Thread: How are we not a computer?

Ghost in the shell idea possibly related.

Electrical signals to and fro, bodily processes, but where do WE come into it? Do we actually come into it?
Probably something we've all considered or maybe some of us even dtd, but what do you think, and what is known about ourselves?

Furthermore, what about at an atomic level? I'm wondering what thoughts really are, where the associations are made from WHO and to WHAT.

How are we not a forklift? All that contraction and elongation to raise and lower objects...

To suggest that we are identical to a device we've created to augment any subset of our activity/ability overlooks the greater context of our existence. How are we not a computer? We're not nearly as good at maths but are much better dancers.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

How are we not a forklift? All that contraction and elongation to raise and lower objects...

To suggest that we are identical to a device we've created to augment any subset of our activity/ability overlooks the greater context of our existence. How are we not a computer? We're not nearly as good at maths but are much better dancers.

A computer could dance better if programmed rightly.
And what do you mean by existence? This is what I'm trying to get at, what are we that ticks? I'm not seeing much of a difference between humans and a computer.

Brains and computers are both just mechanisms for running algorithms.

The crucial thing I think is that the algorithm enacted by our brains allows for conception, which no computer can currently do (although that may change), and thence we have emotions, philosophies and art, creativity, etcetera.

most of my body is as you see it here, but my higher brain functions have been transferred to the computer. to remove me from this interface would mean... my death.

We are the result of the processes and directives that have created and "programmed" us. WE comes into play with the end result. WE are the final output.

We are conscious, self aware, possess the ability to experience. We also
undergo the phenomenon of inspiration. I'm not sure that a computer will ever
be able to do this in the future, I'd like to live long enough to find out.

The Blue Brain project posted earlier by Xei looks promising.

It is really late, so it will be short.

I do think there is a connected between the operation of a computer and the human mind.

Well, we do compute don't we? - in the most broadest sense.

This is the basics of how consciousness works.

1. Input (Senses, generator of experience, and more fundamentally bits of information)
2. Process (We access, interpret and compares the input and new data with previous experience and rule-set/purpose/moral/programming)
3. Self-Modification (Changing the configuration of the being/self to a more profitable state, improving by experience, "self-programming", resulting in a change in future input)
4. Repeat this process. (A very complex self-modifying system which decreases the entropy of the information which is consists of. Or changing 1's or 0's into a better and more profitable configuration, a feedback loop.)

A computer can also be conscious, it needs to be complex enough though.

For a computer to be conscious, among others it needs the capability of self-modification, to change it's own software.

Now.. goodnight

Originally Posted by ClouD

A computer could dance better if programmed rightly.

A very good team of programmers may or may not get a computer to dance well (however they contrive to make a computer dance at all), but it begs the question of whether the computer is dancing, or the people who programmed it. It's very likely a computer cannot be made equally satisfying to dance with or observe as even a reasonably good human dancer.

Originally Posted by ClouD

And what do you mean by existence? This is what I'm trying to get at, what are we that ticks? I'm not seeing much of a difference between humans and a computer.

Furthermore, what about at an atomic level? I'm wondering what thoughts really are, where the associations are made from WHO and to WHAT.

We are feedback: the relationships between innumerable, interweaving systems cohering into a pattern that remains recognizable for a time but never, for any period of time, exhibits the fixed qualities we seek when asking "what we are." Thoughts are particularly intricate and delicate sub-patterns of feedback relying entirely upon the coarser and larger sub-patterns, identical with and extending from them.

Computers are a tool which mimics and amplifies only a narrow range of a subset of the total activity that is us. They're identical in this sense to a forklift or an apartment building.

is it possible that my computer is slightly conscious?

If you want to get really technical, humans have no free will at all. We like to think we do, and for now, we are superior to computers in that our thought processes mimic free will much better, but ultimately, the ions jumping the synapses between neurons in the brain were placed there through billions of years of chain reactions. The big bang ultimately set everything in motion. Why do you think? Because a certain set of neurons connected in the right way. Why does life exist? Because a set of atoms and molecules arranged themselves into an organized mass of compounds. (Crudely put, but you get my point.) So, we are similar to computers, but our range of thoughts and emotions are far deeper and more advanced than those of modern computers. Give scientists, programmers, and mathematicians a few decades to catch up, and this will change.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

To suggest that we are identical to a device we've created to augment any subset of our activity/ability overlooks the greater context of our existence.

This.. By far the best answer. Everything else is irrelevant.

And what is our existence? If going to those lengths then our existence must be defined as to how it is different to the existence of a computer (it does exist too).

Originally Posted by ClouD

And what is our existence? If going to those lengths then our existence must be defined as to how it is different to the existence of a computer (it does exist too).

You can't ignore the significance of our having brought computers into being. We did it so that computers could mimic and amplify a specific area of our activity. The computer's existence derives from our own, and only a narrow sliver of it.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

You can't ignore the significance of our having brought computers into being. We did it so that computers could mimic and amplify a specific area of our activity. The computer's existence derives from our own, and only a narrow sliver of it.

Well, for now, anyway. The creation of AI may very well change all of that...

Originally Posted by Taosaur

You can't ignore the significance of our having brought computers into being. We did it so that computers could mimic and amplify a specific area of our activity. The computer's existence derives from our own, and only a narrow sliver of it.

Yes, the computer's existence derives from us, but we derive from something else. This is the way of the fractal nature of consciousness.

Computers will create too. That creation is derived from computers, which is derived from humans, which is derived by something else, which is derived by something else.

We are not computers, we are consciousness, computers can be consciousness. That is the link.

We are Creator and Creation, and so is all.

if you're reading this post (i.e., you were interested enough in the name of this thread to click), you need to read 'Gödel, Escher, Bach'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel,_Escher,_Bach

it can be a bit basic and/or 'cute' depending on your technical background but it's a good read regardless.

Originally Posted by ClouD

Ghost in the shell idea possibly related.

Electrical signals to and fro, bodily processes, but where do WE come into it? Do we actually come into it?
Probably something we've all considered or maybe some of us even dtd, but what do you think, and what is known about ourselves?

Furthermore, what about at an atomic level? I'm wondering what thoughts really are, where the associations are made from WHO and to WHAT.

I'll back up and take a different approach, addressing the questions I've bolded above. The basis for ClouD's comparison seems to be that if we cannot circle a part of the brain or draw a diagram of reactions that constitute 'I' at any given time, then self must be either independent of our electrochemical systems (ghost in the shell) or completely false and nonexistent. Placing this discussion in Science and Mathematics and asking about thought at the atomic level somewhat nullifies the inquiry, as the material sciences lack the evidence to come to either of these two conclusions, or any other.

I'll approach the question, therefor, from the standpoint of a discipline that has addressed it directly and in depth in a scholarly, if not scientific, fashion: Buddhist teachings. What you're expressing is an incomplete understanding of no-self. In short, the teaching of no-self asserts that the self as we ordinarily conceive it does not exist. If you look for 'the real you,' you will not find it. This teaching derives from the Noble Truth of thrishna: human suffering arises from thirsting after forms which have no fixed existence. The car you want does not exist. The mate you want does not exist. The identity you strive to feed and protect does not exist.

This teaching does not assert, however, that there is no car, no mate, no person present; only that those forms and concepts are empty, provisional, and passing away, far removed from the idealized forms that occupy the mind. Stop thirsting after self, and it's no longer something that can be lost, or found. We and all that exists are empty, partaking equally of eternity and decay.

I didn't mind reading the whole thread.

Originally Posted by Invader

We are conscious, self aware, possess the ability to experience. We also
undergo the phenomenon of inspiration. I'm not sure that a computer will ever
be able to do this in the future, I'd like to live long enough to find out.

The Blue Brain project posted earlier by Xei looks promising.

Consciousness, self-awareness, experience are all specific brain functions done by specific parts of the brain. A computer could be programmed to do the same.

Originally Posted by Jeff777

We aren't computers because we were here first. If anything, computers are human.

Weak argument. A computer is a mechanism that performs tasks according to its algorithm. The human brain fits in that category.


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The only thing that currently sets us apart is the development of the brain - as in, our intelligence goes up with age, contrary to a computer's capacity, which stays the same. On all other matters, we're machines - biological ones.

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@ Cloud:

We don't come into it. There is not a spirit or immaterial mind controlling the brain. We are the whole - more than the sum of the parts. Our brain is programmed to give us the illusion of identity, a characteristic that underwent natural selection, like any other.

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If we one day had the most powerful computer in the universe, and programmed a whole new universe, similar to ours. Would the people in it exist? Would they be conscious? Would it be ethical to turn off the supercomputer?

Originally Posted by Kromoh

The only thing that currently sets us apart is the development of the brain - as in, our intelligence goes up with age, contrary to a computer's capacity, which stays the same. On all other matters, we're machines - biological ones.

Our intelligence goes up because the brain makes new connections between neurons.
Don't you think a computer can/could do this just as well?

What is the difference between a computer and us?
What is consciousness, but the illusion of choice? Is consciousness not real? Are our actions simply reactions, are they just part of the process? Can we be aware of anything that is not from the processes of our programming?
Can a computer be?

Can anyone answer further with a biological answer?

You missed the entire point of my post.

I didn't say anything about McFadden's interpretation of consciousness. I believe that phenomenon is much more complex and holistic than anyone seems to be willing to admit. The entire reason why I cited that article was to show his experimental evidence that shows a correlation between the electromagnetic field and the firing of neurons. If you'd like, I can link you to several other articles that describe experiments using electromagnetic fields to stimulate mice brains, which even show an increase in growth.

Um, I did address that specifically, alongside the philosophy..?

No neuroscientist takes this field theory seriously. There is clear experimental evidence against, which I provided (external electromagnetic fields don't impair cognitive function).

You're conflating the issue of the basis of neural function with physiology.

You seem to think that simulating the essential functions of the brain is the same as emulating them. You have no evidence for that and yet you make it sound like it is common sense. Serial processors can simulate parallel processing but it doesn't accomplish the same thing. The brain does not operate with logic gates, it operates with system wide patterns of activity. The processes in which computers and neural nets work are completely different. Breaking the systems down into some subjective view of their functions does not make them the same.

As far as I see it the onus is on you to show why a collection of water, fat, proteins, ions etcetera can perform cognitive functions whilst silicon atoms and electrons cannot. You've once again started telling me how transistors aren't like neurons so once again I'm going to have to tell you that I've never claimed that, and refer you to SnakeCharmer.

Originally Posted by Xei

You're conflating the issue of the basis of neural function with physiology.
As far as I see it the onus is on you to show why a collection of water, fat, proteins, ions etcetera can perform cognitive functions whilst silicon atoms and electrons cannot. You've once again started telling me how transistors aren't like neurons so once again I'm going to have to tell you that I've never claimed that, and refer you to SnakeCharmer.

Are you equating a human being with cognitive functions? Are you merely your thoughts?

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Are you equating a human being with cognitive functions? Are you merely your thoughts?

Yeah, basically. Without your thoughts, you are meat with eyes. So, we are pretty much only our thoughts and this slab of meat they are attached to.

Originally Posted by Xei

You're conflating the issue of the basis of neural function with physiology.
As far as I see it the onus is on you to show why a collection of water, fat, proteins, ions etcetera can perform cognitive functions whilst silicon atoms and electrons cannot. You've once again started telling me how transistors aren't like neurons so once again I'm going to have to tell you that I've never claimed that, and refer you to SnakeCharmer.

...the onus of proof generally falls on those making extraordinary claims. You claim that systems bearing little or no resemblance to the only system known to exhibit consciousness (a human being), nevertheless must be able to exhibit consciousness despite their never having done so over a couple generations of humans trying to make it happen. You can proclaim they just aren't big enough or haven't been programmed right, but that's an unfalsifiable claim unless you can provide a rational model for what scale of resources would produce consciousness in a binary math machine. Xaq and I are merely pointing out that computers don't replicate the full spectrum of activity in the human brain, much less in a human being.

Originally Posted by Mario92
If you want to get really technical, humans have no free will at all. We like to think we do, and for now, we are superior to computers in that our thought processes mimic free will much better, but ultimately, the ions jumping the synapses between neurons in the brain were placed there through billions of years of chain reactions. The big bang ultimately set everything in motion. Why do you think? Because a certain set of neurons connected in the right way. Why does life exist? Because a set of atoms and molecules arranged themselves into an organized mass of compounds. (Crudely put, but you get my point.) So, we are similar to computers, but our range of thoughts and emotions are far deeper and more advanced than those of modern computers. Give scientists, programmers, and mathematicians a few decades to catch up, and this will change.

This kind of hard-line determinism is absurd. It's Creationism minus the Creator. The only events that are absolutely determined are those that have already happened. Beyond that, the physicists are still (or we might say, once again) arguing among themselves.