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Humans are simply made up of atoms, just as computer programs are made up as bits and bytes. If someone were to (in the future) make a computer program simulating atoms and physics perfectly, then made a human out of those atoms, would that person have a consciousness? Both are made up atoms that can be seen and interacted with by their respective owners. Both can think, feel, taste, smell, see, hear. What defines us humans as different from a computer program person?
Good question. I don't see why not, although it would probably create some interesting problems as far as ethics vs. power usage.
What is consciousness?
You'll never know! Mwuahahaha.
I talked about this earlier in a different thread about aliens.
How could we know the aliens had consciousness and were not just mimics of consciousness? You could of course without much effort assume other humans have consciousness as you are a human and you indeed have consciousness...However aliens have no tie to us at all nor do computers..Thus we may never know.
It only makes sense that a computer program that mimics our consciousness would have its own consciousness
Is it unethical to abuse a robot with feelings? Hah
** I'm attributing this to Asimov - but I'm not 100% sure I'm right
long time since I read any of his stuff - let me know if I'm wrong **
One of Isaac Asimov's robot stories involved the gradual transformation of a human subject to a synthetic life form
The subject was being constantly monitored and his organic parts replaced with robotic equivalents over time
A single neuron in his brain was examined
it's behaviour recorded, and how it reacted with the neurons around it
An artificial neuron was then developed, that exactly replicated the original
and swapped for the biological original
This process repeated across the entire brain, and all other parts of his body
Replacing simple organic processes and materials with robotic equivalents until the subject was entirely artificial
Consciousness and self-awareness is governed in humans by neuronal networks. It can therefore be done using artificial networks - silica, or whatever. I'm no expert on electronics, but I am a neuroscientist, and it can definitely be achieved.
Indeed. There was once a pseudoscientific myth that living things had a special property that non-living things didn't have. This was known as vitalism and was disproven. I think it's time we move past neurological vitalism and see that the mind really is made of neurons, not a soul or whatever.
how can you disprove the existence of a mythical quality?
Yeah, "or whatever". Good luck creating a material that can change itself like cells can.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pensive Patrick
I still hold that bits don't exist and a simulated dynamic network computed on mostly static matter is nothing like a brain at all. A brain doesn't have a CPU... because a brain doesn't compute things, it is a decentralized system of action-reaction. So long as you plan to represent neuronal activity on a miniature metal CPU die, you're not even close to artificial consciousness.
Er, of course they exist. They are switches.
No, bits aren't switches. Bits are the 'information' contained within the state of binary switches.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seismosaur
I think you're confusing a neural network with a conventional computer
Neither does a neural networkQuote:
Originally Posted by Serkat
you may want to read up on them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neural_network
Quote from the Wikipedia entry (Emphasis mine)
Quote:
An artificial neural network (ANN), often just called a "neural network" (NN), is a mathematical model or computational model based on biological neural networks. It consists of an interconnected group of artificial neurons and processes information using a connectionist approach to computation. In most cases an ANN is an adaptive system that changes its structure based on external or internal information that flows through the network during the learning phase.
Maybe I just misread stuff, but for all I know, that's exactly my problem with artificial neural networks. They are systems of mathematical functions that handle "data" like neurons, but computed on static computers.
I'm aware that the point of modeling an artificial neural network is accurately simulating the behavior of a real biological neural network, suited to the specific needs of whatever one wants to achieve with that method, thus getting away from the centralized-computing paradigm. I'm also aware that the people who engage in this kind of stuff are probably pretty good at it and that the level of efficiency reached is probably pretty high. That doesn't change the fact that it's running on the exact same metallic systems that can bring Doom 3 to my screen. It doesn't change the fact that my alleged "consciousness" is spinning at 10,000 rpm before tiny fragments of it are consecutively copied into other places where they're just states of metal, until even tinier fragments are transported to a complex tiny electronic device that takes these fragments and puts out other fragments which are then transported back to the other fragments.
Am I missing something?
My point is: For an artificial neuron to be considered a real artificial neuron, you have to be able to see it as a real material entity. You can't say "Well, this is my neuron and stuff, but if you pull the plug it's gone." That's cheating.
I always thought the best video card would be the one who creates atom like pixels. Then everything would look like in real life. :O
Cheating......
You can't map atoms. Heisenburg uncertainty principal. You can either know where it is, or what it's doing but not both, and measuring it changes it.
WatQuote:
Originally Posted by Ynot
:roll:Quote:
Originally Posted by ninja9578
He means if we can render GOOGOLS of triangles to make up models.
This is basically the Hard Problem reformulated for the sci-fi crowd, isn't it?
According to science it should be possible yes.. thats the goal of science isn't it, to be able to figure everything out?Quote:
Originally Posted by Venomblood
But that future is very very distant imo. One day we will have the power of God, thats for sure, because thats the whole point of evolution right?
I don't really understand what you're saying, Serkat. Nanotechnology can make changing artificial cells possible. Artificial doesn't mean static. Could you maybe explain your point to me in a way I can understand? Because the brain is just a machine. Sure, a complex and constantly morphing one, but artificial replication is definitely possible.
Yes. I wasn't really arguing against you really, I think it just wasn't very elegantly put. But for all I know right now we don't have these "real" neural network.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pensive Patrick
Only in the second step I was arguing that mathematical and behavioristic models of neural networks aren't anything like a brain if they run on something that's not itself neural in natural.
Why not? Who said there is a limit to what can be accomplished with artificial materials? Who has drawn this line between nature and manmade things? Technically, our artificial materials are a part of nature. We were created as a part of nature, and our creations must therefore also be a part of nature.Quote:
Originally Posted by Serkat
Why does consciousness have to be biological? I understand what you're saying, but does an artificial brain really have to mirror the biological brain completely for it to be conscious?
I meant to say "neural in nature", i.e. "nature" not referring to the actual chemical quality of the material, but the macroscopic organization of the system's parts. :) So, artificial materials yes, but organized in a way other than RAM+lots of conductors+CPU, running a neural simulation software.
And then we reach the question of what distinguishes something shaped like a neuron from a CPU, in any way that has a relation to "consciousness"...
If they both produce consciousness, then it doesn't matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by RedfishBluefish
Our brain is organized in a way that is equal to that artificial neural network. I don't see why it matters that a CPU is doing the processing of the data.Quote:
Originally Posted by Serkat
A better way to look at an artificial neural network program is to see the CPU of the computer as a heart that is just keeping the program alive. When you go all the way from CPU and RAM to the actual program, memory and CPU power has been abstracted so much that the hardware has absolutely nothing to do with the function of the Artificial Neural Network(unless the network is programmed in a low level language).
Precisely.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pensive Patrick
Well, a CPU is centralized and it does very basic computation. Neither a brain nor a neuron compute things or work on a digital foundation. I have no clue how CPUs work though, but I'm pretty certain that it can be explained by one of those diagrams that have 50 boxes in it and 2000 lines and arrows that are friggin confusing. But I guess it's pretty different from a biochemical neural network.Quote:
Originally Posted by RedfishBluefish
Well, because "data" as such I see as objectively non-existent. Using "data" to model the brain might be fairly accurate, but it's still just a model. The brain doesn't work in terms of "data", unless you interpret it as such. The whole thing is more of a process as a whole than a process that uses an "object" (data).Quote:
Originally Posted by ClassyElf
Yes, I know this. But again, I don't see a "program" as something that exists anywhere else but in social construction. I don't think that hardware can ever have nothing to with consciousness. Sure, software might use neural networks but that doesn't change anything at all about the actual state of things which is the same ole extremely basic digital computations in the CPU that are used for any other type of software.Quote:
A better way to look at an artificial neural network program is to see the CPU of the computer as a heart that is just keeping the program alive. When you go all the way from CPU and RAM to the actual program, memory and CPU power has been abstracted so much that the hardware has absolutely nothing to do with the function of the Artificial Neural Network(unless the network is programmed in a low level language).
I.e. software can't be conscious, only matter can.
If you argue that a "program" can be alive and/or conscious, you might as well argue that a book without a human is actually more than ink on paper... that the information is floating around in some universal off. Or that Super Mario actually exists somewhere some time if I pop the sucker into my SNES.
but Mario is just programmed to make pixels flash off on a screen under certain circumstances(button is pressed) . Neural nets go through a self examination of knowledge saved as grids of neuron arrays in order to decide what action to take.Quote:
Originally Posted by Serkat
I had this exact same idea recently. And it is pretty cool: It is hard to formulate a reason why this simulation would not have a concious. If the simulation of atoms (and subatomics ect) is indeed perfect, and the human is a perfect replica as well (you would probably need to let evolution repeat within the simulation, or maybe you could just create in the virtual world a setting capable of letting a human get born by using someone's DNA-code). Grated this (hypothetical) perfection, there is no real difference, thus there will probably be as much concious in the simulation as there is here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Venomblood
The fragmented time-passing of the simulation (actually fragmented creation of the simulation, since a computer is not capable of calculating everything at the same exact time) versus the (perhaps seemingly) fluent time-passing on our reality maybe be called a difference, but it would be hard to point out how exactly this changes things. From inside the simulation there is no real difference.
You could undoubtfully simulate a couple of neurons to let an robot-like creature get along in a virtual world, so you could -given enough processing power- simulate billions of neurons that all also work the same as in reality.
All this together makes it a greatly interesting though-experiment. It probably isn't going to overturn the bio-chauvinists, nor the stubborn dualists (people that believe thoughts/mind isn't mere substance, or doesn't originate from mere substance, but something non-material as well (note: something either completely undefined or completely unscientific)). However, it does shed an interesting light on the whole conciousness-discussion, if you ask me.
No, the Uncertainty Principle puts a lower limit on the product of position and momentum certainty. So that limit (which I think is hbar/2) determines when the Uncertainty Principle becomes relevant. And it turns out, it doesn't really apply until you get down to individual electrons. Whole atoms can be pinned down quite accurately with respect to their size.Quote:
Originally Posted by ninja9578
I found a research paper today on an AI named HAL.
It's the most interesting paper on AI I've ever read.
http://www.a-i.com/show_tree.asp?id=19&level=2&root=12
I am convinced that computers can become conscious after reading through this. Read the "First Words" page, it's amazing.
Computer consciousness: I think that's completely possible. Will we see that within the next 100 years, maybe not.