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Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

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Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#121

Post by anon291 »

ben_w wrote: post #61
whoitwas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no definition because we haven't been able to quantify it.

That's not the problem. There are 40 different definitions of consciousness, some of which we can quantify, we just don't all agree on which one we mean in any given context and indeed sometimes conflate them without realising it in the middle of a sentence.

> There are 40 different definitions of consciousness, some of which we can quantify, we just don't all agree on which one we mean in any given context and indeed sometimes conflate them without realising it in the middle of a sentence.

When a word has a myriad meanings, none of which are generally accepted, we typically say the word has no definition. Sure, particular senses of its meaning may be well-defined, but the word itself is elusive.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#122

Post by anon291 »

strogonoff wrote: post #19
danielbln wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be a pink elefant that lives in the 7th dimension and contains every person's consciousness in the shape of a magic peanut. Or it may not.

Gödel’s incompleteness theorem says that pink elephants may indeed well exist.

That's really not what it says. Godel's incompleteness theorem applied to AI would say something like 'There are statements about the model's behavior we cannot prove without relying on statements that cannot to be proven' (this is because obviously the AI algorithms are based on elementary arithmetic).

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#123

Post by anon291 »

gokuldas011011 wrote: post #5

Yes, the beauty of nature is, there is no magic. Everything is governed by laws, when we uncover it, we can replicate it.

In the sense that science is ultimately a religious enterprise expressing our belief in a constant, unseen, unchanging reality (which is not a universal belief by any means, and is utterly religious in nature), then yes, this is true. On the other hand, if we take an irreligious look at things and try to keep focus on just what we observe, one is forced to make the opposite conclusion, as the very basic building blocks of reality are not uncoverable, non-replicable, and seemingly not governed by anything but randomness.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#124

Post by samatman »

Simon_ORourke wrote: post #115
tomhoward wrote: post #11

I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic. (To be clear, I’m not here to argue about the topic or try to persuade anyone of any position – that’s a waste of everyone’s time). I recommend seeking out discussions involving: - Federico Faggin: inventor of silico…

Please stop with the appeal to authority!! "The argument from authority is a logical fallacy (also known as ad verecundiam fallacy), and obtaining knowledge in this way is fallible." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority The meta logical fallacy of treating Wiki itself as an authority isn't an intended pun.

The meta fallacy on display here is the Fallacy Fallacy.

For every logical fallacy, there is a fallacious application of it to a given example of rhetoric. You've committed the Argument from Authority Fallacy Fallacy: citing people who believe to have worthwhile opinions, and including their accomplishments, is not argument from authority. Argument from authority is claiming someone is correct based on their authority. Which isn't what GP was doing.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#125

Post by anon291 »

IshKebab wrote: post #70
dist-epoch wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't have a role ... Consciousness evolved, therefore it must have provided an advantage. We just have to find it. That's a pretty wild claim, considering that the only animal proven to have a consciousness is the apex-predator of the whole world.

It's a pretty out-there idea that we're the only conscious animals. Along the lines of "animals don't have feelings" which seems to be mostly pushed by Christians.

> Along the lines of "animals don't have feelings" which seems to be mostly pushed by Christians.

Can you provide any source for this claim? The historical Christian belief is that animals have souls and feelings and inner experiences.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#126

Post by tristor »

I am far from an expert on cognitive science, however I have given a considerable amount of thought around the topic of consciousness and AGI, and particularly about what the nature of consciousness even is. I would consider myself erudite and well-read on the topic, despite having no professional or academic credentials on the matter.

The best conclusion I have been able to come to thus far is that consciousness is not a manifestation of the physical structures of our mind, but rather a reflection or view into the nature of our soul. The physical structures of the mind are a prerequisite, but not sufficient, to manifest consciousness. To wit, there are several other mammals in the world which have similarly complex brain structures, and in many cases larger amounts of brain mass, but do not exhibit any sort of human-like consciousness.

I saw all this, while being generally agnostic/areligious. I've studied this question philosophically from the perspective of the theologians and from various religious works, of course, but given as I don't myself have a strong religious belief system, this is not the primary influence for why I take the above position. Simply put, I think a purely materialistic view of consciousness is clearly incorrect, however I don't have a better alternative that's provable.

Given my conclusions, I do not think it is possible for AGI to ever be truly conscious, but it may be possible for it to convincingly mimic consciousness.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#127

Post by anon291 »

ryandvm wrote: post #42

Consciousness is an evolved information system requirement in all life forms that are complex enough to be capable of computationally modelling their environment, and importantly, their own place in that environment. You cannot model the world and your place in it without consciousness. Also, consciousness is not binary (present or not), it is a gradient. I am more conscious than I was this morning when I groggily op…

> If consciousness is simply an emergent property of sufficiently complex information modelling, than assuming continued increases in computational capability, we're probably on the brink of creating consciousness that is "more conscious" than ourselves. And by our own definition of import, this consciousness will exceed our own place in the universe.

You went from 'consciousness exists on a gradient' (makes sense) to 'consciousness exists due to information modelling' which is a non sequitur.

Consciousness could be due to information modelling.

It could also be due to our brain's reliance on dopamine.

Or maybe it's due to a heretofore unknown enzyme that taps into a quantum field.

Or any other explanation.

There is no way to prove that consciousness relies on information modelling. That's a major assumption.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#128

Post by kbrkbr »

I want to open a side thread about your definitions or descriptions of what "consciousness" is. I think that could be pretty interesting after reading all the comments, and I think there's a lot of knowledge hidden here that we could throw together.

Some things that I understood, in my words:

- consciousness is probably not reducible to smaller, non-conscious parts of which it is composed. You could maybe say it is intrinsically holistic

- consciousness entails being aware of or observing qualities that hard science tells us the things don't have (green vs. length of lightwave); but "being aware of" or "observing" are so closely related to consciousness, that it may not be very informative

- consciousness can't be detected from the outside for now, and probably by the structure of the process. It is "inner" in a very peculiar sense (everything else is outer, and can't get in, except as representation)

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#129

Post by captainclam »

Simon_ORourke wrote: post #115
tomhoward wrote: post #11

I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic. (To be clear, I’m not here to argue about the topic or try to persuade anyone of any position – that’s a waste of everyone’s time). I recommend seeking out discussions involving: - Federico Faggin: inventor of silico…

Please stop with the appeal to authority!! "The argument from authority is a logical fallacy (also known as ad verecundiam fallacy), and obtaining knowledge in this way is fallible." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority The meta logical fallacy of treating Wiki itself as an authority isn't an intended pun.

Op writes "I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic."

They very specifically state that these people are good points of entry for "well-argued positions on the topic." Linking to specific literature would have been better, but this isn't "materialism/physicalism is wrong because of these people's credentials."

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