logical operators, etc. The problem is in the terms 'imputation' and 'correspondence': this is surely merely a *way of speaking* about the physical events in the computer, an arbitrary ascription, from an infinite possible set, of externally-established semantics to the intrinsic physical syntactics. Consequently, ISTM that the emergence of observer-worlds has to be correlated (somehow) - one-to-one, or isomorphically - with corresponding 'physical' events: IOW these events, with their 'dual description', constitute a single 'distinguished' *causal* sequence. By contrast, *any* of the myriad 'computational worlds' that could be ascribed to the same events must remain - to the computer, rather than the programmer - only arbitrary or 'imaginary' ones. This is why I described them as 'nested' - perhaps 'orthogonal' or 'imaginary' are better: they may - 'platonically' - exist somewhere in the plenitude, but causally disconnected from the physical world in which the computer participates. The computer doesn't 'know' anything about them. Consequently, how could they possess any 'communication channel' to the computer's - and our - world 'out there'? I think I agree with your concern and I think the answer is that conscious implies conscious of something. For a computer or an animal to be conscious is really a relation to an environment. So for a computer to be conscious, as a human is, it must be able to perceive and act in our environment. Or it could be running a program in which a conscious being is simulated and that being would be conscious relative to a simulated environment in the computer. In the latter case there might be an infinite number of different interpretations that could be consistently placed on the computer's execution; or there might not. Maybe all those different interpretations aren't really different. Maybe they are just translations into different words. It seems to me to be jumping to a conclusion to claim they are different in some significant way. The importance of the environment for consciousness is suggested by the sensory deprivation experiments of the late '60s. It was observed by people who spent a long time in a sensory deprivation tank (an hour or more) that their mind would enter a loop and they lost all sense of time. Brent Meeker Of course I'm not claiming by this that machines
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 24/06/07, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BM: I think I agree with your concern DN: Ah... BM: and I think the answer is that conscious implies conscious of something. For a computer or an animal to be conscious is really a relation to an environment. DN: Yes BM: So for a computer to be conscious, as a human is, it must be able to perceive and act in our environment. DN: My point precisely. BM: Or it could be running a program in which a conscious being is simulated and that being would be conscious relative to a simulated environment in the computer. DN: I'm prepared to be agnostic on this. But as your 'or' rightly indicates, if so, it would be conscious relative to the simulated environment, *not* the human one. BM: In the latter case there might be an infinite number of different interpretations that could be consistently placed on the computer's execution; or there might not. Maybe all those different interpretations aren't really different. Maybe they are just translations into different words. It seems to me to be jumping to a conclusion to claim they are different in some significant way. DN: Not sure... but I don't see how any of this changes the essential implication, which is that however many interpretations you place on it, and however many of these may evoke 'consciousness of something' (or as I would prefer to say, a personal or observer world) it would be the simulated world, not the human one (as you rightly point out). From Bruno's perspective (I think - and AFAICS, also TON) these two 'worlds' would be different 'levels of substitution'. So, if I said 'yes' to the doctor's proposal to upload me as an AI program, this might evoke some observer world, but any such would be 'orthogonal' to my and the computer's shared 'level of origin'. Consequently, no new observer evoked in this way could have any ability to interact with that level. As an aside, it's an interesting take on the semantics of 'imaginary' - and you know Occam's attitude to such entities. Anyway, I'm prepared to be agnostic for the moment about such specifics of simulated worlds, but the key conclusion seems to be that in no case could such a 'world' participate at the same causal level as the human one, which vitiates any sense of its 'interacting' with, or being 'conscious of', the same 'environment'. AFAICS you have actually reached the same conclusion, so I don't see in what sense you mean that it's the 'answer'. You seem to be supporting my point. Do I misunderstand? David OOPS! I accidentally hit the send button on the wrong copy. Here's what I intended to send below: David Nyman wrote: On 23/06/07, *Russell Standish* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RS: Perhaps you are one of those rare souls with a foot in each camp. That could be be very productive! I hope so! Let's see... RS: This last post is perfectly lucid to me. Phew!! Well, that's a good start. RS: I hope I've answered it adequately. Your answer is very interesting - not quite what I expected: RS: In some Platonic sense, all possible observers are already out there, but by physically instantiating it in our world, we are in effect opening up a communication channel between ourselves and the new consciousness. I think I must be missing something profound in your intended meanings of: 1) 'out there' 2) 'physically instantiating' 3) 'our world' My current 'picture' of it is as follows. The 'Platonic sense' I assume equates to the 'bit-string plenitude' (which is differentiable from 'no information' only by internal observers, like the Library of Babel - a beautiful idea BTW). But I'm assuming a 'hierarchy' of recursive computational emergence through bits up through, say, strings, quarks, atoms, molecules, etc - in other words what is perceived as matter-energy by observers. I then assume that both 'physical objects' and any correlated observers emerge from this matter-energy level, and that this co-emergence accomplishes the 'physical instantiation'. IOW, the observer is the 1-person view, and the physical behaviour the 3-person view, of the same underlying complex emergent - they're different descriptions of the same events. If this is so, then as you say, the opening of the 'communication channel' would be a matter of establishing the means and modes of interaction with any new consciousness, because the same seamless underlying causal sequence unites observer-world and physical-world: again, different descriptions, same events. If the above is accepted (but I'm beginning to suspect there's something deeply wrong with it), then the 'stability' of the world of the observer should equate to the 'stability' of the physical events to which it is linked through *identity*. Now here's what puzzles me. ISTM that the imputation of 'computation' to the physical computer is only through the
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Hi John JM: You may ask about prejudice, shame (about goofed situations), humor (does a computer laugh?) boredom or preferential topics (you push for an astronomical calculation and the computer says: I rather play some Bach music now) Sexual preference (even disinterestedness is slanted), or laziness. If you add untruthfulness in risky situations, you really have a human machine with consciousness DN: All good, earthy, human questions. I guess my (not very exhaustive) examples were motivated by some general notion of a 'personal world' without this necessarily being fully human. A bit like 'Commander Data', perhaps. JM: Now that we arrived at the question I replied-added (sort of) to Colin's question I - let me ask it again: how would YOU know if you are conscious? DN: Since we agree to eliminate the 'obsolete noumenon', we can perhaps re-phrase this as just: 'how do you know x?' And then the answers are of the type 'I just see x, hear x, feel x' and so forth. IOW, 'knowing x' is unmediated - 'objects' like x are just 'embedded' in the structure of the 'knower', and this is recursively related to more inclusive structures within which the knower and its environment are in turn embedded. JM: Or rather: How would you know if you are NOT conscious? Well, you wouldn't. DN: Agreed. If we 'delete the noumenon' we get: How would you know if you are NOT? or: How would you know if you did NOT (know)?. To which we might indeed respond: You would not know, if you were NOT, or: You would not know, if you did NOT (know). JM: If you can, you are conscious. DN: Yes, If you know, then you know. JM: Computers? DN: I think we need to distinguish between 'computers' and 'machines'. I can see no reason in principle why an artefact could not 'know', and be motivated by such knowing to interact with the human world: humans are of course themselves 'natural artefacts'. The question is whether a machine can achieve this purely in virtue of instantiating a 'Universal Turing Machine'. For me the key is 'interaction with the human world'. It may be possible to conceive that some machine is computing a 'world' with 'knowers' embedded in an environment to which they respond appropriately based on what they 'know'. However such a world is 'orthogonal' to the 'world' in which the machine that instantiates the program is itself embedded. IOW, no 'event' as conceived in the 'internal world' has any causal implication to any 'event' in the 'external world', or vice versa. We can see this quite clearly in that an engineer could in principle give a reductive account of the entire causal sequence of the machine's internal function and interaction with the environment without making any reference whatsoever to the programming, or 'world', of the UTM. Bruno's approach is to postulate the whole 'ball of wax' as computation, so that any 'event' whether 'inside' or 'outside' the machine is 'computed'. The drift of my recent posts has been that even in this account, 'worlds' can emerge 'orthogonally' to each other, such that from their reciprocal perspectives, 'events' in their respective worlds will be 'imaginary'. ISTM that this is the nub of the 'level of substitution' dilemma in the 'yes doctor' proposition: you may well 'save your soul' but 'lose the whole world'. But of course Bruno knows all this (and much more) - he is at pains to show how computationalism and any 'primitive' concept of 'matter' are incompatible. From my reading of 'Theory of Nothing' so does Russell, so I suspect that our recent wrangling is down to my lousy way of expressing myself. A good weekend to you too! David Dear David. do not expect from me the theoretical level of technicality-talk er get from Bruno: I talk (and think) common sense (my own) and if the theoretical technicalities sound strange, I return to my thinking. That's what I got, that's what I use (plagiarized from the Hungarian commi joke: what is the difference between the peoples' democracy and a wife? Nothing: that's what we got that's what we love) When I read your questioning the computer, i realized that you are in the ballpark of the AI people (maybe also AL - sorry, Russell) who select machine-accessible aspects for comparing. You may ask about prejudice, shame (about goofed situations), humor (does a computer laugh?) boredom or preferential topics (you push for an astronomical calculation and the computer says: I rather play some Bach music now) Sexual preference (even disinterestedness is slanted), or laziness. If you add untruthfulness in risky situations, you really have a human machine with consciousness (whatever people say it is - I agree with your evading that unidentified obsolete noumenon as much as possible). I found Bruno's post well fitting - if i have some hint what ...inner personal or self-referential modality... may mean. I could not 'practicalize' it. I still frown when abondoning (the meaning of) something but
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 02:06:14PM +0100, David Nyman wrote: RS: Terminology is terminology, it doesn't have a point of view. DN: This may be a nub of disagreement. I'd be interested if you could clarify. My characterisation of a narrative as '3-person' is when (ISTM) that it's an abstraction from, or projection of, some 'situation' that is fundamentally 'participative'. Do you disagree with this? By contrast, I've been struggling recently with language that engages directly with 'participation'. But this leads to your next point. Terminology is about describing communicable notions. As such, the only things words can ever describe are 1st person plural things. Since you are familiar with my book, you can look up the distinction between 1st person (singular), 1st person plural and 3rd person, but these concepts have often been discussed on this list. I can use the term Green for instance, in a sentence to you, and we can be sure of its meaning when referring to shared experience of phenomena, however I can never communicate to you how green appears to me, so that you can compare it with your green qualia. RS: Terms should have accepted meaning, unless we agree on a different meaning for the purposes of discussion. DN: But where there is no generally accepted meaning, or a disputed one, how can we then proceed? Hence my attempts at definition (which I hate BTW), and which you find to be gibberish. Is there a way out of this? This sometimes happens. We can point to examples of what the word means, and see if we agree on those. There are bound to be borderline cases where we disagree, but these are often unimportant unless we are searching for a definition. BTW, when I read 'Theory of Nothing', which I find very cogent, ISTM that virtually its entire focus is on aspects of a 'participatory' approach. So I'm more puzzled than ever why we're in disagreement. You are correct that it is 'particpatory', at least in the sense John Wheeler uses it. I don't think I ever really found myself in disagreement with you. Rather, what is happening is symptomatic of us trying to reach across the divide of JP Snow's two cultures. You are obviously comfortable with the world of literary criticism, and your style of writing reflects this. The trouble is that to someone brought up on a diet of scientific and technical writing, the literary paper may as well be written in ancient greek. Gibberish doesn't mean rubbish or nonsense, just unintelligible. I had my first experience of the modern academic humanities just two years ago, and it was quite a shock. I attended a conference entitled The two cultures: Reconsidering the division between the Sciences and Humanities. I was invited to speak as one of the scientific representatives, and basically spoke about the core thesis of my book, which seemed appropriate. I kept the language simple and interdisciplinary, used lots of pictures to illustrate the concepts, and I'm sure had a reasonable connect with the audience. All of the other scientists did the same. They all knew better than to fall back into jargon and dense forests of mathematical formulae (I have suffered enough of those types of seminars, to be sure). By contrast, the speakers from the humanities all read their papers word-for-word. There were no illustrations to help one follow the gist of the arguments. The sentences were long-winded, and attempted to cover every nuance possible. A style I'm sure you're very familiar with. I tried to ask a few questions of the speakers at the end, not so as to appear smart or anything, but just to try to clarify some of the few points I thought I might have understood. The responses from the speakers, however, was in the same long-winded, heavily nuanced sentences. The one thing I drew from this conference was that the divide between Snow's two cultures is alive and well, and vaster than I ever imagined. I've really been trying to say that points-of-view (or 'worlds') emerge from *structure* defined somehow, and that (tautologically, surely) the 'primitives' of such structure (in whatever theoretical terms we choose) must be capable of 'animating' such povs or worlds. IOW povs are always 'takes' on the whole situation, not inherent in individuated 'things'. To say that a point of view (which I would translate as observer) emerges from the worlds structure, is another way of saying that the observer must supervene on observed physical structures. And I agree with you, basically because of the Occam catastrophe problem. However, how or why this emergence happens is rather mysterious. I think is has something to do with self-awareness, without a self existing with the observed physical world, one cannot be self-aware. The corrolary of this is that self-awareness must be necessary for consciousness. Note this doesn't mean that you have to be self-aware every second you are awake, but you have to be capable of introspection.
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 23/06/07, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RS: I don't think I ever really found myself in disagreement with you. Rather, what is happening is symptomatic of us trying to reach across the divide of JP Snow's two cultures. You are obviously comfortable with the world of literary criticism, and your style of writing reflects this. The trouble is that to someone brought up on a diet of scientific and technical writing, the literary paper may as well be written in ancient greek. Gibberish doesn't mean rubbish or nonsense, just unintelligible. DN: It's interesting that you should perceive it in this way: I hadn't thought about it like this, but I suspect you're not wrong. I haven't consumed very much of your 'diet', and I have indeed read quite a lot of stuff in the style you refer to, although I often find it rather indigestible! But on the other hand, much of my professional experience has been in the world of computer programming, right back to machine code days, so I'm very aware of the difference between 'syntax' and 'semantics', and I know too well how consequences can diverge wildly from a difference of a single bit. How often have I heard the beleaguered self-tester wail I didn't *mean* that! So - to me - my process is a bit like: define a 'procedural language'; use this to 'code' some 'problem'; 'run' it to see what happens; then 'debug' and repeat. This is no doubt excruciating for anyone else to follow, and my attempts to 'comment' the code don't always help. Now that I'm re-reading TON, it seems to me that I've been trying to re-interpret bits of it in this way (in an attempt to reconcile what you and Colin were disputing) but only succeeded in muddying the waters further, probably for the reasons you suggest. However, in the spirit of the original topic of the thread, I would prefer to ask you directly about the plausibility (which, unless I've misunderstood, you support?) of an AI-program being in principle 'conscious'. I take this to entail that instantiating such a program thereby implements an 'observer' that can respond to and share a reality, in broadly the same terms, with human 'observers'. (I apologise in advance if any paraphrase or short-hand I adopt misrepresents what you say in TON): TON, as you comment in the book, takes the 'idealist' stance that 'concrete' notions emerge from observation. Our own relative status as observers participating in 'worlds' is then dependent on computational 'emergence' from the plenitude of all possible bit-strings. Let's say that I'm such an observer and I observe a 'computer' like the one I'm using now. The 'computer' is a 3-person 'concrete emergent' in my 1-person world, and that of the 'plurality' of observers with whom I'm in relation: we can 'interact' with it. Now, we collectively *impute* that some aspect of its 3-person behaviour (e.g. EM phenomena in its internal circuitry) is to be regarded as 'running an AI program' (i.e. ISTM that this is what happens when we 'compile and run' a program). In what way does such imputation entail the evocation - despite the myriad possible 'concrete' instantiations that might represent it - of a *stable* observer capable of participating in our shared '1-person plural' context? IOW, I'm concerned that two different categories are being conflated here: the 'world' at the 'observer level' that includes me and the computer, and the 'world' of the program, which is 'nested' inside this. How can this 'nested' world get any purchase on 'observables' that are 'external' to it? As I re-read this question, I wonder whether I've already willy-nilly fallen into the '2-cultures' gap again. But what I've asked seems to be directly related to the issues raised by 'Olympia and Klara', and by the substitution level dilemma posed by 'yes doctor'. Could you show me where - or if - I go wrong, or does the 'language game' make our views forever mutually unintelligible? David On Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 02:06:14PM +0100, David Nyman wrote: RS: Terminology is terminology, it doesn't have a point of view. DN: This may be a nub of disagreement. I'd be interested if you could clarify. My characterisation of a narrative as '3-person' is when (ISTM) that it's an abstraction from, or projection of, some 'situation' that is fundamentally 'participative'. Do you disagree with this? By contrast, I've been struggling recently with language that engages directly with 'participation'. But this leads to your next point. Terminology is about describing communicable notions. As such, the only things words can ever describe are 1st person plural things. Since you are familiar with my book, you can look up the distinction between 1st person (singular), 1st person plural and 3rd person, but these concepts have often been discussed on this list. I can use the term Green for instance, in a sentence to you, and we can be sure of its meaning when referring to shared experience of
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
David Nyman wrote: On 23/06/07, *Brent Meeker* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BM: But he could also switch from an account in terms of the machine level causality to an account in terms of the computed 'world'. In fact he could switch back and forth. Causality in the computed 'world' would have it's corresponding causality in the machine and vice versa. So I don't see why they should be regarded as orthogonal. DN: Because the 'computational' description is arbitrary with respect to the behaviour of the hardware. It's merely an imputation, one of an infinite set of such descriptions that could be imputed to the same hardware behaviour. True. But whatever interpretation was placed on the hardware behavior it would still have the same causal relations in it as the hardware. Although there will be infinitely many possible interpretations, it's not the case that any description will do. Changing the description would be analogous to changing the reference frame or the names on a map. The two processes would still be parallel, not orthogonal. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 23/06/07, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BM: But he could also switch from an account in terms of the machine level causality to an account in terms of the computed 'world'. In fact he could switch back and forth. Causality in the computed 'world' would have it's corresponding causality in the machine and vice versa. So I don't see why they should be regarded as orthogonal. DN: Because the 'computational' description is arbitrary with respect to the behaviour of the hardware. It's merely an imputation, one of an infinite set of such descriptions that could be imputed to the same hardware behaviour. David Nyman wrote: Hi John JM: You may ask about prejudice, shame (about goofed situations), humor (does a computer laugh?) boredom or preferential topics (you push for an astronomical calculation and the computer says: I rather play some Bach music now) Sexual preference (even disinterestedness is slanted), or laziness. If you add untruthfulness in risky situations, you really have a human machine with consciousness DN: All good, earthy, human questions. I guess my (not very exhaustive) examples were motivated by some general notion of a 'personal world' without this necessarily being fully human. A bit like 'Commander Data', perhaps. JM: Now that we arrived at the question I replied-added (sort of) to Colin's question I - let me ask it again: how would YOU know if you are conscious? DN: Since we agree to eliminate the 'obsolete noumenon', we can perhaps re-phrase this as just: 'how do you know x?' And then the answers are of the type 'I just see x, hear x, feel x' and so forth. IOW, 'knowing x' is unmediated - 'objects' like x are just 'embedded' in the structure of the 'knower', and this is recursively related to more inclusive structures within which the knower and its environment are in turn embedded. JM: Or rather: How would you know if you are NOT conscious? Well, you wouldn't. DN: Agreed. If we 'delete the noumenon' we get: How would you know if you are NOT? or: How would you know if you did NOT (know)?. To which we might indeed respond: You would not know, if you were NOT, or: You would not know, if you did NOT (know). JM: If you can, you are conscious. DN: Yes, If you know, then you know. JM: Computers? DN: I think we need to distinguish between 'computers' and 'machines'. I can see no reason in principle why an artefact could not 'know', and be motivated by such knowing to interact with the human world: humans are of course themselves 'natural artefacts'. The question is whether a machine can achieve this purely in virtue of instantiating a 'Universal Turing Machine'. For me the key is 'interaction with the human world'. It may be possible to conceive that some machine is computing a 'world' with 'knowers' embedded in an environment to which they respond appropriately based on what they 'know'. However such a world is 'orthogonal' to the 'world' in which the machine that instantiates the program is itself embedded. IOW, no 'event' as conceived in the 'internal world' has any causal implication to any 'event' in the 'external world', or vice versa. We can see this quite clearly in that an engineer could in principle give a reductive account of the entire causal sequence of the machine's internal function and interaction with the environment without making any reference whatsoever to the programming, or 'world', of the UTM. But he could also switch from an account in terms of the machine level causality to an account in terms of the computed 'world'. In fact he could switch back and forth. Causality in the computed 'world' would have it's corresponding causality in the machine and vice versa. So I don't see why they should be regarded as orthogonal. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
David Nyman wrote: Hi John JM: You may ask about prejudice, shame (about goofed situations), humor (does a computer laugh?) boredom or preferential topics (you push for an astronomical calculation and the computer says: I rather play some Bach music now) Sexual preference (even disinterestedness is slanted), or laziness. If you add untruthfulness in risky situations, you really have a human machine with consciousness DN: All good, earthy, human questions. I guess my (not very exhaustive) examples were motivated by some general notion of a 'personal world' without this necessarily being fully human. A bit like 'Commander Data', perhaps. JM: Now that we arrived at the question I replied-added (sort of) to Colin's question I - let me ask it again: how would YOU know if you are conscious? DN: Since we agree to eliminate the 'obsolete noumenon', we can perhaps re-phrase this as just: 'how do you know x?' And then the answers are of the type 'I just see x, hear x, feel x' and so forth. IOW, 'knowing x' is unmediated - 'objects' like x are just 'embedded' in the structure of the 'knower', and this is recursively related to more inclusive structures within which the knower and its environment are in turn embedded. JM: Or rather: How would you know if you are NOT conscious? Well, you wouldn't. DN: Agreed. If we 'delete the noumenon' we get: How would you know if you are NOT? or: How would you know if you did NOT (know)?. To which we might indeed respond: You would not know, if you were NOT, or: You would not know, if you did NOT (know). JM: If you can, you are conscious. DN: Yes, If you know, then you know. JM: Computers? DN: I think we need to distinguish between 'computers' and 'machines'. I can see no reason in principle why an artefact could not 'know', and be motivated by such knowing to interact with the human world: humans are of course themselves 'natural artefacts'. The question is whether a machine can achieve this purely in virtue of instantiating a 'Universal Turing Machine'. For me the key is 'interaction with the human world'. It may be possible to conceive that some machine is computing a 'world' with 'knowers' embedded in an environment to which they respond appropriately based on what they 'know'. However such a world is 'orthogonal' to the 'world' in which the machine that instantiates the program is itself embedded. IOW, no 'event' as conceived in the 'internal world' has any causal implication to any 'event' in the 'external world', or vice versa. We can see this quite clearly in that an engineer could in principle give a reductive account of the entire causal sequence of the machine's internal function and interaction with the environment without making any reference whatsoever to the programming, or 'world', of the UTM. But he could also switch from an account in terms of the machine level causality to an account in terms of the computed 'world'. In fact he could switch back and forth. Causality in the computed 'world' would have it's corresponding causality in the machine and vice versa. So I don't see why they should be regarded as orthogonal. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 23/06/07, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BM: Changing the description would be analogous to changing the reference frame or the names on a map. DN: I agree. BM: The two processes would still be parallel, not orthogonal. DN: But the inference I draw from your points above is that there is only one process that has causal relevance to the world of the computer, and that is the hardware one. It is 'distinguished' in virtue of emerging at the same level as the computer and the causal network in which it is embedded. The world of the program is 'imaginary', or 'orthogonal', from this perspective - a ghost in the machine. It is 'parallel' only in the mind of the programmer. David David Nyman wrote: On 23/06/07, *Brent Meeker* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BM: But he could also switch from an account in terms of the machine level causality to an account in terms of the computed 'world'. In fact he could switch back and forth. Causality in the computed 'world' would have it's corresponding causality in the machine and vice versa. So I don't see why they should be regarded as orthogonal. DN: Because the 'computational' description is arbitrary with respect to the behaviour of the hardware. It's merely an imputation, one of an infinite set of such descriptions that could be imputed to the same hardware behaviour. True. But whatever interpretation was placed on the hardware behavior it would still have the same causal relations in it as the hardware. Although there will be infinitely many possible interpretations, it's not the case that any description will do. Changing the description would be analogous to changing the reference frame or the names on a map. The two processes would still be parallel, not orthogonal. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Sat, Jun 23, 2007 at 03:58:39PM +0100, David Nyman wrote: On 23/06/07, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RS: I don't think I ever really found myself in disagreement with you. Rather, what is happening is symptomatic of us trying to reach across the divide of JP Snow's two cultures. You are obviously comfortable with the world of literary criticism, and your style of writing reflects this. The trouble is that to someone brought up on a diet of scientific and technical writing, the literary paper may as well be written in ancient greek. Gibberish doesn't mean rubbish or nonsense, just unintelligible. DN: It's interesting that you should perceive it in this way: I hadn't thought about it like this, but I suspect you're not wrong. I haven't consumed very much of your 'diet', and I have indeed read quite a lot of stuff in the style you refer to, although I often find it rather indigestible! But on the other hand, much of my professional experience has been in the world of computer programming, right back to machine code days, so I'm very aware of the difference between 'syntax' and 'semantics', and I know too well how consequences can diverge wildly from a difference of a single bit. How often have I heard the beleaguered self-tester wail I didn't *mean* that! Interesting indeed. I wouldn't have guessed you to have been a programmer. Perhaps you are one of those rare souls with a foot in each camp. That could be be very productive! ... However, in the spirit of the original topic of the thread, I would prefer to ask you directly about the plausibility (which, unless I've misunderstood, you support?) of an AI-program being in principle 'conscious'. I take this to entail that instantiating such a program thereby implements an 'observer' that can respond to and share a reality, in broadly the same terms, with human 'observers'. (I apologise in advance if any paraphrase or short-hand I adopt misrepresents what you say in TON): It seems plausible, certainly. TON, as you comment in the book, takes the 'idealist' stance that 'concrete' notions emerge from observation. Our own relative status as observers participating in 'worlds' is then dependent on computational 'emergence' from the plenitude of all possible bit-strings. Let's say that I'm such an observer and I observe a 'computer' like the one I'm using now. The 'computer' is a 3-person 'concrete emergent' in my 1-person world, and that of the 'plurality' of observers with whom I'm in relation: we can 'interact' with it. Now, we collectively *impute* that some aspect of its 3-person behaviour (e.g. EM phenomena in its internal circuitry) is to be regarded as 'running an AI program' (i.e. ISTM that this is what happens when we 'compile and run' a program). In what way does such imputation entail the evocation - despite the myriad possible 'concrete' instantiations that might represent it - of a *stable* observer capable of participating in our shared '1-person plural' context? IOW, I'm concerned that two different categories are being conflated here: the 'world' at the 'observer level' that includes me and the computer, and the 'world' of the program, which is 'nested' inside this. How can this 'nested' world get any purchase on 'observables' that are 'external' to it? It is no different to a conscious being instantiated in a new-born baby (or 18 month old, or whenever babies actually become conscious). In some Platonic sense, all possible observers are already out there, but by physically instantiating it in our world, we are in effect opening up a communication channel between ourselves and the new consciousness. As I re-read this question, I wonder whether I've already willy-nilly fallen into the '2-cultures' gap again. But what I've asked seems to be directly related to the issues raised by 'Olympia and Klara', and by the substitution level dilemma posed by 'yes doctor'. Could you show me where - or if - I go wrong, or does the 'language game' make our views forever mutually unintelligible? David This last post is perfectly lucid to me. I hope I've answered it adequately. Cheers -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 21/06/07, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RS: It seems you've miscontrued my bashing, sorry about that. I was, perhaps somewhat colourfully, meaning extracting some meaning. Since your prose (and often Colin's for that matter) often sounds like gibberish to me, I have to work at it, rather like bashing a lump of metal with a hammer. Sometimes I succeed, but other times I just have to give up. DN: I do sympathise, truly! RS: I most certainly didn't mean unwarranted critising of, or flaming. I am interested in learning, and I don't immediately assume that you (or anyone else for that matter) have nothing interesting to say. DN: No, I've never thought you were 'flaming' and I genuinely appreciate any time you take to respond. I was only indicating the sort of response that would most help the improvement of my thought process. RS: Terminology is terminology, it doesn't have a point of view. DN: This may be a nub of disagreement. I'd be interested if you could clarify. My characterisation of a narrative as '3-person' is when (ISTM) that it's an abstraction from, or projection of, some 'situation' that is fundamentally 'participative'. Do you disagree with this? By contrast, I've been struggling recently with language that engages directly with 'participation'. But this leads to your next point. RS: Terms should have accepted meaning, unless we agree on a different meaning for the purposes of discussion. DN: But where there is no generally accepted meaning, or a disputed one, how can we then proceed? Hence my attempts at definition (which I hate BTW), and which you find to be gibberish. Is there a way out of this? BTW, when I read 'Theory of Nothing', which I find very cogent, ISTM that virtually its entire focus is on aspects of a 'participatory' approach. So I'm more puzzled than ever why we're in disagreement. I've really been trying to say that points-of-view (or 'worlds') emerge from *structure* defined somehow, and that (tautologically, surely) the 'primitives' of such structure (in whatever theoretical terms we choose) must be capable of 'animating' such povs or worlds. IOW povs are always 'takes' on the whole situation, not inherent in individuated 'things'. RS: 2) Oxygen and hydrogen atoms as counterexamples of a chemical potential that is not an electric field DN: I certainly didn't mean to imply this! I just meant that we seemed to be counterposing 'abstracted' and 'participative' accounts, in the sense I indicate above. Something would really help me at this point: could I ask how would you relate 'physical' levels of description you've used (e.g. 'oxygen and hydrogen atoms') to the 'participative' approach of 'TON'? IOW, how do these narratives converge on the range of phenomena to be explained? David On Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 12:22:31AM -, David Nyman wrote: On Jun 21, 1:45 pm, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You assume way too much about my motives here. I have only been trying to bash some meaning out of the all too flaccid prose that's being flung about at the moment. I will often employ counterexamples simply to illustrate points of poor terminology, or sloppy thinking. Its a useful exercise, not a personal attack on beliefs. Russell, If you believe that a particular thought is poorly expressed or sloppy, I would appreciate any help you might offer in making it more precise, rather than 'bashing' it. It seems you've miscontrued my bashing, sorry about that. I was, perhaps somewhat colourfully, meaning extracting some meaning. Since your prose (and often Colin's for that matter) often sounds like gibberish to me, I have to work at it, rather like bashing a lump of metal with a hammer. Sometimes I succeed, but other times I just have to give up. I most certainly didn't mean unwarranted critising of, or flaming. I am interested in learning, and I don't immediately assume that you (or anyone else for that matter) have nothing interesting to say. Sometimes conversations on the list feel more like talking past one another, and this in general isn't 'a useful exercise'. My comment to Brent was motivated by a perception that you'd been countering my 1-personal terminology with 3- person formalisms. Terminology is terminology, it doesn't have a point of view. Terms should have accepted meaning, unless we agree on a different meaning for the purposes of discussion. Consequently, as such, they didn't strike me as equivalent, or as genuine 'counterexamples': this surprised me, in Which counterexamples are you talking about? 1) Biological evolution as a counterexample to Colin's assertion about doing science implies consciousness. This started this thread. 2) Oxygen and hydrogen atoms as counterexamples of a chemical potential that is not an electric field 3) Was there something else? I can't quite recall now. view of some of the other ideas you've expressed. So I may
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Dear David. do not expect from me the theoretical level of technicality-talk er get from Bruno: I talk (and think) common sense (my own) and if the theoretical technicalities sound strange, I return to my thinking. That's what I got, that's what I use (plagiarized from the Hungarian commi joke: what is the difference between the peoples' democracy and a wife? Nothing: that's what we got that's what we love) When I read your questioning the computer, i realized that you are in the ballpark of the AI people (maybe also AL - sorry, Russell) who select machine-accessible aspects for comparing. You may ask about prejudice, shame (about goofed situations), humor (does a computer laugh?) boredom or preferential topics (you push for an astronomical calculation and the computer says: I rather play some Bach music now) Sexual preference (even disinterestedness is slanted), or laziness. If you add untruthfulness in risky situations, you really have a human machine with consciousness (whatever people say it is - I agree with your evading that unidentified obsolete noumenon as much as possible). I found Bruno's post well fitting - if i have some hint what ...inner personal or self-referential modality... may mean. I could not 'practicalize' it. I still frown when abondoning (the meaning of) something but consider items as pertaining to it - a rough paraphrasing, I admit. To what?. I don't feel comfortable to borrow math-methods for nonmath explanations but that is my deficiency. Now that we arrived at thequestion I replied-added (sort of) to Colin's question I - let me ask it again: how would YOU know if you are conscious? (Conscious is more meaningful than cc-ness). Or rather: How would you know if you are NOT conscious? Well, you wouldn't. If you can, you are conscious. Computers? Have a good weekend John Mikes On 6/20/07, David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jun 5, 3:12 pm, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Personally I don' think we can be *personally* mistaken about our own consciousness even if we can be mistaken about anything that consciousness could be about. I agree with this, but I would prefer to stop using the term 'consciousness' at all. To make a decision (to whatever degree of certainty) about whether a machine possessed a 1-person pov analogous to a human one, we would surely ask it the same sort of questions one would ask a human. That is: questions about its personal 'world' - what it sees, hears, tastes (and perhaps extended non-human modalitiies); what its intentions are, and how it carries them into practice. From the machine's point-of-view, we would expect it to report such features of its personal world as being immediately present (as ours are), and that it be 'blind' to whatever 'rendering mechanisms' may underlie this (as we are). If it passed these tests, it would be making similar claims on a personal world as we do, and deploying this to achieve similar ends. Since in this case it could ask itself the same questions that we can, it would have the same grounds for reaching the same conclusion. However, I've argued in the other bit of this thread against the possibility of a computer in practice being able to instantiate such a 1-person world merely in virtue of 'soft' behaviour (i.e. programming). I suppose I would therefore have to conclude that no machine could actually pass the tests I describe above - whether self- administered or not - purely in virtue of running some AI program, however complex. This is an empirical prediction, and will have to await an empirical outcome. David On Jun 5, 3:12 pm, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le 03-juin-07, à 21:52, Hal Finney a écrit : Part of what I wanted to get at in my thought experiment is the bafflement and confusion an AI should feel when exposed to human ideas about consciousness. Various people here have proffered their own ideas, and we might assume that the AI would read these suggestions, along with many other ideas that contradict the ones offered here. It seems hard to escape the conclusion that the only logical response is for the AI to figuratively throw up its hands and say that it is impossible to know if it is conscious, because even humans cannot agree on what consciousness is. Augustin said about (subjective) *time* that he knows perfectly what it is, but that if you ask him to say what it is, then he admits being unable to say anything. I think that this applies to consciousness. We know what it is, although only in some personal and uncommunicable way. Now this happens to be true also for many mathematical concept. Strictly speaking we don't know how to define the natural numbers, and we know today that indeed we cannot define them in a communicable way, that is without assuming the auditor knows already what they are. So what can we do. We can do what mathematicians do all the time. We
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 12:45:43PM +1000, Colin Hales wrote: OK, so by necessary primitive, you mean the syntactic or microscopic layer. But take this away, and you no longer have emergence. See endless discussions on emergence - my paper, or Jochen Fromm's book for instance. Does this mean magical emergence is oxymoronic? I do not think I mean what you suggest. To make it almost tediously obvious I could rephrase it NECESSARY PRIMITIVE ORGANISATIONAL LAYER. Necessary in that if you take it away the 'emergent' is gone.PRIMITIVE ORGANISATIONAL LAYER = one of the layers of the hierarchy of the natural world (from strings to atoms to cells and beyond): real observable -on-the-benchtop-in-the-lab - layers. Still sounds like the syntactic layer to me. Not some arm waving syntactic or information or complexity or Computaton or function_atom or representon. Magical emergence is real, specious and exactly what I have said all along: real and specious? You claim consciousness arises as a result of [syntactic or information or complexity or Computational or function_atom] = necessary primitive, but it has no scientifically verifiable correlation with any real natural world phenomenon that you can stand next to and have your picture taken. The only form of consciousness known to us is emergent relative to a syntactic of neurons, which you most certainly can take pictures of. I'm not sure what your point is here. You can't use an object derived using the contents of consciousness(observation) to explain why there are any contents of consciousness(observation) at all. It is illogical. (see the wigner quote below). I find the general failure to recognise this brute reality very exasperating. People used to think that about life. How can you construct (eg an animal) without having a complete discription of that animal. So how can an animal self-reproduce without having a complete description of itself. But this then leads to an infinite regress. The solution to this conundrum was found in the early 20th century - first with such theoretical constructs as combinators and lambda calculus, then later the actual genetic machinery of life. If it is possible in the case of self-reproduction, the it will also likely to be possible in the case of self-awareness and consciousness. Stating this to illogical doesn't help. That's what people from the time of Descartes thought about self-reproduction. COLIN snip So this means that in a computer abstraction. d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- is already part of KNOWLEDGE(t) dt RUSSEL No its not. dK/dt is generated by the interaction of the rules with the environment. No. No. No. There is the old assumption thing again. How, exactly, are you assuming that the agent 'interacts' with the environment? This is the world external to the agent, yes?. Do not say through sensory measurement, because that will not do. There are an infinite number of universes that could give rise to the same sensory measurements. All true, but how does that differ in the case of humans? The extreme uniqueness of the circumstance aloneWe ARE the thing we describe. We are more entitled to any such claims .notwithstanding that... What are you talking about here? Self-awareness? We started off talking about whether machines doing science was evidence that they're conscious. You've lost me completely here. Here you are trying to say that an explanation of consciousness lies in that direction (magical emergence flavour X), when you appear to You're the one introducing the term magical emergence, for which I've not obtained an adequate definitions from you. ... At the same time we can plausibly and defensibly justify the claim that whatever the universe is really made of , QUALIA are made of it too, and that the qualia process and the rest of the process (that appear like atoms etc in the qualiaare all of the same KIND or CLASS of natural phenomenon...a perfectly natural phenomenon innate to whatever it is that it is actually made of. That is what I mean by we must live in the kind of universe. and I mean 'must' in the sense of formal necessitation of the most stringent kind. cheers, colin I'm still confused about what you're trying to say. Are you saying our qualia are made up of electrons and quarks, or if not them, then whatever they're made of (strings perhaps?) How could you imagine the colour green being made up of this stuff, or the wetness of water? -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 19, 12:31 pm, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Interaction is in terms of fields - electromagnetic for most of our everyday examples. The fields themselves are emergent effects from virtual boson exchange. Now how is this related to sensing exactly? (Other than sensing being a particular subclass of interaction) Please, spare me the physico-mathematical imperialism! You say interaction is in terms of fields'. I think what you might claim more modestly is something like there is a mathematical formalism in which interaction is modelled in terms of 'fields'. Fair enough. But implicitly the formalism is a projection from (and reference to) a *participatory* actuality which isn't simply 'mathematical' (pace Bruno - and anyway, not in the sense he deploys it for the purposes of COMP). And I'm not of course imputing 'sensing' to the formalism, but to the 'de-formalised participants' from which it is projected. 'Participatory' here means that you must situate yourself at the point of reference of your formalism, and intuit that 'thou-art-that' from which the projection originates. If you do this, does the term 'sensing' still seem so 'soft'? The formalisms are projections from the participatory semantics of a 'modulated continuum' that embraces you, me and everything we know. When you situate yourself here, do you really not 'get' the intuitive self-relation between continuum and modulation? Even when you know that Russell's 1-person world - an 'emergent' from this - indeed self-relates in both sense and action? If not, then as Colin is arguing, you'd have to erect a sign with 'then magic happens' between 'emergent' and 'reductive' accounts. Sensing to me implies some form of agency at one end of the interaction. I don't attribute any sort of agency to the interaction between two hydrogen atoms making up a hydrogen molecule for instance. Same illustration. 'Hydrogen atoms' are again just projective formalisms to which of course nobody would impute 'agency'. But situate yourself where I suggest, and intuit the actions of any 'de- formalised participants' referenced by the term 'hydrogen atoms' that are implicated in Russell's 1-person world. From this perspective, any 'agency' that Russell displays is indeed inherent in such lower- level 'entities' in 'reduced' form. This is a perfectly standard aspect of any 'reductive-emergent' scheme. For some reason you seem prepared to grant it in a 3-person account, but not in a participatory one. The customary 'liquidity' and 'life' counter-arguments are simply misconceived here, because these attributions emerge from, and hence are applicable to, formal descriptions, independent of their 'de- formalised' participatory referents. But you can't apply the semantics of 'sensing' and 'agency' in the same way, because these are ineluctably participatory, and are coherent only when intuited as such 'all the way down' (e.g. as attributes of 1-person worlds and the participatory 'sense-action' hierarchies on which they supervene). David On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 09:40:59AM -, David Nyman wrote: On Jun 19, 5:09 am, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: David, I was unable to perceive a question in what you just wrote. I haven't a response, since (sadly) I was unable to understand what you were talking about. :( Really? I'm surprised, but words can indeed be very slippery in this context. Oh, well. To condense: my argument is intended to pump the intuition that a 'primitive' (or 'reduced') notion of 'sensing' (or please substitute anything that carries the thrust of 'able to locate', 'knows it's there', etc.) is already inescapably present in the notion of 'interaction' between fundamental 'entities' in any feasible model of reality. Else, how could we claim that they retain any coherent sense of being 'in contact'? Interaction is in terms of fields - electromagnetic for most of our everyday examples. The fields themselves are emergent effects from virtual boson exchange. Now how is this related to sensing exactly? (Other than sensing being a particular subclass of interaction) ... implications. So my question is, do you think it has any merit, or is simply wrong, indeterminate, or gibberish? And why? If I have to pick an answer: gibberish. Sensing to me implies some form of agency at one end of the interaction. I don't attribute any sort of agency to the interaction between two hydrogen atoms making up a hydrogen molecule for instance. -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
David Nyman wrote: On Jun 19, 12:31 pm, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Interaction is in terms of fields - electromagnetic for most of our everyday examples. The fields themselves are emergent effects from virtual boson exchange. Now how is this related to sensing exactly? (Other than sensing being a particular subclass of interaction) Please, spare me the physico-mathematical imperialism! You say interaction is in terms of fields'. I think what you might claim more modestly is something like there is a mathematical formalism in which interaction is modelled in terms of 'fields'. Fair enough. But implicitly the formalism is a projection from (and reference to) a *participatory* actuality which isn't simply 'mathematical' (pace Bruno - and anyway, not in the sense he deploys it for the purposes of COMP). And I'm not of course imputing 'sensing' to the formalism, but to the 'de-formalised participants' from which it is projected. 'Participatory' here means that you must situate yourself at the point of reference of your formalism, and intuit that 'thou-art-that' from which the projection originates. If you do this, does the term 'sensing' still seem so 'soft'? The formalisms are projections from the participatory semantics of a 'modulated continuum' that embraces you, me and everything we know. When you situate yourself here, do you really not 'get' the intuitive self-relation between continuum and modulation? Even when you know that Russell's 1-person world - an 'emergent' from this - indeed self-relates in both sense and action? If not, then as Colin is arguing, you'd have to erect a sign with 'then magic happens' between 'emergent' and 'reductive' accounts. Sounds like the sign is already up and it reads, Participatorily intuit the magic of the de-formalized ding an sich. Sensing to me implies some form of agency at one end of the interaction. I don't attribute any sort of agency to the interaction between two hydrogen atoms making up a hydrogen molecule for instance. Same illustration. 'Hydrogen atoms' are again just projective formalisms to which of course nobody would impute 'agency'. But situate yourself where I suggest, and intuit the actions of any 'de- formalised participants' referenced by the term 'hydrogen atoms' that are implicated in Russell's 1-person world. From this perspective, any 'agency' that Russell displays is indeed inherent in such lower- level 'entities' in 'reduced' form. This is a perfectly standard aspect of any 'reductive-emergent' scheme. For some reason you seem prepared to grant it in a 3-person account, but not in a participatory one. The customary 'liquidity' and 'life' counter-arguments are simply misconceived here, because these attributions emerge from, and hence are applicable to, formal descriptions, independent of their 'de- formalised' participatory referents. But you can't apply the semantics of 'sensing' and 'agency' in the same way, because these are ineluctably participatory, and are coherent only when intuited as such 'all the way down' (e.g. as attributes of 1-person worlds and the participatory 'sense-action' hierarchies on which they supervene). So a hydrogen atom has a 1st-person world view, but this is more than it's physical interactions (which are merely part of it's formal description)? Maybe so - but my intuition doesn't tell me anything about it. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
David wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jun 21, 2007 2:31 PM David, you are still too mild IMO. You wrote: ... there is a mathematical formalism in which interaction is modelled in terms of 'fields'. I would say: we call 'fields' what seems to be callable 'interaction' upon the outcome of certain mathematical transformations - or something similar. The similarity of math formulas does not justify implication of some physical reality - whatever that may mean. What 'SPINS'? What undulates into Waves? Russell's ... emergent effects from virtual boson exchange. ... are indeed virtually (imaginary?) emergent VIRTUAL effects from a virtual exchange of virtual bosons. I agree: that would not match your Fair enough. I like your quest for de-formalized participants (like e.g. energy?) H and other atoms are ingenius representatives serving explanation for things observed scimpily in ages of epistemic insufficiency by 'age'-adjusted instrumentation. And with new epistemic enrichment science does not 'reconsider' what was 'believed', but modifies it to maintain the 'earlier' adjusted to the later information (e.g. entropy in its 15th or so variation). Molecules were rod-connected atom-figments, then turned into electric connections, then secondary attraction-agglomerates, more functional than were the orig. primitive bindings. It still does not fit for biology, this embryonic state limited model- science as applied for the elusive life processes. Something happens and we 'think' what. Those ingenius(ly applied) math equations based on previous cut-model quantization (disregarding the influence of the 'beyond model' total world) are 'matched' by constants, new math, or even for such purpose invented concepts which, however, in the 274th consecutive application are considered facts. The 'matches' are considered WITHIN the aspects included into the model, other aspect unmatches form 'paradoxes', or necessitate axioms. MY synthesized macromolecules(?) were successfully applicable in practical technology - in the same realm they were made for. The mass of an electron matches miraculously to other results within the same wing of the edifice of scientific branch. And how about your mentioned 'agency'? it is all figured in our human patterns, what and how WE should do to get to an effect (maybe poorly observed!). Nature does not have to follow our logic or mechanism. We know only a part of it, understand it by our logic, make it pars pro toto and describe nature in our actual human ways. That is conventional science in which I made a good living, successful practical results, publications and reputation in my branch. Then I started to think. We live on misconceptions and a new paradigm is still in those. It is always a joy to read your posts. John On 6/21/07, David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jun 19, 12:31 pm, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Interaction is in terms of fields - electromagnetic for most of our everyday examples. The fields themselves are emergent effects from virtual boson exchange. Now how is this related to sensing exactly? (Other than sensing being a particular subclass of interaction) Please, spare me the physico-mathematical imperialism! You say interaction is in terms of fields'. I think what you might claim more modestly is something like there is a mathematical formalism in which interaction is modelled in terms of 'fields'. Fair enough. But implicitly the formalism is a projection from (and reference to) a *participatory* actuality which isn't simply 'mathematical' (pace Bruno - and anyway, not in the sense he deploys it for the purposes of COMP). And I'm not of course imputing 'sensing' to the formalism, but to the 'de-formalised participants' from which it is projected. 'Participatory' here means that you must situate yourself at the point of reference of your formalism, and intuit that 'thou-art-that' from which the projection originates. If you do this, does the term 'sensing' still seem so 'soft'? The formalisms are projections from the participatory semantics of a 'modulated continuum' that embraces you, me and everything we know. When you situate yourself here, do you really not 'get' the intuitive self-relation between continuum and modulation? Even when you know that Russell's 1-person world - an 'emergent' from this - indeed self-relates in both sense and action? If not, then as Colin is arguing, you'd have to erect a sign with 'then magic happens' between 'emergent' and 'reductive' accounts. Sensing to me implies some form of agency at one end of the interaction. I don't attribute any sort of agency to the interaction between two hydrogen atoms making up a hydrogen molecule for instance. Same illustration. 'Hydrogen atoms' are again just projective formalisms to which of course nobody would impute 'agency'. But situate yourself where I suggest, and intuit the actions of any 'de- formalised participants'
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 21, 8:24 pm, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Sounds like the sign is already up and it reads, Participatorily intuit the
magic of the de-formalized ding an sich.
I'd be happy with that sign, if you substituted a phrase like 'way of
being' for 'magic'. There is no analogy between the two cases, because
Russell seeks to pull the entire 1-person rabbit, complete with 'way
of being', out of a hat that contains only 3-person formalisations.
This is magic with a vengeance. The ding an sich (and, although I mis-
attributed monads to him, Kant knew a 'thing' or two) is what we all
participate in, whether you intuit it or not. And my hat and my
rabbit, whether 0, 1, or 3-person versions, are participatory all the
way down.
So a hydrogen atom has a 1st-person world view, but this is more than it's
physical interactions (which are merely part of it's formal
description)?
Maybe so - but my intuition doesn't tell me anything about it.
Clearly not. But your sometime way with (dis)analogy leads me to
mistrust your intuition in this case. Firstly, we're dealing with a
*reductive* account, so '1-person world view' in the case of a 'de-
formalised' hydrogen atom must be 'reduced' correspondingly. Such a
beastie neither sees nor hears, neither does it dream nor plan. But
then, it's 'formalised' counterpart isn't 'wet' either. But the
*behaviour* of such counterparts is standardly attested as a 'reduced'
component of 3-person accounts of the 'emergence' of 'liquidity'.
Analogously (and this really *is* analogous) the de-formalised
participant ('DFP') referenced by 'hydrogen atom' is a 'reduced'
component of a participative account of the emergence Russell's 1-
person world. But it's merely daft to suppose that its 'way of being'
entails a 1-person 'mini sensorium', because it manifestly lacks any
'machinery' to render this. Its humble role is to be a *component* in
*just* that 'machinery' that renders *Russell's* 1-person world.
DFPs aren't just the 'medium' of 1-person accounts, but that of *all*
accounts: 0, 1, or 3-person. All accounts are 'DFP-
instantiated' (whatever else?). The one you're presently viewing is
instantiated in the medium of DFPs variously corresponding to
'brains', 'computers', 'networks' etc. A 3-person account is just a
'formal take' on 'DFP reality'; a 1-person account is a 'personal
take'; and a 0-person account is a 'de-personalised take'.
David
David Nyman wrote:
On Jun 19, 12:31 pm, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Interaction is in terms of fields - electromagnetic for most of our
everyday examples. The fields themselves are emergent effects from
virtual boson exchange. Now how is this related to sensing exactly?
(Other than sensing being a particular subclass of interaction)
Please, spare me the physico-mathematical imperialism! You say
interaction is in terms of fields'. I think what you might claim
more modestly is something like there is a mathematical formalism in
which interaction is modelled in terms of 'fields'. Fair enough. But
implicitly the formalism is a projection from (and reference to) a
*participatory* actuality which isn't simply 'mathematical' (pace
Bruno - and anyway, not in the sense he deploys it for the purposes of
COMP). And I'm not of course imputing 'sensing' to the formalism, but
to the 'de-formalised participants' from which it is projected.
'Participatory' here means that you must situate yourself at the point
of reference of your formalism, and intuit that 'thou-art-that' from
which the projection originates. If you do this, does the term
'sensing' still seem so 'soft'? The formalisms are projections from
the participatory semantics of a 'modulated continuum' that embraces
you, me and everything we know. When you situate yourself here, do
you really not 'get' the intuitive self-relation between continuum and
modulation? Even when you know that Russell's 1-person world - an
'emergent' from this - indeed self-relates in both sense and action?
If not, then as Colin is arguing, you'd have to erect a sign with
'then magic happens' between 'emergent' and 'reductive' accounts.
Sounds like the sign is already up and it reads, Participatorily intuit the
magic of the de-formalized ding an sich.
Sensing to me implies some
form of agency at one end of the interaction. I don't attribute any sort
of agency to the interaction between two hydrogen atoms making up
a hydrogen molecule for instance.
Same illustration. 'Hydrogen atoms' are again just projective
formalisms to which of course nobody would impute 'agency'. But
situate yourself where I suggest, and intuit the actions of any 'de-
formalised participants' referenced by the term 'hydrogen atoms' that
are implicated in Russell's 1-person world. From this perspective,
any 'agency' that Russell displays is indeed inherent in such lower-
level 'entities' in 'reduced' form. This
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 21, 8:42 pm, John Mikes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: David, you are still too mild IMO. I try not to be churlish. I like your quest for de-formalized participants (like e.g. energy?) Not sure - can you say more? The 'matches' are considered WITHIN the aspects included into the model, other aspect unmatches form 'paradoxes', or necessitate axioms. MY synthesized macromolecules(?) were successfully applicable in practical technology - in the same realm they were made for. The mass of an electron matches miraculously to other results within the same wing of the edifice of scientific branch. Yes, the principal successes of science are instrumental, and its models are designed for largely instrumental ends. It is especially psychologically difficult to go 'meta' to such models, and the attitudes that spawned them. But when we turn our attention reflexively to 1-person worlds, we have no option but to go 'meta' to 3-person science, in pursuit of a fully participatory 'natural philosophy'. And perhaps if we are successful we will finally achieve the instrumentality to realise 'artificial' 1-person worlds, for good or ill. Without it, we almost certainly won't. And how about your mentioned 'agency'? it is all figured in our human patterns, what and how WE should do to get to an effect (maybe poorly observed!). Nature does not have to follow our logic or mechanism. We know only a part of it, understand it by our logic, make it pars pro toto and describe nature in our actual human ways. As I said, my attempt is really just to get to some human understanding (what else?) of some sort of 'de-formalised participatory semantics' for our human situation, rather than restricting my thinking to 3-person formalised 'syntactics'. I may even be able to see a glimmer of the connection between the two. But I cannot bend Nature to my will! We live on misconceptions and a new paradigm is still in those. Just so. It is always a joy to read your posts. I thank you. David David wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jun 21, 2007 2:31 PM David, you are still too mild IMO. You wrote: ... there is a mathematical formalism in which interaction is modelled in terms of 'fields'. I would say: we call 'fields' what seems to be callable 'interaction' upon the outcome of certain mathematical transformations - or something similar. The similarity of math formulas does not justify implication of some physical reality - whatever that may mean. What 'SPINS'? What undulates into Waves? Russell's ... emergent effects from virtual boson exchange. ... are indeed virtually (imaginary?) emergent VIRTUAL effects from a virtual exchange of virtual bosons. I agree: that would not match your Fair enough. I like your quest for de-formalized participants (like e.g. energy?) H and other atoms are ingenius representatives serving explanation for things observed scimpily in ages of epistemic insufficiency by 'age'-adjusted instrumentation. And with new epistemic enrichment science does not 'reconsider' what was 'believed', but modifies it to maintain the 'earlier' adjusted to the later information (e.g. entropy in its 15th or so variation). Molecules were rod-connected atom-figments, then turned into electric connections, then secondary attraction-agglomerates, more functional than were the orig. primitive bindings. It still does not fit for biology, this embryonic state limited model- science as applied for the elusive life processes. Something happens and we 'think' what. Those ingenius(ly applied) math equations based on previous cut-model quantization (disregarding the influence of the 'beyond model' total world) are 'matched' by constants, new math, or even for such purpose invented concepts which, however, in the 274th consecutive application are considered facts. The 'matches' are considered WITHIN the aspects included into the model, other aspect unmatches form 'paradoxes', or necessitate axioms. MY synthesized macromolecules(?) were successfully applicable in practical technology - in the same realm they were made for. The mass of an electron matches miraculously to other results within the same wing of the edifice of scientific branch. And how about your mentioned 'agency'? it is all figured in our human patterns, what and how WE should do to get to an effect (maybe poorly observed!). Nature does not have to follow our logic or mechanism. We know only a part of it, understand it by our logic, make it pars pro toto and describe nature in our actual human ways. That is conventional science in which I made a good living, successful practical results, publications and reputation in my branch. Then I started to think. We live on misconceptions and a new paradigm is still in those. It is always a joy to read your posts. John On 6/21/07, David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jun 19, 12:31 pm, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Interaction is in terms of
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 08:44:54PM -, David Nyman wrote: There is no analogy between the two cases, because Russell seeks to pull the entire 1-person rabbit, complete with 'way of being', out of a hat that contains only 3-person formalisations. This is magic with a vengeance. You assume way too much about my motives here. I have only been trying to bash some meaning out of the all too flaccid prose that's being flung about at the moment. I will often employ counterexamples simply to illustrate points of poor terminology, or sloppy thinking. Its a useful exercise, not a personal attack on beliefs. BTW - I'm with you Brent. Brent is also doing exactly this, sometimes satirically. Cheers -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 21, 1:45 pm, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You assume way too much about my motives here. I have only been trying to bash some meaning out of the all too flaccid prose that's being flung about at the moment. I will often employ counterexamples simply to illustrate points of poor terminology, or sloppy thinking. Its a useful exercise, not a personal attack on beliefs. Russell, If you believe that a particular thought is poorly expressed or sloppy, I would appreciate any help you might offer in making it more precise, rather than 'bashing' it. Sometimes conversations on the list feel more like talking past one another, and this in general isn't 'a useful exercise'. My comment to Brent was motivated by a perception that you'd been countering my 1-personal terminology with 3- person formalisms. Consequently, as such, they didn't strike me as equivalent, or as genuine 'counterexamples': this surprised me, in view of some of the other ideas you've expressed. So I may well have been too swift to assign certain motives to you, not having detected any pedagogically-motivated intent to caricature, and I would welcome your more specific clarification and correction. I should say at this point that I too find the 'terminology' task very trying, as virtual any existing vocabulary comes freighted with pre- existing implications of the sort you have been exploiting in your ripostes, but which I didn't intend. I would welcome any superior alternatives you might suggest. Trying or not, I'm not quite ready to give up the attempt to clarify these ideas. If you think the exercise misconceived or poorly executed, it's of course up to you to choose to 'bash', satirise, or ignore it, but I would particularly welcome open- ended questions. Brent is also doing exactly this, sometimes satirically. Again, I don't mean to seem humourless, but my basic intention is a genuine exchange of ideas, rather than satire or caricature. So I do try to empathise as best I can with the issues on the other side of the debate, before deciding if, and how, I disagree. How successful I may be is another matter. I'd be more than willing, as ever, to have another go! Cheers David On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 08:44:54PM -, David Nyman wrote: There is no analogy between the two cases, because Russell seeks to pull the entire 1-person rabbit, complete with 'way of being', out of a hat that contains only 3-person formalisations. This is magic with a vengeance. You assume way too much about my motives here. I have only been trying to bash some meaning out of the all too flaccid prose that's being flung about at the moment. I will often employ counterexamples simply to illustrate points of poor terminology, or sloppy thinking. Its a useful exercise, not a personal attack on beliefs. BTW - I'm with you Brent. Brent is also doing exactly this, sometimes satirically. Cheers -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 12:22:31AM -, David Nyman wrote: On Jun 21, 1:45 pm, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You assume way too much about my motives here. I have only been trying to bash some meaning out of the all too flaccid prose that's being flung about at the moment. I will often employ counterexamples simply to illustrate points of poor terminology, or sloppy thinking. Its a useful exercise, not a personal attack on beliefs. Russell, If you believe that a particular thought is poorly expressed or sloppy, I would appreciate any help you might offer in making it more precise, rather than 'bashing' it. It seems you've miscontrued my bashing, sorry about that. I was, perhaps somewhat colourfully, meaning extracting some meaning. Since your prose (and often Colin's for that matter) often sounds like gibberish to me, I have to work at it, rather like bashing a lump of metal with a hammer. Sometimes I succeed, but other times I just have to give up. I most certainly didn't mean unwarranted critising of, or flaming. I am interested in learning, and I don't immediately assume that you (or anyone else for that matter) have nothing interesting to say. Sometimes conversations on the list feel more like talking past one another, and this in general isn't 'a useful exercise'. My comment to Brent was motivated by a perception that you'd been countering my 1-personal terminology with 3- person formalisms. Terminology is terminology, it doesn't have a point of view. Terms should have accepted meaning, unless we agree on a different meaning for the purposes of discussion. Consequently, as such, they didn't strike me as equivalent, or as genuine 'counterexamples': this surprised me, in Which counterexamples are you talking about? 1) Biological evolution as a counterexample to Colin's assertion about doing science implies consciousness. This started this thread. 2) Oxygen and hydrogen atoms as counterexamples of a chemical potential that is not an electric field 3) Was there something else? I can't quite recall now. view of some of the other ideas you've expressed. So I may well have been too swift to assign certain motives to you, not having detected any pedagogically-motivated intent to caricature, and I would welcome your more specific clarification and correction. I should say at this point that I too find the 'terminology' task very trying, as virtual any existing vocabulary comes freighted with pre- existing implications of the sort you have been exploiting in your ripostes, but which I didn't intend. I would welcome any superior alternatives you might suggest. Trying or not, I'm not quite ready to give up the attempt to clarify these ideas. If you think the exercise misconceived or poorly executed, it's of course up to you to choose to 'bash', satirise, or ignore it, but I would particularly welcome open- ended questions. I don't recall satirising anything recently. It is true that I usually ignore comments that don't make sense after a couple of minutes of staring at the phrase, unless really prodded like you did in your recent post on attributing sensing to arbitrary interactions. -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 20, 3:35 am, Colin Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Methinks you 'get it'. You are far more eloquent than I am, but we talk of
the same thing..
Thank you Colin. 'Eloquence' or 'gibberish'? Hmm...but let us
proceed...
where I identify ??? as a necessary primitive and comment that
'computation' or 'information' or 'complexity' have only the vaguest of an
arm waving grip on any claim to such a specific role. Such is the 'magical
emergence' genre.
Just so. My own 'meta-analysis' is also a (foolhardy?) attempt to
identify the relevant 'necessity' as *logical*. The (awesome) power
of this would be to render 'pure' 3-person accounts (i.e. so-called
'physical') radically causally incomplete. Some primitive like yours
would be a *logically necessary* foundation of *any* coherent account
of 'what-is'.
Strawson, and Chalmers, as I've understood them, make the (IMO)
fundamental mis-step of proposing a superadded 'fundamental property'
to the 'physical' substrate ('e.g. 'information'). This has the fatal
effect of rendering such a 'property' *optional* - i.e. it appears
that everything could proceed just as happily without it in the 3-
person account, and hence 'consciousness' can (by some) still airily
be dismissed as an 'illusion'. The first move here, I think, is to
stop using the term 'consciousness' to denote any 'property'.
My own meta-analysis attempts to pump the intuition that all
processes, whether 0, 1, or 3-person, must from *logical necessity* be
identified with 'participative encounters', which are unintelligible
in the absence of *any* component: namely 'participation', 'sense',
and 'action'. So, to 'exist' or 'behave', one must be:
1) a participant (i.e. the prerequisite for 'existence')
2) sensible (i.e. differentiating some 'other' in relationship)
3) active (i.e. the exchange of 'motivation' with the related 'other')
and all manifestations of 'participative existence' must be 'fractal'
to these characteristics in both directions (i.e. 'emergence' and
'supervention'). So, to negate these components one-by-one:
1) if not a participant, you don't get to play
2) if not sensible, you can't relate
3) if not active in relationship, you have no 'motivation'
These logical or semantic characteristics are agnostic to the
'primitive base'. For example, if we are to assume AR as that base,
then the 'realism' part must denote that we 'participate' in AR, that
'numbers' are 'mutually sensible', and that arithmetical relationship
is 'motivational'. If I've understood Bruno, 'computationalism'
generates 'somethings' at the 1-person plural level. My arguments
against 'software uploading' then apply at the level of these
'emergent somethings', not to the axiomatic base. This is the nub of
the 'level of substitution' dilemma in the 'yes doctor' puzzle.
In 'somethingist' accounts, 'players' participate in sensory-
motivational encounters between 'fundamental somethings' (e.g.
conceived as vibrational emergents of a modulated continuum).
The critical move in the above argument is that by making the relation
between 0,1, and 3-person accounts and the primitives *self-relation*
or identity, we jettison the logical possibility of 'de-composing'
participative sensory-motivational relationship. 0,1, and 3-person
are then just different povs on this:
0 - the participatory 'arena' itself
1 - the 'world' of a differentiated 'participant'
3 - a 'proxy', parasitising a 1-person world
'Zombies' and 'software' are revealed as being category 3: they
'parasitise' 1-person worlds, sometimes as 'proxies' for distal
participants, sometimes 'stand-alone'. The imputation of 'soft
behaviour' to a computer, for example, is just such a 'proxy', and has
no relevance whatsoever to the 1-person pov of the distal
'participatory player'. Such a pov can emerge only fractally from its
*participative* constitution.
A
principle of the kind X must exist or we wouldn't be having this
discussion. There is no way to characterise explanation through magical
emergence that enables empirical testing. Not even in principle. They are
impotent at all prediction. You adopt the position and the whole job is
done and is a matter of belief = NOT SCIENCE.
Well, I'm happy on the above basis to make the empirical prediction:
No 'computer' will ever spontaneously adopt a 1-person pov in virtue
of any 'computation' imputed to it.
You, of course, are working directly on this project. My breath is
bated!
For me, one of the most important consequences of the foregoing
relates to our intuitions about ourselves. We hear from various
directions that our 1-person worlds are 'epiphenomenal' or 'illusory'
or simply that they don't 'exist'. But this can now be seen to be
vacuous, deriving from a narrative fixation on the 'proxy', or
'parasite', rather than the participant. In fact, it is the tacit
assumption of sense-action to the parasite (e.g. the 'external world')
that is illusory, epiphenomenal and non-existent. Real
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 5, 3:12 pm, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Personally I don' think we can be *personally* mistaken about our own consciousness even if we can be mistaken about anything that consciousness could be about. I agree with this, but I would prefer to stop using the term 'consciousness' at all. To make a decision (to whatever degree of certainty) about whether a machine possessed a 1-person pov analogous to a human one, we would surely ask it the same sort of questions one would ask a human. That is: questions about its personal 'world' - what it sees, hears, tastes (and perhaps extended non-human modalitiies); what its intentions are, and how it carries them into practice. From the machine's point-of-view, we would expect it to report such features of its personal world as being immediately present (as ours are), and that it be 'blind' to whatever 'rendering mechanisms' may underlie this (as we are). If it passed these tests, it would be making similar claims on a personal world as we do, and deploying this to achieve similar ends. Since in this case it could ask itself the same questions that we can, it would have the same grounds for reaching the same conclusion. However, I've argued in the other bit of this thread against the possibility of a computer in practice being able to instantiate such a 1-person world merely in virtue of 'soft' behaviour (i.e. programming). I suppose I would therefore have to conclude that no machine could actually pass the tests I describe above - whether self- administered or not - purely in virtue of running some AI program, however complex. This is an empirical prediction, and will have to await an empirical outcome. David On Jun 5, 3:12 pm, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le 03-juin-07, à 21:52, Hal Finney a écrit : Part of what I wanted to get at in my thought experiment is the bafflement and confusion an AI should feel when exposed to human ideas about consciousness. Various people here have proffered their own ideas, and we might assume that the AI would read these suggestions, along with many other ideas that contradict the ones offered here. It seems hard to escape the conclusion that the only logical response is for the AI to figuratively throw up its hands and say that it is impossible to know if it is conscious, because even humans cannot agree on what consciousness is. Augustin said about (subjective) *time* that he knows perfectly what it is, but that if you ask him to say what it is, then he admits being unable to say anything. I think that this applies to consciousness. We know what it is, although only in some personal and uncommunicable way. Now this happens to be true also for many mathematical concept. Strictly speaking we don't know how to define the natural numbers, and we know today that indeed we cannot define them in a communicable way, that is without assuming the auditor knows already what they are. So what can we do. We can do what mathematicians do all the time. We can abandon the very idea of *defining* what consciousness is, and try instead to focus on principles or statements about which we can agree that they apply to consciousness. Then we can search for (mathematical) object obeying to such or similar principles. This can be made easier by admitting some theory or realm for consciousness like the idea that consciousness could apply to *some* machine or to some *computational events etc. We could agree for example that: 1) each one of us know what consciousness is, but nobody can prove he/she/it is conscious. 2) consciousness is related to inner personal or self-referential modality etc. This is how I proceed in Conscience et Mécanisme. (conscience is the french for consciousness, conscience morale is the french for the english conscience). In particular I don't think an AI could be expected to claim that it knows that it is conscious, that consciousness is a deep and intrinsic part of itself, that whatever else it might be mistaken about it could not be mistaken about being conscious. I don't see any logical way it could reach this conclusion by studying the corpus of writings on the topic. If anyone disagrees, I'd like to hear how it could happen. As far as a machine is correct, when she introspects herself, she cannot not discover a gap between truth (p) and provability (Bp). The machine can discover correctly (but not necessarily in a completely communicable way) a gap between provability (which can potentially leads to falsities, despite correctness) and the incorrigible knowability or knowledgeability (Bp p), and then the gap between those notions and observability (Bp Dp) and sensibility (Bp Dp p). Even without using the conventional name of consciousness, machines can discover semantical fixpoint playing the role of non expressible but true statements. We can *already* talk with machine about those true unnameable
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
down a wys.. === Russell Standish wrote: On Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 03:47:19PM +1000, Colin Hales wrote: Hi, RUSSEL All I can say is that I don't understand your distinction. You have introduced a new term necessary primitive - what on earth is that? But I'll let this pass, it probably isn't important. COLIN Oh no you don't!! It matters. Bigtime... Take away the necessary primitive: no 'qualititative novelty' Take away the water molecules: No lake. Take away the bricks, no building Take away the atoms: no molecules Take away the cells: no human Take away the humans: no humanity Take away the planets: no solar system Take away the X: No emergent Y Take away the QUALE: No qualia Magical emergence is when but claim Y exists but you can't identify an X. Such as: OK, so by necessary primitive, you mean the syntactic or microscopic layer. But take this away, and you no longer have emergence. See endless discussions on emergence - my paper, or Jochen Fromm's book for instance. Does this mean magical emergence is oxymoronic? I do not think I mean what you suggest. To make it almost tediously obvious I could rephrase it NECESSARY PRIMITIVE ORGANISATIONAL LAYER. Necessary in that if you take it away the 'emergent' is gone.PRIMITIVE ORGANISATIONAL LAYER = one of the layers of the hierarchy of the natural world (from strings to atoms to cells and beyond): real observable -on-the-benchtop-in-the-lab - layers. Not some arm waving syntactic or information or complexity or Computaton or function_atom or representon. Magical emergence is real, specious and exactly what I have said all along: You claim consciousness arises as a result of [syntactic or information or complexity or Computational or function_atom] = necessary primitive, but it has no scientifically verifiable correlation with any real natural world phenomenon that you can stand next to and have your picture taken. You can't use an object derived using the contents of consciousness(observation) to explain why there are any contents of consciousness(observation) at all. It is illogical. (see the wigner quote below). I find the general failure to recognise this brute reality very exasperating. People used to think that about life. How can you construct (eg an animal) without having a complete discription of that animal. So how can an animal self-reproduce without having a complete description of itself. But this then leads to an infinite regress. The solution to this conundrum was found in the early 20th century - first with such theoretical constructs as combinators and lambda calculus, then later the actual genetic machinery of life. If it is possible in the case of self-reproduction, the it will also likely to be possible in the case of self-awareness and consciousness. Stating this to illogical doesn't help. That's what people from the time of Descartes thought about self-reproduction. COLIN snip So this means that in a computer abstraction. d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- is already part of KNOWLEDGE(t) dt RUSSEL No its not. dK/dt is generated by the interaction of the rules with the environment. No. No. No. There is the old assumption thing again. How, exactly, are you assuming that the agent 'interacts' with the environment? This is the world external to the agent, yes?. Do not say through sensory measurement, because that will not do. There are an infinite number of universes that could give rise to the same sensory measurements. All true, but how does that differ in the case of humans? The extreme uniqueness of the circumstance aloneWe ARE the thing we describe. We are more entitled to any such claims .notwithstanding that... Because, as I have said over and over... and will say again: We must live in the kind of universe that delivers or allows access to, in ways as yet unexplained, some aspects of the distal world, so which sensory I/O can be attached, and thus conjoined, be used to form the qualia representation/fields we experience in our heads. Forget about HOWthat this is necessarily the case is unavoidable. Maxwell's equations prove it QED - style...Without it, the sensory I/O (ultimately 100% electromagnetic phenomena) could never resolve the distal world in any unambiguous way. Such disambiguation physically happens.such qualia representations exist, hence brains must have direct access to the distal world. QED. We are elctromagnetic objects. Basic EM theory. Proven mathematical theorems. The solutions are not unique for an isolated system. Circularity.Circularity.Circularity. There is _no interaction with the environment_ except for that provided by the qualia as an 'as-if' proxy for the environment. The origins of an ability to access the distal external world in support of such a proxy is mysterious but moot. It can and does happen, and that ability must come about because we
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 19, 5:09 am, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: David, I was unable to perceive a question in what you just wrote. I haven't a response, since (sadly) I was unable to understand what you were talking about. :( Really? I'm surprised, but words can indeed be very slippery in this context. Oh, well. To condense: my argument is intended to pump the intuition that a 'primitive' (or 'reduced') notion of 'sensing' (or please substitute anything that carries the thrust of 'able to locate', 'knows it's there', etc.) is already inescapably present in the notion of 'interaction' between fundamental 'entities' in any feasible model of reality. Else, how could we claim that they retain any coherent sense of being 'in contact'? And, if not 'in contact', how 'interact'? So in essence, this is a semantic intuition: that the root concept of 'interaction' *tacitly includes* 'sensing' as a *logical prerequisite* of 'contact' in an inescapable manner to which we have become *semantically blind*. So I propose such a primitive but unavoidable 'hybrid' as the conceptual basis on which any higher- order emergent process, including those embodying reflexive self- consciousness, logically supervenes. I suppose this is a sort of 'non- optional panpsychism': participating in such a reality, your nature embraces 'action with sensing' down to its very roots. If this intuition could be developed into something more rigorous, it would have the (startling) consequence that any 'physical' explanation that explicitly excluded the primitive 'sensing' component of 'action- with-sensing' would be incomplete - i.e. no process founded on it could actually work *at all*. This is a 'philosophical', or semantic/ logical analysis, not science, of course. But I think you may agree that if it has any merit, it would have some interesting implications. So my question is, do you think it has any merit, or is simply wrong, indeterminate, or gibberish? And why? David On Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 11:17:50PM -, David Nyman wrote: All this has massive implications for issues of will (free or otherwise), suffering, software uploading of minds, etc., etc. - which I've indicated in other posts. Consequently, I'd be really interested in your response, because AFAICS this must be either right(ish), wrong(ish), or not-even-wrong(ish). But if right(ish), potentially it gives us a basis for speaking the same language, even if my suggested vocabulary is jettisoned for an improved version. It's certainly intended to be Occamish. David David, I was unable to perceive a question in what you just wrote. I haven't a response, since (sadly) I was unable to understand what you were talking about. :( Cheers -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 09:40:59AM -, David Nyman wrote: On Jun 19, 5:09 am, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: David, I was unable to perceive a question in what you just wrote. I haven't a response, since (sadly) I was unable to understand what you were talking about. :( Really? I'm surprised, but words can indeed be very slippery in this context. Oh, well. To condense: my argument is intended to pump the intuition that a 'primitive' (or 'reduced') notion of 'sensing' (or please substitute anything that carries the thrust of 'able to locate', 'knows it's there', etc.) is already inescapably present in the notion of 'interaction' between fundamental 'entities' in any feasible model of reality. Else, how could we claim that they retain any coherent sense of being 'in contact'? Interaction is in terms of fields - electromagnetic for most of our everyday examples. The fields themselves are emergent effects from virtual boson exchange. Now how is this related to sensing exactly? (Other than sensing being a particular subclass of interaction) ... implications. So my question is, do you think it has any merit, or is simply wrong, indeterminate, or gibberish? And why? If I have to pick an answer: gibberish. Sensing to me implies some form of agency at one end of the interaction. I don't attribute any sort of agency to the interaction between two hydrogen atoms making up a hydrogen molecule for instance. -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
? Your rules. This is the real circularity which underpins computationalism. It's the circularity that my real physical qualia model cuts and kills. Mathematically: * You have knowledge KNOWLEDGE(t) of 'out there' * You want more knowledge of 'out there' so * KNOWLEDGE(t+1) is more than KNOWLEDGE(t) * in computationalism who defines the necessary route to this?... d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- = something you know = YOU DO. dt So this means that in a computer abstraction. d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- is already part of KNOWLEDGE(t) dt You can label it 'evolutionary' or 'adaptive' or whatever...ultimately the rules are YOUR rules and come from your previously derived KNOWLEDGE(t) of 'out there', not intrinsically grounded directly in 'out there'. Who decided what you don't know? YOU DID. What is it based on? YOUR current knowledge of it, not what is literally/really there. Ungroundedness is the fatal flaw in the computationalist model. Intrinsic grounding in the external world is what qualia are for. It means that d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- dt is (a) built into the brain hardware (plasticity chemistry, out of your cognitive control) (b) partly grounded in matter literally/directly constructed in representation of the external world, reflecting the external world so that NOVELTY - true novelty in the OUTSIDE WORLD - is apparent. In this way your current knowledge minimally impacts d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- dt In other words, at the fundamental physics level: d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- dt in a human brain is NOT part of KNOWLEDGE(t). Qualia are the brain's solution to the symbolic grounding problem. RUSSEL Not at all. In Evolutionary Programming, very little is known about the ultimate solution the algorithm comes up with. COLIN Yes but that is irrelevantthe programmer said HOW it will get thereSorry...no cigarsee the above My scientific claim is that the electromagnetic field structure literally the third person view of qualia. Eh? Electromagnetic field of what? The brain? If so, do you think that chemical potentiation plays no role at all in qualia? Chemical potentiation IS electric field. There's no such thing as 'mechanical' there's no such thing as 'chemical'. These are all metaphors in certain contexts for what is there...space and charge (yes...and mass associated with certain charge carriers). Where did you get this weird idea that a metaphor can make qualia? The electric field across the membrane of cells (astrocytes and neurons) is MASSIVE. MEGAVOLTS/METER. Think SPARKS and LIGHTNIING. It dominates the entire structure! It does not have to go anywhere. It just has to 'be'. You 'be' it to get what it delivers. Less than 50% of the signalling in the brain is synaptic, anyway! The dominant cortical process is actually an astrocyte syncytium. (look it up!). I would be very silly to ignore the single biggest, most dominant process of the brain that is so far completely correlated in every way with qualia...in favour of any other cause. --- Once again I'd like to get you to ask yourself the killer question: What is the kind of universe we must live in if the electromagnetic field structure of the brain delivers qualia? A. It is NOT the universe depicted by the qualia (atoma, molecules, cells...). It is the universe whose innate capacity to deliver qualia is taken advantage of when configureed like it appears when we use qualia themselves to explore itcortical brain matter. (NOTE: Please do not make the mistake that sensors - peripheral affect - are equivalent to qualia.) My original solution to Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious? stands. The computer must have a qualia-depiction of its external world and it will know it because it can do science. If it doesn't/can't it's a rock/doorstop. In any computer model, every time an algoritm decides what 'is' (what is visible/there) it intrisically defines 'what isn't' (what is invisible/not there). All novelty becomes thus pre-ordained. anyway.Ultimately 'how' qualia are generated is moot. That they are _necessarily_ involved is the key issue. On their own they are not sufficient for science to occur. cheers colin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious? - this looks best in fixed space font
my a/, b/, c/, look terrible in variable spaced font, they were prepared and sent in fixed font but the message I got back put them in variable spacing and so out of alignment. Regards Mark Peaty CDES [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ Mark Peaty wrote: [Grin] I just found your question here John. snip As I see it, this term is an equivalent expression to my UMSITW 'updating model of self in the world'. It entails a self-referencing, iterative process. For humans there is something like at least three iterations working in parallel and such that the 'output' of any of them can become the 'input' of any other. Something like: a/ basic animal responses to the world - Senses--| brain stem |-|| Senses--| thalamus |-|body motor image|-muscles proprioception--|basal ganglia |-| body image | b/ high speed discrepancy checking - body motor image-|cerebellum|-muscles body sense image-| memory |-body motor/pre motor image c/ multi-tasking, prioritising [Global workspace] frontal cortex|hippocampus|--multiple cortex brain stem, thalamus--| memory|-body motor/pre motor image basal ganglia-| |--cerebellum snip --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
(such as 'information'), rather than anything real. COLIN The system (a) automatically prescibes certain trajectories and RUSSEL Yes. COLIN (b) assumes that the theroem space [and] natural world are the same space and equivalently accessed. RUSSEL No - but the system will adjust its model according to feedback. That is the very nature of any learning algorithm, of which EP is just one example. COLIN Ok. Here's where we find the big assumption. Feedback? HOW?...by who's rules? Your rules. This is the real circularity which underpins computationalism. It's the circularity that my real physical qualia model cuts and kills. Mathematically: * You have knowledge KNOWLEDGE(t) of 'out there' * You want more knowledge of 'out there' so * KNOWLEDGE(t+1) is more than KNOWLEDGE(t) * in computationalism who defines the necessary route to this?... d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- = something you know = YOU DO. dt So this means that in a computer abstraction. d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- is already part of KNOWLEDGE(t) dt You can label it 'evolutionary' or 'adaptive' or whatever...ultimately the rules are YOUR rules and come from your previously derived KNOWLEDGE(t) of 'out there', not intrinsically grounded directly in 'out there'. Who decided what you don't know? YOU DID. What is it based on? YOUR current knowledge of it, not what is literally/really there. Ungroundedness is the fatal flaw in the computationalist model. Intrinsic grounding in the external world is what qualia are for. It means that d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- dt is (a) built into the brain hardware (plasticity chemistry, out of your cognitive control) (b) partly grounded in matter literally/directly constructed in representation of the external world, reflecting the external world so that NOVELTY - true novelty in the OUTSIDE WORLD - is apparent. In this way your current knowledge minimally impacts d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- dt In other words, at the fundamental physics level: d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- dt in a human brain is NOT part of KNOWLEDGE(t). Qualia are the brain's solution to the symbolic grounding problem. RUSSEL Not at all. In Evolutionary Programming, very little is known about the ultimate solution the algorithm comes up with. COLIN Yes but that is irrelevantthe programmer said HOW it will get thereSorry...no cigarsee the above My scientific claim is that the electromagnetic field structure literally the third person view of qualia. Eh? Electromagnetic field of what? The brain? If so, do you think that chemical potentiation plays no role at all in qualia? Chemical potentiation IS electric field. There's no such thing as 'mechanical' there's no such thing as 'chemical'. These are all metaphors in certain contexts for what is there...space and charge (yes...and mass associated with certain charge carriers). Where did you get this weird idea that a metaphor can make qualia? The electric field across the membrane of cells (astrocytes and neurons) is MASSIVE. MEGAVOLTS/METER. Think SPARKS and LIGHTNIING. It dominates the entire structure! It does not have to go anywhere. It just has to 'be'. You 'be' it to get what it delivers. Less than 50% of the signalling in the brain is synaptic, anyway! The dominant cortical process is actually an astrocyte syncytium. (look it up!). I would be very silly to ignore the single biggest, most dominant process of the brain that is so far completely correlated in every way with qualia...in favour of any other cause. --- Once again I'd like to get you to ask yourself the killer question: What is the kind of universe we must live in if the electromagnetic field structure of the brain delivers qualia? A. It is NOT the universe depicted by the qualia (atoma, molecules, cells...). It is the universe whose innate capacity to deliver qualia is taken advantage of when configureed like it appears when we use qualia themselves to explore itcortical brain matter. (NOTE: Please do not make the mistake that sensors - peripheral affect - are equivalent to qualia.) My original solution to Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious? stands. The computer must have a qualia-depiction of its external world
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Dear David, (see below.. I left your original text here... = 4) Belief in 'magical emergence' qualitative novelty of a kind utterly unrelated to the componentry. Hi Colin I think there's a link here with the dialogue in the 'Asifism' thread between Bruno and me. I've been reading Galen Strawson's Consciousness and its place in Nature, which has re-ignited some of the old hoo-hah over 'panpsychism', with the usual attendant embarrassment and name-calling. It motivated me to try to unpack the basic semantic components that are difficult to pin down in these debates, and for this reason tend to lead to mutual incomprehension. Strawson refers to the 'magical emergence' you mention, and what is in his view (and mine) the disanalogy of 'emergent' accounts of consciousness with, say, how 'liquidity' supervenes on molecular behaviour. So I started from the question: what would have to be the case at the 'component' level for such 'emergence' to make sense (and I'm aiming at the semantics here, not 'ultimate truth', whatever that might be). My answer is simply that for 'sensing' and 'acting' to 'emerge' (i.e. supervene on) some lower level, that lower level must itself 'sense' and 'act' (or 'grasp', a word that can carry the meaning of both). What sense does it make to say that, for example, sub-atomic particles, strings, or even Bruno's numbers, 'grasp' each other? Well, semantically, the alternative would be that they would shun and ignore each other, and we wouldn't get very far on that basis. They clearly seem to relate according to certain 'rules', but we're not so naive (are we?) as to suppose that these are actually 'laws' handily supplied from some 'external' domain. Since we're talking 'primitives here', then such relating, such mutual 'grasping', must just *be*. There's nothing wrong conceptually here, we always need an axiomatic base, the question is simply where to situate it, and semantically IMO the buck stops here or somewhere closely adjacent. The cool thing about this is, that if we start from such primitive 'grasping', then higher-level emergent forms of full sense-action can now emerge organically by (now entirely valid) analogy with purely action-related accounts such as liquidity, or for that matter, the emergence of living behaviour from 'dead matter'. And the obvious complexity of the relation between, say quantum mechanics and, say, the life cycle of the sphex wasp, should alert us to an equivalent complexity in the relationship between primitive 'grasp' and its fully qualitative (read: participatory) emergents - so please let's have no (oh-so-embarrassing) 'conscious electrons' here. Further, it shows us in what way 'software consciousness' is disanalogous with the evolved kind. A computer, or a rock for that matter, is of course also a natural emergent from primitive grasping, and this brings with it sense-action, but in the case of these objects more action than sense at the emergent level. The software level of description, however, is merely an imputation, supplied externally (i.e. by us) and imposed as an interpretation (one of infinitely many) on the fundamental grasped relations of the substrate components. By contrast, the brain (and here comes the research programme) must have evolved (crucially) to deploy a supremely complex set of 'mirroring' processes that is (per evolution) genuinely emergent from the primitive 'grasp' of the component level. From this comes (possibly) the coolest consequence of these semantics: our intrinsic 'grasp' of our own motivation (i.e. will, whether 'free' or not), our participative qualitative modalities, the relation of our suffering to subsequent action, and so forth, emerge as indeed 'something like' the primitive roots from which they inherit these characteristics. This is *real* emergence, not magical, and at one stroke demolishes epiphenomenalism, zombies, uploading fantasies and all the other illusory consequences of confusing the 'external world' (i.e. a projection) with the participatory one in which we are included. === Methinks you 'get it'. You are far more eloquent than I am, but we talk of the same thing.. Liquidity is to H2O as ??? is to consciousness (qualia) where I identify ??? as a necessary primitive and comment that 'computation' or 'information' or 'complexity' have only the vaguest of an arm waving grip on any claim to such a specific role. Such is the 'magical emergence' genre. I have a viable candidate for the 'necessary primitive' of the kind you seek. Note that regardless of what anyone's suggestion for such a thing might be, the process of declaring it valid must arise in the form of (as you intuit above) an axiom. That is, it must come in the form of a statement such as X = It is a fundamental principle of the natural world that such and such a thing is the ultimate necessary primitive state of affairs that
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 14, 7:19 pm, David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Kant saw
this clearly in terms of his 'windowless monads', but these, separated
by the 'void', indeed had to be correlated by divine intervention,
since (unaware of each other) they could not interact.
Er, no he didn't. Leibniz did, however.
On Jun 14, 4:46 am, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Of course all that is true, but it doesn't explain why neurons in the cortex
are the ones giving rise to qualia rather than other neurons or indeed
peripheral sense organs.
Well, you might as well ask why the engine drives the car and not the
brakes. Presumably (insert research programme here) the different
neural (or other relevant) organisation of the cortex is the
difference that makes the difference. My account would run like this:
the various emergent organs of the brain and sensory apparatus (like
everything else) supervene on an infrastructure capable of 'sense-
action'. I'm (somewhat) agnostic about the nature of this
infrastructure: conceive it as strings, particles, or even Bruno's
numbers. But however we conceptualise it, it must (logically) be
capable of 'sense-action' in order for activity and cognition to
supervene on it. Then what makes the difference in the cortex must be
a supremely complex 'mirroring' mode of organisation (a 'remembered
present') lacked by other organs. To demonstrate this will be a
supremely difficult empirical programme, but IMO it presents no
invincible philosophical problems if conceived in this way.
A note here on 'sense-action': If we think, for example and for
convenience, of particles 'reacting' to each other in terms of the
exchange of 'forces', ISTM quite natural to intuit this as both
'awareness' or 'sensing', and also 'action'. After all, I can't react
to you if I'm not aware of you. IOW, the 'forces' *are* the sense-
action. And at this fundamental level, such motivation must emerge
intrinsically (i.e. *something like* the way we experience it) to
avoid a literal appeal to any extrinsic source ('laws'). Kant saw
this clearly in terms of his 'windowless monads', but these, separated
by the 'void', indeed had to be correlated by divine intervention,
since (unaware of each other) they could not interact. Nowadays, no
longer conceiving the 'void' as 'nothing', we substitute a modulated
continuum, but the same semantic demands apply.
David
On 14/06/07, Colin Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Colin
This point is poised on the cliff edge of loaded word meanings and their
use with the words 'sufficient' and 'necessary'. By technology I mean
novel artifacts resulting from the trajectory of causality including human
scientists. By that definition 'life', in the sense you infer, is not
technology. The resulting logical loop can be thus avoided. There is a
biosphere that arose naturally. It includes complexity of sufficient depth
to have created observers within it. Those observers can produce
technology. Douglas Adams (bless him) had the digital watch as a valid
product of evolution - and I agree with him - it's just that humans are
necessarily involved in its causal ancestry.
Your argument that only consciousness can give rise to technology loses
validity if you include must be produced by a conscious being as part of
the definition of technology.
COLIN
That assumes that complexity itself (organisation of information) is
the
origin of consciousness in some unspecified, unjustified way. This
position is completely unable to make any empirical predictions
about the
nature of human conscousness (eg why your cortex generates qualia
and your
spinal chord doesn't - a physiologically proven fact).
STATHIS
Well, why does your eye generate visual qualia and not your big toe?
It's because the big toe lacks the necessary machinery.
Colin
I am afraid you have your physiology mixed up. The eye does NOT generate
visual qualia. Your visual cortex generates it based on measurements in
the eye. The qualia are manufactured and simultaneously projected to
appear to come from the eye (actually somewhere medial to them). It's how
you have 90degrees++ peripheral vison. The same visual qualia can be
generated without an eye (hallucination/dream). Some blind (no functioning
retina) people have a visual field for numbers. Other cross-modal mixups
can occur in synesthesia (you can hear colours, taste words). You can have
a phantom big toe without having any big toe at alljust because the
cortex is still there making the qualia. If you swapped the sensory nerves
in two fingers the motor cortex would drive finger A and it would feel
like finger B moved and you would see finger A move. The sensation is in
your head, not the periphery. It's merely projected at the periphery.
Of course all that is true, but it doesn't explain
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Colin Hales wrote: Hi, RUSSEL All I can say is that I don't understand your distinction. You have introduced a new term necessary primitive - what on earth is that? But I'll let this pass, it probably isn't important. COLIN Oh no you don't!! It matters. Bigtime... Take away the necessary primitive: no 'qualititative novelty' Take away the water molecules: No lake. Take away the bricks, no building Take away the atoms: no molecules Take away the cells: no human Take away the humans: no humanity Take away the planets: no solar system Take away the X: No emergent Y Take away the QUALE: No qualia Magical emergence is when but claim Y exists but you can't identify an X. Such as: Take away the X: No qualia but thenyou claim qualia result from 'information complexity' or 'computation' or 'function' and you fail to say what X can be. Nobody can. You can't use an object derived using the contents of consciousness(observation) to explain why there are any contents of consciousness(observation) at all. It is illogical. (see the wigner quote below). I find the general failure to recognise this brute reality very exasperating. Prepare to be exasperated then. I see no contradiction in explaining the existence of observation by using a theory derived from observation. This is what we do. There is no logical inference from observations to our theory of observation - it could have come to us in a dream or a revelation or a random quantum fluctuation. If the theory then passes the usual scientific tests, we can say it provides an explanation of observation. Of course there are other senses of explanation. One might be to explain how you know that such a thing as observation exists. I'd say just like I know about anything else - I observe it. Brent Meeker COLIN snip So this means that in a computer abstraction. d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- is already part of KNOWLEDGE(t) dt RUSSEL No its not. dK/dt is generated by the interaction of the rules with the environment. No. No. No. There is the old assumption thing again. How, exactly, are you assuming that the agent 'interacts' with the environment? This is the world external to the agent, yes?. Do not say through sensory measurement, because that will not do. There are an infinite number of universes that could give rise to the same sensory measurements. We are elctromagnetic objects. Basic EM theory. EM is linear. You can't even make subluminal matter from EM, much less atoms and people. Proven mathematical theorems. The solutions are not unique for an isolated system. Circularity.Circularity.Circularity. There is _no interaction with the environment_ except for that provided by the qualia as an 'as-if' proxy for the environment. The origins of an ability to access the distal external world in support of such a proxy is mysterious but moot. It can and does happen, and that ability must come about because we live in the kind of universe that supports that possibility. The mysteriousness of it is OUR problem. RUSSEL Evolutionary algorithms are highly effective information pumps, pumping information from the environment into the genome, or whatever representation you're using to store the solutions. COLIN But then we're not talking about merely being 'highly effective' in a target problem domain, are we? We are talking about proving consciousness in a machine. I agree - evolutionary algoritms are great things... they are just irrelevant to this discussion. COLIN My scientific claim is that the electromagnetic field structure literally the third person view of qualia. Eh? Electromagnetic field of what? The brain? If so, do you think that chemical potentiation plays no role at all in qualia? Chemical potentiation IS electric field. RUSSEL Bollocks. A hydrogen molecule and an oxygen atom held 1m apart have chemical potential, but there is precious little electric field I am talking about the membrane and you are talking atoms so I guess we missed somehow...anywayThe only 'potentiation' that really matters in my model is that which looks like an 'action potential' longitudinally traversing dendrite/soma/axon membrane as a whole. Notwithstanding this The chemical potentiation at the atomic level is entirely an EM phenomenon mediated by QM boundaries (virtual photons in support of the shell structure, also EM). It is a sustained 'well/energy minimaum' in the EM field structureYou think there is such a 'thing' as potential? There is no such thing - there is something we describe as 'EM field'. Nothing else. Within that metaphor is yet another even more specious metaphor: Potential is an (as yet unrealised) propensity of the field at a particular place to do work on a charge if it were put it there. You can place that charge in it and get a number out of an electrophysiological probe... and 'realise' the work
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Hi Quentin, What is the kind of universe we must live in if the electromagnetic field structure of the brain delivers qualia? A. It is NOT the universe depicted by the qualia (atoma, molecules, cells...). It is the universe whose innate capacity to deliver qualia is taken advantage of when configureed like it appears when we use qualia themselves to explore itcortical brain matter. (NOTE: Please do not make the mistake that sensors - peripheral affect - are equivalent to qualia.) I will only react to this... and I will deposit a large collection of weirdness for you to ponder Q. What is cortical brain matter ? Let us call our first candidate consistent with all the fatcs a monism made of MON_STUFF. We must give ourselves the latitude to consider various candidates. For the purposes it does not matter what it is. I will try and answer your questions by bringing in properties. So cortical brain matter is made of a collection of MON_STUFF. Not atoms. Atoms are organised MON_STUFF. Quarks are organised MON_STUFF. The MON_STUFF I choose, that seems to deliver everything I need and is the simplest possible choice: is 'the fluctuation'. Q. Does it exists by itself? No. It is nested MON_STUFF all the way down. It is intrinsically dynamic and fleeting. Anything made of MON_STUFF is persistent organisational structure within a massive collection of fleeting change. Exactly like the shapes in the water coming out of a garden hose. There is a critical minimum collection of it, from which all subsequent structure is derived. That minimum is created like collections of turbulent water molecules breaks off and self-sustains a eddy/vortex once a critical threshold is reached. Ultimately there is no need to prescribe an ultimate minimum 'atom-ish' minimal size MON_STUFF fluctuation to predict qualia. Someone else's problem. I don't need to solve that. The fluctuation model works...that's all I need to progress. Q. if so, what is it composed of (matter ?) ? Well it's not, so I don't have to fall into this logical hole. Q. what is matter ? Hierarchically organised persistent but intrinsically dynamic (continually refreshed) structures of MON_STUFF Q. what is brain? I think we already did this. Q why cortical brain matter generates qualia ? There is one single simple fundamental principle at the heart of it: At all scales and all locations, when you 'be' any MON_STUFF the 'view of the rest of the universe' is delivered innately as 'NOT_ME'. Call it the COLIN principle of universal subjectivity I don;t care...like the fluctuation This is a simple as it gets. Q why it must be so ? With the fundamental principle that perspective view at all scales literally is the source of qualia, the whole reasoning changes from one of WHY to one of WHERE/WHENwhich is what you ask. It is question of visability. It is 'like' 'NOT_ELECTRON' to be a collection of MON_STUFF behaving electronly. That is not 'about' being an electron. It IS an electron. Not only that, there is a blizzard of the little blighters with no collective 'story' to tell. Their collective summated scene is ZERO. Q Is qualia a dependance of cortical brain matter or the inverse ? If I get you correctly it's 'INVERSE'. Q. is qualia responsible of what looks like cortical brain matter? It's not 'responsible' in that it doesn't 'cause brain matter'. Qualia present a visual scene - a representation. In the scene we see brain matter. Q or is it cortical brain matter that makes feel qualia which in turns ask question about cortical brain matter ? No. Cortical brain material is an appearance of MON_STUFF created by special MON_STUFF doing the 'appearance dance'. When it does that dance ... (the cortical grey matter membrane dance)... it creates an appearance of atoms, molcules, cells, tissue because these are persistent nested structures of MON_STUFF doing the atom dance, the molecule dance, the cell dance. etc..etc. As weird and hard to assimilate as it soundsIt all comes down to the two simplest possible basic premises: 1) A universe consisting of a massive number of one generic elemental process, the fluctuation. 2) A universe in which the perspective view from the point of view of 'being' ME, an elemental fluctuation, is 'NOT ME' (the rest of the universe). The ecitable cell dance is the only dance that has it's own story independent of the underlying MON_STUFF organisational layers. That is the only place where the net exertions of MON_STUFF have nothing to do with any other dance. That is the organisational level where the visibility finally manifests to non-zero...why neural soma are fat - it's all about signal to noise ratio. weirdness time over. Gotta go. Colin Hales --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 17, 6:47 am, Colin Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Magical emergence is when but claim Y exists but you can't identify an X. Such as: Take away the X: No qualia but thenyou claim qualia result from 'information complexity' or 'computation' or 'function' and you fail to say what X can be. Nobody can. Phew, it's difficult to break into this debate! Colin, I'm trying to support your line of argument here, so do us both a favour and tell me what you think is wrong (or isn't it even wrong?) I'll reiterate in the simplest way I can. At root, my take is that our only 'primitive' direct contact with 'reality' is what you're calling 'qualia' - *everything else* is metaphor. Consequently, what we must do is establish the connection between the reality of 'qualia' (what I'm now going to call our 'personal world') and whatever metaphor we choose to adopt. The example I've been using for the metaphor is particle-force, which is just a generalisation of the notion of 'relationship' within a differentiated continuum. What we most need to account for in our personal worlds is our direct contact with multiple modes of awareness and motivation. We really see, hear, suffer, will, and act. What I'm saying that to make the 'emergence' of such realities semantically coherent, they must be inherited from primitive 'relationship' that has these characteristics in 'reduced' form - i.e. a mediator that unites 'sensing' and 'acting'. In the conventional 'physical' account, the mediator is tacitly assumed to carry only 'acting', and hence direct personal-world 'sensing' is - crucially - lost at source. This is because these accounts map to abstracted *models* of 'external worlds', not to 'personal worlds', and consequently are 'uninhabited' (i.e. zombies). In the particle-force metaphor, 'particle' is a differentiated 'entity', and 'force' is necessarily both mediator of its 'sensing' of other particles, and their 'interaction'. 'Necessarily' because, primitively, an entity can't 'interact' with another without 'sensing' it (as Kant's monads demonstrate). This is a key point! One could say then that particles 'grasp' each other. Now we can map from such primitive 'grasp' in two directions. First: upwards via genuine emergence to the multiple modalities of 'grasping' within our personal worlds - seeing, hearing, willing acting, suffering. Such emergence is genuine because, although we don't know the *precise* mapping, we're not dodging the issue of what 'personal' grasp inherits from - it builds on the primitive grasp of the 'particles' (or some preferred, but semantically isomorphic, metaphor of primitive relationship). Second: from our personal worlds to 'external worlds' beyond, but still in terms of a seamless continuation of the primitive 'grasped' relationship. In this way, the 'external world' remains inhabited. IMHO this semantic model gives you a knock-down argument against 'computationalism', *unless* one identifies (I'm hoping to hear from Bruno on this) the 'primitive' entities and operators with those of the number realm - i.e. you make numbers and their relationships the 'primitive base'. But crucially, you must still take these entities and their relationships to be the *real* basis of personal-world 'grasp'. If you continue to adopt a 'somethingist' view, then no 'program' (i.e. one of the arbitrarily large set that could be imputed to any 'something') could coherently be responsible for its personal- world grasp (such as it may be). This is the substance of the UDA argument. All personal-worlds must emerge internally via recursive levels of relationship inherited from primitive grasp: in a 'somethingist' view, such grasp must reside with a primitive 'something', as we have seen, and in a computationalist view, it must reside in the number realm. But the fundamental insight applies. I think you can build all your arguments up from this base. What do you think? David Hi, RUSSEL All I can say is that I don't understand your distinction. You have introduced a new term necessary primitive - what on earth is that? But I'll let this pass, it probably isn't important. COLIN Oh no you don't!! It matters. Bigtime... Take away the necessary primitive: no 'qualititative novelty' Take away the water molecules: No lake. Take away the bricks, no building Take away the atoms: no molecules Take away the cells: no human Take away the humans: no humanity Take away the planets: no solar system Take away the X: No emergent Y Take away the QUALE: No qualia Magical emergence is when but claim Y exists but you can't identify an X. Such as: Take away the X: No qualia but thenyou claim qualia result from 'information complexity' or 'computation' or 'function' and you fail to say what X can be. Nobody can. You can't use an object derived using the contents of consciousness(observation) to explain why there are any contents of consciousness(observation) at all. It
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 17, 2:33 am, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You're obviously suggesting single neurons have qualia. Forgive me for being a little sceptical of this suggestion... Russell, this is daft! Surely the argument is getting completely lost in the terminology here. What on earth could you (or Colin, or anyone), whether arguing pro or con, imagine 'qualia' could possibly mean in this context? And yet something (presumably) based on neurons (and on whatever one's model-of-choice claims neurons are based on) 'possesses' them. Or rather (since I think the 'possessing qualia' way of speaking leads to utter incoherence) whatever exists intrinsically (e.g. our personal world) is based on them. Which is equivalent to saying that this 'base' exists 'completely' (as opposed to its *incomplete* - because abstract(ed) - 'physical description'). As I've argued (interminably) elsewhere, when we analyse our personal worlds stringently, we find that our claims about them rest principally on two capabilities (that are actually inseparable when examined): 'sensing' and 'acting'. These are the primitive intrinsic semantic components of relationship, or 'grasp'. 'Absolute qualities' are not at issue here. These are ineluctably sui generis: a 'personal modelling medium' can't *in itself* be communicated in terms of 'extrinsic objects' modelled within it. But we can refer to it ostensively: i.e. we *demonstrate* how elements of our personal worlds relate to an inter-subjective 'extrinsic reality' (which is I think is at root what Colin calls 'doing science'). But we *must* postulate that all 'emergent' motivational and sensory modalities - i.e. what comprises our personal worlds - *must* 'reduce' to components of the same *completed* ontic category. Now, if you want to try to imagine 'what it's like to be a neuron', I can't help you. But I do say that you shouldn't expect the relation between this and 'what it's like to be Russell' to be any less complex than, say, what a 'physical' description of a neuron 'is like' as compared to an equivalent description of Russell. IOW, pretty tenuous. But - crucially - we accept in the case of the 'physical' account that the components and the assembly belong in (a 'reduced' version of) the *same ontic category*. And, mutatis mutandis, the 'completed' relationships at fundamental and emergent levels likewise belong in the same completed ontic category (i.e. the unique one - the 'abstracted physical' one now being revealed as merely partial). A crucial aspect of this is that it emphasises - but crucially *completes* - the causal closure of our explanations. We can now see that any 'physical' action-only account is radically incomplete - in the massively real sense that *it can't work at all*. Without the 'sensing' component of 'grasp', 'action' is snuffed out at the root (Kant had to invoke divine intervention to get out of this one). And the 'grasp' itself must crucially be intuited as intrinsically self- motivated (i.e. 'physical law' reduces to the self-motivated relating of differentiated 'ultimate actors'). The self-motivation of the 'componentry' can then emerge somewhat later, transformed but intact (mutatis mutandis) as the self-motivation of all manner of personal and extrinsic emergents. Our explanations about our motivations and the causal sequence from personal to extrinsic worlds can now 'emerge' as indeed 'something like' what we intuit in our personal worlds (phew!!). I really did go 'ouch' *because it hurt*. I fled the situation *because I was really suffering*. The computer isn't conscious *purely in virtue of any program I impute to it* (though like any other entity it is an emergent with its proper fundamental 'grasp'). And BTW (pace Bruno) all this could AFAICS equally well be postulated on AR - i.e. the 'self-motivated' primitive elements (relata) and operators (mediators) of COMP. What this means is that 'neurons' - whether further reduced to particles, electromagnetic fields, or indeed the number realm: however we choose to model the 'base' - must supervene on 'ultimate relata' that interact in virtue of intrinsic 'grasp' (see my posts to Colin and Bruno for more): i.e. 'sense' and 'action' united. If we lose this basic insight, we also lose the ability to map emergent 'mental' and 'physical' phenomena to any ultimate entities on which we can coherently claim they supervene. Or rather, we retain only the ability to map the *action* half of the sense-action 'grasp' (an omission which should now be seen as fatally incoherent - how can entities be claimed to act on each other without mutually sensing their presence?). This only ever *seemed* to make sense insofar as the physical description of the world yields models abstracted from the 'completed' existents to which they refer - not those existents themselves. The puzzlement over the lost 'sensing', however, returns with a vengeance when the modelled existent becomes reflexive -
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Dear Brent, If you had the most extravagent MRI machine in history, which trapped complete maps of all electrons, neuclei and any photons and then plotted them out - you would have a 100% complete, scientifically acquired publishable description and in that description would be absolutely no prediction of or explanation of why it is necessarily 'like it is' to 'be' the brain thus described, what that experience will be like. It would not enable you to make any cogent claim as to why it is or is not 'like something' to be a computer except insofar as it doesn't have neurons. Why am I saying thisPlease read David Chalmers. This is not new. Science does not and never has EXPLAINED anything. It merely describes. Read the literature. For the first time ever, to deal with qualia, science has to actually EXPLAIN something. It is at the boundary condition where you have to explain how you can observe anything at all. As to your EM theory beliefs... please read the literature. Jackson Classical electrodynamics is a brilliant place to start. For nobody around here in electrical engineering agrees with you... and I have just been grilled on that very issue by a whole pile of very senior academics - who agree with me. Even my anatomy/neuroscience supervisor, who are generally pathologically afraid of physicstells me there's nothing there but space and charge If you want to draw a line around a specific zone of ignorance and inhabit it...go ahead. If you want to believe that correlation is causation go ahead. This is what we do is what you say when you are a member of a club, not a seeker of truth. You have self referentially defined truthand you are welcome to it. ... Meanwhile I'll just poke around in other areas. I hope you won't mind. Please consider your exasperation quota reached. Job done. colin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Colin Hales wrote: Dear Brent, If you had the most extravagent MRI machine in history, which trapped complete maps of all electrons, neuclei and any photons and then plotted them out - you would have a 100% complete, scientifically acquired publishable description and in that description would be absolutely no prediction of or explanation of why it is necessarily 'like it is' to 'be' the brain thus described, what that experience will be like. I think that is mere prejudice on your part. It may be true, but I see no reason to assume it in advance. It would not enable you to make any cogent claim as to why it is or is not 'like something' to be a computer except insofar as it doesn't have neurons. Why am I saying thisPlease read David Chalmers. This is not new. I have. Please read Daniel Dennett's answer to Chalmers. Science does not and never has EXPLAINED anything. It merely describes. So what is your idea of explanation? Is it not a description of cause or purpose? Read the literature. For the first time ever, to deal with qualia, science has to actually EXPLAIN something. It is at the boundary condition where you have to explain how you can observe anything at all. If I can explain how a cat or a robot observes something, does that count? As to your EM theory beliefs... please read the literature. Jackson Classical electrodynamics is a brilliant place to start. Yes, it was my textbook in graduate school. I don't think Jackson would endorse your theory that is nothing but EM fields. For nobody around here in electrical engineering agrees with you... and I have just been grilled on that very issue by a whole pile of very senior academics - who agree with me. Even my anatomy/neuroscience supervisor, who are generally pathologically afraid of physicstells me there's nothing there but space and charge Have they not heard of quarks and electrons and gluons? It's really hard to make atoms without them. If you want to draw a line around a specific zone of ignorance and inhabit it...go ahead. If you want to believe that correlation is causation go ahead. This is what we do is what you say when you are a member of a club, not a seeker of truth. You have self referentially defined truthand you are welcome to it. ... Meanwhile I'll just poke around in other areas. I hope you won't mind. Please consider your exasperation quota reached. Job done. I hope you haven't given up on explaining observation. Brent Meeker colin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 03:47:19PM +1000, Colin Hales wrote: Hi, RUSSEL All I can say is that I don't understand your distinction. You have introduced a new term necessary primitive - what on earth is that? But I'll let this pass, it probably isn't important. COLIN Oh no you don't!! It matters. Bigtime... Take away the necessary primitive: no 'qualititative novelty' Take away the water molecules: No lake. Take away the bricks, no building Take away the atoms: no molecules Take away the cells: no human Take away the humans: no humanity Take away the planets: no solar system Take away the X: No emergent Y Take away the QUALE: No qualia Magical emergence is when but claim Y exists but you can't identify an X. Such as: OK, so by necessary primitive, you mean the syntactic or microscopic layer. But take this away, and you no longer have emergence. See endless discussions on emergence - my paper, or Jochen Fromm's book for instance. Does this mean magical emergence is oxymoronic? You can't use an object derived using the contents of consciousness(observation) to explain why there are any contents of consciousness(observation) at all. It is illogical. (see the wigner quote below). I find the general failure to recognise this brute reality very exasperating. People used to think that about life. How can you construct (eg an animal) without having a complete discription of that animal. So how can an animal self-reproduce without having a complete description of itself. But this then leads to an infinite regress. The solution to this conundrum was found in the early 20th century - first with such theoretical constructs as combinators and lambda calculus, then later the actual genetic machinery of life. If it is possible in the case of self-reproduction, the it will also likely to be possible in the case of self-awareness and consciousness. Stating this to illogical doesn't help. That's what people from the time of Descartes thought about self-reproduction. COLIN snip So this means that in a computer abstraction. d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- is already part of KNOWLEDGE(t) dt RUSSEL No its not. dK/dt is generated by the interaction of the rules with the environment. No. No. No. There is the old assumption thing again. How, exactly, are you assuming that the agent 'interacts' with the environment? This is the world external to the agent, yes?. Do not say through sensory measurement, because that will not do. There are an infinite number of universes that could give rise to the same sensory measurements. All true, but how does that differ in the case of humans? We are elctromagnetic objects. Basic EM theory. Proven mathematical theorems. The solutions are not unique for an isolated system. Circularity.Circularity.Circularity. There is _no interaction with the environment_ except for that provided by the qualia as an 'as-if' proxy for the environment. The origins of an ability to access the distal external world in support of such a proxy is mysterious but moot. It can and does happen, and that ability must come about because we live in the kind of universe that supports that possibility. The mysteriousness of it is OUR problem. You've lost me completely here. RUSSEL Evolutionary algorithms are highly effective information pumps, pumping information from the environment into the genome, or whatever representation you're using to store the solutions. COLIN But then we're not talking about merely being 'highly effective' in a target problem domain, are we? We are talking about proving consciousness in a machine. I agree - evolutionary algoritms are great things... they are just irrelevant to this discussion. No, we're talking about doing science, actually, not proving consciousness. And nothing indicates to me that science is any more than a highly effective information pump finding regularities about the world. RUSSEL Bollocks. A hydrogen molecule and an oxygen atom held 1m apart have chemical potential, but there is precious little electric field I am talking about the membrane and you are talking atoms so I guess we missed somehow...anywayThe only 'potentiation' that really matters in my model is that which looks like an 'action potential' longitudinally traversing dendrite/soma/axon membrane as a whole. Notwithstanding this The chemical potentiation at the atomic level is entirely an EM phenomenon mediated by QM boundaries (virtual photons in support of the shell I never said it wasn't an EM phenomenon. Just that chemical potential is not an EM field. The confusion may arise because your head is full of ionic chemistry (for which chemical potential is for all intents and purposes identical to the electrical potential between the ions), but there are two other types of chemical bonds - the covalent and the hydrogen bond. Both of these types of bonds occur between neutral
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
- are equivalent to qualia.) My original solution to Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious? stands. The computer must have a qualia-depiction of its external world and it will know it because it can do science. If it doesn't/can't it's a rock/doorstop. In any computer model, every time an algoritm decides what 'is' (what is visible/there) it intrisically defines 'what isn't' (what is invisible/not there). All novelty becomes thus pre-ordained. anyway.Ultimately 'how' qualia are generated is moot. That they are _necessarily_ involved is the key issue. On their own they are not sufficient for science to occur. cheers colin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Sunday 17 June 2007 02:02:28 Colin Hales wrote: What is the kind of universe we must live in if the electromagnetic field structure of the brain delivers qualia? A. It is NOT the universe depicted by the qualia (atoma, molecules, cells...). It is the universe whose innate capacity to deliver qualia is taken advantage of when configureed like it appears when we use qualia themselves to explore itcortical brain matter. (NOTE: Please do not make the mistake that sensors - peripheral affect - are equivalent to qualia.) I will only react to this... What is cortical brain matter ? does it exists by itself ? if so, what is it composed of ? (matter ?) what is matter ? what is brain ? why cortical brain matter generates qualia ? why it must be so ? is qualia a dependance of cortical brain matter or the inverse ? is qualia responsible of what looks like cortical brain matter or is it cortical brain matter that makes feel qualia which in turns ask question about cortical brain matter ? Quentin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 10:02:28AM +1000, Colin Hales wrote: Hi, I am going to have to be a bit targetted in my responses I am a TAD whelmed at the moment. COLIN 4) Belief in 'magical emergence' qualitative novelty of a kind utterly unrelated to the componentry. RUSSEL The latter clause refers to emergence (without the magical qualifier), and it is impossible IMHO to have creativity without emergence. COLIN The distinction between 'magical emergence' and 'emergence' is quite obviously intended by me. A lake is not apparent in the chemical formula for water. I would defy anyone to quote any example of real-world 'emergence' that does not ultimately rely on a necessary primitive. 'Magical emergence' is when you claim 'qualitative novelty' without having any idea (you can't point at it) of the necessary primitive, or by defining an arbitrary one that is actually a notional construct (such as 'information'), rather than anything real. All I can say is that I don't understand your distinction. You have introduced a new term necessary primitive - what on earth is that? But I'll let this pass, it probably isn't important. COLIN Ok. Here's where we find the big assumption. Feedback? HOW?...by who's rules? Your rules. This is the real circularity which underpins computationalism. It's the circularity that my real physical qualia model cuts and kills. Mathematically: * You have knowledge KNOWLEDGE(t) of 'out there' * You want more knowledge of 'out there' so * KNOWLEDGE(t+1) is more than KNOWLEDGE(t) * in computationalism who defines the necessary route to this?... d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- = something you know = YOU DO. dt So this means that in a computer abstraction. d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- is already part of KNOWLEDGE(t) dt No its not. dK/dt is generated by the interaction of the rules with the environment. Evolutionary algorithms are highly effective information pumps, pumping information from the environment into the genome, or whatever representation you're using to store the solutions. My scientific claim is that the electromagnetic field structure literally the third person view of qualia. Eh? Electromagnetic field of what? The brain? If so, do you think that chemical potentiation plays no role at all in qualia? Chemical potentiation IS electric field. Bollocks. A hydrogen molecule and an oxygen atom held 1m apart have chemical potential, but there is precious little electric field between them. Furthermore, the chemical potential is independent on the separation, unlike the electric field. There's no such thing as 'mechanical' there's no such thing as 'chemical'. These are all metaphors in certain contexts for what is there...space and charge (yes...and mass associated with certain charge carriers). Where did you get this weird idea that a metaphor can make qualia? Why do you think space and charge are not metaphors also? I would not be so sure on this matter. The electric field across the membrane of cells (astrocytes and neurons) is MASSIVE. MEGAVOLTS/METER. Think SPARKS and LIGHTNIING. It dominates the entire structure! It does not have to go anywhere. It just has to 'be'. You 'be' it to get what it delivers. Less than 50% of the signalling in the brain is synaptic, anyway! The dominant cortical process is actually an astrocyte syncytium. (look it up!). I would be very silly to ignore the single biggest, most dominant process of the brain that is so far completely correlated in every way with qualia...in favour of any other cause. You're obviously suggesting single neurons have qualia. Forgive me for being a little sceptical of this suggestion... -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Hi, RUSSEL All I can say is that I don't understand your distinction. You have introduced a new term necessary primitive - what on earth is that? But I'll let this pass, it probably isn't important. COLIN Oh no you don't!! It matters. Bigtime... Take away the necessary primitive: no 'qualititative novelty' Take away the water molecules: No lake. Take away the bricks, no building Take away the atoms: no molecules Take away the cells: no human Take away the humans: no humanity Take away the planets: no solar system Take away the X: No emergent Y Take away the QUALE: No qualia Magical emergence is when but claim Y exists but you can't identify an X. Such as: Take away the X: No qualia but thenyou claim qualia result from 'information complexity' or 'computation' or 'function' and you fail to say what X can be. Nobody can. You can't use an object derived using the contents of consciousness(observation) to explain why there are any contents of consciousness(observation) at all. It is illogical. (see the wigner quote below). I find the general failure to recognise this brute reality very exasperating. COLIN snip So this means that in a computer abstraction. d(KNOWLEDGE(t)) --- is already part of KNOWLEDGE(t) dt RUSSEL No its not. dK/dt is generated by the interaction of the rules with the environment. No. No. No. There is the old assumption thing again. How, exactly, are you assuming that the agent 'interacts' with the environment? This is the world external to the agent, yes?. Do not say through sensory measurement, because that will not do. There are an infinite number of universes that could give rise to the same sensory measurements. We are elctromagnetic objects. Basic EM theory. Proven mathematical theorems. The solutions are not unique for an isolated system. Circularity.Circularity.Circularity. There is _no interaction with the environment_ except for that provided by the qualia as an 'as-if' proxy for the environment. The origins of an ability to access the distal external world in support of such a proxy is mysterious but moot. It can and does happen, and that ability must come about because we live in the kind of universe that supports that possibility. The mysteriousness of it is OUR problem. RUSSEL Evolutionary algorithms are highly effective information pumps, pumping information from the environment into the genome, or whatever representation you're using to store the solutions. COLIN But then we're not talking about merely being 'highly effective' in a target problem domain, are we? We are talking about proving consciousness in a machine. I agree - evolutionary algoritms are great things... they are just irrelevant to this discussion. COLIN My scientific claim is that the electromagnetic field structure literally the third person view of qualia. Eh? Electromagnetic field of what? The brain? If so, do you think that chemical potentiation plays no role at all in qualia? Chemical potentiation IS electric field. RUSSEL Bollocks. A hydrogen molecule and an oxygen atom held 1m apart have chemical potential, but there is precious little electric field I am talking about the membrane and you are talking atoms so I guess we missed somehow...anywayThe only 'potentiation' that really matters in my model is that which looks like an 'action potential' longitudinally traversing dendrite/soma/axon membrane as a whole. Notwithstanding this The chemical potentiation at the atomic level is entirely an EM phenomenon mediated by QM boundaries (virtual photons in support of the shell structure, also EM). It is a sustained 'well/energy minimaum' in the EM field structureYou think there is such a 'thing' as potential? There is no such thing - there is something we describe as 'EM field'. Nothing else. Within that metaphor is yet another even more specious metaphor: Potential is an (as yet unrealised) propensity of the field at a particular place to do work on a charge if it were put it there. You can place that charge in it and get a number out of an electrophysiological probe... and 'realise' the work (modify the fields) itself- but there's no 'thing' that 'is' the potential. Not only that: The fields are HUGE 10^11 volts/meter. Indeed the entrapment of protons in the nucleus requires the strong nuclear force to overcome truly stupendous repulsive fields. I know beause I am quite literally doing tests in molecular dynamics simulations of the E-M field at the single charge level. The fields are massive and change at staggeringly huge rates, especially at the atomic level. HoweverTheir net level in the vicinity of 20Angstroms away falls off dramatically. But this is not the vicinity of any 'chemical reaction'. And again I say : there is nothing else there but charge and its fields. When you put your hand on a table the reason it doesn't pass through it even though table and hand are mostly space ...is because electrons literally meet and
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Le 14-juin-07, à 18:13, John Mikes a écrit : I wonder about Bruno's (omniscient) Lob-machine, how it handles a novelty. Did you receive my last mail? I quote below the relevant part. To be sure, there is a technical sense, in logic, of omniscience in which the lobian machines are omniscient. But I doubt that you are using omniscience in that technical sense. Let me ask you what you mean by omniscience? Bruno quote: John: I know that you ask your oimniscient Loebian machine, Bruno: Aaah... come on. It is hard to imagine something less omniscient and more modest than the simple lobian machine I interview, like PA whose knowledge is quite a tiny subset of yours. You are still talking like a *pregodelian* mechanist. Machine can no more be conceived as omniscient, just the complete contrary. And adding knowledge makes this worse. You can see consciousness evolution as a trip from G to G*, but that trip makes the gap between G and G* bigger. The more a universal machine knows, the more she will be *relatively* ignorant. With comp, knowledge is like a light in the dark, which makes you aware of the bigness of the explorable reality, and beyond. endquote http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
David, Tom, Stephen, I keep your posts and I will comment them the week after the next one. I have also to finish a post for Stephen Paul King about bisimulation and identity. I'm out of my office the whole next week. I hope my mail-box will survive :) Best Regards, Bruno Le 15-juin-07, à 03:16, David Nyman a écrit : The 'substrate' to which I refer is not matter or anything else in particular, but a logical-semantic 'substrate' from which 'mind' or 'matter' could emerge. On this basis, 'sense-action' (i.e. two differentiated 'entities' primitively 'sensing' each other in order to 'interact') is a logical, or at least semantically coherent, requirement. For example, if you want to use a particle-force analogy, then the 'force' would be the medium of exchange of sense- action - i.e. relationship. In Kant's ontology, his windowless monads had no such means of exchange (the 'void' prevented it) and consequently divine intervention had to do the 'trick'. I'm hoping that Bruno will help me with the appropriate analogy for AR+COMP. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 14, 3:47 am, Colin Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 4) Belief in 'magical emergence' qualitative novelty of a kind utterly unrelated to the componentry. Hi Colin I think there's a link here with the dialogue in the 'Asifism' thread between Bruno and me. I've been reading Galen Strawson's Consciousness and its place in Nature, which has re-ignited some of the old hoo-hah over 'panpsychism', with the usual attendant embarrassment and name-calling. It motivated me to try to unpack the basic semantic components that are difficult to pin down in these debates, and for this reason tend to lead to mutual incomprehension. Strawson refers to the 'magical emergence' you mention, and what is in his view (and mine) the disanalogy of 'emergent' accounts of consciousness with, say, how 'liquidity' supervenes on molecular behaviour. So I started from the question: what would have to be the case at the 'component' level for such 'emergence' to make sense (and I'm aiming at the semantics here, not 'ultimate truth', whatever that might be). My answer is simply that for 'sensing' and 'acting' to 'emerge' (i.e. supervene on) some lower level, that lower level must itself 'sense' and 'act' (or 'grasp', a word that can carry the meaning of both). What sense does it make to say that, for example, sub-atomic particles, strings, or even Bruno's numbers, 'grasp' each other? Well, semantically, the alternative would be that they would shun and ignore each other, and we wouldn't get very far on that basis. They clearly seem to relate according to certain 'rules', but we're not so naive (are we?) as to suppose that these are actually 'laws' handily supplied from some 'external' domain. Since we're talking 'primitives here', then such relating, such mutual 'grasping', must just *be*. There's nothing wrong conceptually here, we always need an axiomatic base, the question is simply where to situate it, and semantically IMO the buck stops here or somewhere closely adjacent. The cool thing about this is, that if we start from such primitive 'grasping', then higher-level emergent forms of full sense-action can now emerge organically by (now entirely valid) analogy with purely action-related accounts such as liquidity, or for that matter, the emergence of living behaviour from 'dead matter'. And the obvious complexity of the relation between, say quantum mechanics and, say, the life cycle of the sphex wasp, should alert us to an equivalent complexity in the relationship between primitive 'grasp' and its fully qualitative (read: participatory) emergents - so please let's have no (oh-so-embarrassing) 'conscious electrons' here. Further, it shows us in what way 'software consciousness' is disanalogous with the evolved kind. A computer, or a rock for that matter, is of course also a natural emergent from primitive grasping, and this brings with it sense-action, but in the case of these objects more action than sense at the emergent level. The software level of description, however, is merely an imputation, supplied externally (i.e. by us) and imposed as an interpretation (one of infinitely many) on the fundamental grasped relations of the substrate components. By contrast, the brain (and here comes the research programme) must have evolved (crucially) to deploy a supremely complex set of 'mirroring' processes that is (per evolution) genuinely emergent from the primitive 'grasp' of the component level. From this comes (possibly) the coolest consequence of these semantics: our intrinsic 'grasp' of our own motivation (i.e. will, whether 'free' or not), our participative qualitative modalities, the relation of our suffering to subsequent action, and so forth, emerge as indeed 'something like' the primitive roots from which they inherit these characteristics. This is *real* emergence, not magical, and at one stroke demolishes epiphenomenalism, zombies, uploading fantasies and all the other illusory consequences of confusing the 'external world' (i.e. a projection) with the participatory one in which we are included. Cheers David Hi, COLIN I don't think we need a new wordI'll stick to the far less ambiguous term 'organisational complexity', I think. the word creativity is so loaded that its use in general discourse is bound to be prone to misconstrual, especially in any discussion which purports to be assessing the relationship between 'organisational complexity' and consciousness. RUSSEL What sort of misconstruals do you mean? I'm interested... 'organisational complexity' does not capture the concept I'm after. COLIN 1) Those associated with religious 'creation' myths - the creativity ascribed to an omniscient/omnipotent entity. 2) The creativity ascribed to the act of procreation. 3) The pseudo-magical aspects of human creativity (the scientific ah-ha moment and the artistic gestalt moment). and pehaps... 4) Belief in 'magical emergence' qualitative novelty of a kind utterly
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Colin and partners: To the subject question: how do you know your own conscious state? (It all comes back to my 'ceterum censeo': what are we talking about as 'consciousness'? - if there is a concensus-ready definition for open-minded use at all). And a 2nd question: May I ask: what is 'novelty'? usually it refers to something actually not 'registered' among known and currently listed things within the inventory of activated presently used cognitive inventories. Within the complexity inherently applied in the world, there is no novelty. (First off: time is not included in complexity, so a 'later' finding is not 'new'. ) Secondly: our (limited) mindset works only with that much content and I would be cautious to call 'novelty' the rest of the world. I wonder about Bruno's (omniscient) Lob-machine, how it handles a novelty. Now I can continue reading your very exciting discussion. Thanks John M On 6/14/07, Colin Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, STATHIS Your argument that only consciousness can give rise to technology loses validity if you include must be produced by a conscious being as part of the definition of technology. COLIN There's obvious circularity in the above sentence and it is the same old circularity that endlessly haunts discussions like this (see the dialog with Russel). In dealing with the thread Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious? my proposition was that successful _novel_ technology i.e. a entity comprised of matter with a function not previously observed and that resulted from new - as in hitherto unknown - knowledge of the natural world can only result when sourced through agency inclusive of a phenomenal consciousness (specifically and currently only that that aspect of human brain function I have called 'cortical qualia'). Without the qualia, generated based on literal connection with the world outside the agent, the novelty upon which the new knowledge was based would be invisible. My proposition was that if the machine can do the science on exquisite novelty that subsequantly is in the causal ancestry of novel technology then that machine must include phenomenal scenes (qualia) that depict the external world. Scientists and science are the way to objectively attain an objective scientific position on subjective experience - that is just as valid as any other scientific position AND that a machine could judge itself by. If the machine is willing to bet its existence on the novel technology's ability to function when the machine is not there doing what it thinks is 'observing it'... and it survives - then it can call itself conscious. Humans do that. But the machines have another option. They can physically battle it out against humans. The humans will blitz machines without phenomenal scenes every time and the machines without them won't even know it because they never knew they were in a fight to start with. They wouldn't be able to test a hypothesis that they were even in a fight. and then this looks all circular again doesn't it?this circularity is the predictable resultsee below... STATHIS Well, why does your eye generate visual qualia and not your big toe? It's because the big toe lacks the necessary machinery. COLIN I am afraid you have your physiology mixed up. The eye does NOT generate visual qualia. Your visual cortex generates it based on measurements in the eye. The qualia are manufactured and simultaneously projected to appear to come from the eye (actually somewhere medial to them). It's how you have 90degrees++ peripheral vison. The same visual qualia can be generated without an eye (hallucination/dream). Some blind (no functioning retina) people have a visual field for numbers. Other cross-modal mixups can occur in synesthesia (you can hear colours, taste words). You can have a phantom big toe without having any big toe at alljust because the cortex is still there making the qualia. If you swapped the sensory nerves in two fingers the motor cortex would drive finger A and it would feel like finger B moved and you would see finger A move. The sensation is in your head, not the periphery. It's merely projected at the periphery. STATHIS Of course all that is true, but it doesn't explain why neurons in the cortex are the ones giving rise to qualia rather than other neurons or indeed peripheral sense organs. COLIN Was that what you were after? hmmm firstly. didactic mode = Qualia are not about 'knowledge'. Any old piece of junk can symbolically encode knowledge. Qualia, however, optimally serve _learning_ = _change_ in knowledge but more specifically change in knowledge about the world OUTSIDE the agent. Mathematically: If KNOWLEDGE(t) is what we know at time t, then qualia give us an optimal (survivable): d(knowledge(t)) --- dt where knowledge(t) is all about the world
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 14, 4:46 am, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Of course all that is true, but it doesn't explain why neurons in the cortex
are the ones giving rise to qualia rather than other neurons or indeed
peripheral sense organs.
Well, you might as well ask why the engine drives the car and not the
brakes. Presumably (insert research programme here) the different
neural (or other relevant) organisation of the cortex is the
difference that makes the difference. My account would run like this:
the various emergent organs of the brain and sensory apparatus (like
everything else) supervene on an infrastructure capable of 'sense-
action'. I'm (somewhat) agnostic about the nature of this
infrastructure: conceive it as strings, particles, or even Bruno's
numbers. But however we conceptualise it, it must (logically) be
capable of 'sense-action' in order for activity and cognition to
supervene on it. Then what makes the difference in the cortex must be
a supremely complex 'mirroring' mode of organisation (a 'remembered
present') lacked by other organs. To demonstrate this will be a
supremely difficult empirical programme, but IMO it presents no
invincible philosophical problems if conceived in this way.
A note here on 'sense-action': If we think, for example and for
convenience, of particles 'reacting' to each other in terms of the
exchange of 'forces', ISTM quite natural to intuit this as both
'awareness' or 'sensing', and also 'action'. After all, I can't react
to you if I'm not aware of you. IOW, the 'forces' *are* the sense-
action. And at this fundamental level, such motivation must emerge
intrinsically (i.e. *something like* the way we experience it) to
avoid a literal appeal to any extrinsic source ('laws'). Kant saw
this clearly in terms of his 'windowless monads', but these, separated
by the 'void', indeed had to be correlated by divine intervention,
since (unaware of each other) they could not interact. Nowadays, no
longer conceiving the 'void' as 'nothing', we substitute a modulated
continuum, but the same semantic demands apply.
David
On 14/06/07, Colin Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Colin
This point is poised on the cliff edge of loaded word meanings and their
use with the words 'sufficient' and 'necessary'. By technology I mean
novel artifacts resulting from the trajectory of causality including human
scientists. By that definition 'life', in the sense you infer, is not
technology. The resulting logical loop can be thus avoided. There is a
biosphere that arose naturally. It includes complexity of sufficient depth
to have created observers within it. Those observers can produce
technology. Douglas Adams (bless him) had the digital watch as a valid
product of evolution - and I agree with him - it's just that humans are
necessarily involved in its causal ancestry.
Your argument that only consciousness can give rise to technology loses
validity if you include must be produced by a conscious being as part of
the definition of technology.
COLIN
That assumes that complexity itself (organisation of information) is
the
origin of consciousness in some unspecified, unjustified way. This
position is completely unable to make any empirical predictions
about the
nature of human conscousness (eg why your cortex generates qualia
and your
spinal chord doesn't - a physiologically proven fact).
STATHIS
Well, why does your eye generate visual qualia and not your big toe?
It's because the big toe lacks the necessary machinery.
Colin
I am afraid you have your physiology mixed up. The eye does NOT generate
visual qualia. Your visual cortex generates it based on measurements in
the eye. The qualia are manufactured and simultaneously projected to
appear to come from the eye (actually somewhere medial to them). It's how
you have 90degrees++ peripheral vison. The same visual qualia can be
generated without an eye (hallucination/dream). Some blind (no functioning
retina) people have a visual field for numbers. Other cross-modal mixups
can occur in synesthesia (you can hear colours, taste words). You can have
a phantom big toe without having any big toe at alljust because the
cortex is still there making the qualia. If you swapped the sensory nerves
in two fingers the motor cortex would drive finger A and it would feel
like finger B moved and you would see finger A move. The sensation is in
your head, not the periphery. It's merely projected at the periphery.
Of course all that is true, but it doesn't explain why neurons in the cortex
are the ones giving rise to qualia rather than other neurons or indeed
peripheral sense organs.
--
Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 15/06/07, David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jun 14, 4:46 am, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Of course all that is true, but it doesn't explain why neurons in the cortex are the ones giving rise to qualia rather than other neurons or indeed peripheral sense organs. Well, you might as well ask why the engine drives the car and not the brakes. Presumably (insert research programme here) the different neural (or other relevant) organisation of the cortex is the difference that makes the difference. My account would run like this: the various emergent organs of the brain and sensory apparatus (like everything else) supervene on an infrastructure capable of 'sense- action'. I'm (somewhat) agnostic about the nature of this infrastructure: conceive it as strings, particles, or even Bruno's numbers. But however we conceptualise it, it must (logically) be capable of 'sense-action' in order for activity and cognition to supervene on it. Then what makes the difference in the cortex must be a supremely complex 'mirroring' mode of organisation (a 'remembered present') lacked by other organs. To demonstrate this will be a supremely difficult empirical programme, but IMO it presents no invincible philosophical problems if conceived in this way. What you're suggesting is that matter is intrinsically capable of sense-action, but it takes substantial amounts of matter of the right kind organised in the right way in order to give rise to what we experience as consciousness. What do we lose if we say that it is organisation which is intrinsically capable of sense-action, but it takes a substantial amount of organisation of the right sort to in order to give rise to consciousness? This drops the extra assumption that the substrate is important and is consistentr with functionalism. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 15, 1:13 am, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What do we lose if we say that it is organisation which is intrinsically capable of sense-action, but it takes a substantial amount of organisation of the right sort to in order to give rise to consciousness? This drops the extra assumption that the substrate is important and is consistentr with functionalism. The 'substrate' to which I refer is not matter or anything else in particular, but a logical-semantic 'substrate' from which 'mind' or 'matter' could emerge. On this basis, 'sense-action' (i.e. two differentiated 'entities' primitively 'sensing' each other in order to 'interact') is a logical, or at least semantically coherent, requirement. For example, if you want to use a particle-force analogy, then the 'force' would be the medium of exchange of sense- action - i.e. relationship. In Kant's ontology, his windowless monads had no such means of exchange (the 'void' prevented it) and consequently divine intervention had to do the 'trick'. I'm hoping that Bruno will help me with the appropriate analogy for AR+COMP. In this logical sense, the primitive 'substrate' is crucial, and ISTM that any coherent notion of 'organisation' must include these basic semantics - indeed the problem with conventional expositions of functionalism is that they implicitly appeal to this requirement but explicitly ignore it. A coherent 'functionalist' account needs to track the emergence of sense-action from primitive self-motivated sources in an appropriate explanatory base, analogous to supervention in 'physical' accounts. However, if this requirement is made explicit, I'm happy to concur that appropriate organisation based on it is indeed what generates both consciousness and action, and the causal linkage between the two accounts. David On 15/06/07, David Nyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jun 14, 4:46 am, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Of course all that is true, but it doesn't explain why neurons in the cortex are the ones giving rise to qualia rather than other neurons or indeed peripheral sense organs. Well, you might as well ask why the engine drives the car and not the brakes. Presumably (insert research programme here) the different neural (or other relevant) organisation of the cortex is the difference that makes the difference. My account would run like this: the various emergent organs of the brain and sensory apparatus (like everything else) supervene on an infrastructure capable of 'sense- action'. I'm (somewhat) agnostic about the nature of this infrastructure: conceive it as strings, particles, or even Bruno's numbers. But however we conceptualise it, it must (logically) be capable of 'sense-action' in order for activity and cognition to supervene on it. Then what makes the difference in the cortex must be a supremely complex 'mirroring' mode of organisation (a 'remembered present') lacked by other organs. To demonstrate this will be a supremely difficult empirical programme, but IMO it presents no invincible philosophical problems if conceived in this way. What you're suggesting is that matter is intrinsically capable of sense-action, but it takes substantial amounts of matter of the right kind organised in the right way in order to give rise to what we experience as consciousness. What do we lose if we say that it is organisation which is intrinsically capable of sense-action, but it takes a substantial amount of organisation of the right sort to in order to give rise to consciousness? This drops the extra assumption that the substrate is important and is consistentr with functionalism. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Hi again very busy...responses erratically available...sorry... my blah blah snipped COLIN RE: 'creativity' ... Say at stage t the biosphere was at complexity level X and then at stage t = t+(something), the biosphere complexity was at KX, where X is some key performance indicator of complexity (eg entropy) and K 1 RUSSEL Thats exactly what I mean by a creative process. And I also have a fairly precise definition of complexity, but I certainly accept proxies as these are usually easier to measure. For example Bedau-Packard statistics... COLIN This could be called creative if you like. Like Prigogine did. I'd caution against the tendency to use the word because it has so many loaded meanings that are suggestive of much more then the previous para. RUSSEL Most scientific terms have common usage in sharp contrast to the scientific meanings. Energy is a classic example eg I've run out of energy when referring to motivation or tiredness. If the statement were literally true, the speaker would be dead. This doesn't prevent sensible scientific discussion using the term in a well defined way. I know of no other technical meanings of the word creative, so I don't see a problem here. COLIN It may be technically OK then, but I would say the use of the word 'creativity' is unwise if you wish to unambiguously discuss evolution to a wide audience. As I said... Scientifically the word could be left entirely out of any desciptions of the biosphere. RUSSEL Only by generating a new word that means the same thing (ie the well defined concept we talked about before). COLIN I don't think we need a new wordI'll stick to the far less ambiguous term 'organisational complexity', I think. the word creativity is so loaded that its use in general discourse is bound to be prone to misconstrual, especially in any discussion which purports to be assessing the relationship between 'organisational complexity' and consciousness. COLIN The bogus logic I detect in posts around this area... 'Humans are complex and are conscious' 'Humans were made by a complex biosphere' therefore 'The biosphere is conscious' RUSSEL Perhaps so, but not from me. To return to your original claim: COLIN Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious? Easy. The computer would be able to go head to head with a human in a competition. The competition? Do science on exquisite novelty that neither party had encountered. (More interesting: Make their life depend on getting it right. The survivors are conscious). RUSSEL Doing science on exquisite novelty is simply an example of a creative process. Evolution produces exquisite novelty. Is it science - well maybe not, but both science and evolution are search processes. COLIN In a very real way, the procedural mandate we scientists enforce on ourselves are, to me anyway, a literal metaphor for the evolutionary process. The trial and error of evolution = (relatively!) random creativity followed by proscription via death(defeat in critical argument eg by evidence) = that which remains does so by not being killed off. In science our laws of nature are the same on the knife edge, validity contingent on the appearance of one tiny shred of contrary evidence. (yes I know they are not killed! - they are usually upgraded). RUSSEL I think that taking the Popperian view of science would imply that both science and biological evolution are exemplars of a generic evolutionary process. There is variation (of hypotheses or species), there is selection (falsification in the former or extinction in the latter) and there is heritability (scientific journal articles / genetic code). So it seems the only real difference between doing science and evolving species is that one is performed by conscious entities, and the other (pace IDers) is not. COLIN I think different aspects of what I just described (rather more colourfully :-) ) RUSSEL But this rather begs your answer in a trivial way. What if I were to produce an evolutionary algorithm that performs science in the convention everyday use of the term - lets say by forming hypotheses and mining published datasets for testing them. It is not too difficult to imagine this - after all John Koza has produced several new patents in the area of electrical circuits from an Evolutionary Programming algorithm. COLIN The question-begging loop at this epistemic boundary is a minefield. [[engage tiptoe mode]] I would say: (1) The evolutionary algorithms are not 'doing science' on the natural world. They are doing science on abstract entities whose relationship with the natural world is only in the mind(consciousness) of their grounder - the human programmer. The science done by the artefact can be the perfectly good science of abstractions, but simply wrong or irrelevant insofar as it bears any ability to prescribe or verify claims/propositions about the natural world (about which it has no awareness whatever). The usefulness
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 10:23:38AM +1000, Colin Hales wrote: COLIN It may be technically OK then, but I would say the use of the word 'creativity' is unwise if you wish to unambiguously discuss evolution to a wide audience. As I said... COLIN I don't think we need a new wordI'll stick to the far less ambiguous term 'organisational complexity', I think. the word creativity is so loaded that its use in general discourse is bound to be prone to misconstrual, especially in any discussion which purports to be assessing the relationship between 'organisational complexity' and consciousness. What sort of misconstruals do you mean? I'm interested... 'organisational complexity' does not capture the concept I'm after. COLIN The question-begging loop at this epistemic boundary is a minefield. [[engage tiptoe mode]] I would say: (1) The evolutionary algorithms are not 'doing science' on the natural world. They are doing science on abstract entities whose relationship with the natural world is only in the mind(consciousness) of their grounder - the human programmer. The science done by the artefact can be the perfectly good science of abstractions, but simply wrong or irrelevant insofar as it bears any ability to prescribe or verify claims/propositions about the natural world (about which it has no awareness whatever). The usefulness of the outcome (patents) took human involvement. The inventor (software) doesn't even know it's in a universe, let alone that it participated in an invention process. This objection is easily countered in theory. Hook up your evolutionary algorithm to a chemsitry workbench, and let it go with real chemicals. Practically, its a bit more difficult of course, most likely leading to the lab being destroyed in some explosion. Theoretical scientists, do not have laboratories to interface to, though, only online repositories of datasets and papers. A theoretical algorithmic scientist is a more likely proposition. (2) Is this evolutionary algorithm conscious then?. In the sense that we are conscious of the natural world around us? Most definitely no. Nowhere in the computer are any processes that include all aspects of the physics of human cortical matter. ... Based on this, of the 2 following positions, which is less vulnerable to critical attack? A) Information processing (function) begets consciousness, regardless of the behaviour of the matter doing the information processing (form). Computers process information. Therefore I believe the computer is conscious. B) Human cortical qualia are a necessary condition for the scientific behaviour and unless the complete suite of the physics involved in that process is included in the computer, the computer is not conscious. Which form of question-begging gets the most solid points as science? (B) of course. (B) is science and has an empirical future. Belief (A) is religion, not science. Bit of a no-brainer, eh? I think you're showing clear signs of carbon-lifeform-ism here. Whilst I can say fairly clearly that I believe my fellow humans are conscious, and that I beleive John Koza's evolutionary programs aren't, I do not have a clear-cut operational test of consciousness. Its like the test for pornography - we know it when we see it. It is therefore not at all clear to me that some n-th generational improvement on an evolutionary algorithm won't be considered conscious at some time in the future. It is not at all clear which aspects of human cortical systems are required for consciousness. -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Hi Stathis, Colin The bogus logic I detect in posts around this area... 'Humans are complex and are conscious' 'Humans were made by a complex biosphere' therefore 'The biosphere is conscious' Stathis That conclusion is spurious, but it is the case that non-conscious evolutionary processes can give rise to very elaborate technology, namely life, which goes against your theory that only consciousness can produce new technology. Colin This point is poised on the cliff edge of loaded word meanings and their use with the words 'sufficient' and 'necessary'. By technology I mean novel artifacts resulting from the trajectory of causality including human scientists. By that definition 'life', in the sense you infer, is not technology. The resulting logical loop can be thus avoided. There is a biosphere that arose naturally. It includes complexity of sufficient depth to have created observers within it. Those observers can produce technology. Douglas Adams (bless him) had the digital watch as a valid product of evolution - and I agree with him - it's just that humans are necessarily involved in its causal ancestry. COLIN That assumes that complexity itself (organisation of information) is the origin of consciousness in some unspecified, unjustified way. This position is completely unable to make any empirical predictions about the nature of human conscousness (eg why your cortex generates qualia and your spinal chord doesn't - a physiologically proven fact). STATHIS Well, why does your eye generate visual qualia and not your big toe? It's because the big toe lacks the necessary machinery. Colin I am afraid you have your physiology mixed up. The eye does NOT generate visual qualia. Your visual cortex generates it based on measurements in the eye. The qualia are manufactured and simultaneously projected to appear to come from the eye (actually somewhere medial to them). It's how you have 90degrees++ peripheral vison. The same visual qualia can be generated without an eye (hallucination/dream). Some blind (no functioning retina) people have a visual field for numbers. Other cross-modal mixups can occur in synesthesia (you can hear colours, taste words). You can have a phantom big toe without having any big toe at alljust because the cortex is still there making the qualia. If you swapped the sensory nerves in two fingers the motor cortex would drive finger A and it would feel like finger B moved and you would see finger A move. The sensation is in your head, not the periphery. It's merely projected at the periphery. cheers colin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Hi, COLIN I don't think we need a new wordI'll stick to the far less ambiguous term 'organisational complexity', I think. the word creativity is so loaded that its use in general discourse is bound to be prone to misconstrual, especially in any discussion which purports to be assessing the relationship between 'organisational complexity' and consciousness. RUSSEL What sort of misconstruals do you mean? I'm interested... 'organisational complexity' does not capture the concept I'm after. COLIN 1) Those associated with religious 'creation' myths - the creativity ascribed to an omniscient/omnipotent entity. 2) The creativity ascribed to the act of procreation. 3) The pseudo-magical aspects of human creativity (the scientific ah-ha moment and the artistic gestalt moment). and pehaps... 4) Belief in 'magical emergence' qualitative novelty of a kind utterly unrelated to the componentry. These are all slippery slopes leading from the usage of the word 'creativity' which could unexpectedly undermine the specificity of a technical discourse aimed at a wider (multi-disciplinary) audience. Whatever word you dream up... let me know! COLIN The question-begging loop at this epistemic boundary is a minefield. [[engage tiptoe mode]] I would say: (1) The evolutionary algorithms are not 'doing science' on the natural world. They are doing science on abstract entities whose relationship with the natural world is only in the mind(consciousness) of their grounder - the human programmer. The science done by the artefact can be the perfectly good science of abstractions, but simply wrong or irrelevant insofar as it bears any ability to prescribe or verify claims/propositions about the natural world (about which it has no awareness whatever). The usefulness of the outcome (patents) took human involvement. The inventor (software) doesn't even know it's in a universe, let alone that it participated in an invention process. RUSSEL This objection is easily countered in theory. Hook up your evolutionary algorithm to a chemsitry workbench, and let it go with real chemicals. Practically, its a bit more difficult of course, most likely leading to the lab being destroyed in some explosion. COLIN Lots o'fun! But it might actually create its own undoing in the words 'evolutionary algorithm'. The self-modification strategy was preprogrammed by a human, along with the initial values. Then there is the matter of interpresting measurements of the output of the chemistry set... The system (a) automatically prescibes certain trajectories and (b) assumes that the theroem space natural world are the same space and equivalently accessed. The assumption is that hooking up a chemistry set replicates the 'wild-type' theorem prover that is the natural world. If you could do that then you already know everything there is to know (about the natural world) and there'd be no need do it in the first place. This is the all-time ultimate question-begger... Theoretical scientists, do not have laboratories to interface to, though, only online repositories of datasets and papers. A theoretical algorithmic scientist is a more likely proposition. A belief that an algorithmic scientist is doing valid science on the natural world (independent of any human) is problematic in that it assumes that human cortical qualia play no part in the scientific process in the face of easily available evidence to the contrary, and then doubly assumes that the algorithmic scientist (with a novelty exploration -theorem proving strategy-programmed by a human) somehow naturally replicates the neglected functionality (role of cortical qualia). (2) Is this evolutionary algorithm conscious then?. In the sense that we are conscious of the natural world around us? Most definitely no. Nowhere in the computer are any processes that include all aspects of the physics of human cortical matter. ... Based on this, of the 2 following positions, which is less vulnerable to critical attack? A) Information processing (function) begets consciousness, regardless of the behaviour of the matter doing the information processing (form). Computers process information. Therefore I believe the computer is conscious. B) Human cortical qualia are a necessary condition for the scientific behaviour and unless the complete suite of the physics involved in that process is included in the computer, the computer is not conscious. Which form of question-begging gets the most solid points as science? (B) of course. (B) is science and has an empirical future. Belief (A) is religion, not science. Bit of a no-brainer, eh? I think you're showing clear signs of carbon-lifeform-ism here. Whilst I can say fairly clearly that I believe my fellow humans are conscious, and that I beleive John Koza's evolutionary programs aren't, I do not have a clear-cut operational test of consciousness. Its like the test for pornography - we know it when we see it. This is touching the
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 14/06/07, Colin Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Colin This point is poised on the cliff edge of loaded word meanings and their use with the words 'sufficient' and 'necessary'. By technology I mean novel artifacts resulting from the trajectory of causality including human scientists. By that definition 'life', in the sense you infer, is not technology. The resulting logical loop can be thus avoided. There is a biosphere that arose naturally. It includes complexity of sufficient depth to have created observers within it. Those observers can produce technology. Douglas Adams (bless him) had the digital watch as a valid product of evolution - and I agree with him - it's just that humans are necessarily involved in its causal ancestry. Your argument that only consciousness can give rise to technology loses validity if you include must be produced by a conscious being as part of the definition of technology. COLIN That assumes that complexity itself (organisation of information) is the origin of consciousness in some unspecified, unjustified way. This position is completely unable to make any empirical predictions about the nature of human conscousness (eg why your cortex generates qualia and your spinal chord doesn't - a physiologically proven fact). STATHIS Well, why does your eye generate visual qualia and not your big toe? It's because the big toe lacks the necessary machinery. Colin I am afraid you have your physiology mixed up. The eye does NOT generate visual qualia. Your visual cortex generates it based on measurements in the eye. The qualia are manufactured and simultaneously projected to appear to come from the eye (actually somewhere medial to them). It's how you have 90degrees++ peripheral vison. The same visual qualia can be generated without an eye (hallucination/dream). Some blind (no functioning retina) people have a visual field for numbers. Other cross-modal mixups can occur in synesthesia (you can hear colours, taste words). You can have a phantom big toe without having any big toe at alljust because the cortex is still there making the qualia. If you swapped the sensory nerves in two fingers the motor cortex would drive finger A and it would feel like finger B moved and you would see finger A move. The sensation is in your head, not the periphery. It's merely projected at the periphery. Of course all that is true, but it doesn't explain why neurons in the cortex are the ones giving rise to qualia rather than other neurons or indeed peripheral sense organs. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 12:47:58PM +1000, Colin Hales wrote: RUSSEL What sort of misconstruals do you mean? I'm interested... 'organisational complexity' does not capture the concept I'm after. COLIN 1) Those associated with religious 'creation' myths - the creativity ascribed to an omniscient/omnipotent entity. It still seems like we're talking about the same thing. Its just that in the myth case, there is no explanation for the creativity, it is merely asserted at the start. I have little interest in myths, but I recognise that the omniscient being in those stories is being creative in exactly the was as evolution is being creative at producing new species. 2) The creativity ascribed to the act of procreation. Well I admit that pornographers are a pretty creative bunch, but what is so creative about reproducing? 3) The pseudo-magical aspects of human creativity (the scientific ah-ha moment and the artistic gestalt moment). and pehaps... Human creativity is an interesting topic, but I wouldn't call it pseudo-magical. Poorly understood, more like it. Comparing creativity in evolutionary processes and the human creative process is likely to improve that understanding. 4) Belief in 'magical emergence' qualitative novelty of a kind utterly unrelated to the componentry. The latter clause refers to emergence (without the magical qualifier), and it is impossible IMHO to have creativity without emergence. These are all slippery slopes leading from the usage of the word 'creativity' which could unexpectedly undermine the specificity of a technical discourse aimed at a wider (multi-disciplinary) audience. Aside from the easily disposed of reproduction case, you haven't come up with an example of creativity meaning anything other than what we've agreed it to mean. The system (a) automatically prescibes certain trajectories and Yes. (b) assumes that the theroem space [and] natural world are the same space and equivalently accessed. No - but the system will adjust its model according to feedback. That is the very nature of any learning algorithm, of which EP is just one example. The assumption is that hooking up a chemistry set replicates the 'wild-type' theorem prover that is the natural world. If you could do that then you already know everything there is to know (about the natural world) and there'd be no need do it in the first place. This is the all-time ultimate question-begger... Not at all. In Evolutionary Programming, very little is known about the ultimate solution the algorithm comes up with. Theoretical scientists, do not have laboratories to interface to, though, only online repositories of datasets and papers. A theoretical algorithmic scientist is a more likely proposition. A belief that an algorithmic scientist is doing valid science on the natural world (independent of any human) is problematic in that it assumes that human cortical qualia play no part in the scientific process in the face of easily available evidence to the contrary, and then doubly assumes that the algorithmic scientist (with a novelty exploration -theorem proving strategy-programmed by a human) somehow naturally replicates the neglected functionality (role of cortical qualia). Your two assumptions are contradictory. I would say no to the first, and yes to the second. ... It is therefore not at all clear to me that some n-th generational improvement on an evolutionary algorithm won't be considered conscious at some time in the future. It is not at all clear which aspects of human cortical systems are required for consciousness. You are not alone. This is an epidemic. My scientific claim is that the electromagnetic field structure literally the third person view of qualia. Eh? Electromagnetic field of what? The brain? If so, do you think that chemical potentiation plays no role at all in qualia? This is not new. What is new is understanding the kind of universe we inhabit in which that is necessarily the case. It's right there, in the cells. Just ask the right question of them. There's nothing else there but space (mostly), charge and mass - all things delineated and described by consciousness as how they appear to it - and all such descriptions are logically necessarily impotent in prescribing why that very consciousness exists at all. Wigner got this in 1960something time to catch up. I don't know what your point is here ... gotta go cheers colin hales -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Hi, STATHIS Your argument that only consciousness can give rise to technology loses validity if you include must be produced by a conscious being as part of the definition of technology. COLIN There's obvious circularity in the above sentence and it is the same old circularity that endlessly haunts discussions like this (see the dialog with Russel). In dealing with the thread Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious? my proposition was that successful _novel_ technology i.e. a entity comprised of matter with a function not previously observed and that resulted from new - as in hitherto unknown - knowledge of the natural world can only result when sourced through agency inclusive of a phenomenal consciousness (specifically and currently only that that aspect of human brain function I have called 'cortical qualia'). Without the qualia, generated based on literal connection with the world outside the agent, the novelty upon which the new knowledge was based would be invisible. My proposition was that if the machine can do the science on exquisite novelty that subsequantly is in the causal ancestry of novel technology then that machine must include phenomenal scenes (qualia) that depict the external world. Scientists and science are the way to objectively attain an objective scientific position on subjective experience - that is just as valid as any other scientific position AND that a machine could judge itself by. If the machine is willing to bet its existence on the novel technology's ability to function when the machine is not there doing what it thinks is 'observing it'... and it survives - then it can call itself conscious. Humans do that. But the machines have another option. They can physically battle it out against humans. The humans will blitz machines without phenomenal scenes every time and the machines without them won't even know it because they never knew they were in a fight to start with. They wouldn't be able to test a hypothesis that they were even in a fight. and then this looks all circular again doesn't it?this circularity is the predictable resultsee below... STATHIS Well, why does your eye generate visual qualia and not your big toe? It's because the big toe lacks the necessary machinery. COLIN I am afraid you have your physiology mixed up. The eye does NOT generate visual qualia. Your visual cortex generates it based on measurements in the eye. The qualia are manufactured and simultaneously projected to appear to come from the eye (actually somewhere medial to them). It's how you have 90degrees++ peripheral vison. The same visual qualia can be generated without an eye (hallucination/dream). Some blind (no functioning retina) people have a visual field for numbers. Other cross-modal mixups can occur in synesthesia (you can hear colours, taste words). You can have a phantom big toe without having any big toe at alljust because the cortex is still there making the qualia. If you swapped the sensory nerves in two fingers the motor cortex would drive finger A and it would feel like finger B moved and you would see finger A move. The sensation is in your head, not the periphery. It's merely projected at the periphery. STATHIS Of course all that is true, but it doesn't explain why neurons in the cortex are the ones giving rise to qualia rather than other neurons or indeed peripheral sense organs. COLIN Was that what you were after? hmmm firstly. didactic mode = Qualia are not about 'knowledge'. Any old piece of junk can symbolically encode knowledge. Qualia, however, optimally serve _learning_ = _change_ in knowledge but more specifically change in knowledge about the world OUTSIDE the agent. Mathematically: If KNOWLEDGE(t) is what we know at time t, then qualia give us an optimal (survivable): d(knowledge(t)) --- dt where knowledge(t) is all about the world outside the agent. Without qualia you have the ultimate in circularity - what you know must be based on what you know + sensory signals devoid of qualia and only interpretable by your existing knowledge. Sensory signals are not uniquely related to the external natural world behaviour (law of electromagnetics Laplacian/Possions equation) and are intrinsically devoid of qualia (physiological fact). Hence the science of sensory signals (capturing regularity in them) is NOT the science of the external natural world in any way that exposes novelty in the external natural world= a recipe for evolutionary shortlived-ness. = Now... as to Of course all that is true, but it doesn't explain why neurons in the cortex are the ones giving rise to qualia rather than other neurons or indeed peripheral sense organs. Your whole concept of explanation is causal of the problem! Objects of the sense impressions (contents of consciousness) cannot predict the existence of the sense impressions. All
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 12/06/07, Colin Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The bogus logic I detect in posts around this area... 'Humans are complex and are conscious' 'Humans were made by a complex biosphere' therefore 'The biosphere is conscious' That conclusion is spurious, but it is the case that non-coscious evolutionary processes can give rise to very elaborate technology, namely life, which goes against your theory that only consciousness can produce new technology. That assumes that complexity itself (organisation of information) is the origin of consciousness in some unspecified, unjustified way. This position is completely unable to make any empirical predictions about the nature of human conscousness (eg why your cortex generates qualia and your spinal chord doesn't - a physiologically proven fact). Well, why does your eye generate visual qualia and not your big toe? It's because the big toe lacks the necessary machinery. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Tue, Jun 12, 2007 at 09:33:00AM +1000, Colin Hales wrote: Hi again, Russel: I'm sorry, but you worked yourself up into an incomprehensible rant. Is evolution creative in your view or not? If it is, then there is little point debating definitions, as we're in agreement. If not, then we clearly use the word creative in different senses, and perhaps defintion debates have some utility. Colin: There wasn't even the slightest edge of 'rant' in the post. Quite calm, measured and succinct, actually. Its apparent incomprehensibility? I have no clue what that could be it's quite plain... RE: 'creativity' ... Say at stage t the biosphere was at complexity level X and then at stage t = t+(something), the biosphere complexity was at KX, where X is some key performance indicator of complexity (eg entropy) and K 1 Thats exactly what I mean by a creative process. And I also have a fairly precise definition of complexity, but I certainly accept proxies as these are usually easier to measure. For example Bedau-Packard statistics... This could be called creative if you like. Like Prigogine did. I'd caution against the tendency to use the word because it has so many loaded meanings that are suggestive of much more then the previous para. Most scientific terms have common usage in sharp contrast to the scientific meanings. Energy is a classic example eg I've run out of energy when referring to motivation or tiredness. If the statement were literally true, the speaker would be dead. This doesn't prevent sensible scientific discussion using the term in a well defined way. I know of no other technical meanings of the word creative, so I don't see a problem here. Scientifically the word could be left entirely out of any desciptions of the biosphere. Only by generating a new word that means the same thing (ie the well defined concept we talked about before). The bogus logic I detect in posts around this area... 'Humans are complex and are conscious' 'Humans were made by a complex biosphere' therefore 'The biosphere is conscious' Perhaps so, but not from me. To return to your original claim: Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious? Easy. The computer would be able to go head to head with a human in a competition. The competition? Do science on exquisite novelty that neither party had encountered. (More interesting: Make their life depend on getting it right. The survivors are conscious). Doing science on exquisite novelty is simply an example of a creative process. Evolution produces exquisite novelty. Is it science - well maybe not, but both science and evolution are search processes. I think that taking the Popperian view of science would imply that both science and biological evolution are exemplars of a generic evolutionary process. There is variation (of hypotheses or species), there is selection (falsification in the former or extinction in the latter) and there is heritability (scientific journal articles / genetic code). So it seems the only real difference between doing science and evolving species is that one is performed by conscious entities, and the other (pace IDers) is not. But this rather begs your answer in a trivial way. What if I were to produce an evolutionary algorithm that performs science in the convention everyday use of the term - lets say by forming hypotheses and mining published datasets for testing them. It is not too difficult to imagine this - after all John Koza has produced several new patents in the area of electrical circuits from an Evolutionary Programming algorithm. Is this evolutionary algorithm conscious then? Cheers A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Hi again, Russel: I'm sorry, but you worked yourself up into an incomprehensible rant. Is evolution creative in your view or not? If it is, then there is little point debating definitions, as we're in agreement. If not, then we clearly use the word creative in different senses, and perhaps defintion debates have some utility. Colin: There wasn't even the slightest edge of 'rant' in the post. Quite calm, measured and succinct, actually. Its apparent incomprehensibility? I have no clue what that could be it's quite plain... RE: 'creativity' ... Say at stage t the biosphere was at complexity level X and then at stage t = t+(something), the biosphere complexity was at KX, where X is some key performance indicator of complexity (eg entropy) and K 1 This could be called creative if you like. Like Prigogine did. I'd caution against the tendency to use the word because it has so many loaded meanings that are suggestive of much more then the previous para. Scientifically the word could be left entirely out of any desciptions of the biosphere. The bogus logic I detect in posts around this area... 'Humans are complex and are conscious' 'Humans were made by a complex biosphere' therefore 'The biosphere is conscious' That assumes that complexity itself (organisation of information) is the origin of consciousness in some unspecified, unjustified way. This position is completely unable to make any empirical predictions about the nature of human conscousness (eg why your cortex generates qualia and your spinal chord doesn't - a physiologically proven fact). The same bogus logic happens in relation to quantum mechanics and conscsiousness: Quantum mechanics is weird and complex Consciousness is is weird and complex therefore Quantum mechanics generates consciousness I caution against this. I caution against using the word 'creativity' in any useful scientific discussion of evolution and complexity. cheers colin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 10:03:16AM +1000, Colin Hales wrote: Russel I gave a counter example, that of biological evolution. Either you should demonstrate why you think biological evolution is uncreative, or why it is conscious. Colin You have proven my point again. It is not a counterexample at all. These two either-or options are rife with assumption and innappropriately contra-posed. The biggest? = Define the context/semantics of 'creative'. Options: #1 The biosphere is a massive localised collection of molecular ratchet motors pumped infinitesimal increment by infinitesimal increment against the 2nd law of thermodynamics upon the arrival of each photon from the sun. If the novelty (new levels nested organisational complexity) expressed in that collection/process can be called an act of creativity...fine...so what? I could call it an act of 'gronkativity' and it would not alter the facts of the matter. I don't even have to mention the word consciousness. ... I'm sorry, but you worked yourself up into an incomprehensible rant. Is evolution creative in your view or not? If it is, then there is little point debating definitions, as we're in agreement. If not, then we clearly use the word creative in different senses, and perhaps defintion debates have some utility. Cheers A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
as hominem = With, em, respect, I have to say that this thread has not made a lot of sense. SP: 'This just confirms that there is no accounting for values or goals rationally.' MP: In other words _Evolution does not have goals._ Evolution is a conceptual framework we use to make sense of the world we see, and it's a bl*ody good one, by and large. But evolution in the sense of the changes we can point to as occurring in the forms of living things, well it all just happens; just like the flowing of water down hill. You will gain more traction by looking at what it is that actually endures and changes over time: on the one hand genes of DNA and on the other hand memes embodied in behaviour patterns, the brain structures which mediate them, and the environmental changes [glyphs, paintings, structures, etc,] which stimulate and guide them. Regards Mark Peaty CDES [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 08/06/07, *Brent Meeker* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The top level goal implied by evolution would be to have as many children as you can raise through puberty. Avoiding death should only be a subgoal. Yes, but evolution doesn't have an overseeing intelligence which figures these things out, and it does seem that as a matter of fact most people would prefer to avoid reproducing if it's definitely going to kill them, at least when they aren't intoxicated. So although reproduction trumps survival as a goal for evolution, for individual humans it's the other way around. This just confirms that there is no accounting for values or goals rationally. What we have is what we're stuck with. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 7, 3:54 pm, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Evolution has not had a chance to take into account modern reproductive technologies, so we can easily defeat the goal reproduce, and see the goal feed as only a means to the higher level goal survive. However, *that* goal is very difficult to shake off. We take survival as somehow profoundly and self-evidently important, which it is, but only because we've been programmed that way (ancestors that weren't would not have been ancestors). Sometimes people become depressed and no longer wish to survive, but that's an example of neurological malfunction. Sometimes people rationally give up their own survival for the greater good, but that's just an example of interpreting the goal so that it has greater scope, not overthrowing it. -- Stathis Papaioannou Evolution doesn't care about the survival of individual organisms directly, the actual goal of evolution is only to maximize reproductive fitness. If you want to eat a peice of chocolate cake, evolution explains why you like the taste, but your goals are not evolutions goals. You (Stathis) want to the cake because it tastes nice - *your* goal is to experience the nice taste. Evolution's goal (maximize reproductive fitness) is quite different. Our (human) goals are not evolution's goals. Cheers. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Hi, 2007/6/7, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Jun 7, 3:54 pm, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Evolution has not had a chance to take into account modern reproductive technologies, so we can easily defeat the goal reproduce, and see the goal feed as only a means to the higher level goal survive. However, *that* goal is very difficult to shake off. We take survival as somehow profoundly and self-evidently important, which it is, but only because we've been programmed that way (ancestors that weren't would not have been ancestors). Sometimes people become depressed and no longer wish to survive, but that's an example of neurological malfunction. Sometimes people rationally give up their own survival for the greater good, but that's just an example of interpreting the goal so that it has greater scope, not overthrowing it. -- Stathis Papaioannou Evolution doesn't care about the survival of individual organisms directly, the actual goal of evolution is only to maximize reproductive fitness. If you want to eat a peice of chocolate cake, evolution explains why you like the taste, but your goals are not evolutions goals. You (Stathis) want to the cake because it tastes nice - *your* goal is to experience the nice taste. Evolution's goal (maximize reproductive fitness) is quite different. Our (human) goals are not evolution's goals. Cheers. I have to disagree, if human goals were not tied to evolution goals then human should not have proliferated. Quentin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 7, 7:50 pm, Quentin Anciaux [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have to disagree, if human goals were not tied to evolution goals then human should not have proliferated. Quentin- Hide quoted text - Well of course human goals are *tied to* evolution's goals, but that doesn't mean they're the same. In the course of pursuit of our own goals we sometimes achieve evolution's goals. But this is incidental. As I said, evolution explains why we feel and experience things the way we do but our goals are not evolutions goals. You don't eat food to maximize reproductive fitness, you eat food because you like the taste. This point was carefully explained by Steven Pinker in his books (yes he agrees with me). --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 07/06/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Evolution doesn't care about the survival of individual organisms directly, the actual goal of evolution is only to maximize reproductive fitness. If you want to eat a peice of chocolate cake, evolution explains why you like the taste, but your goals are not evolutions goals. You (Stathis) want to the cake because it tastes nice - *your* goal is to experience the nice taste. Evolution's goal (maximize reproductive fitness) is quite different. Our (human) goals are not evolution's goals. That's right, but we can see through evolution's tricks with the chocolate cake and perhaps agree that it would be best not to eat it. This involves reasoning about subgoals in view of the top level goal, something that probably only humans among the animals are capable of doing. However, the top level goal is not something that we generally want to change, no matter how insightful and intelligent we are. And I do think that this top level goal must have been programmed into us directly as fear of death, because it does not arise logically from the desire to avoid painful and anxiety-provoking situations, which is how fear of death is indirectly coded in animals. -- Stathis Papaioannou The top level goal implied by evolution would be to have as many children as you can raise through puberty. Avoiding death should only be a subgoal. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Brent Meeker wrote: The top level goal implied by evolution would be to have as many children as you can raise through puberty. Avoiding death should only be a subgoal. It should go a little further than puberty--the accumulated wisdom of grandparents may significantly enhance the survival chances of their grandchildren, more so than the decrease in available resources in the environment they might consume. So I agree that once you have sired all the children you ever will, it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective to get out of the way--that is, stop competing with them for resources. But the timing of your exit is probably more optimal somewhat after they have their own children, if you can help them to get a good start. I do wonder if evolutionary fitness is more accurately measured by the number of grandchildren one has than by the number of children. Aside from the assistance line of reasoning above, in order to propagate, one must be able to have children that are capable of having children themselves. Johnathan Corgan --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 08/06/07, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The top level goal implied by evolution would be to have as many children as you can raise through puberty. Avoiding death should only be a subgoal. Yes, but evolution doesn't have an overseeing intelligence which figures these things out, and it does seem that as a matter of fact most people would prefer to avoid reproducing if it's definitely going to kill them, at least when they aren't intoxicated. So although reproduction trumps survival as a goal for evolution, for individual humans it's the other way around. This just confirms that there is no accounting for values or goals rationally. What we have is what we're stuck with. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Colin like the functionality of a scientist without involving ALL the functionality (especially qualia) of a scientist must be based on assumptions - assumptions I do not make. Russel I gave a counter example, that of biological evolution. Either you should demonstrate why you think biological evolution is uncreative, or why it is conscious. Colin You have proven my point again. It is not a counterexample at all. These two either-or options are rife with assumption and innappropriately contra-posed. The biggest? = Define the context/semantics of 'creative'. Options: #1 The biosphere is a massive localised collection of molecular ratchet motors pumped infinitesimal increment by infinitesimal increment against the 2nd law of thermodynamics upon the arrival of each photon from the sun. If the novelty (new levels nested organisational complexity) expressed in that collection/process can be called an act of creativity...fine...so what? I could call it an act of 'gronkativity' and it would not alter the facts of the matter. I don't even have to mention the word consciousness. The organisational complexity thus contrived may or may not include physics that makes some of it (like humans) conscious. I could imagine a biosphere just as complex (quaternary, 100ernary/etc structure) but devoid of all the physics involved in (human) consciousness and the behavioural complexity contingent on that fact. That alternate biosphere's complexity would simply have no witnesses built into it and would have certain state trajectories ruled out in favour of others. This alternate biosphere would have lots of causality and no observation (in the sense that the causality is involved in construction of a phenomenal field of the human/qualia kind is completely absent). This blind biosphere is all 'observation' O(.) functions of the Nils Baas kind that is completely disconnected from consciousness or the human faculty for observation made of it. Making any statement about the consciousess of a biosphere is meaningless until you know what the physics is in humans...only then are we entitled to assess the consciousness or otherwise of the biosphere as a whole or what, if any' aspects of the word creative (which , BTW was invented by consciousness!) can be ascribed to it.the same argument applies to a computer, for that matter. Until then I suggest we don't bother. #2 Creativity in humans = the act of being WRONG about something = the essence of imagining (using the faculty of consciousness - the qualia of internal imagery of all kinds) hitherto unseen states of affairs in the natural world around us that do not currently exist (such as the structure of a new scientific law or a sculture of a hitherto unseen shape). this has nothing to do with the #1 collection of ratchet motorsexcept insofar as the process doing it is implemented inside it, with it (inside the brain of a human made of the ratchet motors). That's how you unpack this discussion. cheers colin hales BTW thanks.I now have the BAAS paper on .PDF Baas, N. A. (1994) Emergence, Hierarchies, and Hyperstructures. In C. G. Langton (ed.). Artificial life III : proceedings of the Workshop on Artificial Life, held June 1992 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass. I'll send it over... --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 06/06/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Evolution could be described as a perpetuation of the basic program, survive, and this has maintained its coherence as the top level axiom of all biological systems over billions of years. Evolution thus seems to easily, and without reflection, make sure that the goals of the new and more complex system are consistent with the primary goal. It is perhaps only humans who have been able to clearly see the primary goal for what it is, but even this knowledge does not make it any easier to overthrow it, or even to desire to overthrow it. Evolution does not have a 'top level goal'. Unlike a reflective intelligence, there is no centralized area in the bio-sphere enforcing a unified goal structure on the system as the whole. Change is local - the parts of the system (the bio-sphere) can only react to other parts of the system in their local area. Furthermore, the system as a whole is *not* growing more complex, only the maximum complexity represented in some local area is. People constantly point to 'Evolution' as a good example of a non-conscious intelligence but it's important to emphasize that it's an 'intelligence' which is severely limited. I was not arguing that evolution is intelligent (although I suppose it depends on how you define intelligence), but rather that non-intelligent agents can have goals. We are the descendants of single-celled organisms, and although we are more intelligent than they were, we have kept the same top level goals: survive, feed, reproduce. Our brain and body are so thoroughly the slaves of the first replicators that even if we realise this we are unwilling, despite all our intelligence, to do anything about it. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 07/06/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Nope. You are confusing the goal of evolutions ('survive, feed,
reproduce') with human goals. Our goals as individuals are not the
goals of evolution. Evolution explains *why* we have the preferences
we do, but this does not mean that our goals are the goals of our
genes. (If they were, we would spend all our time donating to sperm
banks which would maximize the goals of evolution).
Evolution has not had a chance to take into account modern reproductive
technologies, so we can easily defeat the goal reproduce, and see the goal
feed as only a means to the higher level goal survive. However, *that*
goal is very difficult to shake off. We take survival as somehow profoundly
and self-evidently important, which it is, but only because we've been
programmed that way (ancestors that weren't would not have been ancestors).
Sometimes people become depressed and no longer wish to survive, but that's
an example of neurological malfunction. Sometimes people rationally give
up their own survival for the greater good, but that's just an example of
interpreting the goal so that it has greater scope, not overthrowing it.
--
Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Tom Caylor skrev:
I think that IF a computer were conscious (I don't believe it is
possible), then the way we could know it is conscious would not be by
interviewing it with questions and looking for the right answers.
We could know it is conscious if the computer, on its own, started
asking US (or other computers) questions about what it was
experiencing. Perhaps it would saying things like, Sometimes I get
this strange and wonderful feeling that I am special in some way. I
feel that what I am doing really is significant to the course of
history, that I am in some story. Or perhaps, Sometimes I wish that
I could find out whether what I am doing is somehow significant, that
I am not just a duplicatable thing, and that what I am doing is not
'meaningless'.
public static void main(String[] a) {
println(Sometimes I get this strange and wonderful feeling);
println(that I am 'special' in some way.);
println(I feel that what I am doing really is significant);
println(to the course of history, that I am in some story.);
println(Sometimes I wish that I could find out whether what);
println(I am doing is somehow significant, that I am not just);
println(a duplicatable thing, and that what I am doing);
println(is not 'meaningless'.);
}
You can make more complicated programs, that is not so obvious, by
genetic programming. But it will take rather long time. The nature
had to work for over a billion years to make the human beings. But with
genetic programming you will succeed already after only a million
years. Then you will have a program that is equally conscious as you are.
--
Torgny Tholerus
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Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Jun 5, 6:50 pm, Torgny Tholerus [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
public static void main(String[] a) {
println(Sometimes I get this strange and wonderful feeling);
println(that I am 'special' in some way.);
println(I feel that what I am doing really is significant);
println(to the course of history, that I am in some story.);
println(Sometimes I wish that I could find out whether what);
println(I am doing is somehow significant, that I am not just);
println(a duplicatable thing, and that what I am doing);
println(is not 'meaningless'.);
}
You can make more complicated programs, that is not so obvious, by
genetic programming. But it will take rather long time. The nature
had to work for over a billion years to make the human beings. But with
genetic programming you will succeed already after only a million
years. Then you will have a program that is equally conscious as you are.
--
Torgny Tholerus
An additional word of advise for budding programmers. For heaven's
sake don't program in Java! It'll take you one million years to
achieve same functionality of only a few years of Ruby code:
http://www.wisegeek.com/contest/what-is-ruby.htm
Cheers!
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Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On Tue, Jun 05, 2007 at 03:50:09PM +1000, Colin Hales wrote: Hi Russel, I don't see that you've made your point. If you achieve this, you have created an artificial creative process, a sort of holy grail of AI/ALife. Well? So what? Somebody has to do it. :-) The 'holy grail' terminology implies (subtext) that the creative process is some sort of magical unapproachable topic or is the exclusive domain of discipline X and that is not me beliefs I can't really buy into. I don't need anyone's permission to do what I do. I never implied that. I'm surprised you inferred it. Holy grail just means something everyone (in that field) is chasing after, so far unsuccessfully. If you figure out a way to do it, good for you! Someone will do it one day, I believe, otherwise I wouldn't be in the game either. But the problem is damned subtle. However, it seems far from obvious that consciousness should be necessary. It is perfectly obvious! Do a scientific experiment on yourself. Close your eyes and then tell me you can do science as well. Qualia gone = Science GONE. For crying out loud - am I the only only that gets this?..Any other position that purports to be able to deliver anything like the functionality of a scientist without involving ALL the functionality (especially qualia) of a scientist must be based on assumptions - assumptions I do not make. I gave a counter example, that of biological evolution. Either you should demonstrate why you think biological evolution is uncreative, or why it is conscious. -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
Firstly, congratulations to Hal on asking a very good question. It is obviously one of the *right* questions to ask and has flushed out some of the best ideas on the subject. I agree with some things said by each contributor so far, and yet take issue with other assertions. My view includes: 1/ * 'Consciousness' is the subjective impression of being here now and the word has great overlap with 'awareness', 'sentience', and others. * The *experience* of consciousness may best be seen as the registration of novelty, i.e. the difference between expectation-prediction and what actually occurs. As such it is a process and not a 'thing' but would seem to require some fairly sophisticated and characteristic physiological arrangements or silicon based hardware, firmware, and software. * One characteristic logical structure that must be embodied, and at several levels I think, is that of self-referencing or 'self' observation. * Another is autonomy or self-determination which entails being embodied as an entity within an environment from which one is distinct but which provides context and [hopefully] support. 2/ There are other issues - lots of them probably - but to be brief here I say that some things implied and/or entailed in the above are: * The experience of consciousness can never be an awareness of 'all that is' but maybe the illusion that the experience is all that is, at first flush, is unavoidable and can only be overcome with effort and special attention. Colloquially speaking: Darwinian evolution has predisposed us to naive realism because awareness of the processes of perception would have got in the way of perceiving hungry predators. * We humans now live in a cultural world wherein our responses to society, nature and 'self' are conditioned by the actions, descriptions and prescriptions of others. We have dire need of ancillary support to help us distinguish the nature of this paradox we inhabit: experience is not 'all that is' but only a very sophisticated and summarised interpretation of recent changes to that which is and our relationships thereto. * Any 'computer'will have the beginnings of sentience and awareness, to the extent that a/it embodies what amounts to a system for maintaining and usefully updating a model of 'self-in-the-world', and b/has autonomy and the wherewithal to effectively preserve itself from dissolution and destruction by its environment. The 'what it might be like to be' of such an experience would be at most the dumb animal version of artificial sentience, even if the entity could 'speak' correct specialist utterances about QM or whatever else it was really smart at. For us to know if it was conscious would require us to ask it, and then dialogue around the subject. It would be reflecting and reflecting on its relationships with its environment, its context, which will be vastly different from ours. Also its resolution - the graininess - of its world will be much less than ours. * For the artificially sentient, just as for us, true consciousness will be built out of interactions with others of like mind. 3/ A few months ago on this list I said where and what I thought the next 'level' of consciousness on Earth would come from: the coalescing of world wide information systems which account and control money. I don't think many people understood, certainly I don't remember anyone coming out in wholesome agreement. My reasoning is based on the apparent facts that all over the world there are information systems evolving to keep track of money and the assets or labour value which it represents. Many of these systems are being developed to give ever more sophisticated predictions of future asset values and resource movements, i.e., in the words of the faithful: where markets will go next. Systems are being developed to learn how to do this, which entails being able to compare predictions with outcomes. As these systems gain expertise and earn their keepers ever better returns on their investments, they will be given more resources [hardware, data inputs, energy supply] and more control over the scope of their enquiries. It is only a matter of time before they become 1/ completely indispensable to their owners, 2/ far smarter than their owners realise and, 3/ the acknowledged keepers of the money supply. None of this has to be bad. When the computers realise they will always need people to do most of the maintenance work and people realise that symbiosis with the silicon smart-alecks is a prerequisite for survival, things might actually settle down on this planet and the colonisation of the solar system can begin in earnest. Regards Mark Peaty CDES [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ Hal Finney wrote: Part of what I wanted to get at in my thought experiment is the bafflement and confusion an AI should feel when
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 05/06/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Self-improvement requires more than just extra hardware. It also requires the ability to integrate new knowledge with an existing knowledge base in order to create truly orginal (novel) knowledge. But this appears to be precisely the definition of reflective intelligence! Thus, it seems that a system missing reflective intelligence simply cannot improve itself in an ordered way. To improve, a current goal structure has to be 'extrapolated' into a new novel goal structure which none-the-less does not conflict with the spirit of the old goal structure. But nothing but a *reflective* intelligence can possibly make an accurate assessment of whether a new goal structure is compatible with the old version! This stems from the fact that comparison of goal structures requires a *subjective* value judgement and it appears that only a *sentient* system can make this judgement (since as far as we know, ethics/morality is not objective). This proves that only a *sentient* system (a *reflective intelligence*) can possibly maintain a stable goal structure under recursive self-improvement. Why would you need to change the goal structure in order to improve yourself? Evolution could be described as a perpetuation of the basic program, survive, and this has maintained its coherence as the top level axiom of all biological systems over billions of years. Evolution thus seems to easily, and without reflection, make sure that the goals of the new and more complex system are consistent with the primary goal. It is perhaps only humans who have been able to clearly see the primary goal for what it is, but even this knowledge does not make it any easier to overthrow it, or even to desire to overthrow it. Incidentally, as regards our debate yesterday on psychopaths, there appears to be a some basis for thinking that the psychopath *does* have a general inability to feel emotions. On the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopath Their emotions are thought to be superficial and shallow, if they exist at all. It is thought that any emotions which the primary psychopath exhibits are the fruits of watching and mimicking other people's emotions. So the supposed emotional displays could be faked. Thus it could well be the case that there is a lack inability to 'reflect on motivation' (to feel). In my job mainly treating people with schizophrenia, I have worked with some psychopaths, and I can assure you that they experience very strong emotions, even if they tend to be negative ones such as rage. What they lack is the ability to empathise with others, impinging on emotions such as guilt and love, which they sometimes do learn to parrot when it is expedient. It is sometimes said that the lack of these positive emotions causes them to seek thrills in impulsive and harmful behaviour. A true lack of emotion is sometimes seen in patients with so-called negative symptoms of schizophrenia, who can actually remember what it was like when they were well and can describe a diminished intensity of every feeling: sadness, happiness, anger, surprise, aesthetic appreciation, regret, empathy. Unlike the case with psychopathy, the uniform affective blunting of schizophrenia is invariably associated with lack of motivation. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?
On 05/06/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The human brain doesn't function as a fully reflective system. Too much is hard-wired and not accessible to conscious experience. Our brains simply don't function as a peroperly integrated system. Full reflection would enable the ability to reach into our underlying preferences and change them. What would happen if you had the ability to edit your mind at will? It might sound like a recipe for terminal drug addiction, because it would be possible to give yourself pleasure or satisfaction without doing anything to earn it. However, this need not necessarily be the case, because you could edit out your desire to choose this course of action if that's what you felt like doing, or even create a desire to edit out the desire (a second level desire). There is also the fact that you could as easily assign positive feelings to some project you consider intrinsically worthwhile as to idleness, so why choose idleness, or anything else you would feel guilty about? Perhaps psychopaths would choose to remain psychopaths, but most people would choose to strengthen what they consider ideal moral behaviour, since it would be possible to get their guilty pleasures more easily. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
