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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

#161

Post by carra »

yreg wrote: post #52

I can accept (and to be honest even like) the idea, that consciousness somehow emerges from the complex structures in an animal brain, that there is no soul, no other planes of reality, no special quantum phenomena needed, etc. Maybe we could create a synthetic artificial conscious mind. At worst we could simulate a full human brain at whatever level is necessary. I can accept that. What's crazy to me is the followin…

Couldn't you say the same about us? It's not the brain (hardware) that is conscious, but the mind (software) running on it.

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

#162

Post by astrobe_ »

What is this obsession with making computers human-like?

We can put those machine to better uses than forgetting, having biases, making subtle or gross mistakes (hello, ChatGPT) like we do.

The AI that some apparently consider top-notch today is only good at powering NPCs in video games. The more serious the use-case, the more harmful it becomes.

Moreover, achieving artificial consciousness is only good at fueling endless debates about whether it fakes it perfectly or it is the real thing.

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

#163

Post by exe34 »

strogonoff wrote: post #94
exe34 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no it doesn't.

This is only true if you reject the pink elephant argument as straw man in the first place. As long as you consider it a figure of speech (a charitable interpretation indeed), then existence of pink elephants (or ghosts, or what have you) is exactly the implication of the theory in context of scientific method.

Gödel's theorem deals with the axioms of mathematics. the scientific method deals with the physical universe. a small part of mathematics is useful in describing the universe, but most of it isn't.

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

#165

Post by neom »

schmidtleonard wrote: post #152
neom wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really correct. default mode network activity is somewhat disrupted, but LSD works primarily by interaction with the 5-HT2A receptor subtype, this is multiple neurotransmitter systems, including serotonin, dopamine, and glutamate, and in many examples it's via excitement not inhibition/lowering/disabling. Excitatory neurotransmission in glutamate is looking like the the most important of the work in the 5-…

Does excitatory/inhibitory map cleanly on to the higher level abstractions? I'm no neuroscientist, so maybe it does, but that seems like a bad assumption to me because in digital logic "active when low" is extremely common. A spurious-suppression system that caused inhibition when low would be perfectly reasonable and compatible with the observation that excitation caused an increase in spurious behavior.

They don't really map well. The brain obviously operates on more continuous principles rather than binary states. The relationship between excitation/inhibition and emergent effects may be more direct and graded in biological neural networks vs to the "active when low". Buuuutt stiilll, 5-HT2A receptor and its downstream effects on glutamate transmission play a central role in mediating the subjective effects of psychedelics. Very very many studies have consistently linked 5-HT2A activation to the perceptual, cognitive, and emotional characteristic of the psychedelic state. Disruption of the default mode network and other changes are somewhat important maybe, the 5-HT2A receptor appears to be the focus of action for producing these effects. The point being, neurochemical interactions at the molecular level are the most important aspects of the LSD interaction, so.., now sure how that works in the context of synthetic AI, I don't know much about ML/NN.

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

#166

Post by vinceguidry »

grishka wrote: post #10

For all we know, it might be that consciousness is not fully contained in the physical structure of the brain. It might as well be something that partially exists on another layer of reality we have no idea about yet.

I've heard reliable reports of Jeffrey A. Martin and his fellow research participants moving visual perception out of the eyes and the rest of the body into the surrounding environment. Literally seeing behind him. I don't think his eyes stopped working, he just moved his subjective awareness outside of his body.

I found it hard to believe until I used his techniques to contain 'all of reality' into a small space (the visual field) and then 'move' it to my chest. Feeling like music, sight, and body sensations are all happening within a tiny space-contained field is a very startling experience.

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

#167

Post by jugg1es »

monstertank wrote: post #159

I never understood this. Evolution basically says humans are conscious matter...why would that not be replicatable via an intelligent designer (humans)? Randomness created consciousness from a single cell...why would that be the most efficient solution?

We can't replicate something we don't understand. The mechanism for consciousness is not understood at all right now and could actually be based on quantum effects that we haven't detected yet. It's also possible that it is only achievable in an organic machine. Until we understand how consciousness actually arises, the best we can do is a simulacrum of it.

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

#168

Post by danans »

tristor wrote: post #126

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…

> consciousness is not a manifestation of the physical structures of our mind, but rather a reflection or view into the nature of our soul

> 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.

Per your theory these other mammals do not have "souls", otherwise their significant brain mass would reflect their soul's nature, and generate consciousness.

So humans have somehow been chosen exclusively to have "souls", or at least have brains capable of reflecting them.

When did this choosing happen? Just to homo sapiens sapiens or also to neanderthalis and other homo sapiens subspecies?

Taking it back further, under your theory do our closest extant genetic relatives, bonobo chimpanzees, have souls, and by extension, your definition of consciousness?

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

#169

Post by jacobsimon »

monstertank wrote: post #159

I never understood this. Evolution basically says humans are conscious matter...why would that not be replicatable via an intelligent designer (humans)? Randomness created consciousness from a single cell...why would that be the most efficient solution?

I agree but even if you take materialism for granted, we’ve yet to uncover the exact biological mechanism. It’s entirely possible that it is unique to carbon-based and/or analog brains.

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

#170

Post by mistermann »

XorNot wrote: post #140
kbrkbr wrote: post #128

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 i…

The fact a conscious mind loses capability when brain damage happens shows quite clearly that consciousness as a process is reducible to smaller non-conscious parts though. There's also an innate problem in assuming the human experience of say, "green" is consistent. What I actually see when I see the colour green only appears consistent with the physical behaviour of light. Whether any two people really see colours…

> The fact a conscious mind loses capability when brain damage happens shows quite clearly that consciousness as a process is reducible to smaller non-conscious parts though.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency

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