butchersapron
Bring back hanging
What does it conclude?
If a computer was powerful enough would it generate consciousness?
- Thread starter NoEgo
- Start date
Kameron
Kamoceratops
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel,_Escher,_Bachtorres said:
There are quite a few books about this book as well and many more that reference this.
dirtyfruit
Malcolm Tent
Crispy said:
But is it?
Depends upon what you're measuring really.
dirtyfruit
Malcolm Tent
Kameron said:
OooH. Can I borrow this Kam. Wanted to read it for ages
Jonti
what the dormouse said
That question can be definitively answered (though the point is taking a fascinatingly long time to sink in). The answer is that one can simulate something, without thereby making the thing simulated. That's even recognised in law as a rational distinction to make. In a way it's just Englishaxon said:
To be dramatic, scientists regularly simulate atomic reactors within computers; but there's no way of getting power out of the simulation to drive the computer. And meteorologists regularly simulate weather systems. But there's no way of getting drinking water out of the computer. One has to allow that one may simulate a brain on a computer without generating consciousness.
Knotted nailed the questions, imho: Is the human brain a Universal Turing machine? ... What's consciousness anyway?
Great thread. This is an area in which (natural) philosophy needs to do the preliminary thinking to enable an appropriate scientific methodology.
* the ones you know about.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
dirtyfruit
Malcolm Tent
Jonti said:
And maybe a simulated brain WILL generate consciousness.
That'd be
& 
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Jonti said:That question can be definitively answered (though the point is taking a fascinatingly long time to sink in). The answer is that one can simulate something, without thereby making the thing simulated. That's even recognised in law as a rational distinction to make. In a way it's just English
To be dramatic, scientists regularly simulate atomic reactors within computers; but there's no way of getting power out of the simulation to drive the computer. And meteorologists regularly simulate weather systems. But there's no way of getting drinking water out of the computer. One has to allow that one may simulate a brain on a computer without generating consciousness.
Knotted nailed the questions, imho: Is the human brain a Universal Turing machine? ... What's consciousness anyway?
Great thread. This is an area in which (natural) philosophy needs to do the preliminary thinking to enable an appropriate scientific methodology.
* the ones you know about.
Why did you edit out your agreement with me - was it really too horrible to contemplate?
Jonti
what the dormouse said
That's the "strong AI" position: that we presently have all the scientific principles we need to account for the fact of consciousness.
But they are completely unable to explain how the machine I am writing this on could, according to their theory of consciousness, be made aware even in the slightest.
I demand an explanation!
But they are completely unable to explain how the machine I am writing this on could, according to their theory of consciousness, be made aware even in the slightest.
I demand an explanation!
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
To parapharase torres from earlier: simulating the physical elements* of a model is just that. If there's something that comes from outside that model then you've trouble.
sleaterkinney
Well-Known Member
Well awareness is simply a response to stimulus.Jonti said:That's the "strong AI" position: that we presently have all the scientific principles we need to account for the fact of consciousness.
But they are completely unable to explain how the machine I am writing this on could, according to their theory of consciousness, be made aware even in the slightest.
I demand an explanation!
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Is it?
Can you not be aware of your capacity to be stimulated without being stumulated?
Can you not be aware of your capacity to be stimulated without being stumulated?
sleaterkinney
Well-Known Member
I've drank too much red wine to answer this properly but you have to have a memory and a context for it to mean anything.torres said:
sleaterkinney
Well-Known Member
Yes it is, you have to have a stimulus before you have an action. It doesn't come from nothing.Jonti said:
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
sleaterkinney said:
Thereby undermining your own point. You've given the answer as to why it's not. Why awareness is not simply a response to stimulus.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Maybe true but it doesn't mean that awareness is simply a response to stimulus does it? What's the connection?sleaterkinney said:Yes it is, you have to have a stimulus before you have an action. It doesn't come from nothing.
dirtyfruit
Malcolm Tent
torres said:
Experience?
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
This is like alchemists of the 17th century arguing about what it's like to walk on the moon. We don't have the data and we don't have the conecptual framework to have a useful discussion. 50 + years down the line when we know much much more about how the brain works, then we might be able to decide whether modelling or simulating it has any use. But for now, we may as well be telling fairy tales.
Crispy said:
Yeah but it's a moot point and I love to play devil's advocate
Is it just me or is it great to enter into a debate and take the side of the obvious underdog, knowing that the best you can hope to achieve is to agree to disagree?
In the words of the immortal Tommy Cooper
meh!
sleaterkinney
Well-Known Member
I've never said that it is, have I?.Jonti said:
sleaterkinney
Well-Known Member
No, it doesn't contradict it at all, it is still a response, but that response is conditioned by what's happened in the past.torres said:
Jonti
what the dormouse said
I think that's not a bad analogy, but I'd say it's more like early 18th Century engineers discussing the 'abilty to do work' idea, which eventually was refined into the precise scientific notion of 'energy'.Crispy said:
Everyone seems to agree that consciousness is something to do with information and meaning; but we don't really have a clear idea of what information really is, what the idea really means.
So it gets back to the old "what is consciousness" and "can we create it" questions. These are tricky ones. I can see two angles here,
First, how about we say that ants aren't conscious (in anyway approaching what human consciousness is). Then ask can we replicate an ant's brain. We can't at the moment but I don't think it is because of any fundamental lack of understanding, there are just two many bits and it's not known exactly how they all connect.
Second, what is consciousness? I'm in the camp of consciousness being a bit of an illusion. Or to put it better, the sum total of feelings, experiences, memories, rather than a tangible state. So it would be easily (understatement) replicated by building a machine that had the same connections, sensory inputs, and outputs as a human. You just have to think about the amount of data a human recieves in one day; 15-odd hours of continous streaming HD 3D TV, high fidelity 24 hour sound, thousands of smells, tens of thousands of experiences of touch, constant proprioception, pain sensations, plus almost constant review and back-referencing to memories. And this is repeated 365 days a year, for 70-odd years. That's a lot of data that could produce some pretty complicated behaviour that could be described as conscious.
For example, look at a Roomba cleaning robot. I've always wanted one but I don't have one
. It has some sensors on it (infra red I think) that allow it to avoid "virtual walls" transmitted by bits of kits to keep it within certain parts of the house. Now, if we didn't know that Roomba had these sensors, or didn't know how the sensors worked I would probably describe the robot as being conscious of where it is, of being able to detect areas it didn't want to be and taking action to avoid these areas.
And about simulate/replicate. I'm taking a computer simulation not so much a simulation using a PC but a replication of the processing that occurs in the brain. Which would then be an exact copy of a human if you added all the human inputs and outputs. A way of thinking of this is if we replaced one neuron with an artificial neurone that had the same respones to inputs would a human stop being conscious? I don't think so. And what if we replaced 2 neurones like this? Which leads to the question, "How many neurones need to be replaced before a human stops being conscious?". And I think you could replace them all.
First, how about we say that ants aren't conscious (in anyway approaching what human consciousness is). Then ask can we replicate an ant's brain. We can't at the moment but I don't think it is because of any fundamental lack of understanding, there are just two many bits and it's not known exactly how they all connect.
Second, what is consciousness? I'm in the camp of consciousness being a bit of an illusion. Or to put it better, the sum total of feelings, experiences, memories, rather than a tangible state. So it would be easily (understatement) replicated by building a machine that had the same connections, sensory inputs, and outputs as a human. You just have to think about the amount of data a human recieves in one day; 15-odd hours of continous streaming HD 3D TV, high fidelity 24 hour sound, thousands of smells, tens of thousands of experiences of touch, constant proprioception, pain sensations, plus almost constant review and back-referencing to memories. And this is repeated 365 days a year, for 70-odd years. That's a lot of data that could produce some pretty complicated behaviour that could be described as conscious.
For example, look at a Roomba cleaning robot. I've always wanted one but I don't have one
. It has some sensors on it (infra red I think) that allow it to avoid "virtual walls" transmitted by bits of kits to keep it within certain parts of the house. Now, if we didn't know that Roomba had these sensors, or didn't know how the sensors worked I would probably describe the robot as being conscious of where it is, of being able to detect areas it didn't want to be and taking action to avoid these areas.And about simulate/replicate. I'm taking a computer simulation not so much a simulation using a PC but a replication of the processing that occurs in the brain. Which would then be an exact copy of a human if you added all the human inputs and outputs. A way of thinking of this is if we replaced one neuron with an artificial neurone that had the same respones to inputs would a human stop being conscious? I don't think so. And what if we replaced 2 neurones like this? Which leads to the question, "How many neurones need to be replaced before a human stops being conscious?". And I think you could replace them all.
A colony of ants might be conscious, but there's no scientific way of testing it.
In fact there's no scientific way of testing whether anything's conscious or not,
so perhaps we should agree with Skinner and say that actually consciousness doesn't exist, it's just a human delusion.
In general I've been wondering if it would be more helpful to call it I-ness than consciousness, which is apparently very difficult to translate into a number of other languages.
I think Crispy's points that the brain is analogue, not digital, and possibly his point about the issue of time, that it needs to exist in resonance with a realtime environment are important.
In fact there's no scientific way of testing whether anything's conscious or not,
so perhaps we should agree with Skinner and say that actually consciousness doesn't exist, it's just a human delusion.
In general I've been wondering if it would be more helpful to call it I-ness than consciousness, which is apparently very difficult to translate into a number of other languages.
I think Crispy's points that the brain is analogue, not digital, and possibly his point about the issue of time, that it needs to exist in resonance with a realtime environment are important.
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