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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

#521

Post by int_19h »

Barrin92 wrote: post #506
int_19h wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can simulate the Golden Gate Bridge on a sufficiently powerful computer, though, such that the simulation will behave exactly like the real thing. Chinese room is a good example of begging the question, since the postulate that "understanding" is somehow distinct from observable behavior of the system implies the outcome. But from a materialist perspective, Chinese room, considered as a whole , does understand wh…

>Chinese room, considered as a whole, does understand what it does. The fact that the man inside of it does not is simply irrelevant Searle does address this point even in the original paper. That argument doesn't hold water because you can imagine taking the whole room and putting it in your head and then you still don't understand Chinese. Or put differently if you're a Mandarin speaker and we two sit in a room and…

That is still nonsense. If you take the whole room as a system and integrate it into your brain as a subsystem, then yes, you will understand Chinese.

The reason why we have to speak of the room and the person inside as a system is because the real magic is in the instructions. The fact that they are performed by a self-aware human is completely irrelevant to the setup and is only there to confuse the matter.

In your other example with two people, viewing them as a system doesn't make much sense because one of those people is redundant - you can leave just the person who speaks Mandarin, and that is sufficient for the whole to function. So they alone are "the system". And it also operates based on instructions, except that those instructions are stored in the person's head and executed by low-level processes in the brain.

Searle believes that consciousness cannot be simulated as a digital computation, period. Given that any other physical process can be, this requires a belief that consciousness is somehow magically different from any other physical process in some unspecified way (that appears to be conjured out of thin air solely to make this one argument, at that). That is not materialism.

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

#522

Post by tomrod »

anon291 wrote: post #446
tomrod wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science is adaptable to reality -- therefore, it reflects reality as it is presented. Esoteric arguments portraying an ineffable, unobservable stream of will that never interacts with reality is not observable by definition; since it doesn't interact with reality, it can be safely ignored. Roko's basilisk be damned!

> portraying an ineffable, unobservable stream of will I'm not sure why you feel the need to bring divinity into this. The universe is not purely a automaton not because of some purported unobservable god, but simply because all experiments indicate that we cannot predict the behavior of the basic building blocks of the universe.

I agree with your assessment. I mentioned the friction people to stem the path where when people begin speaking about multiple streams of access to knowledge, they are typically attempting to inject a common apologetic approach to make theology or philosophical arguments for divinity of various types and definitions.

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

#523

Post by jugg1es »

nox101 wrote: post #409
jugg1es wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I replicate things I don't understand all the time. I replicate bread. I haven't a clue why it turns into bread. I just follow the instructions and it becomes bread. We don't need to know how to simulate consciousness. We only need to simulate atoms. The rest will fall out. Maybe there's a shortcut. Maybe we only need to simulate molecules. Maybe only cells. But one way or another, we can skip the understanding consc…

I think there might be more to consciousness than just simulating the physical components of the brain that we currently understand. There are theories that neurons or clusters of neurons are leveraging quantum superposition in order to function. If that turns out to be true, then a simulation of the physical parts won't be enough for AGI. It would also mean that we actually do need to gain a better understanding of how the brain works in order to achieve AGI. I am skeptical that we can achieve AGI with software alone.

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

#524

Post by vinceguidry »

Thiez wrote: post #484
vinceguidry wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (th…

There's always 'reports' of people being able to do these magical things that cannot be explained through modern science. And yet challenges such as these https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prizes_for_evidence_... never seem to have winners. It seems that these abilities inherently come with the luck of never having financial problems that could me resolved with a generous cash prize.

Jeffrey has absolutely no need of a cash prize. Dude's rich as balls.

And yeah, there absolutely is something to that. Independent wealth totally frees you up to go to the crazier places.

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

#525

Post by skissane »

Terr_ wrote: post #517
skissane wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the real crux of the matter would be the difference between rights versus stuff that costs people money. A human child costs a lot more than a dog or cat does, and yet society grants the child vastly greater rights than the dog or cat. The difference is due to cognitive capacity - a smart five year old can give a lecture about how you are allegedly violating their rights (e.g. “making me go to bed on time v…

I don't understand what that comparison is intended to prove. Sure, a 5-year-old is more eloquent than a dog, but throughout history there have been lots of 5-year-olds that were still enslaved, along with adults that were even more eloquent and intelligent. My point is that talk is cheap. It's one thing to agree that a sheepdog has freedom of speech, but there will be a lot more resistance if we start talking about…

We are having this conversation assuming a society which rejects slavery in principle. Given that rejection, I don't see how past history of enslaving people is relevant to questions of the future–unless one supposes that rejection is going to be reversed at some point, which seems unlikely.

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

#526

Post by Barrin92 »

int_19h wrote: post #521
Barrin92 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Chinese room, considered as a whole, does understand what it does. The fact that the man inside of it does not is simply irrelevant Searle does address this point even in the original paper. That argument doesn't hold water because you can imagine taking the whole room and putting it in your head and then you still don't understand Chinese. Or put differently if you're a Mandarin speaker and we two sit in a room and…

That is still nonsense. If you take the whole room as a system and integrate it into your brain as a subsystem, then yes, you will understand Chinese. The reason why we have to speak of the room and the person inside as a system is because the real magic is in the instructions. The fact that they are performed by a self-aware human is completely irrelevant to the setup and is only there to confuse the matter. In your…

>The fact that they are performed by a self-aware human is completely irrelevant to the setup

Granted, but we can easily create a more clear example that addresses both of your objections, right? Say in the room is a colorblind person with a machine that detects properties of color.

If someone now asks you questions about colored objects you can answer them, but I assume you grant that neither the colorblind person, nor the machine, nor the two as a system have conscious experiences of color vision as you have. The conscious experience has nothing to do with function. Every physical property you can describe without necessary experiencing any of it.

And I don't think your assertion about Searle's belief is correct. (or at least I don't believe that). If you fully simulated a physical brain, down to the atom, I think the experience in the simulation is probably equivalent to the experience outside. But if you merely model outward functions of conscious agents, behavior that is, there's no reason at all to assume all those systems must be conscious or have experiences.

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

#527

Post by hypertele-Xii »

nulld3v wrote: post #515
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just saw a first-hand account personal experience as evidence, in text, from me, yet here you are explicitly denying that fact. Nothing short of literal personal experience is going to convince you of something everyone knew for thousands of years, because you make no room in your head to unpack the thought. It's like there's a hidden filter in your mind that automatically associates spirits with nonsense and it…

Well that's the thing right? First hand accounts alone are not worth much in my mind, especially since there are so many other first hand accounts of different religions. Who am I to believe? Generally, I follow the "don't trust, verify" approach for first hand accounts. I don't believe something is true, even if 1000 people tell me the same thing. I think this is a reasonable approach, especially in today's age of m…

> not worth much

Interesting change of tone. Now it's already worth something, just not much. But previously you wrote:

> there is just no evidence (or at least I haven't seen any) ... personal experience is also valid evidence, and I have seen none of that either.

You went from total denial to already assigning worth.

This isn't "today's age of misinformation" stuff, by the way. These are literally thousands of years old historical records of eyewitness accounts. It is in fact "the human mind is just a meat computer" that is the modern day misinformation. It's leading you further away from the soul. So that demons can take over.

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

#528

Post by anon291 »

fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #514
anon291 wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should really be doing a bit more defense here given how completely off base your initial comment was, but whatever. > Everyone admits to being unable to predict individual quantum interactions. No.. not everyone, including you, before this comment. You asked for experiments that do not produce the same results, and I gave you several examples. That in and of itself refuted your initial arguments. > My point is t…

>No.. not everyone, including you, before this comment. It's interesting how you deny that classical equations really hold true yet you will comment on what I actually believe. >You asked for experiments that do not produce the same results, and I gave you several examples. What I really meant was experiments that do not follow the laws we have so far discovered about nature. In the classical realm, that means experi…

> it means a histogram that is not in line with the expected probability (assuming n is large enough)

Oh I see so you deny the idea that carrying out the same quantum experiment could result in a very unlikely outcome.

> Ok. But there is no classical effect where quantum randomness is observed.

c

> I made that assumption because you called science a religion (which I still disagree about).

I did not. I said science is based on religious beliefs about the underlying nature of reality. Namely that it is constant and follows laws.

> We can use the probability distributions we find in nature to build things

Are we talking engineering or science?

> The claim is that it is extremely unlikely to do so, just like it is extremely unlikely that my hot cup of water will get hotter in a cold room.

Then how are you getting your histograms to always match?

> Ok, and? Your claim was that it was axiomatic. If scientists have departed from this idea, it was not axiomatic or religious. Scientists also parted from Newtonian gravity. What point are you making here.

Well science originally was a belief that the universe was like an automaton, following predictable laws deterministically. Today that is not the case, which means that the universe does not observe deterministic laws, which is what the comment I replied to insinuated. You seem to have correctly given up on this, but still express a belief

> This is completely false. The brain does not operate at the atomic level.

It really depends on what you mean by 'operates'. Potassium/Sodium ions are fundamental to brain workings.

> Nobody disagrees with this point they just don't preface all their statements like "in event that the laws of physics don't drastically change tomorrow, do you want to get something to eat?"

You literally said the laws of physics don't change.

> All science does is give us observations

Right, and from those observations, they do not deny the possibility that the universe follows laws. However, you constantly make the positive statement that the universe does follow laws. Again, a religious statement. I have not made any inconsistent statement. I have said I believe, as you do, that the universe follows laws, but I am honest in that that's religious.

> Yes, but you could have made your point much more clear.

But if I did that you would still be thinking your scientific belief system is based on reason, instead of religious.

> Are you referring to ZFC? Or the three rules of thought? Or Occam's Razor?

I mainly meant the belief that the universe follows laws at all.

> An irreligious look at things, under your definition, would be to make zero positive statements.

That's correct. Positive statements require a belief system that will inevitably contain axiomatic laws. These laws are religious in nature. Even if they have no reference to the divine, they are taken on faith. A common one today is a belief in an immutable universe.

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

#529

Post by anon291 »

int_19h wrote: post #520
anon291 wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many worlds is a completely unprovable phenomenon

It is not a phenomenon; it's simply one way to model reality - and arguably the simplest one because it has no woo like "observers" and "collapse".

Wavefunction collapse has no 'woo'. It's simply the application of a non-commutative operator. Many worlds has 'woo' because it supposes the existence of infinitely many unobservable worlds. Thomas Aquinas question of how many angels are on the head of a pin seems to be a more fruitful exercise. At least the head of a pin can be given a quantified size. On the other hand, no one can tell you where these multiverses exist. How they exist. What measure they occupy, or anything else. They are as unreal as angels. Unless you believe in them (which is fine, just admit it).

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

#530

Post by anon291 »

Thiez wrote: post #493
anon291 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bloc…

Science is based on the hypothesis that stuff that worked yesterday will work the same way tomorrow, and it tries to discover the rules that govern the stuff. There is nothing religious about it. It's a safe assumption to make; if there are no rules or the rules can change in arbitrary ways, science should be able to detect that, too. We've seen enormous scientific progress throughout human history, and based on this…

> Science is based on the hypothesis that stuff that worked yesterday will work the same way tomorrow

If you believe this assumption, you're believing a statement on faith and faith alone. I agree with you. I absolutely believe stuff will work the same tomorrow as yesterday at some level of abstraction.

> science should be able to detect that, too

Hmm... it might. It might not. For example, if 'god' (for lack of a better term) decided to make all spin states that he was going to make spin up instead be spin down from here on out, we would actually have no idea, despite those two 'states' of the universe certainly being different.

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