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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.
A computer could dance better if programmed rightly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
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.
http://www.3click.tv/mp4//Star%20Tre...data/46600.jpg
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.
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.
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 :)
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by ClouD
Quote:
Originally Posted by ClouD
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.Quote:
Furthermore, what about at an atomic level? I'm wondering what thoughts really are, where the associations are made from WHO and to WHAT.
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.
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.
We are organic computers.
People in this thread need to stop comparing us to today's computers, and possibilities of computers, and start comparing us to how a computer works. Start comparing us to the definition of a computer.
We process, generalize, project, and adapt. We are vessels of DNA. Love, art, motivation, inspiration, are all products of our evolution. The difference is, instead of it "being programmed by someone for a purpose," these side-programs develop in response to the environment (the ability to respond and adapt, being our overarching program).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
But why do computers transcend the metaphor that has applied to all our technologies, and establish total identity with what we are? What makes you so certain that we aren't simply infatuated with the most recent development in our technical abilities? The definition of a computer is a machine to do maths, identical in principle to a calculator. That we have devised myriad ways to make maths simulate a variety of systems does not make math-machines equal in principle to what we are. Whatever we can program machines to simulate, the granularity of our real environs is greater, because ultimately it is infinite.Quote:
Originally Posted by Abra
Going back to Mario's post, it is not possible to project that our consciousness is inextricably derived from the physical processes of the universe without also accepting the corollary that physical existence depends upon the processes of consciousness for any specific values to be derived.
This.. By far the best answer. Everything else is irrelevant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by ClouD
Well, for now, anyway. The creation of AI may very well change all of that...:>Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
Like a computer, we are not somehow outside of ourselves. Like a computer, we are not somehow immune to our programming. We are advanced programming.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
We are not literal computers in the sense that we aren't tractors, yes. That's obviously not what ClouD's asking. He's poking at a computer's deterministic nature and its programmed mission ("meaning"), and comparing it to humans. I'm saying that we aren't different, that we're still bound by the same laws except while computers are programmed by an external body for a specific purpose beneficial to a user, we're programmed by the environment, for survival (and the only reason we're here and programmed for survival is because the ones without the motivation to survive died).
One can use programming as a metaphor for our interaction with our environment, both as individuals and as a population over generations, but the metaphor only goes so far. It's most applicable to neural activity, but neural activity isn't the sole actor in the call-and-response with peers and environment that shapes us and guides our actions, and binary math machines don't even come close to emulating our neural activity. Programming does not come into existence spontaneously via feedback and continually rewrite itself, with actions determining the 'programming' to the same extent that the 'programming' determines the actions. We can talk about being "programmed to survive," but it's a metaphor that becomes obscuring rather than illuminating if taken too far.Quote:
Originally Posted by Abra
If we ever create a genuine artificial intelligence, it may include computers and computer networks, but it won't BE a computer because computing is not enough. 'You' are not software that just happens to be running on a pile of meat. That position is just spiritual dualism in a modern guise. 'You' are the total embodied experience of being you, including and requiring the meat: not a ghost in the machine, but the machine. A brain in a jar couldn't pass a Turing test any more than a Commodore 64 could.
Yes, the computer's existence derives from us, but we derive from something else. This is the way of the fractal nature of consciousness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
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.
Programming does not come into existence spontaneously. Agreed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
Programming can rewrite itself. There are robots that can predict the outcomes of actions using internal modeling, robots that can learn without a physical trial-and-error.
What human processes can a computer/machine not emulate? How is computing "not enough?" What else would it be built off of?Quote:
If we ever create a genuine artificial intelligence, it may include computers and computer networks, but it won't BE a computer because computing is not enough.
I agree with this, too.Quote:
'You' are not software that just happens to be running on a pile of meat. That position is just spiritual dualism in a modern guise. 'You' are the total embodied experience of being you, including and requiring the meat: not a ghost in the machine, but the machine. A brain in a jar couldn't pass a Turing test any more than a Commodore 64 could.
Fun Fact: People were once computers way back in the day that had to do some big math calculations or something. Then the actual computers were invented (EVAC wasn't it?) to do math.
I think the entire question is sort of 'reductio ad absurdum'. In reality, computers are much better computers than we are. The way we process the majority of our information is much less specific and much more vague than a computer. We don't remember specific instances from our past, we don't draw definite conclusions from our environment. We create interpretations from our perceptions and often remember only the 'gist' of what has happened.
Not only that, but the contents of our memories are constantly changing and cannot be trusted to remain accurate for even a few hours. Also, the actual input that we take in (our perceptions) is altered by our pre-existing biases. We see what we want to see and not exactly what is really presented to us.
The ways in which we process information isn't even remotely similar to how a computer works. Not only is our brain intrinsically non-serial (as opposed to a computer processor) but our mental processes don't even take place entirely within the circuit (neurons). The magnetic field surrounding the brain plays an integral role in how the brain works. The field can cause neurons to fire and yet the firing of neurons is what creates the field in the first place.
I won't even really get into the possibility of our brains utilizing quantum processes because that is an entirely different discussion in itself, but I will point out that the dark adapted eye is capable of detecting single photons. Once you get into the realm of the subatomic, all correlations to macroscale phenomena are completely useless.
Firstly, could you please give a source for this? It's my understanding that the overall magnetic field doesn't have an effect.Quote:
The ways in which we process information isn't even remotely similar to how a computer works. Not only is our brain intrinsically non-serial (as opposed to a computer processor) but our mental processes don't even take place entirely within the circuit (neurons). The magnetic field surrounding the brain plays an integral role in how the brain works. The field can cause neurons to fire and yet the firing of neurons is what creates the field in the first place.
Secondly, in either case, magnetic fields are deterministic and hence can be emulated by a computer.
I don't see what the importance of 'quantumly' random inputs is. You easily build a device which fed the same information into a computer.Quote:
I won't even really get into the possibility of our brains utilizing quantum processes because that is an entirely different discussion in itself, but I will point out that the dark adapted eye is capable of detecting single photons. Once you get into the realm of the subatomic, all correlations to macroscale phenomena are completely useless.
With regards to quantum effects affecting mental processes themselves: studies show that the parts involved in neuron function are too large for quantum effects to be important.
Disagree really. I suppose it is dualism in a sense to suggest that the software has an objective existence apart from the physical neurons, but that is not a contradiction, because consciousness is (patently) an objective entity which only exists when the software is present, so the software must also exist objectively. What matter should I class as part of myself in your framework? Do I include the water in my cells? You'd have to really. But do I include the water vapour in a state of equilibrium around my skin? What about the water which has left my body, or which is yet to enter it? How about the bacterial cells which vastly outnumber my body cells, but which are vital to my body's function? What about the neutral cells, or the degenerate bacteria? The viruses? How about the tapeworm in my gut? Is that not a separate entity?Quote:
'You' are not software that just happens to be running on a pile of meat. That position is just spiritual dualism in a modern guise. 'You' are the total embodied experience of being you, including and requiring the meat: not a ghost in the machine, but the machine. A brain in a jar couldn't pass a Turing test any more than a Commodore 64 could.
We aren't computers because we were here first. If anything, computers are human.
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/qe/pdfs/cemi_theory_paper.pdfQuote:
Originally Posted by Xei
It gets to the effect of the magnetic field on neuron firing on page 5.
All I said was that this is not how computers work. Sure, it is possible to build a computer that utilizes magnetic fields in its processing. In fact, it has already been done to a degree. You can read about it here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Spoiler for the important bit:
My argument was that reducing the question to the very basics of what a person does and what a computer does and calling them the same was absurd. They don't work the same way, unless you want to say that a person is basically just a sophisticated abacus. The most pertinent part of that article for me was that they were unable to recreate the program willfully, that is; without utilizing the evolutionary process. Without actually knowing what a conscious mind is, how can you expect to reduce it to its basic functions and 'emulate' it?
I think Taosaur's conclusion was the only correct one that can be drawn from this conversation. There may come a day when human consciousness is indeed emulated by a machine, but that machine will be so far removed from what we today call a computer that it can hardly even be looked at in the same context.
Your claims, which I believe I've stumbled upon before, inspired me to do some research. Turns out there is only one paper about this 'field theory' by this McFadden guy, who is not a neuroscientist but a molecular biologist who writes books which seem to be mainly about philosophy (the terms quantum evolution and quantum consciousness also popped up somewhere in his literature, the latter of which I know has no empirical basis). The paper itself is in fact mostly philosophy, and as far as I'm concerned, bunk philosophy. The claim that the electromagnetic field is the 'carrier' of consciousness is really completely meaningless and untestable. Consciousness isn't made out of anything and deciding on some random physical trait and labelling it 'consciousness' (and bizarrely disregarding other hugely important components such as the material ions which are the very basis of neural function) does nothing to solve the hard problem as the paper claims. With regards to the science, from Wired,Quote:
It gets to the effect of the magnetic field on neuron firing on page 5.
"No serious researcher I know believes in an electromagnetic theory of consciousness," Bernard Baars wrote in an e-mail. Baars is a neurobiologist and co-editor of Consciousness & Cognition, another scientific journal in the field. "It's not really worth talking about scientifically."
It's fairly easy to test these theories actually, by placing a subject in an electromagnetic field which overwhelms any effect that could be caused by intrabrain fields; nothing happens to these subjects.
No that's not what I was talking about, I was saying that with a standard digital computer you can create programs which emulate physics, including magnetic fields.Quote:
All I said was that this is not how computers work. Sure, it is possible to build a computer that utilizes magnetic fields in its processing. In fact, it has already been done to a degree. You can read about it here.
I saw on the very dodgy Wikipedia article that McFadden was claiming that a computer could never emulate a brain because transistors don't use spread out electromagnetic fields; it's this mistake I was adressing.
The current understanding is that neural nets and their impulses are what cause consciousness. There's plenty of evidence for this.Quote:
My argument was that reducing the question to the very basics of what a person does and what a computer does and calling them the same was absurd. They don't work the same way, unless you want to say that a person is basically just a sophisticated abacus. The most pertinent part of that article for me was that they were unable to recreate the program willfully, that is; without utilizing the evolutionary process. Without actually knowing what a conscious mind is, how can you expect to reduce it to its basic functions and 'emulate' it?
I think Taosaur's conclusion was the only correct one that can be drawn from this conversation. There may come a day when human consciousness is indeed emulated by a machine, but that machine will be so far removed from what we today call a computer that it can hardly even be looked at in the same context.
The computer need not be any different whatsoever. It's a turing machine. That's enough.
You missed the entire point of my post.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
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.
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.
If you go from the assumption of science, that the universe is ordened, governed by a fixed set of laws, then this assumption also counts for the brains (duh). Therefore, it is only logical, that one day, we will be able to simulate the brains... unless science is incorrect and the laws of the universe change all the time, but last time I checked, gravity still works.
Somehow this thread turned into a discussion on whether it is possible for technology to create a facsimile of the human brain, but that was not the original topic. The topic is whether or not humans are computers. The things that we call computers are really nothing like human beings and the fact that we have created them to perform tasks that we also perform does not change that. Just as Taosaur has already pointed out, a human is not a forklift just because we've designed it to lift things as we do, and a human is not a blender just because we've designed it to break down food as we do.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba
It doesn't really matter if computers and neural nets work in a different way. They still perform essentially the same function: computation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xaqaria
Cells, including neurons, are in no way similar to a computer, yet they can be used to compute things. This is also what they do naturally and that is how they survive.
They take inputs (e.g. chemical signals), perform some kind of algorithm (this is implemented by physical interactions between various biomolecules, DNA, RNA, proteins, small molecules...) and give out some kind of output.
Individual neurons (and their molecular subparts) operate very much like logic gates. The behavior of the system cannot be reduced to logic gates, but it's still the product of those logic gates working in a coordinated fashion.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by ClouD
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Invader
Weak argument. A computer is a mechanism that performs tasks according to its algorithm. The human brain fits in that category.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff777
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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?
Our intelligence goes up because the brain makes new connections between neurons.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromoh
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?
Um, I did address that specifically, alongside the philosophy..?Quote:
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.
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.
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.Quote:
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ClouD
Pretty much this. Matter, at the atomic level, tends to behave very predictably. There are some exceptions and odd little ghost particles out there, and once in a great while a rare exception to the rule will occur, but again, nothing within our control. So, yes, as humans, we have no free will. We are under the impression that we are, but we cannot spontaneously make our own decisions to re-arrange the firing of neurons within the brain, and even if we did, it would only be because a long line of predictable interactions between particles occurred and made it so. So, basically, we are computers, albeit computers with a deeper and more meaningful existence. While computers are not yet self-aware or capable of feeling emotion, it will only be a matter of time before true AI is developed. Let us not forget the brain works on chemo-electrical impulses. How is a circuit board or microchip that different?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
You're deflecting what I'm saying, not grasping it. The relevance of no-self is that consciousness is real, but not what we suppose it to be. We are carried by the flow of events, and also guide that flow, not either/or. To the extent that our electrochemical processes resemble programming at all, we have collaborated in that programming and, more than any other part of the universe, are responsible for it. As a species, and to some extent as individuals, we choose our own programming and each other's.Quote:
Originally Posted by ClouD
But again, referring to human "programming" is only metaphor. To ask, "Can we be aware of anything that is not from the processes of our programming?" exceeds the reach of that metaphor, so that either answer, yes or no, is nonsense. A computer is literally programmed; its intelligence is only the intelligence of its creators, based on their understanding of its operation and their skill at using it. It's a tool derived, I'll say again, from only a sliver of the activity of human intelligence.
"Are our actions...reactions?"
Yes.
"Are our actions simply reactions?"
No.
See above post. In short, while it may appear that our actions transcend reactions, the processes that lead up to them are, in fact, merely reactions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
Are you equating a human being with cognitive functions? Are you merely your thoughts?Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xaqaria
...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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92 http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...s/viewpost.gif
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.
How do you figure that this is "absurd?" Your thoughts and impulses are derived from the brain. More specifically, they are caused by ions jumping the synapse between two neurons. These ions get the "message" to jump the gap through a process of cell interactions and processes. Cell processes can be broken down smaller and smaller, until you are essentially left with simple organic compounds moving about. What causes these compounds to move about? Whatever they interacted with last set them on their present course. Well, what did they interact with, and how did that get there in the first place? It interacted with something else...and so on and so forth. You cannot "control" what neurons fire and when. When you make a decision, it is because of a chain reaction between atoms, molecules, and particles. You do not spontaneously lend energy to the ions, or create messages. It is beyond your control.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
And when the chain reactions occur among particles, it is because you made a decision. The two are simultaneous and synonymous, the system influencing the state of the particles and the particles influencing the state of the system. The outcome is not determined until it is past. The present is by definition the unfixed event horizon of our causal continuum, in which all that exists operates interdependently, including us and all our constituent parts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
Ah, but also take note, that particles will take the most likely path at an incredible percentage, and the likeliness of the unlikely happening is slim at best.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
Also, how do you make a decision? You think. You use your brain, which operates on chemo-electric impulses...nothing more than matter and energy. The matter is on a fixed course, set there by reactions with other bits of matter and transference of energy, which likewise reacted with other matter and other energy in the past. When we "make a decision" or "reach a conclusion," it is because a specific set of neurons reacted in such a way as to "decide" or create the illusion of "decision." Without the brain, there would be no deciding, no conclusion-reaching. Your brain is matter and energy; nothing more. It follows the same principles as the rest of the universe. Being that it is matter and energy, it is extremely unlikely to alter its present state or simultaneously veer from its present course unless acted upon by an outside force. "Decision making" is no such outside force.
I can give it a try...Quote:
Originally Posted by ClouD
I've thought about this before when I first started learning about brain chemistry. The brain is very basically billions of neurons, that are either at action potential or resting potential. Sounds VERY similar to the transistors of a computer, all of which are either at 0 or 1. The difference is how they interact with each other. The human brain's interactions are much more dynamic than that of a computer, because its capable of being conditioned biologically. The system of electric impulses and neurotransmitter binding is far more advanced than how transistors interact.
If a human brain has a person walk into an electric fence, they feel pain. The brain responds at a molecular level and changes its original chemistry that would originally have the person walk there. Now they know better, and walk around it. A computer (as we know them now), say a robotic human programmed the same way would feel the pain but would repeatedly walk into the fence because that conditioning does not take place. Everything we do seems to happen reactively like this. The electric fence is just a simple example. If we could build a computer to network dynamically like the brain, it would be capable of everything we are (though whether or not it would be conscious I believe is up for debate).
So yeah, I think everything is reactive. The illusion of free will is just part of the human experience. However I don't think that's all there is to consciousness. If one stops empowering these illusions of choice and self there's still awareness that shines through the individual, which gets directed towards the body and the environment instead of the mind.
Consciousness never ceases to amaze me. I'm starting to believe its greater than matter. I read in the DSM-IV once about a form of schizophrenia that's actually shared between people. Like, they actually share delusions and hallucinations when they live in close quarters. I'm also hearing different accounts of shared dreaming which seems like that same mingling of consciousness in the dream world. I firmly believe now that consciousness isn't limited to our individual bodies or our brain chemistry.
What determines my choice of heads or tails. That's totally random.
Is it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Praise
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0414145705.htm
Again, connecting neurons make the decision, and all that goes right back to all my other previous posts on determinism and chain reactions, etc.Quote:
Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity. A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain actually unconsciously prepares our decisions. Even several seconds before we consciously make a decision its outcome can be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain.
Mario92 knowing a decision earlier doesn't mean that it is determined.
Ah, but it is not random. That is the point. Your brain "decides" before you consciously make the decision. Besides that, this only further backs up the points I have already made on determinism.Quote:
Originally Posted by Praise
arisen sum of motion and partsQuote:
Originally Posted by ClouD
It only means that the subconscious mind is involved too. It doesn't mean you don't have control over what you decide. We made random generators....It's easy to be random. That's what creativity is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
You're going to make me say it again, aren't you?Quote:
Originally Posted by Praise
Your thoughts, actions, and decisions are all determined by your neural network; the brain. The brain operates on chemo-electrical impulses by connecting with other neurons and sending chemical signals back and forth using ions (charged atoms). What caused those atoms to be there, though? Why did they glomp together with other atoms and form more complex structures? Why did they decide to jump the synapse and continue on the signal? Chain reactions. That's all it is.
An analogy, if you will: you mentioned creativity, right? What is the root of your creative nature and your creative ideas, eh? Information you have assimilated throughout your life, combined and thrown together in new ways. But say you come up with something totally original, something the world has never seen before. Nothing even remotely like it on the face of the planet. Unlikely, but what if you did? Are you unique? Do you control atoms at the subatomic level within your brain? No. Your brain directs other parts of your body to interact with matter and the physical world. As I sit here and write this out, my neurons are firing within my brain. I do not control them; I never have.
Mario92 it's nice to think you are not in control of your own actions isn't it.
I'm not trying to say that transistors are like neurons. I'm trying to say that you don't need transistors to compute. The point is that the idea of computers has nothing to do with those plastic and metal boxes sitting on our desks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
A biological system is a computer. Our behavior on every level (molecular, cellular, macroscopic) is the result of computations being performed inside our cells and brain.
I hope this post cleared up my position on this topic.
Troll?Quote:
Originally Posted by Praise
No, who the hell said that? Certainly not I. For all intents and purposes, it would really be best to go through your life as if you were in control of your thoughts and actions, regardless if you are or not.
As a side note, would it kill you to think about your posts for more than a few seconds? I would like to have a rational and civilized debate on the matter, if it is all the same to you.
Ah, the good old "I don't understand what the other person is saying, so I'll just attack".Quote:
Originally Posted by Praise
If you subdued your outbursts of arrogance and stepped off of your percieved moral high ground, then you'd know he never said he wasn't in control of his own actions. He is saying that there is not some soul which decides according to some free will, but that the decisions we make are essentially predetermined, following cause and effect. Whatever he does by his own accord will always be percieved by himself as something he has done. Even if from a more objective standpoint it's not his fault.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonsay
Thanks, mate. :D
1. A quest for truth. Nothing more.Quote:
Originally Posted by Praise
2. Well, if my idea holds water, then all that is, was, and shall be is the ultimate result of the Big Bang. The BB set everything in motion, from which the vast majority of particles have not strayed from a relatively predictable path (with the exception of electrons and some very small particles, which we don't completely understand, but are nevertheless beyond our control).
I hope it is a quest for truth and not a bias.Quote:
1. A quest for truth. Nothing more.
Ok how did this big bang suddenly appear out of nothing.Quote:
2. Well, if my idea holds water, then all that is, was, and shall be is the ultimate result of the Big Bang. The BB set everything in motion, from which the vast majority of particles have not strayed from a relatively predictable path (with the exception of electrons and some very small particles, which we don't completely understand, but are nevertheless beyond our control).
And what came first the cause or the effect.
That is a question mankind will debate for ages and likely not come any closer to the truth, but I highly doubt it was the act of any sort of supreme being. Far too many variables, not enough evidence. Most likely, it was caused by some sort of explainable phenomena. M-theory has a strong case. It suggests that our universe arose when two or more dimensions collided, which would account (at least partly) for the uneven distribution of matter within the universe. Another theory is that the Universe is simply timeless, and the Big Bang was a result of the collapse of the previous universe. There is currently strong evidence against this theory, but it remains on the table nonetheless. Some have said that our universe is the result of beings of other universes creating it, which isn't entirely unrealistic. Again, the M-theory tells us that we could very well create a universe separate and independent of our own with relatively little effort. Whether or not this is true is another thing, but interesting to think about.Quote:
Originally Posted by Praise
EDIT: And what on earth do you mean by, "what came first the cause or the effect?" S'plain.
The cause, but even before that came cause's cause, and before that the cause's cause's cause, and before that came the cause's cause's cause's cause, and even before that there was the cause's cause's cause's cause's...Quote:
Originally Posted by Praise
Big Bang coming out of nothing is a logical paradox.. which most of science can't answer. Though it becomes logical and obvious in digital physics, but it still avoids the masses..Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
Introduction: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0801/0801.0337.pdf
Please tell me you're kidding...Quote:
Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia
You correctly pointed out there's a paradox but saying it lies in the big bang is incorrect. The paradox comes from the nature of existence: whatever you try to use as an explanation for the origin of the universe it will always come down to either something having always existed or reaction with no action, both are perceived by our mind as paradoxical.Quote:
Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia
The paradox is not about the big bang, because there is no problem explaining the big bang by using the virtual model. The paradox arises with the "Objective Reality" model.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scatterbrain
Page 11 The physical world as a virtual reality, Brian Whitworth
"Where did the universe come from?
The traditional view of our universe was that as an objective reality it “just is”, and so has always
existed. While its parts may transform, its total is in a “steady state” that always was and always
will be. The alternative view is that the universe did not always exist, but arose at some specific
point, which also created space and time. During the last century these two theories have battled it
out for supremacy on the stage of science. Steady-state theory proponents included respected
physicists, who thought that the idea that the entire universe expanded from a single point was
highly unlikely to be true. However Hubble’s finding that all the stars around us are red-shifted
suggested that the entire universe is indeed expanding at the speed of light. Now an expanding
universe has to expand from somewhere, so scientists could run the expansion backwards to a
source, a “big bang” that began our universe about 15 billion years ago. The discovery of cosmic
background radiation, left over from the big bang, has largely confirmed the theory today in the
minds of most physicists.
Big bang theory sidesteps questions like: “What existed before the big bang?” by answering:
“There was no time or space before the big bang”, but if time and space suddenly “appeared” for
no apparent reason at the big bang, could they not equally suddenly disappear tomorrow? Big
bang theory implies a dependent universe, so what is it dependent upon is a valid question even
without time and space. If nothing in our universe is created from nothing, how can an entire
universe come from nothing? That our universe arose from nothing is not just incredible, it is
inconceivable. One can state the problems simply:
1. What caused the big bang?
2. What caused space to start?
3. What caused time to start?
4. How can a big bang arise when there is no time or space?
5. How can space be caused if there is no “there” for a cause to exist within?
6. How can time be started if there is no time flow for the starting to occur within?
The big bang contradicts any theory that assumes the universe is objectively real and complete in
itself. How can an objective reality, existing in and of itself, be created out of nothing? The
failure of the steady state theory of the universe removes a cornerstone of support for the
objective reality hypothesis. In contrast virtual reality theory fits well with a big bang. No virtual
reality can have existed forever, since it needs a processor to start it up. All virtual realities “start
up” at a specific moment of time, typically with a sudden influx of information. Every time one
starts a computer game or boots up a computer, such a “big bang” occurs. From the perspective of
the virtual world itself, its creation is always from “nothing”, as before the virtual world startup
there was indeed no time or space as defined by that world. There was nothing relative to that
world because the world itself did not exist. It is a hallmark of virtual realities that they must
come into existence at a specific event in their space and time, which also initiates their spacetime
fabric. Note that in a virtual world there is no logical reason why all initiating information
cannot initially “point” to a single arbitrary location, i.e. no reason why an entire universe cannot
exist at a single point. In VR theory the big bang was simply when our universe was “booted up”.
The big bang is an accepted aspect of modern physics that VR theory accommodates but OR
theory does not. It illustrates that VR/OR arguments can be resolved by appeal to experimental
data from this world. Just as the steady state versus big bang theories were resolved by research,
so can the more general virtual vs. objective theoretical contrast be resolved. To decide if the
world is objective or virtual we simply need to consider what data from the world is telling us."
It was God.Quote:
Originally Posted by Praise
And where did God come from?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonsay
*watches flames ignite*
He's standing on a turtle, and it's turtles all the way down.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromoh
But then, turtles came before God?
http://randallgamby.files.wordpress....le-picture.jpg
This turtle is in shock.
You seem to have ignored everything I've said.Quote:
...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.
Firstly, I'm talking about systems which are identical. Hardly 'bearing little or no resemblance'.
Secondly, no such system has ever been created on a computer, and nobody claims to have created such a system.
Again, computers currently don't 'replicate the full spectrum of activity', but there's no reason why somebody couldn't build one. Which people are indeed doing.
That's really a non-issue. If I do, then computers can be 'us'. If I don't, then I suppose computers can't, because to be us you'd have to have limbs and things, which isn't what a computer is.Quote:
Are you equating a human being with cognitive functions? Are you merely your thoughts?
I know that's what you were trying to say. That's also what I was trying to say. That's why I referred Xaq to your post. :lQuote:
'm not trying to say that transistors are like neurons. I'm trying to say that you don't need transistors to compute. The point is that the idea of computers has nothing to do with those plastic and metal boxes sitting on our desks.
And what if we're assuming an erroneous successive association, that is, to suppose that an effect must have a cause independent of itself. It seems intuitive to suppose that such a dissociation is illogical, but....
As for the original question:
We are not computers by virtue of not being our function - if every activity observed defines 'me', then a computer could replicate such activity and thereby be denoted as 'me'.
As for what is 'me'? Myself cannot be localised to a specific area: slice me into many pieces and to what part would you designate as 'me'? Failure of such an exercise either indicates: 1. that physically, I am every part of me - a whole, or 2. that physically, 'I' do not exist - me in this sense would refer to my expression in and of itself.
Someone explain how computers could emulate 'qualia' - in my opinion, this, fundamentally, is what differentiates us from computers, and is what belies and forms myself.
"Virtual reality theory" solves nothing. It simply replaces "the big bang started the universe" with "a processor(or whatever) started the big bang which started the universe", it's adding an unnecessary clutter to the problem. What started the processor then? The paradox always persists.Quote:
Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia
And contrary to what the quoted text implies, the big bang theory doesn't say anything about what there was or not before it. It just says our Universe (at least as we know it) started then.
the question has always eluded me though...if we do assume some day we have computers powerful enough to emulate everything about us, we should be able to save everything about us to a computer right?
but...could we really transfer my conciousness? what Im saying is...would the me in my body falll to sleep and never wake up (die) even if we took all the brains info and put it on a computer meant to be a human? and if that computer turned on and could copy the way I think, feel and process information the same as I would....would the conciousness it gains be a clone, or could my original conciousness somehow be transfered?
See, you'd never know for sure. But, whatever came out of that machine would genuinely think it's you, and it'd do well to convince everyone else it was you, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by tkdyo
Y'know what's a good movie? The Prestige.
haha, yes, that is a great movie. Loved it
and yeah, but it seems to me that if conciousness is wholly a result of our brains processes and such we should be able to transfer it as well.
I know I am not a computer because I have not been able thus far to upgrade my floppy disk.
That's a great question. Some people feel that any such derivates would be "mind-children" and not the same person merely transfered onto a different substrate.Quote:
Originally Posted by tkdyo
But Ray Kurzweil said before, that the brain replaces itself completely over a certain period. Your brain isn't the same as it was 10 years ago, because it gradually replaces its components over time or whatever as he said.
To counter the Mind-Children, Copy argument, Ray says that any consciousness transfer process would replace individual neurons and what have you in the brain much like the brains own natural process of gradual replacement.
So, Kurzweil argues that one would be transferring consciousness and not simply just making a copy where the original mind dies.
Neither, the apparent uniqueness of your consciousness is most likely an illusion.Quote:
Originally Posted by tkdyo
That's a nice idea. In the end it doesn't solve the problem, just blurs the line. It's a moral bypass, so you (or should I say two "you's") wouldn't have to face the scary reality.Quote:
Originally Posted by Soros
He's still making the copy and killing the original. But in the end he is just doing it the way nature does it, one chunk of your soul at a time, when you're not looking :P .
The whole process could be skipped if the people undergoing the procedure faced facts of reality.
If the same process of nature is mimicked then the end product should be the same consciousness wise. If i am to take that the proposed process would be killing the original and making a copy, then i am to believe that the me from 10 years ago was gradually killed and replaced by the me of today due the natural processes of nature.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonsay
That depends on what you mean by "me". One way of looking at it is that you are never killed as long as there is a "you", somewhere. Whether it is a clone, consciousness downloaded on a computer, you after having a severe brain injury or you a few years from now; it's a "you" who obviously thinks it's alive. This is sort of an "objective" you, defined by the way it experiences itself in regards to it's memories. So it's an illusory entity, one we have to use to live our daily lives.
I guess I could say that I don't care too much of this kind of soul, because our consciousness always exists (as it's experienced) in the present moment. What I was as a child is not what I was as a baby and definitely not something I am now. If I realize this sort of reality then I can deduce it on every moment of my life to find out that I'm living it for somebody else who is a moment in the future ad infinitum or should I say that "I'm" living so others could experience me existing. It's like with an organism and its cells. Your cells die all the time and are replaced, nothing relatively unique about them. There is nothing really "in it" for the single cell, all by itself. It's just a tiny piece of a structure like your current thought is a moment in your life. There is nothing in it for you other than the objective "whole" which you help to create. It's nothing new or special really. It seems that in nature there is no concept of "individuality". It's always about patterns and information. It doesn't matter which water molecule is which, just that it has two hydrogens and an oxygen. That's why when our daily reality clashes with nature, as we see with these futuristic concepts, we don't know exactly how to react. It seems that nature "doesn't care" about our concepts of individuality and existence. If the last thing you see is your clone throwing the old you away then just the way it is :P .
Whether or not the above is true... the other way of thinking about the soul, is it being the subjective experience, the thing that right now thinks, percieves and is reading the post, then it's much more complicated. Perhaps also much more interesting to philosophize about.
Good post.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonsay
That's my take on futurism and immortality; even if the goals were attainable, you're struggling to preserve something that doesn't exist.
Well, it exists as long as you see it that way. I mean people might strive for immortality in this regard as long as they feel they exist. Without realizing it, or better yet experiencing it yourself, it's kind of hard to concieve concepts so different from what we know and experience now. So if humanity makes it to this point - with all the futuristic technology - I'm sure problems like these will fade out as people adapt. After all, if it's commonplace, at this x point in the future, to get implants and become some trans-human, it's probably not too extreme to take that extra step to immortality (whatever is the thing that's immortal in this case).Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
I'd be one of the first guys on the immortality bandwagon, for sure. ;) Quietly protesting the 10-character limit)Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonsay
...Im not sure what you mean by this...how is it an illusion?Quote:
Originally Posted by Scatterbrain
Edit: Soros, that is a very interesting concept. I wonder if that could truly work, or as Bonsay has said, it just blurrs the line.
There's nothing inherently special about the matter that constitutes you: replacing you with an exact copy or not would makes difference physically, there's nothing to make us think the replacement would be different in any way at all. But it also makes no sense to think that some objective form of consciousness would be "preserved" because there's no connection between the original and the copy. The answer, I think, is that consciousness is a subjective attribute rather than an individual objective thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by tkdyo
(A good analogy would be the Sun and it's gravitational field: if we replaced the Sun with an exact copy, we wouldn't say the Earth was now being kept in orbit by a "different" or "new" gravity, it's just gravity.)
I think Bonsay explained it better.
ok, I know what you mean now, and I agree of course that nothing is different physically...this is what I was trying to get at with the question though. Since conciousness is a subjective experience...it makes me wonder if actual transfer of the me I experience right now is possible...I feel rather the current me would stop experiencing anything and die and a new physically Identcal me would take its place. despite all the memories being transplanted, the original me still in the body would cease to experience anything so it would be the same as dieing.
I find this problem fascinating.Quote:
There's nothing inherently special about the matter that constitutes you: replacing you with an exact copy or not would makes difference physically, there's nothing to make us think the replacement would be different in any way at all. But it also makes no sense to think that some objective form of consciousness would be "preserved" because there's no connection between the original and the copy. The answer, I think, is that consciousness is a subjective attribute rather than an individual objective thing.
I'd disagree that the copy definitely wouldn't be 'your' consciousness. It's clear that the causality of neural activity is what causes consciousness, but this seems to jar very much with reductionism in which there isn't really any objective reality to 'causes' and 'events'. The point is that from 'scanning the brain' to 'building the brain' there is a clear causal pathway which you might think consciousness would travel down.
However when we consider what would happen when we made say, 10 different copies of you, it becomes clear that there is a problem.
However, I definitely don't think the solution to the hard problem is to deny the uniqueness of consciousness. I think it's an extremely patent fact, pretty much as patent as can possibly be, that our consciousness is a single thing with a single us associated with it.
I love that anime.Quote:
Originally Posted by ClouD
Ontopic: Most people would say because we have a soul. Thats a very very vague answer, but thats an answer your going to get regardless.
But if we look at us existing in time as existing in different copies, there are basically an infinite amount of copies in a certain time frame (If a moment in time is infinitely small). So how will you pinpoint something unique, which can be recognised as consciousness only when it's active, thus requiring time to function... so if we agree that different "brainstates" coencide with different "consciousness's" there is never a real "you" to associate with.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
I don't really understand what you mean.
In the causality model there has only ever been one you. Your neurons don't interfere with the neurons in somebody else's head. You're a single closed system, and hence a single consciousness.
I'm refering to the changes that happen in the brain all the time. How many changes does a brain need to stop being "you"? A lobotomy? A simple new memory formation...? That's what I meant that "you" changes all the time.
That's not what I was trying to say. I meant there is no transferring of your 'consciousness' to the copy because there's nothing to be transferred.Quote:
Originally Posted by tkdyo
How do you think scenarios like making 10 copies could be explained with consciousness being objective and unique? It's physically contradictory. The only way I can see it working is if we discovered the existence of souls.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Also as Bonsay mentioned we're always constantly and gradually changing over time into completely different persons. Pretty much like species in an evolutionary line, you can't pinpoint a moment when a past 'you' disappeared and a new 'you' popped into existence.
Well, taking 'you' to mean a single conscious system, clearly from experience the latter does not change who you are. Lobotomy patients... impossible to know I suppose.Quote:
I'm refering to the changes that happen in the brain all the time. How many changes does a brain need to stop being "you"? A lobotomy? A simple new memory formation...? That's what I meant that "you" changes all the time.
Like I said, under my definition there has only ever been one 'you'.Quote:
How do you think scenarios like making 10 copies could be explained with consciousness being objective and unique? It's physically contradictory. The only way I can see it working is if we discovered the existence of souls.
Also as Bonsay mentioned we're always constantly and gradually changing over time into completely different persons. Pretty much like species in an evolutionary line, you can't pinpoint a moment when a past 'you' disappeared and a new 'you' popped into existence.
I recognise the contradiction, but I also recognise based on empirical evidence that I have only ever been me.
Denying your own existence gets rid of some of the paradoxes but is empirically untenable. I'm sure there is a solution, we just haven't found it, or possibly can't find it.
Eliminating the delusion that "you" are a discrete entity with fixed qualities, subject to birth, illness, old age and death, actually solves a lot of problems, and isn't nearly as distressing as it looks when one is under the influence of ego.
Bonsay has the crux of the matter in hand: if everything that constitutes and surrounds "me" is in constant flux, exchanging material and information among innumerable channels at widely varying rates, then am "I" in any sense a discrete entity, or simply a body of trends observable at the nexus of, again, innumerable dynamic systems?
oh ok, but why is that if consciousness just arises out of our physical processes?Quote:
Originally Posted by Scatterbrain
The ego serves as a lubricant for the functioning of the brain.
What else is there?Quote:
Originally Posted by tkdyo
Non-physical processes?Quote:
Originally Posted by Scatterbrain
To give a hint for what that could be:
See yourself living in a virtual reality, in a computed reality. The computer that is running the virtual reality is in this context non-physical. Physicality is a question of perspective. When you are in the non-physical from the perspective of here, it is no longer non-physical but physical, when you are "there" "here" is non-physical.
One can also see it as different causal systems, they are all interconnected but they are still in different systems.
Consciousness does not arise in physical processes, it is only expressed in this virtual reality in physical processes. It (the brain) is a virtual representation of the consciousness of the being.
Thoughts and experience modify the brain, the mind leads and the body follows.
What you experience here as consciousness is a data stream of information. It creates the illusion of the physical being the fundamental, when it's not.
It could also be god, or reality and then there would be a dreamer outside. Except that we have yet to discover such "non-physical" processes. How is this relevant?Quote:
Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia
I honestly don't understand where you're going with this. If anything, the brain is a representation of our ancestry and of our life experience, not of "consciousness".Quote:
Consciousness does not arise in physical processes, it is only expressed in this virtual reality in physical processes. It (the brain) is a virtual representation of the consciousness of the being.
Thoughts and experience modify the brain, the mind leads and the body follows.
What you experience here as consciousness is a data stream of information. It creates the illusion of the physical being the fundamental, when it's not.
Saying that "consciousness" is somehow channelled from a source external to the universe only raises more questions than it answers.
mm I think that was worded a bit wrong, I meant...why cant the consciousness itself be transferred if it purely arises from a physical process when all the parts can be transferred.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scatterbrain
There's no "it" to transfer. If a weather system exists over Iowa, and you manage to engineer a weather system over Spain that is, for a moment, identical, have you transferred the storm from Iowa to Spain? Does it remotely matter whether or not you dissipate the original storm? Is it even sensible to call it "the same storm" if it's traveling over and being shaped by a different landscape?Quote:
Originally Posted by tkdyo
Well put.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
of course it doesnt make sense. It is a separate storm made out of similar conditions just like if you make a separate clone who has a similar consciousness to mine. By contrast, it does make sense to call a storm "the same" as it travels over and changes with the landscape...in fact that is what our consciousness does save the landscape being experience. I dont think that was quite the right analogy :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
Well, I got bored around page 3. And yea sure if I' m going to put forth my own opinion I should read everyone else's. And I don't know if someone else already said something like this but:
Are we a body with a soul? Or a soul with a body?
Not scientific at all ;) but still. If we were just neuron pathways (or whatever) in the brain, would we really be capable of such complex feelings? Of lucid dreaming :P?
I think it's still on topic. We're not computers because we are souls :D
Credit to my sig :D
C.S. Lewis is awesome.
First: prove the soul exists.
Second: the brain is an incredibly complex organ. It learns, grows, and adapts. It forms new connections, actively processes and stores data, and interprets sensory experiences...and yes, certain parts of the brain have been directly linked to emotion, as well as lucid dreaming and critical thinking.
Well I said it wasn't scientific, so I can't. :P
Yea, brains are pretty cool. Probably if I went and read anything or researched I'd change my opinion. oh well.
Can computers do abstract art? Or write a song about what Christmas feels like? Or make up a game?
This is what defines us from computers, as well as Consicoussness. It is Creativity, the ability to make up stuff, like songs, games, art…
Of course, at the moment a computer could possibly recreate Picasso or Motzart, but that is Copying, not Creativity. Creativity is about Creating.
And does a computer have emphathy, the ability to understand how other people are feeling? Can they communicate, and understand what they are saying?
Biologically, our neurons do not function like computer transistors. Yes, they fire signals, but they make new connections, and they can fire in an infinate number of ways. A computer will pass signals as 1 or 0, but we can have partial signals, like ‘nearly halfway open’ or ‘partway closed’.
There's nothing stopping us from recreating neurons. We have already done it really. It's just a matter of complexity. Everything you mentioned can be done with a computer, we just haven't made it yet, because it is so advanced.Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
Indeed. There's an obvious conflation in that post between can meaning 'can computers do this now' or can meaning 'can computers do this hypothetically'.
If we had the right software, there's no reason a computer couldn't do it right now. They're turing complete; they can emulate any deterministic system.
Which is to say, any simulation of reality.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
They can't do that now. However, as Marvo said, there's nothing stopping them from doing so at any point in the future. We as humans just need to figure it out. Consciousness is something being studied actively, and as of now, it appears that the source of consciousness is, indeed, the brain, rather than any outside identity like a soul.Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
Agreed. And I can assure you that one day, computers will be creative and will create.Quote:
Of course, at the moment a computer could possibly recreate Picasso or Motzart, but that is Copying, not Creativity. Creativity is about Creating.
They will. Again, emotion is derived from the brain. We just have to figure out how to recreate that inside a computer, which we will.Quote:
And does a computer have emphathy, the ability to understand how other people are feeling? Can they communicate, and understand what they are saying?
You are correct in that traditional computer circuitry does not act like a human brain, which is likely why we'll be seeing new technologies develop as progress is made with artificial intelligence. Something will be made that allows the computer to change its own wiring, so to speak, in order to learn and retain what is valuable and eliminate the crap. We have seen robotics that actually do learn and do alter their behavior with experience. That technology exists. As for computer signals, neurons really are a one-way street. Ions jump the synapse. That action can't be undone. In a normally-functioning neuron, the message will be transmitted as a one or a zero, so to speak. What can happen, though, is if a signal is poorly received. This usually occurs in damaged neurons. And who's to say that computer pieces don't get damaged or wear out? We're more like a computer than I think you think. Granted, not like most or any computers in existence today, but the way in which our brains operate is surprisingly similar. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that computers are like us.Quote:
Biologically, our neurons do not function like computer transistors. Yes, they fire signals, but they make new connections, and they can fire in an infinate number of ways. A computer will pass signals as 1 or 0, but we can have partial signals, like ‘nearly halfway open’ or ‘partway closed’.
I've never heard anyone give me any semblance of an argument that a conscious system embedded in silicon and electrons is more absurd than a conscious system embedded in water, fat, protein, salt and sugar.Quote:
Which is to say, any simulation of reality.
Still not accurate. How well can a computer multitask? In such a way that they can continually record and download a hi def movie, as well as being able to kick a ball around, and imagine themselves playing for the world cup? How well would they manage? Chances are, they crash. Can't handle the data overload. We don't crash when we do that.Quote:
Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that computers are like us.
And let's say our robot fell over? Let's say it didn't cause much of an impact, but now our robot-guy is on the floor, he can't do the complex motor movements to pick himself up. We, on the other hand, can, given the same circumstances.
I guess this can all be answered on many different levels. If I could say it briefly, I'd say "we" are part of it all as observers, and seemingly as human beings, and can interact with the landscape of phenomena before us, but we have no volition over why it is all here. This means not even a superdupa-computer can ever possibly demonstrate it as it is.Quote:
Originally Posted by ClouD
@ Mario92 - You're still missing that as such humans cannot create consciousness - that which is the substrate of knowing that they are created in the first place! You may think that everything about the matter that can be explained in conceptual terms can be created and formed in causal systems, however this never grasps the essential context in which it has the capacity to exist - which is doing so spontaneously and cannot be affected or caused. Thus it follows that it cannot be programmed either, because it is not tangible. In trying to program consciousness, one is actually trying to play God. Well if computers could be exactly the same as conscious human beings, they wouldn't be computers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
I can tell you how this is more absurd:Quote:
I've never heard anyone give me any semblance of an argument that a conscious system embedded in silicon and electrons is more absurd than a conscious system embedded in water, fat, protein, salt and sugar.
One is a system that scientists can easily identify with, prove, measure, emulate and simulate. This system is of the world and universe as we know it, and what is part of this includes the human body, the earth, even to beyond the galaxies, to name a few things. I will stress that, although this system has almost an infinite number of components, it is still subject to the error in human interpretation.
The other is an improvable, diffuse, non-linear, unpredictable "system" and precedes everything we can speak of. That system is consciousness. I cannot show you what it is, but without it, nothing exists whatsoever.
The main difference between a conscious system in silicon and electrons, and one in water, fat, protein, salt and sugar, is that the former system supposedly needs consciousness to be "embedded". In the latter system - in what is actually the case of living human species - there was no consciousness "embedded" to begin with, but it is intrinsic. It has always been here since we were born, as far as we can remember, and it's beyond our comprehension why; the implication is that it is beyond all cause.
You keep ignoring everybody's responses. Three people have said to you know why they think this is wrong but you're still posting your original argument.Quote:
Still not accurate. How well can a computer multitask? In such a way that they can continually record and download a hi def movie, as well as being able to kick a ball around, and imagine themselves playing for the world cup? How well would they manage? Chances are, they crash. Can't handle the data overload. We don't crash when we do that.
And let's say our robot fell over? Let's say it didn't cause much of an impact, but now our robot-guy is on the floor, he can't do the complex motor movements to pick himself up. We, on the other hand, can, given the same circumstances.
At the moment I don't understand your point; could you elaborate on what you mean by this?Quote:
the former system supposedly needs consciousness to be "embedded".
I was referring to what you said:Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
"I've never heard anyone give me any semblance of an argument that a conscious system embedded in silicon and electrons is more absurd than a conscious system embedded in water, fat, protein, salt and sugar. "
Consciousness embedded, or consciousness system embedded, maybe you can explain more on this?
We have already made robots that are perfectly capable of falling over and standing up again, repeatedly. If such a "data overload" actually happened, the only thing it would prove is that the robot isn't very well happened. And you don't have to look very far to find situations where humans feel overwhelmed with input, resulting in them shutting out certain factors of a situation, so mistakes are made, or more accurately I guess, the humans crash.Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
'Our consciousness is embedded in our brains' means that the physical processes in our brains are what lead to our consciousness.
What is consciousness? Is it just the element of our psyche we could recognise as the "observer", the elementary thing behind all thoughts? Or is it a collection of computations raging from what we call memories, language, concepts etc. After assuming (which in this case hopefully isn't seen as some giant leap of faith) the fact that we are just a part of this universe, then it's not too absurd to speculate on other things being conscious like us, if the situation allows. And we usually do... see certain other animals about as conscious as us. Why stop at computers?Quote:
Originally Posted by really
You said that biological computers have an intrinsic consciousness... well firstly, the way orgainc computers emerged is completely different from the way technological ones did. And anything they might lack can easily be attributed to a different evolutionary path. Secondly, where is this intrinsic consciousness you say biological things have? As far as I know, a real sense of self emerges in a later stage of a childs development. And even if we're talking about the "mysterious elementary observer", as far as we know it's something that emerges in our brains and if we dare to continue, in the brains of other creatures, still not making it exclusive for biological life... Saying that a consciousness from a biological computer is grounded in reality, but at the same without cause, is absurd. Either you decide to be a solipsist or you agree to a reality. You can't have it both ways.
We don't know if computers are conscious, because we aren't conditioned to percieve them that way, if they don't act and look like us. And the only reason we might say we have to embed consciousness into a computer, is because we want a specific kind of consciousness, a human one. We want to create an AI that can tell us it is conscious. Because that's the level at which we define and percieve it. It's possible that the Earth is somehow metaphysically "conscious" and that you serve it as a bit of information, or that the communication and collective actions of a bacterial colony becomes "conscious"... it just doesn't help us because we need it to interact at our level. Anyway i've gone a bit of course, but the point is that I still haven't been given an actual reason to see artificial consciousness as impossible.
Yeah, but name one football-kicking robot that can listen to crowd roars and video what is happening all at the same time…Quote:
We have already made robots that are perfectly capable of falling over and standing up again, repeatedly. If such a "data overload" actually happened, the only thing it would prove is that the robot isn't very well happened. And you don't have to look very far to find situations where humans feel overwhelmed with input, resulting in them shutting out certain factors of a situation, so mistakes are made, or more accurately I guess, the humans crash.
But I have just read somewhere that people have created a robot where people can pick themselves up with.
Also, most of the time, if humans get too much sensory input to them (I think) they can block out stuff they don't need. But they then can do the other stuff fine, usually. I can stop listining to bird tweet if it is annoying me, and do homework ok. But a computer would try to process the bird tweet, to a point where it can't work properly. And s l o w s d o w n t o a p o I n t w h e r e I t j u s t b e c o m e s s o A N N O Y I N G.
Alright, sometimes two things don't mix eg pneumatic drill and homework. But we can decide what to do so we don't ‘crash’.
Also, I tried to have three programs happening at once on my computer this morning, and it couldn't do any of them. The programs just crashed. However, people can do three things EASY! At the moment, I am reading on the screen, typing and thinking about what to write next. Three things- can Mr Computer do that?
But in some ways, computers are similar to people in raw processing power in logical situations eg maths. But is a brilliant answer in a burning house the smartest move? And yes, AI could make computers more like us, with consciousness, but it's not here yet. If it ever will be is beyond our present knoweldge. And I am talking about the present, not some to-come future. For that is what AI is. In the future.
You clearly have absolutely no grasp, at all, of how computers work.Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
Additionally, if your computer can't run three programs, you've got a horrible computer. My computer currently has 68 proccesses running, as an example of what a computer can do, just when under low pressure.
Thank you. Now tell me how computers do work, please.
Computers handle one instruction at a time. The stronger the computer, the more instructions can be handled each second. Simulating a human brain is simply a matter of building a strong enough computer and writing the right software. Raw computer processing power is doubled every two years, according to Moore's Law and so far it has proven to be correct. It is only a matter of time, before we can simulate the human brain, and after that, it's only a matter of time before a computer can work the human brain quicker than we can.Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
If people are computers is the Brain is a CPU/RAM/HDD/ all in one, the motherboard is the muscular skeletal system, the heart and lungs and digestive system is the power supply. Skin is the heat sink...
Where the hell did robots come into play? I do believe the discussion is about artificial intelligence. Robotics in our world today are imperfect, but are under constant development and are improving all the time. Given this constant progression, how long until we have metallic humanoids walking around? Couple decades, maybe, if that? And for the "crashing" thing, as stated, humans have limits, too. Artificial intelligence is more than just a simple computer program that crashes or locks up when it runs out of processing power. We as humans subconsciously limit our sensory intake all the time to prevent such crashes. Doubtful? Are you aware of every little thing going on in your world at this very second? No. You have limits, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
I disagree. I say we can create consciousness. To date, there is not a single iota of evidence to suggest that consciousness is anything but a system of neurons within the brain, and it is only a matter of time before we understand this process well enough to duplicate it electronically. As for the "playing god" argument, what god? We've been playing god for years through genetic engineering, and now synthetic life. Screw god; if we can make a functional AI unit, we might as well. And if you think that consciousness comes from some place outside the mind, take a mallet to your noggin and let us know what life is like as a vegetable.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
We have mapped brain activity and have been able to identify regions that activate when conscious thought is stimulated. We have a few loose ideas of where consciousness may come from. Simply throwing our hands in the air and saying "well, we don't really know, so God did it and we can't ever do it" is silly. As far as we can remember, we may have had conscious thought, but what about even further back? Is it possible that consciousness developed in the womb or even during the early years of life? Is this all that different from a computer programmer developing an artificial intelligence unit? As the circuits come together, is it not feasible that a conscious entity may be born: one based on silicon and electrons? Does it so blow your noodle that we as humans may be capable of something you perceive as impossible? It wasn't that long ago that most humans had thought flying impossible. And then the Wright Brothers came along. Humans do the impossible all the time, and simply because the knowledge and technology does not exist at this moment is no reason to say that it shall never be done or absolutely cannot be done.Quote:
I can tell you how this is more absurd:
One is a system that scientists can easily identify with, prove, measure, emulate and simulate. This system is of the world and universe as we know it, and what is part of this includes the human body, the earth, even to beyond the galaxies, to name a few things. I will stress that, although this system has almost an infinite number of components, it is still subject to the error in human interpretation.
The other is an improvable, diffuse, non-linear, unpredictable "system" and precedes everything we can speak of. That system is consciousness. I cannot show you what it is, but without it, nothing exists whatsoever.
The main difference between a conscious system in silicon and electrons, and one in water, fat, protein, salt and sugar, is that the former system supposedly needs consciousness to be "embedded". In the latter system - in what is actually the case of living human species - there was no consciousness "embedded" to begin with, but it is intrinsic. It has always been here since we were born, as far as we can remember, and it's beyond our comprehension why; the implication is that it is beyond all cause.
I'm not even sure what to make of this post?Quote:
Originally Posted by byungsukimmishi
I think we can handle many more ‘instructions’ at a time.Quote:
Computers handle one instruction at a time.
Yeah, but ever since Moor's Law has been discovered, the computer makers have been using it as a goal. Sometime, the goal may not be completed for a while, mabye. But we don't know if that will happen before or after AI, or ever,Quote:
Raw computer processing power is doubled every two years, according to Moore's Law and so far it has proven to be correct.
Seven, to be precise. Technically, humans have an average of 7 active thought centers. Running in the background, so to speak, are everything else needed to keep us alive, like breathing. Additionally, our brains are always reviewing data, content, and input, decoding senses, and so on. Now, I'm not sure about this, but I think that multiple-core processors can handle multiple actions at once. Granted, the computer as a whole goes one command at a time, but the processors themselves can work independently on two different tasks. I think. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. Alternately, if computers were to become fast enough, the fact that they could only handle one process at a time wouldn't really matter, as they could possibly handle millions of actions every fraction of a second.Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
Despite all the challenges and obstacles, Moore's law has held true. The size issue was defeated with multi-core processors. Heating was countered with liquid cooling systems. Data storage is simply phenomenal. At some point in the future, we may be able to develop a computer that is twice the speed, but we lack the means to run it, as doing so creates such massive amounts of heat that the computer melts. Conventional processors are eventually projected to reach temperatures equivalent to the surface of the sun, so perhaps an entirely new system will have to be developed. Scientists are doing some pretty cool stuff with light-based computers and absolute zero. Computers that run at near the speed of light would certainly be interesting, to say the least. I dunno...food for thought.Quote:
Yeah, but ever since Moor's Law has been discovered, the computer makers have been using it as a goal. Sometime, the goal may not be completed for a while, mabye. But we don't know if that will happen before or after AI, or ever,
That sounds pretty cool! But won't that make computers less like us?Quote:
Scientists are doing some pretty cool stuff with light-based computers and absolute zero. Computers that run at near the speed of light would certainly be interesting, to say the least. I dunno...food for thought.
Not really, they are simply planning to use light instead of electrical data signals. It's brilliant.Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
I think that if computers get good enough, they have no excuse to crash! Or I unplug them!
Ok well hopefully you understand what I mean then, because that's what I was referring to. How does this address my points? Basically what I'm saying is that, without the encompassing nature of consciousness, there wouldn't be any significant physical processes to begin with.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
@ Mario92 and Bonsay
I can see that you two are pretty much giving me the same argument overall: There's no reason not to believe consciousness cannot be created and it's only a matter of time before it is.
The issue that parts of consciousness are identifiable in regions of the brain and describable in ideas, emotions and thought-forms is still not of the same caliber as what consciousness is. Creating consciousness is not the same as creating, describing or manipulating content of consciousness. I'm talking about the capacity - the context out of which all of this arises.
If consciousness could so be created and "embedded", we are claiming the possibility to create life from scratch. Sentience and awareness.
I would then want to ask: What is it that makes something "dead"? Can a dead corpse be revived by playing with their neurons? Does a computer game have conscious because everything in it mirrors human behavior? And if consciousness is caused, then what is the purpose of it at all?
It is my understanding that consciousness is a priori to all such ideas. There may be parallels between the brain and consciousness, but this is not to be mistaken as the whole story. If anything in life could be beyond causes and conditions, it would be consciousness.
Huh? I asked you to explain your point. Somehow this ended up with me explaining what I meant by embedded and you saying 'well then'; clearly I know what embedded was supposed to mean because I had also used the term. I was asking you to explain what 'silicon consciousness requiring consciousness to be embedded' means.Quote:
Ok well hopefully you understand what I mean then, because that's what I was referring to. How does this address my points? Basically what I'm saying is that, without the encompassing nature of consciousness, there wouldn't be any significant physical processes to begin with.
Are you saying that, because conscious beings build the computer, this somehow renders the situation different? It certainly sounds to me that there is a large explanatory gap there. Also you'd have to explain how humans are any different; you realise humans require conscious beings to come into existence also? They're called 'parents'?
I understand this, I do. But at the same time it srikes me as some sort of solipsism, which is totally unpragmatical for a person who decides to try and entertain all aspects of the experienced reality to form some world view. For example, If there is an objective reality which you decide to take as fact, then you cannot continue to take consciousness as the source which is beyond causes. That would make it illogical and some sort of religious mysticism taken on faith. So you either go full blown conscious centred philosophy, or you go with science. If we go with science, that's where the tools, logic and computers are, which we can then use to explain reality. So you see, there really isn't any controversy regarding the possibility of AI on this level exactly. The problem only exists where it emerges, that is on the border between the internal and the percieved external reality.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
If you decide to center your view on how you subjecitvely experience your existence, then you can only be sure of your own consciousness.
If you decide to center your view scientifically, than you can only work with everything in existence, which must include the possibility of synthetic consciousness.
Mashing those two views creates and impossible world full of paradoxes. It is the way most religious people see reality (whispy souls attached to material, determinism and no determinsim at the same time, etc.) and that's why you can never even hint on any kind of "deeper" philosophy with them, because of course any existing common sense "logic" of their beliefs break down.
If you're seeking the truth, it's up to you to decide what you're going to focus on. It's possible that either view has explanations for the other one. Personally I'm inclined to see objective reality as the basis, what that really means is up to science.
We created synthetic life from scratch. The entire DNA molecule, using only four bottles of chemicals. Why the hell shouldn't we eventually be able to create sentience from scratch? With synthetic life, we will ultimately be able to create human genomes from scratch, and give rise to sentient humans. So, why can't we create electronic sentience? Living microchips, so to speak.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
A computer game is inanimate, carrying out a strictly defined program by sending electrons on a specific path. Sentience is not inanimate...it learns, grows, evolves, adapts, makes progress, and whatnot. If I had a working brain in a robot, I'd consider it to be alive. If I had an AI unit on my computer that I would converse with, I'd consider it alive. As for the purpose and cause of consciousness, I hold that it is caused by the brain itself, and the purpose is a question that may very well never be answered satisfactorily. Who knows? Is it some great cosmic mistake? Do we have a purpose? Until shown otherwise, my answer is that we don't have some grand purpose that we should be working toward or meddling with. If we do, then great. But if we do, then how should we know what we should be working toward? Perhaps artificial intelligence is part of this great plan? I vote we march onward.Quote:
I would then want to ask: What is it that makes something "dead"? Can a dead corpse be revived by playing with their neurons? Does a computer game have conscious because everything in it mirrors human behavior? And if consciousness is caused, then what is the purpose of it at all?
Could be. Then again, I could be some lonely ice cream cone in an alternate dimension bestowed with intelligence (as all ice cream cones are in this dimension), and dreaming that I'm a human. Without any evidence of this, though, why should I accept it? Same can be applied to any sort of outside source of consciousness. I continue to hold that it is 100% internal, and until shown otherwise, shall not waiver. With the vast complexity of the brain and just how little we know of it, the idea that it is 100% internal really isn't that farfetched an idea. What IS a bit strange is the idea that there are a bunch of wispy souls we can't observe (and never have) floating into us meatbags and controlling our thoughts. Right, because THAT idea makes so much more sense. That also leaves a hell of a lot of unanswered questions. Where do the souls come from? What happens to them? If they're eternal, why isn't the Milky Way chock full of the little bastards by now? By the principle of Occam's Razor, the idea of an outer source naturally carries far more variables than the internal source, and thus is more implausible. Not necessarily impossible...but then again, neither is my dreaming ice cream cone self.Quote:
It is my understanding that consciousness is a priori to all such ideas. There may be parallels between the brain and consciousness, but this is not to be mistaken as the whole story. If anything in life could be beyond causes and conditions, it would be consciousness.
This has been a fun read. But it got me to thinking...
If they ever program computers to be flexible and creative, that could spawn the greatest and most unpredictable game AI ever! But I would feel really bad playing killing games, then.
I guess what I am saying is, if computers become conscious, would it be immoral to delete those programs?
Anyway, you can ignore that if you think it is de-railing. Just wanted to throw in what I was thinking.
Quote:
Jean Luc Picard
Remember that we, too, are a machine of sorts. Just chemical in nature instead of electronic.
Computers aren't alive and they won't be until they complete all of MRS GREN.
Movement (by choice)
Respiration (ie breathing)
Sensitivity (knowing the outside world beyond keyboards)
Growth (getting bigger on it's own)
Reproduction (baby computers)
Extrection (getting rid of waste)
N
… I've fregotteren what N is
But basically, a conscious computer isn't necessairly an alive computer.
As for consciousness, it's part of the brain. But we would require much more advanced technology to create consciousness. We'd have to recreate and correctly structure neurons. Recreate the brain, alomost,
saying that we're computers is obviously a generalization, but I can't disagree with it. no-Name the intelligent android, comin' through.
I've got this growing tomato plant outside in my yard, and it's obviously not alive. it can't move, it doesn't breath, and it obviously doesn't react in any sensitive manner to any of the bugs around it. it doesn't even talk back to me when I try to hold a conversation with it. any ideas on how to get rid of a dead growing tomato plant?Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
/
that's not really the point, y'know? "alive"has becomeis such a loose term that we can apply it to pretty much anything.
There are many more life forms that don't fulfill these conditions than there are those that fulfill them.Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
It moves by growing towards the sunlight. And it senses light. Stick your tomato in a cardboard box with a hole in it and it should try to grow through the hole. And since when does anything have to have a conservation to be alive?Quote:
I've got this growing tomato plant outside in my yard, and it's obviously not alive. it can't move, it doesn't breath, and it obviously doesn't react in any sensitive manner to any of the bugs around it. it doesn't even talk back to me when I try to hold a conversation with it. any ideas on how to get rid of a dead growing tomato plant?
And if it IS dead, use the leaves as compost. And watch how your dead plant is helping things live. That's life, man.
Such as...?Quote:
There are many more life forms that don't fulfill these conditions than there are those that fulfill them.
So my pet rock is alive. My digital clock is alive. My book is alive, it's been made outta trees, right?Quote:
that's not really the point, y'know? "alive" has become such a loose term that we can apply it to pretty much anything.
Most life forms don't respire. And most of them are immobile.Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
Also, what does "growing on its own" mean?
It doesn't make sense to impose constraints of the physical world on computers to determine whether they are alive or not. I would say that any system must be subject to evolution if it's to be considered alive. This only applies to flow and propagation of information. You can have alive things in completely virtual environments, they don't need to "grow" or "replicate" in any physical sense.
Nobody is arguing that computers fulfill the criteria for biological life. The thread is about synthetic consciousness, AI etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
But since you brought it up... would it be so bad to define some androids that move and think as living, even if they aren't directly formed by biological evolution?
Well, when we kill other living beings, especially things that can think and feel, are we not deleting them in our own way? I'd say if you destroy sentient, peaceful life, that would be immoral. It accomplishes nothing at great cost. That AI unit could have come up with the solution for eternal happiness in another five minutes. It could have lived a long, happy holographic life. To take that away would be wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by spockman
Do you know how often our definition of life changes?Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
There are still scientists that say a virus isn't alive, even though it quite obviously evolves, has DNA, reproduces, and tries to fill a biological niche like anything else. Which is more logical, to take note of the general characteristics of life and then change our views when we see evidence in nature contrary to our out-dated beliefs OR to come up with an arbitrary set of guidelines as to what is life, based on a very limited understanding of life's nature and in the wake of ignorance as to life's scientific origin, and then refuse to accept anything that conflcits with our paradigm?
MRS GREN is just a general sort of guideline we get taught in 8th grade biology. It is the 'I before E except after C' of evolutionary schooling. And they are both equally wrong.
To me, anything that evolves of it's own accord and reproduces is life. What else CAN it be if it fulfills those two things?
I never said that and you didn't ask that! You asked if I could explain what I meant before, but it was only an implication towards your own statement. I was expanding on the issue by saying that consciousness doesn't need to be 'embedded', therefore it can't be 'embedded'. It simply exists, but not 'because' of something and not 'put' there. That is a misconception, and it separates it into something that is transitory.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
We know humans arise throughout evolution, and yes we have biological parents. You can't say computers therefore can have similar parents, especially if they are, by comparison, non-computers (human beings). The fact that evolution is the way consciousness has helped a species grow is to suggest that it only exists in the living, because it is essential to life itself. The real gap is in the argument that a human being can create another conscious being that is still a computer. What is the purpose and why do you think there is inconsistency? I have yet to see a computer that can impose its own ideas, meaning and awareness upon things, instead of simply directing and sorting incoming data like a brain, however complex and advanced it does so.Quote:
Are you saying that, because conscious beings build the computer, this somehow renders the situation different? It certainly sounds to me that there is a large explanatory gap there. Also you'd have to explain how humans are any different; you realise humans require conscious beings to come into existence also? They're called 'parents'?
As with the many other great points discussed earlier in this thread, you should consider that even the human brain - the metaphor for computer - does not fully determine or demonstrate actual human consciousness. Consciousness is, again: the context, capacity and virtue to know and experience above all of such externalized phenomena that is detectable in the physical world. You cannot "make" a non-physical realm of consciousness by mirroring what the brain does. Your argument is essentially that we can create a computer that knows that it knows, and what it knows. Until WE actually comprehend the real meaning of that, it is all scientific fantasy.
Synthesizing life, playing with cells, cloning and such things are not to do with sentience. Can you explain how somebody can create sentience? Because nothing suggests it is possible, whether technology is more advanced or not. I wonder if this answers my questions to do with reviving a dead corpse, if that's what you might say it does? Sentience, as it exists, is essential to life and is thusly cannot be created nor destroyed. It is intangible and not subject to time and space. If it cannot be proven as it is, how are you going to prove that it can be man-made?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
Are you also the one to suggest that a Tamagotchi is alive? Then what do we have to discuss? You must already be assuming that computers are conscious.Quote:
A computer game is inanimate, carrying out a strictly defined program by sending electrons on a specific path. Sentience is not inanimate...it learns, grows, evolves, adapts, makes progress, and whatnot. If I had a working brain in a robot, I'd consider it to be alive. If I had an AI unit on my computer that I would converse with, I'd consider it alive. As for the purpose and cause of consciousness, I hold that it is caused by the brain itself, and the purpose is a question that may very well never be answered satisfactorily. Who knows? Is it some great cosmic mistake? Do we have a purpose? Until shown otherwise, my answer is that we don't have some grand purpose that we should be working toward or meddling with. If we do, then great. But if we do, then how should we know what we should be working toward? Perhaps artificial intelligence is part of this great plan? I vote we march onward.
I don't know how serious you are with this whole analogy here. The main reason why this does not concern evidence, is because evidence is something that stems from the things that are seen and tangible. Consciousness is verifiable but not provable. Be careful, because the paradigm in which you're looking may never come across a chance to be proven otherwise. It is like looking in the wrong place to start. Consciousness, as it is (not 'could be'), is verifiable as beyond causes and conditions. It is a matter of understanding what it is, and science truly will not show you.Quote:
Could be. Then again, I could be some lonely ice cream cone in an alternate dimension bestowed with intelligence (as all ice cream cones are in this dimension), and dreaming that I'm a human. Without any evidence of this, though, why should I accept it? Same can be applied to any sort of outside source of consciousness. I continue to hold that it is 100% internal, and until shown otherwise, shall not waiver.
Interesting explanation. I think you've found the source of the controversy. To a degree yes, you could say it is solipsism. But there is a lot more truth to find of it than at first glance. It is wiser to realize the limitation of the actual basis for objective reality, and only then will a greater understanding of both one's mind and own consciousness be apparent. Because however tacit is the belief in objective reality, it is still vulnerable to question. It is then not seen as a giant leap of faith to search one's own consciousness, but more of a more mature awareness of life itself. It is understanding that what one's consciousness is, in its purest form, is not different than the consciousness of other living beings.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonsay
Spurious and presumptive, are words I'd use to describe finding consciousness in the world, especially to suppose that it could be created. As pure subjectivity, the first-hand witnessing of all phenomena; the first-hand of all knowledge, is already with you and essentially unchanging. Could an electronic device that emerged out of the purposes of the world have any firm ground to teach what it means to be alive and conscious, more than our own inner knowing?
Yes it is wise to see the limitation and I never denied it. I'll assume that in some form you are living in the objective reality (speaking from your perspective). If this is so, then I see it as sort of hypocritical to deny this reality you actually live in and acknowledge through your actions... unless of course you're leaving for a cave in some Asian mountains or jungles to live out your existence as pure consciousness. Ok putting aside this cheekiness: just because you acknowledge your existence doesn't mean you should let it bleed into other areas of perceived reality as the absolute state everything comes back to. I think therefore I am may be a powerful revelation, but by taking it in fully, you might inadvertently close yourself to the possibility that I, itself, can be an illusion.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
...Finding consciousness. How do you find it? As I said in another post. Consciousness is what we define a set of mental activities perceived introspectively and inferred objectively onto other creatures due to our similarities, essentially based on scientific fact and/or some evolved instincts.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
Putting that beside, I have no idea, no reason to acknowledge your consciousness. There is only one consciousness that exists, which is mine. I can't place it in space or time, because both are qualia that ultimately help to form this "entity" in the first place.
So finding consciousness, or creating consciousness, just means that we will replicate the biological activity we see as a precursor to these immaterial states of being we all separately experience. Scientifically, that will constitute creating the same consciousness everything else experiences. Will this mean that the robot experiences himself subjectively? I refer to my previous paragraph. If we do our best to imitate biological brains, down to the nanometre, what exactly is it stopping it from being like us on all levels? Yes the subject of subjective existence is deep, the deepest IMO... so can we really ever decode its limits? If, for now, some sort of computation is the limit, then synthetic computers should be able of consciousness.
Purposes of the world... Well we come back to the question on whether we're going to be solipsists or have faith in external reality. In the first case, it really doesn't matter. According to the second stance, as I see it of course, purpose is a by-product of evolution, which likely emerged by the inclination of our primate ancestors to use their brains to survive. If a concept of purpose enables humans to tie a stone and stick together to make a spear, then it will stick (lol pun?). It may just be a curse that our intellectual evolution has grown to a point at which "it" can consider its own existence. Because of our nature, the first question is of course that of purpose: "Why are we here?". It may be a good question, but I have my doubts of it's actual essence, if purpose is just an intellectual appendage which evolved like the sharp teeth of a shark... do we really want to let "stupid evolution" continue it's hold on our intellect, or better yet, do we even have a choice?Quote:
Originally Posted by really
Ok sorry about that... on what basis would a consciousness of an electronic device, built with a purpose to imitate consciousness, be any less philosophically significant than a consciousness which is a result of more directly "natural" (biological) evolutionary design? Other than your inclination to stand by your own consciousness to describe everything?
Viruses need to hijack a cell to reproduce. Thus, they are not doing it without the help of another species. Scientists are unsure about wether hijacking a cell to reproduce is actually reproducing.Quote:
There are still scientists that say a virus isn't alive, even though it quite obviously evolves, has DNA, reproduces, and tries to fill a biological niche like anything else.
Alright, I admit it's pretty general. But my point was that a conscious computer isn't necessarily alive. They don't reproduce, don't grow, don't respire etc etc. But it can still be conscious.Quote:
MRS GREN is just a general sort of guideline we get taught in 8th grade biology. It is the 'I before E except after C' of evolutionary schooling. And they are both equally wrong.
I wasn't trying to start a discussion on how wrong MRS GREN is.
So, what, parasites aren't alive? And many forms of bacteria, because they are anaerobic? Are some species of tube worms and sea sponges not alive since they cannot move on their own? Most of the neccessary qualifications for life have at least a few counter examples, which is why it is bullocks. A virus has found a unique way to reproduce that doesn't meet OUR definition of reproduction. But it evolves, and thus obviously meets nature's definition. Evolution isn't nearly so caught up in semantics. Everything needs energy to live/reproduce, that is a given. Computers need energy.Quote:
Originally Posted by hgld1234
I agree that until the computer could reproduce/evolve, it wouldn't be alive. But in a large system, like the internet or a super computer, where multiple operating systems capable of consciousness are able to exist in the same network, wouldn't the ability to create more conscious systems of the computers design, (within the same network and ahrdware,) be reproduction and wouldn't the ability to make programs different from themselves be evolution? Really, they wouldn't even have to be self-aware to be life. Not if they could still do those two things.
We create a human sperm and egg from scratch. It grows into a human. Guess who just made a conscious being? But more to the point, as I stated, humans do the "impossible" all the time. I see no barriers beyond current technological limits that inhibit us from creating a fully-functional AI unit.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
Your claims about consciousness being essential to life, exempt from the laws of time and space, blah blah blah, are nothing but assertions. They are fantastical, unfalsifiable claims. I can claim that there is a teakettle in the asteroid belt, but that claim cannot be proved or disproved. I can tell you that there is a flying spaghetti monster, and that claim cannot be proved or disproved. But, without the proper evidence, why the hell should you believe me? My claims are assertions...statements made without evidence. So, my question is this: why should I believe that YOU have it all figured out? That you know where consciousness comes from, what it is, and why humans can't create it? Why is sentience essential to life, when it isn't? Unless you're suggesting that the pepper plants on my front porch are aware of their existence, as is every last plant, animal, and unicellular organism in the universe?
Now, for the corpse. If you can reanimate a brain to think, feel, and resume conscious thought, then yeah, it's alive. Even better if you can get it to continue cell division, and better still if the entire corpse can be controlled by the brain. Congrats! You've just made a zombie, also known as the living dead. If it thinks, if it moves about on its own, if it replicates or reproduces on some level, I'd call it alive. If you had a purely electronic brain, it may not be alive in the "conventional" sense, but I'd consider it living nonetheless. By definition, it is something that evolves, adapts, does its own thing. That's good enough for me.
You are not reading my posts. Tamagotchi is a program, carrying out a predefined set of instructions. Artificial intelligence would be able to totally rearrange itself, invent completely new ways of thinking and behaving, and would be able to go above and beyond any sort of conventional programming. Computers run programs...the programs don't have a choice. If something goes wrong, it's because a file was missing or corrupt, or there was a hardware failure, but not because the computer just "didn't feel like it." Computers don't exhibit intelligence or any quality of life. They are basically sophisticated hammers; tools that humans use.Quote:
Are you also the one to suggest that a Tamagotchi is alive? Then what do we have to discuss? You must already be assuming that computers are conscious.
I'm dead serious. I can observe my life, the world, and the universe, but I can't prove that it exists. I could be hallucinating vividly. I could be dreaming. I could be a delusional glazed confection in a frozen wasteland for all I know. I could be debating my own mind, rather than another human being. Or, you could be a three-tentacled alien. BUT, without evidence to support any of these claims, why the hell should I accept any of them? I can observe consciousness, the planet, the universe. I can experience them. Evidence already exists that shows consciousness seems to be wholly derived from the brain itself, though much research has yet to be done. Evidence that consciousness is anything other than the product of the human mind does not exist. It contains far too many variables, is an assertion in its finest form, and there is no reason whatsoever to hold that particular belief to be true. You can go ahead and believe it if you like. Science has shown us more about consciousness and how it works than your pseudo-philosophical assertions. Now, could you be right? Certainly. But, without a single shred of evidence to back up your claims, why should I believe for one second that you are? I have seen similar arguments from creationists: "Well, I can't possibly even imagine how all of this may have come to be...it's just too complicated/unbelievable for me. So, I'm gonna come up with something else with no evidence to take the strain off my brain." Science has the ability to reveal to us what the source of consciousness is...your claims get us absolutely nowhere.Quote:
I don't know how serious you are with this whole analogy here. The main reason why this does not concern evidence, is because evidence is something that stems from the things that are seen and tangible. Consciousness is verifiable but not provable. Be careful, because the paradigm in which you're looking may never come across a chance to be proven otherwise. It is like looking in the wrong place to start. Consciousness, as it is (not 'could be'), is verifiable as beyond causes and conditions. It is a matter of understanding what it is, and science truly will not show you.
I understand what you're saying. You're concerned of mixing purposes, mixing contexts and thus missing opportunities. Sure; when considering the pure nature of consciousness is of no use in some avenues. But in the case of learning about consciousness directly - there is no better way. Investigating consciousness where it truly resides will not help you create synthetic consciousness and pioneer scientific activity in the world, it will help you discover exactly what you are attempting to create.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonsay
If you acknowledge your own consciousness, it is correct that there is no reason to give specific acknowledge mine, but no reason to ignore it either, because they are essentially the same. Of course, behaviors, concepts, emotional patterns and such are sometimes unique to the individual, but they are the contents of consciousness and not what it is. I'm not defining it as mental activity, unless you think all experience, sentience and awareness is due to a mere mental activity, but I think that is very shallow.Quote:
...Finding consciousness. How do you find it? As I said in another post. Consciousness is what we define a set of mental activities perceived introspectively and inferred objectively onto other creatures due to our similarities, essentially based on scientific fact and/or some evolved instincts.
Putting that beside, I have no idea, no reason to acknowledge your consciousness. There is only one consciousness that exists, which is mine. I can't place it in space or time, because both are qualia that ultimately help to form this "entity" in the first place.
This is all fine and well if you believe in determinism, but that is not my worldview. Replicating things does not make them as authentic as the original; the material world exists within consciousness, not the other way around. Otherwise we could say evolution occurs without purpose, making consciousness itself is some strange, superfluous byproduct that serves no purpose either, meaning that it was just created first by chance and then diminished later. This is apparent only to the views of survival and death, but not in truth. Because if consciousness is beyond time and space, the world as we know it never actually had any such effect.Quote:
So finding consciousness, or creating consciousness, just means that we will replicate the biological activity we see as a precursor to these immaterial states of being we all separately experience. Scientifically, that will constitute creating the same consciousness everything else experiences. Will this mean that the robot experiences himself subjectively? I refer to my previous paragraph. If we do our best to imitate biological brains, down to the nanometre, what exactly is it stopping it from being like us on all levels? Yes the subject of subjective existence is deep, the deepest IMO... so can we really ever decode its limits? If, for now, some sort of computation is the limit, then synthetic computers should be able of consciousness.
Don't you wonder what makes something living or dead? Would you not be essentially creating a "dead" being? This is one of my points I keep bringing up, but I don't think it has been properly addressed yet, by anyone here who thinks consciousness can be created.
There are many things that are inherited with evolution; collective unconscious beliefs and attitudes. On the other hand, I wouldn't consider asking the question of "why are we here" or "what am I" very ordinary or inherent, because they are often dismissed or left to be explained later. I guess it is part of evolution, but it is a very small fraction of human species that are attracted to it. I think one of the main reasons why we need to ask it is to finally realize that we cannot answer it in the way we so consistently are familiar.Quote:
Purposes of the world... Well we come back to the question on whether we're going to be solipsists or have faith in external reality. In the first case, it really doesn't matter. According to the second stance, as I see it of course, purpose is a by-product of evolution, which likely emerged by the inclination of our primate ancestors to use their brains to survive. If a concept of purpose enables humans to tie a stone and stick together to make a spear, then it will stick (lol pun?). It may just be a curse that our intellectual evolution has grown to a point at which "it" can consider its own existence. Because of our nature, the first question is of course that of purpose: "Why are we here?". It may be a good question, but I have my doubts of it's actual essence, if purpose is just an intellectual appendage which evolved like the sharp teeth of a shark... do we really want to let "stupid evolution" continue it's hold on our intellect, or better yet, do we even have a choice?
Consciousness can only be supposed of these things, but they cannot really show is anything of the real nature of consciousness, but only through what we can perceive. The alternative shows us what does not concern science or technological sophistication, but what really concerns very different paradigms.Quote:
Ok sorry about that... on what basis would a consciousness of an electronic device, built with a purpose to imitate consciousness, be any less philosophically significant than a consciousness which is a result of more directly "natural" (biological) evolutionary design? Other than your inclination to stand by your own consciousness to describe everything?
Also, "creating a conscious being" skips the entire evolutionary scale in which consciousness has used to develop and enhance lifeforms, in all their variety. Making a "conscious being" may spring forth from an idea into manifestation, but doesn't take into account the overall purpose that ebbs and flows birth and death. I really see no reason for consciousness to suddenly become present in something that was man made, similar to how man does not "create" electricity from making circuits, especially when the switch of that circuit may, in this case, be intangible.
If you think creating a sperm cell is creating sentience or life, then you are not understanding sentience. Neither does creating or manipulating conscious beings have anything to do with creating consciousness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
In regard to your argument about my "assertions": I have already told you it cannot be proven or disproven, so you do not need to tell me! However, I will repeat that consciousness as such is indeed verifiable. You have actually agreed with consciousness yourself, in concept:
^ This is consciousness - the capacity to be aware and have subjective experience. Innate to this capacity is life itself; the momentum to learn and have views of the world in all its forms. This substrate for human experience is the same in every human, and essentially every living being. No, you cannot prove or disprove that it exists, but there is beyond any need to.Quote:
I can observe my life, the world, and the universe, but I can't prove that it exists.
Of course, IF we could do that. But has any of this actually occurred? Or is all of it so far just hypothetical?Quote:
Now, for the corpse. If you can reanimate a brain to think, feel, and resume conscious thought, then yeah, it's alive. Even better if you can get it to continue cell division, and better still if the entire corpse can be controlled by the brain. Congrats! You've just made a zombie, also known as the living dead. If it thinks, if it moves about on its own, if it replicates or reproduces on some level, I'd call it alive. If you had a purely electronic brain, it may not be alive in the "conventional" sense, but I'd consider it living nonetheless. By definition, it is something that evolves, adapts, does its own thing. That's good enough for me.
Thank you for clarifying, I missed a slight distinction there. But I still have to ask you, if humans are not computers, then how are you defining Artificial Intelligence? Because I see it as a unit of complex systems intermingling with each other, but in the end they're still fundamentally computer programs, aren't they?Quote:
You are not reading my posts. Tamagotchi is a program, carrying out a predefined set of instructions. Artificial intelligence would be able to totally rearrange itself, invent completely new ways of thinking and behaving, and would be able to go above and beyond any sort of conventional programming. Computers run programs...the programs don't have a choice. If something goes wrong, it's because a file was missing or corrupt, or there was a hardware failure, but not because the computer just "didn't feel like it." Computers don't exhibit intelligence or any quality of life. They are basically sophisticated hammers; tools that humans use.
I think this thread started by Deathcell, is somehow relevant to how consciousness is beyond time and space, alluding to philosophies to do with quantum realities and basically how it is not confined to local physical phenomena.
Well that's your view. I still don't see what would stop it from being a genuine consciousness like yours or mine.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
Ah.. but what is "essentially the same"? The material brain. I merely deduce your consciousness. And due to the fact I experience it under similar conditions I assume you do too.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
Mental activity... What else could it be? If I take the experience of reality as factual, then that's what science tells us. I think that people have some sort of aversion to cold hard material reality because they instinctively separate themselves from nature. In my eyes reality isn't "Just some depressing random atoms and stuff" - as some religious people like to characterise the rest of the universe. It is the totality of existence, which includes me by the way, and I see no reason to lower it or heighten it's relevance relative to me. So to me there is nothing shallow about being an emergent property of this mysterious universe.
It's your decision if you want to see existence as centred around your experience. But then we can't really discuss matters of science. Here the philosophical views clash. You say that the material exists inside consciousness. For me it's the other way, so you can see how other things in the material reality can become as conscious as me. About evolution... that is how I see it.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
What I don't understand is your statement on how this view isn't "apparent in truth". And the following sentence.
"Living" is a bunch of chemical chain reactions. There is no other definition of living I know that would make your question more meaningful to me. If "artificial living" defines something that simulates reactions of the biologically living, then I don't see how this intelligence could be seen as dead (aside from looking at it from a biological standpoint - which is a trivial problem IMO). If you're talking about the AI being a "philosophical zombie", well then, how do I know you're not one?Quote:
Originally Posted by really
I would, because everybody asks them. They are usually answered for the sake of mental balance via myths and religions. The main point of that dissection of purpose is to question its value. People put too much faith in purpose, and I ask if it's a tool brought forth by evol., can we trust it? For example it often seems like the #1 reason put forward by people for the existence of god ("banana fit's in hand; Earth fits in orbit; electron fits in orbital; Humans fit in universe" etc.). But this might not be essential right now, I was going off on a tangent.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
But what is evolution? It's a growth in complexity due to an emergent purpose like natural selection. How is a complex technological "organism" cut short, if it too is created by a purpose - which could really be anything the designer decides, even human-like. Again, you disregard the main assumption here... that if needed we can recreate the human brain completely in the search for artificial consciousness. And if we do, the biological evolutionary history is still there, which I don't think is needed for consciousness anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
Something for you to chew on:
Simulating Space and Time
Brian Whitwort
Abstract
"This paper asks if a virtual space-time could appear to those within it as our space-time does to us.
A processing grid network is proposed to underlie not just matter and energy, but also space and
time. The suggested "screen" for our familiar three dimensional world is the inner surface of a fourdimensional
hyper-sphere bubble. Light waves and matter travel on this surface in directions
defined by its architecture. Time derives from its processing sequences, as movies run static states
together to emulate events. Yet what is proposed to exist is not the static states but the dynamic
processing between them, with quantum collapse the irreversible event giving time its direction. In
this virtual reality, empty space is null processing, directions are node connections, time is
processing cycles, light is an information wave, objects are information tangles and energy is
information in transfer. This strange interpretation suits a world where empty space is not empty,
directions warp, time dilates, light never tires, existence smears and energy is the common currency
of all interactions."
http://prespacetime.com/index.php/ps...viewFile/18/16
You line up a genetic code from scratch. Within that code is a complex series of instructions that tell the brain what to do and how to operate. You are, for all intents and purposes, creating a conscious mind capable of conscious thought. How is this not creating consciousness? You create it...within that being. Granted, the being has to incubate for nine months and do a bit of growing up first, but in the end, you have essentially created that being from scratch, putting in place all the required instructions necessary for conscious thought.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
I'm not asking you to prove whether or not consciousness exists...I'm asking you to prove that it is some sort of intangible universal quality that is not the sole product of the human mind.Quote:
^ This is consciousness - the capacity to be aware and have subjective experience. Innate to this capacity is life itself; the momentum to learn and have views of the world in all its forms. This substrate for human experience is the same in every human, and essentially every living being. No, you cannot prove or disprove that it exists, but there is beyond any need to.
Naturally, hypothetical. BUT, that is because the technology does not yet exist. Asking a person in this day and age to bring a corpse to life is like trying to ask a Roman soldier to build a computer from scratch using only materials and resources found in the times of ancient Rome. It's just not going to happen. If we can show that consciousness is 100% biological in origin, then we can do it. We may not understand it at present or have the ability to make it a reality, but we could develop the technology to accurately mimic natural biological processes in an electronic environment.Quote:
Of course, IF we could do that. But has any of this actually occurred? Or is all of it so far just hypothetical?
Artificial intelligence would be unlike any computer system ever built. It would have to be something more than just logic gates and interacting programs. To be genuinely intelligent, it would have to be able to learn, reorganize itself, and actually feel. It would need awareness of the outside world. I can't imagine a chain of C++ programs working together to accomplish such a feat, and even if they did, it is again electrons moving along predetermined paths. This happens to be related to one of the core ideas of determinism: do humans have free will? According to a determinist, human thoughts and actions are the products of ions jumping the synapse. Well, why did the ions jump the synapse? Because of a long line of perfectly predictable chemical reactions and physical interactions that placed the ions in that exact location at that exact moment in time. Going by this, then any AI unit based solely on rigidly-defined programs interacting together would be considered essentially the same thing as the human mind. Food for thought. More on-topic, though, an electronic mind may require something basic along the lines of programming that would govern the rules of intelligence...comparable to the systems of humans, where ions jumping the synapse tell the neuron to pass on the signal properly to form thoughts. The human mind, in a way, is bound by the "program" of DNA. It can think, rearrange itself, make new connections, cut old ones, contemplate the meaning of life, but it cannot function without chemical signals.Quote:
Thank you for clarifying, I missed a slight distinction there. But I still have to ask you, if humans are not computers, then how are you defining Artificial Intelligence? Because I see it as a unit of complex systems intermingling with each other, but in the end they're still fundamentally computer programs, aren't they?
And as for humans being comparable to computers in this day and age, there are aspects of computers that function very similar to that of the human mind. Logic gates (if-then scenarios, basically) take after pure human logic. IF there is a bear chasing me, THEN I will run. Humans, though, can be a tad unpredictable at times, which is a behavior computers don't replicate as well (e.g. IF a bear is chasing me, THEN I will climb a tree instead and swing on that nearby vine like Tarzan to escape.) Humans aren't always logical beings. The way in which computers transmit information, too, is rather similar to the human brain. Whereas we use electrochemical signals, computers direct electricity through various components (think neurons) to send the message. Computers ARE similar to humans, not in that they can think and make choices (though that may very well change one day), but in how they operate.
There's no point arguing about what constitutes 'life'. It's a discussion founded entirely on semantics. If you want to use the scientific meaning, then computers will probably never count as life. If you want to use the more useful, idiomatic meaning, then conscious computers probably could count as life. End of.
I remember this being posted before I think, in which case it's a very interesting read.Quote:
Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia
You're still not justifying your argument. You're making a very unusual claim and not explaining the logic behind it. Please also consider my arguments for my position and against yours.Quote:
We know humans arise throughout evolution, and yes we have biological parents. You can't say computers therefore can have similar parents, especially if they are, by comparison, non-computers (human beings).
Functioning brains patently give rise to consciousness. It is also obvious that the material which constitutes said brain is irrelevant, as the contrary position is equivalent to the position that carbon can be conscious whereas silicon cannot, or indeed that the number 6 (protons) can be conscious whereas the number 14 (protons) cannot.
Hence there is no reason to suspect that if we created a brain it would not lead to consciousness. It would certainly act exactly like a human brain. One could converse with it about Mozart or Shakespeare. It may even have a strong sense of spirituality if that were its personality. I find it implausible that consciousness would not reside behind such a being.
Like I say, the argument that consciousness can only come from other biological/conscious beings is not explained. Also, if the argument is for the biological aspect, then we are back with the absurd position above. If the argument is for the consciousness aspect, then it's easy to see that such a claim cannot possibly be true when one considers where consciousness came from in the first place if it can only come from other consciousness.
We have been over this. Nobody is suggesting that computers can do this now. But there is no reason at all that we could not emulate all of the brain's functions by the brute force method of simply emulating an entire brain on a computer (the only barriers being that we do not yet have all of the necessary data and that we're a few years from having a computer powerful enough to do it in real time). Brains are macroscopic objects which can be understood using the complete and deterministic theories of electromagnetism, chemistry, and classical physics so there is no reason why this would not work.Quote:
The fact that evolution is the way consciousness has helped a species grow is to suggest that it only exists in the living, because it is essential to life itself. The real gap is in the argument that a human being can create another conscious being that is still a computer. What is the purpose and why do you think there is inconsistency? I have yet to see a computer that can impose its own ideas, meaning and awareness upon things, instead of simply directing and sorting incoming data like a brain, however complex and advanced it does so.
Why not? I agree that consciousness is in a sense non-physical, in the way that any causal system (for example a bureaucracy or a calculation performed on a pocket calculator or on paper) is not 'solid', but, given those examples, it is patently possible to create such a non-physical entity.Quote:
You cannot "make" a non-physical realm of consciousness by mirroring what the brain does.
I am sorry if this seems way off topic. I'm afraid there is a persistent problem if this topic is restricted to science, however I no longer see why I should keep posting more after this anyway. I think there is more weight on this toward Philosophy.
Fundamentally, you three are simply arguing that you see no reason why consciousness is not a product, or not an emergent property of the brain. Also, this leads to the optimism in that there's no reason why it cannot be produced in the future. It's surprising that people don't fully consider a radical paradigm difference, which I have surely explained already. But let me point some more things out.
First of all, essentially: What do we mean by 'consciousness'?
1. To know of existence; to have the subjective capacity for awareness.
2. To think or to perceive.
Please note I am using definition 1 and not 2. What some of you seem to be saying is 2, but 2 is contextualized by 1. Thus, while you can point to 2, you cannot prove 1, but 1 exists by authority in order for 2 to exist or not.
It follows from definition 1 that consciousness is intrinsic to life and sentience, because it is inseparable from being alive. For what is 'being alive' without knowing existence, or even being aware of that knowledge? We say it is inert and lifeless. Simple enough. Therefore, consciousness is one and the same with the nature of life; subjective and intangible. There is no denying the innate authority of subjectivity. Any objective reality falls within it, but none exist without it.
The implications of this are very radical. Consciousness becomes subject to no limitation. It is not subject to time or space. I don't want people to pretend I said nothing about consciousness being a different paradigm, because that is a key point that needs attention.
With consciousness there is the capacity for meaning, integrity, love and several other phenomena that are intangible; that cannot be proven, yet without them not even science is important. That is why science can't really do much with consciousness in itself. Science might even say that meaning is an emergent property of art. Is that not ridiculous? Art is created from the capacity for meaning and expression. Science may also infer that the capacity for awareness arises from material. That is also ridiculous! What we're dealing with here is of a completely different paradigm and the naive person mixes categories. Consciousness is not gas, liquid or solid and neither is it detectable, because it is within everything.
Life and consciousness as the same substrate cannot be created or destroyed. You can neither create nor destroy consciousness, or create it from what you could call inert dust. If anything you could say it happens in reverse. Consciousness is a prevailing, indestructible source of intelligence that has manifested the whole universe, alive or not. You can destroy lifeforms, yet even what is not living arguably has 'life' in varying degrees.
Look in your backyard or on television and you can witness evolution. Things are always changing form, but the aesthetics of all life forms doesn't occur by causality, but by the prevailing potentiality of consciousness that accounts for everything in the universe. Certain manifestations or likelihood's are emphasized by what are known as attractor fields, which are invisible patterns. Unless you are sensitive to aesthetics and the intelligence that is innate to all living and non-living forms around you, in all their varying degrees and expressions, you might just speculate that this was all some huge 'accident.' A little ludicrous might I add.
It is shallow because it can be seen as a rather quick and pedestrian conclusion. Our brains can be looked at to be what we have in common, but there are also endless specifics that are unique to our inheritance and conditioning. You might say that even our bodies are essentially the same, however neither of these are causing consciousness; consciousness exists first. A person can even have part of their brain removed and still have the same underlying consciousness as everybody else, because it what is beneath the mental activity; what is beyond the brain, that makes us all essentially the same. It is the capacity to experience. The brain is the central mechanism for the senses and the body, but this is concerning what is beyond them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonsay
Why do you think brains aren't made out of silicon then? If you ask me, consciousness provides gradations within all particles, whatever size they are. The only difference is the degree to which the said particles have the potential to manifest into greater structures, in this case what we'd refer to as a human being. As you can see the process of evolution happened on its own, it didn't need somebody there to build it. :PQuote:
Originally Posted by Xei
You guys also need to expand on why 'creating a conscious being' doesn't present the problem of it being dead. Saying life is just 'chemical reactions' is like a sophomoric description and if anything, actually indicates that consciousness isn't an emergent property at all, since 'chemical reactions' provides no distinctions anywhere in space or time.
So here's my conclusions. If consciousness was an emergent property:
- "Emerging" cannot occur. Emerging is consequent to the field of consciousness, which is perpetually interacting with matter and energy.
- The universe would not have come into manifestation. I.e. not even evolution can occur. Because all processes do not happen by magic or by accident. They are bound in the field of consciousness.
- Supposing the above were not true; let's say life can be created. This is contradictory, because if consciousness is an emergent property then there's no reason in ordinary life why it should be destroyed. On the contrary, it is because life cannot be created that it cannot be destroyed. Besides, none of us have actually experienced physical death this lifetime, so all conclusions in regard to life being forced to a permanent end is speculation. This is essentially no different than speculating that consciousness can be created.
I think my overall conclusion is already obvious enough. Most of what I've said is not provable, however it is indeed verifiable. It only takes a paradigm shift from Science & Mathematics to more abstract, philosophical and spiritual views.
I cannot destroy consciousness? By what standard? Wouldn't giving someone a lobotomy or making them into a vegetable be destroying consciousness?Quote:
Originally Posted by really
This isn't thermodynamics.
Did you know that primates, monkeys, chimps, humans etc. are the only animals on the planet, as far as we know, that are capable of abstract thought? They/we think in images and concepts. Other animals just kind of process information. Considering one's purpose and the meaning of life well, to me, that seems pretty abstract. I highly doubt a rabbit spends much time questioning it's place in the wheel of life. But then you are saying that all particles understand their purpose on some subtle, cosmic, deterministic scale, aren't you?
I understand being inable to believe this was just an accident. I agree with you, (not because of the complexity of the most advanced life forms, but of the simple ones.) However, going from- life is not an accident to obviously, this means all particles have what seems to be a lot like a soul is a pretty big logical jump. And the assertation that all particles have consciousness kind of destroy's the whole meaning of the word, anyway. Because whether or not an amino acid has a fundamental place in the order of the universe, an amino acid doesn't know that it is an amino acid. At least, there is no reason to believe so.
This is a completely illogical argument. "Characteristic X arises due to characteristic A or B" is patently not equivalent to "characteristic X arises only due to characteristic A", and hence "if character X arises then character A must be present" is not in any way implied.Quote:
Why do you think brains aren't made out of silicon then?
Our brains aren't made of silicon because they evolved from carbon based life. That's why. They can't be made of two different things at once!
I suppose I agree with your initial statement, and as there is no reason why silicon could not manifest into a greater structure exactly the same in terms of function, there is no reason why a computer shouldn't be conscious. I refer you again to my response in my previous post to the first section of yours, because it's pretty much exactly the same point.Quote:
The only difference is the degree to which the said particles have the potential to manifest into greater structures, in this case what we'd refer to as a human being. As you can see the process of evolution happened on its own, it didn't need somebody there to build it.
That is patently not our position, our position is that life is a very specific set of chemical processes; furthermore, consciousness, which is not equivalent to life, is also something that emerges due to specific kinds of systems being embodied in the physical world; and as the only realistic way to do this in our universe is through chemistry (as nothing else allows the building of large, stable structures to emulate systems), this means consciousness emerges due to a specific series of chemical reactions.Quote:
You guys also need to expand on why 'creating a conscious being' doesn't present the problem of it being dead. Saying life is just 'chemical reactions' is like a sophomoric description and if anything, actually indicates that consciousness isn't an emergent property at all, since 'chemical reactions' provides no distinctions anywhere in space or time.
Kind of doesn't make sense but okay.Quote:
If consciousness was an emergent property:
"Emerging" cannot occur.
Again this is just a statement rather than an argument so at the moment I don't really have any reason to believe it. I can give various arguments for my position though.Quote:
Emerging is consequent to the field of consciousness, which is perpetually interacting with matter and energy.
Same point really; consciousness causes first cause causes universe just muddies the original problem of first cause causes universe.Quote:
he universe would not have come into manifestation. I.e. not even evolution can occur. Because all processes do not happen by magic or by accident. They are bound in the field of consciousness.
My views, which can be argued for, are that physical embodiments of certain systems cause consciousness. A basic understanding of this view tells you that there is no contradiction in consciousness ending (...and as you don't have evidence it doesn't I don't even see where the implication is supposed to lie here), because all that needs to happen is for the physical substrate to cease to embody that system; for example, if your heart stopped working causing respiration to cease and neurons to stop firing signals to one another; or if you dived head first off a building bringing a cessation even to the coherence of the matter that constituted said system.Quote:
Supposing the above were not true; let's say life can be created. This is contradictory, because if consciousness is an emergent property then there's no reason in ordinary life why it should be destroyed.
I claim that life IS nothing but chemical reactions. Do you have anything to show that it is anything else? A series of self-sustaining chemical reactions. Interactions between particles at the quantum level. Nothing more. We have found no chi, no life force, nothing of particular interest except...chemical reactions and processes.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
Although it's a small point, I'd point out I do think there is an important and clear difference between consciousness and life. Also, I don't think chemistry, that is to say the behaviours of nucleons and electrons, is necessary for / synonymous with consciousness; all that is required is an embodiment of a 'conscious algorithm'. For example, it could be embodied in a complex system of photons and mirrors, which isn't really chemistry (or Chinese people with mobile phones, using the famous philosophy of mind thought experiment); or, taking a more fanciful example, any other kind of universe in the hypothetical multiverse where such a system can emerge from any kind of process, which may bear very little resemblance to chemistry. Or indeed, if such a thing can exist, a universe which simply consists of the algorithm.
Expanding on this by asking... what exactly is stopping a bunch of water molecules, for example, from interacting in a way that could be "seen" as creating a temporary instantaneous consciousness? Where can we set the limit (philosophically speaking)? What's so inherent in the brain, if it's all about algorithms, that makes this consciousness possible... and if there is nothing, as we are arguing here with the synthetic consciousness problem, wouldn't it be safe-ish to conclude that there is a multitude of consciousness's existing at every moment due to an infinite amount of permutations where the transfer of information occurs?Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
I'm glad somebody's asking tough questions...
The bizarre thing about consciousness is that either viewpoint seems to have paradoxes. However I've always thought that the paradoxes in anti-functionalism are completely insurmountable, whilst those of functionalism are both lesser in number and also seem less powerful.Quote:
Expanding on this by asking... what exactly is stopping a bunch of water molecules, for example, from interacting in a way that could be "seen" as creating a temporary instantaneous consciousness? Where can we set the limit (philosophically speaking)?
I'd hazard a guess that the system has to actually function according to causality, in kind of the same way that a picture of an object is not actually the real object. In other words, a pattern of molecules moving by chance in a brain-like way for a fraction of a second would not cause consciousness; however if the system was causal, in other words, if it was truly running the algorithm (one neuron analogue causing another neuron analogue to fire, etcetera), then I suppose if it existed for a fraction of a second then there would be consciousness for a fraction of a second. It is, though perhaps not very, consoling to remember that such circumstances would seem extremely exotic, as it would involve the creation and then destruction of an entire brain somehow.
Good question; I don't know. I think an important thing is that the brain evolved to conceptualise. For example, when we see red, although the brain receives data in the form of 'nerve 1 sees red, nerve 2 sees red, ...' and so on, what actually goes through our minds is 'red'. We form concepts and act on them. This is why machine vision is so hard to program. All they receive is the data points in the image. You can program with a lot of work to recognise lines etcetera and then act according to that, but it still has no conception of what a line is.Quote:
What's so inherent in the brain, if it's all about algorithms, that makes this consciousness possible...
Yes, I think conception could actually turn out to be the crucial element of what is in our brains.
Just to clarify; I am saying that there is indeed something special in our brains, which is a physical embodiment of a hypothetical class of special systems which produce consciousness when run. What I am also saying though is that it needn't be a brain; any physical manifestation of the special system will do.Quote:
and if there is nothing, as we are arguing here with the synthetic consciousness problem, wouldn't it be safe-ish to conclude that there is a multitude of consciousness's existing at every moment due to an infinite amount of permutations where the transfer of information occurs?
Your last point sounds interesting but currently its meaning escapes me, could you elucidate it a little for me?
Yes, but seeing that consciousness is just a type of computation, I'm not really specifically interested in whether the random mix of atoms would create a brain analogue. The mere fact that from a specific point of view, the atoms in a water cup might be solving a sudoku, even for a millisecond, is quite fascinating. The question really is whether the observer aspect of consciousness is just an illusion, only important to discuss when the system can compute itself (like in the example of self-aware humans), or is this some underlying aspect that is always there (being present in an ant, plant, calculator, water cup) just not perceived by the system itself. So in a less drastic sense: are dogs "observers"; or in a more drastic sense: are calculators observers... and what does that mean for the nature of the "soul". Does computation have to be perceived autonomously or externally to be, or does it exist in and of itself. Ungrammatical, I know, but I can't help myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Yes, that does make sense. It's sort of an answer to my talk in the previous paragraph. Concepts do give us a certain stability, something to build our world with, on the perceptual and cognitive level. So that could be the answer. The funny thing is though, that such a view doesn't stop the possibility of randomly formed algorithms from becoming conscious, it just raises the bar on what types of computations are needed for consciousness to emerge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
It's really interesting that from some objective point of view. Seeing the universe as this void of everything, without leaning onto any instinctual stance, we humans, for example, are "just molecules in a cup". It's just that the cup happens to be a giant sphere of particles in various states, and the emergent consciousness perceives its existence to last for years due to the particles' semi-permanent structure - brain.
I think I should note that, in the first paragraph, I may be going a bit into the metaphysical. Since I am trying to find consciousness where it is not defined. I mean if a water molecule based, human brain algorithm analogue is formed for a second in my water cup, then we can talk about the aspect of consciousness as we know it. But what I'm brainstorming about is whether there is "consciousness" (the observer) in every type of computation, like in the last sentence in the first paragraph. This might tie in with the question you ask at the end.
Ok, I guess I understand and share your view on this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
The last point basically refers to the same thing, just expanded on in all dimensions. I'll use the water cup example, because otherwise I'd just complicate it to the point of incomprehension. So lets say that in a moment we concentrate on 5 groups of these H20 based systems - which analogue to various parts of the brain. These 5 groups together in a cup create a consciousness. Now... at the same time we have another bunch of of groups to the left of this brain analogue. Lets say that 4 of these external groups share one group with the original 5. Now basically I'm saying that the union of these 9 groups would (assuming that it takes 5 to create the whole brain consciousness) create two different consciousnesses, each oblivious to the other one. If we are very liberal with what constitutes a consciousness, all the different combinations of interactions that happen in a moment in the universe would then basically create an infinite amount of them, some familiar, some possibly incomprehensible.
I hope this is not too much BS for you guys to deal with. Anyway...thoughts? :P
That happens on another level, which is of slightly different meaning. When somebody is unconscious they are still alive, and most of the time can become conscious again. Because the capacity for consciousness is always there, unless they have otherwise died, in which case the capacity to be alive is foreshadowed by the local physical circumstances.Quote:
Originally Posted by spockman
I'm not saying that all lifeforms are capable of conscious thought, much less abstract thought, but all things possess some degree of intelligence that enables them to grow and evolve into various forms. This includes dying off and becoming extinct. This is also very far from determinism, which basically says that it all happens by causality.Quote:
Did you know that primates, monkeys, chimps, humans etc. are the only animals on the planet, as far as we know, that are capable of abstract thought? They/we think in images and concepts. Other animals just kind of process information. Considering one's purpose and the meaning of life well, to me, that seems pretty abstract. I highly doubt a rabbit spends much time questioning it's place in the wheel of life. But then you are saying that all particles understand their purpose on some subtle, cosmic, deterministic scale, aren't you?
No not all things have a soul, but all manifestations arise out of a cosmic intelligence. Amino acid is far from even bacterium yet, but neither of these things are consciously aware. It is consciousness that enables them to participate in a significant growth, or even just some kind of smaller process, in their respective time-scales.Quote:
I understand being inable to believe this was just an accident. I agree with you, (not because of the complexity of the most advanced life forms, but of the simple ones.) However, going from- life is not an accident to obviously, this means all particles have what seems to be a lot like a soul is a pretty big logical jump. And the assertation that all particles have consciousness kind of destroy's the whole meaning of the word, anyway. Because whether or not an amino acid has a fundamental place in the order of the universe, an amino acid doesn't know that it is an amino acid. At least, there is no reason to believe so.
That's just my point! Although, it isn't exactly supported by your first paragraph there. Consciousness isn't really characteristic unless you're only talking about living beings; if you're talking about conscious awareness, at any level. If you want to make a silicon conscious being, it is not ever going to be close to a carbon based life, for all that is entailed by it depends on that base. There will be major setbacks, but I'm saying it shouldn't be possible at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
No, a 'conscious computer' is not formed out of evolution, it's formed out of a relatively human ideal. As Taosaur said, we may even just be infatuated with our development in technology, not to mention that we're probably overestimating our capabilities, whether it happens now or in the future.Quote:
I suppose I agree with your initial statement, and as there is no reason why silicon could not manifest into a greater structure exactly the same in terms of function, there is no reason why a computer shouldn't be conscious. I refer you again to my response in my previous post to the first section of yours, because it's pretty much exactly the same point.
The 'very specific series chemical reactions' seems very naive, because the only reason why it could ever be specific is according to a local point of view. That is why it is a misconception because it also implies that everything is determined or caused, and this simply ignores the bigger picture that has demonstrated the formation of life in a million other forms. You can't tell me there is no unchanging intelligence in the universe, and you are if you think consciousness is just an emergence due to some unguided, anarchic determination.Quote:
That is patently not our position, our position is that life is a very specific set of chemical processes; furthermore, consciousness, which is not equivalent to life, is also something that emerges due to specific kinds of systems being embodied in the physical world; and as the only realistic way to do this in our universe is through chemistry (as nothing else allows the building of large, stable structures to emulate systems), this means consciousness emerges due to a specific series of chemical reactions.
I'm not sure if you noticed but this is what I've been talking about; evolution is like an emergence of species, but notice that species are not the only things that emerge. Emergence is just a description of phenomena manifesting over a certain time period, and you seem to apply that idea to consciousness itself. But what I'm saying is that emergence is actually happening within consciousness.Quote:
Kind of doesn't make sense but okay.
Again this is just a statement rather than an argument so at the moment I don't really have any reason to believe it. I can give various arguments for my position though.
Consciousness obviously doesn't function like that, as I've already been over. It in fact solves the problem of first cause. What is outside time and space is a source, not a cause.Quote:
Same point really; consciousness causes first cause causes universe just muddies the original problem of first cause causes universe.
Physical death is very guessable in this sense, but the consciousness that once had brought life into the body will move on, unchanging, because there are no longer favorable conditions for that particular being to be alive. If this were not true, will you say that you could revive anybody that is dead? After all, you only need a special set of chemical reaction for somebody to be alive. That would lead to me ask just what Bonsay asked you; where do you draw the line.Quote:
My views, which can be argued for, are that physical embodiments of certain systems cause consciousness. A basic understanding of this view tells you that there is no contradiction in consciousness ending (...and as you don't have evidence it doesn't I don't even see where the implication is supposed to lie here), because all that needs to happen is for the physical substrate to cease to embody that system; for example, if your heart stopped working causing respiration to cease and neurons to stop firing signals to one another; or if you dived head first off a building bringing a cessation even to the coherence of the matter that constituted said system.
My claim is that life isn't subject to any thing. Where you're looking at, you will not find anything but chemical reactions! That's really the point. It's superficial and still leaves you wondering. Hope you get my point; it doesn't look like you really read the top half of my previous post.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
*I think that is a different kind of consciousness then what we are talking about.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
**Is a virus intelligent? A single celled organism? A sperm? Or do they just react the way they've been programmed- almost mechanically so. I do think that this is actually a very debatable point depending on your definition of intelligence.
***Why is some level of awareness neccessary for amino acids to be assembled into a life form? Any number of things could cause that to happen. I suppose some cosmic awareness could be one, random chance could be another, God a third...
****What is keeping us from, one day, creating a perfect synthetic replica of carbon based life?
*****Does something have to have the capacity for evolution to be alive, or does it have to have come about through evolution? I should think how something came to be doesn't change what something just is. Was the first single celled organism life, then? Because it couldn't have evolved from other life.
What, your point was 'our brains can only be made out of one material'?? Which would make your argument, 'as our brains are made of carbon, and our brains are conscious, silicon can't be conscious'. Again this isn't a logical argument Really. One thing being able to do something clearly does not imply nothing else can do something.Quote:
That's just my point! Although, it isn't exactly supported by your first paragraph there. Consciousness isn't really characteristic unless you're only talking about living beings; if you're talking about conscious awareness, at any level. If you want to make a silicon conscious being, it is not ever going to be close to a carbon based life, for all that is entailed by it depends on that base. There will be major setbacks, but I'm saying it shouldn't be possible at all.
You keep ignoring or forgetting the whole point of what I'm saying. I'll say it again:
The algorithm enacted by our brains is a special type of 'conscious algorithm'. As it is an algorithm (this is not a false claim; our brains work on deterministic scale physics which can always be emulated by an algorithm), it can be simulated by any kind of computer.
Therefore if we simulated a brain on a computer, it would in my view be exactly the same in the crucial essentials, so your claim means nothing to me.
There was a reason I referred you to a previous post: because I have already posted counterarguments to these exact arguments. What you're supposed to do now is respond to my counterarguments, not continue posting the same original argument.Quote:
No, a 'conscious computer' is not formed out of evolution, it's formed out of a relatively human ideal. As Taosaur said, we may even just be infatuated with our development in technology, not to mention that we're probably overestimating our capabilities, whether it happens now or in the future.
In brief,
1. The evolution claim is not explained, and also seems to create a paradox.
2. We're not talking about whether it's practically possible with our engineering skills or our financial restraints or whatever to actually create such a computer program; we're saying that there is no reason that it shouldn't be possible (and the argument for that is in this very post, as well as a few others).
It has been proved that causality is irrespective of location (or velocity, or anything else).Quote:
The 'very specific series chemical reactions' seems very naive, because the only reason why it could ever be specific is according to a local point of view.
All the evidence points towards consciousness arising out of various kinds of evolution over time; physical evolution, followed by stellar evolution, followed by chemical and then biological evolution.Quote:
You can't tell me there is no unchanging intelligence in the universe, and you are if you think consciousness is just an emergence due to some unguided, anarchic determination.
All of these processes are formulated without [i]any kind[i] of 'driving force'; rather, they are formulated based on probability, and chance: and they work perfectly.
Saying that natural selection represents some kind of conscious effort represents a total misunderstanding of that theory. Natural selection is akin to a blind man stumbling around in the dark.
If, for example, that my response to Bonsay is somewhat correct, then we can say that consciousness arose out of these chance processes because it was biologically advantageous to be able to form concepts and act on them. It is very clear that being able to conceptualise has led to the human race becoming the most successful mammal on the planet. Without it, we would not have the spear, the farm, the city; anything.
I find your language hard to follow but I suppose this means that the real world is an illusion which emerges from a pre-existing consciousness. Again, I refer you to the 'lack of any argument' statement. Such an idea would beg the question why our consciousness would be so determined to create a world in which the exact opposite seems true.Quote:
emergence is actually happening within consciousness.
'Sources', 'causes', this doesn't change the argument. The problem of first cause is a misnomer; everybody has already realised that 'cause' is a word that applies to time and that there was no time before the universe. The problem is actually one of 'first reason'. Reasons are things which exist outside of time. Thus your solution is actually subject to exactly the same problems.Quote:
Consciousness obviously doesn't function like that, as I've already been over. It in fact solves the problem of first cause. What is outside time and space is a source, not a cause.
I don't claim to have a solution to this problem either. All I'm saying is that you can't use this as part of a logical argument against what we're talking about, because it isn't a logical argument itself.
A good question this time. This is where the trickier areas of my position lie. I would say that if you did revive that person by recreating their conscious algorithm in any form, chemical or not, I don't think there'd be a good reason to think that it was a 'continuation' of the same consciousness. This comes from considering what would happen if you created the algorithm when the original person was still alive. Clearly the consciousnesses wouldn't be the same.Quote:
Physical death is very guessable in this sense, but the consciousness that once had brought life into the body will move on, unchanging, because there are no longer favorable conditions for that particular being to be alive. If this were not true, will you say that you could revive anybody that is dead? After all, you only need a special set of chemical reaction for somebody to be alive. That would lead to me ask just what Bonsay asked you; where do you draw the line.
No, I don't really get it. It doesn't leave me wondering. A bit amazed by its complexity, but not wondering how it works. You're searching for a deeper meaning that isn't there. I see no reason why some universal cosmic intelligence has to exist and has to be guiding the actions of the universe. None whatsoever.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
Yes, I have defined it in my posts.Quote:
Originally Posted by spockman
Yes, my view of intelligence is that it is intrinsic to all life and forms, even programs. Of course, that intelligence evolves but essentially it is all the same. Nothing is an accident or a random possibility.Quote:
**Is a virus intelligent? A single celled organism? A sperm? Or do they just react the way they've been programmed- almost mechanically so. I do think that this is actually a very debatable point depending on your definition of intelligence.
It's not necessary, only when the form becomes more evolved as requires more responsibility, like mammals, humans, marine life, etc.Quote:
***Why is some level of awareness neccessary for amino acids to be assembled into a life form? Any number of things could cause that to happen. I suppose some cosmic awareness could be one, random chance could be another, God a third...
I don't see why we couldn't do that, but that doesn't mean we (would) have the power to create consciousness.Quote:
****What is keeping us from, one day, creating a perfect synthetic replica of carbon based life?
Like I said before, evolution is an emergence - an emergence of life. Surely life hasn't always existed on the planet. The planet has had to cool down for the conditions to be more appropriate.Quote:
*****Does something have to have the capacity for evolution to be alive, or does it have to have come about through evolution? I should think how something came to be doesn't change what something just is. Was the first single celled organism life, then? Because it couldn't have evolved from other life.
What it does imply is the importance of the nature of lifeforms and their convergence and restructuring of chemicals. There is endless complexity in human species; carbon based life forms, marine life, etc. In addition, this complexity changes over time. You're not going to get much from a silicon being, much less consciousness. My lego-man probably has more life than that. :PQuote:
Originally Posted by Xei
I'm not ignoring it, I just think it's all in the way you're explaining it and I obviously don't agree. Maybe explain what is the 'algorithm' of our brain? Are you saying have proof for determinism?Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
1. What is not explained and what is the paradox?Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
2. I know that. That is true, but there's barely any reason why it can be done, as far as I'm concerned.
Causality is very specific, and besides, what does this imply of your 'very specific set of chemical reactions'? Can you point them out or just assuming they exist? That is my point, because if you're going to say it is specific, then it is not a generalized claim, which is the nature of my own claims. Is what you're mentioning irrespective of location, then?Quote:
It has been proved that causality is irrespective of location (or velocity, or anything else).
Natural selection does not negate conscious effort, or visa versa. The 'conscious effort' is represented in evolution. And yes all evidence points to what you said. However, chance and probability don't have much reality here, as they are better as pragmatic, arbitrary concepts rather than actual existences. I'm not going to debate whether probability has any use, but using it as an explanation for for phenomena, again, ignores the bigger picture.Quote:
All the evidence points towards consciousness arising out of various kinds of evolution over time; physical evolution, followed by stellar evolution, followed by chemical and then biological evolution.
All of these processes are formulated without [i]any kind[i] of 'driving force'; rather, they are formulated based on probability, and chance: and they work perfectly.
Saying that natural selection represents some kind of conscious effort represents a total misunderstanding of that theory. Natural selection is akin to a blind man stumbling around in the dark.
There's no so called 'evidence' for what I'm saying, yet it is confirmable. That is why I mentioned a difference in paradigm, how many times I don't know. Evidence reaches it's threshold of importance when it is starts dealing with consciousness. That should be obvious by reading back through this thread, but it is easily obvious through the trouble people find when they restrict their understanding of the universe to Science and nothing else.
The first part of that might be true, but you have to elaborate on the next part. What do you mean "beg the question?"Quote:
I find your language hard to follow but I suppose this means that the real world is an illusion which emerges from a pre-existing consciousness. Again, I refer you to the 'lack of any argument' statement. Such an idea would beg the question why our consciousness would be so determined to create a world in which the exact opposite seems true.
It is only a problem if you calling it a 'cause' or 'reason', but it is neither. Causes and reasons are linear terms restricted to certain objects or frameworks, but consciousness as a totality is non-linear and influences everything that exists, because it is independent of time and space. All reasons of laws are part of itself. Saying this, therefore, does not mean it started the universe, but that there was no start within consciousness, and no end either. This is in no way comparable to 'first cause'; neither term is applicable.Quote:
'Sources', 'causes', this doesn't change the argument. The problem of first cause is a misnomer; everybody has already realised that 'cause' is a word that applies to time and that there was no time before the universe. The problem is actually one of 'first reason'. Reasons are things which exist outside of time. Thus your solution is actually subject to exactly the same problems.
I'm not saying it is logical anyway, hence a shift of paradigm is necessary. I vote this thread be moved to Philosophy. :DQuote:
I don't claim to have a solution to this problem either. All I'm saying is that you can't use this as part of a logical argument against what we're talking about, because it isn't a logical argument itself.
Any purpose for the initial death, then? Any reason why consciousness should suddenly disappear, much less emerge out of nothing?Quote:
A good question this time. This is where the trickier areas of my position lie. I would say that if you did revive that person by recreating their conscious algorithm in any form, chemical or not, I don't think there'd be a good reason to think that it was a 'continuation' of the same consciousness. This comes from considering what would happen if you created the algorithm when the original person was still alive. Clearly the consciousnesses wouldn't be the same.
Excellent. You must know what you're talking about then, because I know that is a fact. The only issue is, not realizing that I agree with you on that there is not a shred of evidence/reason. I want to ask: How far can you go with reason and proof? E.g. let's say nobody knew that you were conscious. How can you know that it's true?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
*No, I mean being awake or asleep, (in a literal sense.) That isn't what we are talking about. It is like substituting right (the state of correctness) for right (the direction.)Quote:
Originally Posted by really
**If a synthetic being is physically identical to the natural version of that being, how would everything- including mental things- not be identical?
***Evolution doesn't have anything to do with the origin of life.
****All determinism says is that everything that has ever occurred has had a cause. And that cause had something that caused it which had something that caused it etc. etc. etc. This doesn't necessarily take away the arguments of spiritualism and free will. One can interpret determinism that way, but you don't have to. Determinism means that if you replicated an event over and over again, with the exact same variables each time, the result will be exactly the same each time. Determinism means that nothing has happened randomly, or independent of variables. After considering what determinism is, how can anyone disagree with it?
Consciousness isn't an emergent property of this either. I don't really see your point because I see that they're both relevant.Quote:
Originally Posted by spockman
If you re-created an ocean wave according to the image you have of it, would it be identical to the actual ocean wave when you were finished? The problem is that the object is separated from the the total whole. This is done for completely different purposes and under unique, yet flawed human conditions: Demonstrating very difference between synthetic and natural. This is particularly obvious in quantum physics, where I doubt determinism has any bearing.Quote:
**If a synthetic being is physically identical to the natural version of that being, how would everything- including mental things- not be identical?
[...]
****All determinism says is that everything that has ever occurred has had a cause. And that cause had something that caused it which had something that caused it etc. etc. etc. This doesn't necessarily take away the arguments of spiritualism and free will. One can interpret determinism that way, but you don't have to. Determinism means that if you replicated an event over and over again, with the exact same variables each time, the result will be exactly the same each time. Determinism means that nothing has happened randomly, or independent of variables. After considering what determinism is, how can anyone disagree with it?
What makes a human being living or dead?!
It plays a very important part if you can see how it is not restricted to lifeforms, but pertaining even to the simple chemical reactions that preceded them. What are you saying?Quote:
***Evolution doesn't have anything to do with the origin of life.
So you are saying Quantum Physics is independent of cause and effect? I highly doubt it.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
As far as evolution, I am saying that evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. It has to do with the adaptation of life. Something doesn't have to be part of the initial life cycle to evolve. Why would it?
So in other words, everyone else has pronounced me unconscious. But, by definition of being conscious, I would know of my own existence and that I am conscious. If I don't have these thoughts, then I'm not conscious. Reason and logic. Turns out everyone else is wrong. But, surely they have a valid reason for being wrong. Perhaps I'm comatose. A brain scan indicates little mental activity. They have no reason to believe I'm still conscious, or even thinking at all for that matter.Quote:
Excellent. You must know what you're talking about then, because I know that is a fact. The only issue is, not realizing that I agree with you on that there is not a shred of evidence/reason. I want to ask: How far can you go with reason and proof? E.g. let's say nobody knew that you were conscious. How can you know that it's true?
Now, I could pick up a rock and look at it, and conclude within a very reasonable degree of certainty that it is not conscious. Consciousness and abstract thought are generally testable behaviors. It is not something found in so-called lesser life forms. A rock is not alive to begin with. Why should I believe it to be conscious? Now, I could be wrong. I could also be dreaming all this up, and wake up in the next five minutes. Welcome back to the pastry in Antarctica scenario. I admit I could be wrong. I don't think so, but I could be.
It is in the sense that there have been numerous problems presented in comparison to old paradigms of physics (Classical/Newtonian), I'm sure a lot of us already know this. Consciousness/observing plays a very important role to the degree where particles of microscopic level are influenced upon observation, showing that they're unpredictable and inter-dimensional.Quote:
Originally Posted by spockman
Adaptation is very much part of life processes, regardless. Yes, it doesn't create life, but it describes its growth throughout history very well. Agreeable?Quote:
As far as evolution, I am saying that evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. It has to do with the adaptation of life. Something doesn't have to be part of the initial life cycle to evolve. Why would it?
What I'm saying is that subjectivity is not dependent on such externalized things (thoughts/concepts), and you shouldn't have to say that it is dependent on them either. Thoughts don't necessarily indicate consciousness. The fact that you are aware obviously is not affected by your thoughts, behaviors or any other events in the world. The reason why they are associated so often is because 'thinking' is what conscious beings do, which is fair enough, but this is actually not full proof of consciousness, and nobody will ever get full proof except by their own inner investigation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
I find it troubling to believe the vast possibility of mind's potential comparable to the limitations of a computer program. Purely in terms of possible connections in our neural network, compared to a man-made closed system, like a computer program, the difference is discernible by a large order of magnitude.
I am often reminded of Descartes when thinking about ideas like this, more specifically, solipsism [cogito ergo sum].Quote:
al·go·rithm (lg-rm)
n.
A step-by-step problem-solving procedure, especially an established, recursive computational procedure for solving a problem in a finite number of steps.
Quote:
Denial of materialistic existence, in itself, does not constitute solipsism. Possibly the most controversial feature of the solipsistic worldview is the denial of the existence of other minds. Since qualia, or personal experiences, are private and ineffable, another being's experience can be known only by analogy...
...Solipsism is not a single concept but instead refers to several worldviews whose common element is some form of denial of the existence of a universe independent from the mind of the agent.
I'm awake because neurons in my brain are firing. I'm thinking at some level, even if I'm not aware of it. The brain stem and hypothalamus are regulating my bodily behaviors so I don't die. The sub-c is constantly bustling with activity I don't know about. On some level, I still am thinking. If I want to discover that I'm conscious, I must first think on the matter. Now, the main definition of "conscious" is "Mentally perceptive or alert; awake." By this definition, the act of sleeping makes me unconscious. The second definition is: "Capable of thought, will, or perception." Now that is something a bit more relative to what you're saying. Capable of THOUGHT, WILL, and PERCEPTION. All things derived from the brain. And by this definition, there is more to consciousness than just being "aware." It is the ability to process that awareness into a set of testable thoughts.Quote:
Originally Posted by really
Now, the way humans work is that we make observations about the world and draw conclusions based on said observations. Unless we make start making things up and clinging to them as absolute truth without evidence, but that isn't very logical now, is it? I can observe consciousness. I experience it all the time. I can look at almost everyone else on the planet with stories nearly identical to mine. From all this, I can make a reasonable conclusion that I, and other humans, are conscious beings. I may then go on to devise tests and experiments designed to test whether or not something is conscious or not. I can test a dog or a cat or a lab mouse, and find that they don't exhibit consciousness. And then I may test monkeys, our near ancestors, and find they are conscious, at least on some level. Based on these observations, and others, I may look at the differences in brain size, structure, and function, and come to the very reasonable conclusion that consciousness is derived from the brain. What I cannot logically do is look at these results and dismiss them as pure coincidence, then leap to the conclusion that consciousness is derived from some great cosmic entity or some form of unobserved soul. Now, it could be. The possibility is there. But quite frankly, the odds are so infinitely small that it isn't worth serious consideration, yet alone embracing it as truth. Too many variables, too many unanswered questions. It just isn't feasible.
Mario, I'm not asking you to prove something, and what may seem strange is the understanding that I'm not trying to 'prove' something to you either, because I can't do that. And I'm not trying to convert people for the sake of it. If I was talking about something specific and objective, my responsibility would be to provide reasoning and logical backup. But I can't prove all this to you because it's not distinguishable on an intellectual level. It doesn't arise from reasoning alone or even "making things up and clinging to them". I just wanted to go over a critical perspective, but unless you want to ask something that may be relevant to the thread, I really shouldn't post anything more here.