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Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

frc.ri.cmu.edu

11–20 of 92 posts

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#11
My alma mater ^_^. The basic loop is : http://monad.ai/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/dev_framework.png You can alter the environmental context easily by re-directing the wire in/out : http://monad.ai/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/dev_context.png. An individual would be none the wiser.

Sure we could be in a simulation. It's interesting to ponder on it. You'll begin forming answers when you dissect the different components, relationships, interactions, and try to create your own version of it : Say AGI.

;)

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#14
I am very happy to see this at least bring up one of the most strange parts of Everett's many-worlds (and others' "many-minds") theories: that in them, you are immortal; for there always exists a possible world which you didn't lose consciousness in, and your final consciousness will only propagate into those worlds.

Searle's objection still seems to hold some water, though. Consciousness does not seem to be a computation because whether something is a computation is observer-relative; for some observers this set of electrical flickering makes sense as a computation to produce a sunflower-like pattern of points based on emitting branches in directions of (pi * the golden ratio) radians... but for the vast majority of observers probably it doesn't seem like anything until I print out a picture of the result; and even then it might not mean anything to those observers (they might be blind, or they might not associate it with sunflowers, or they might have alien brains so differently wired from mine that they simply cannot appreciate art the way that humans can). We actually have formally defined computation to be observer-relative in precisely the way that the status of what words a book contains and what those words together mean is observer-relative (think that in some other parallel universes the English language was exactly the same but that the words for 'cat' and 'dog' were transposed, and so this same book tells a somewhat different story in those worlds).

The problem is that my two bunnies seem to be quite conscious, to say nothing of myself or my girlfriend. It's not just that they're conscious-relative-to-me-but-it-depends-who's-looking... if that's true then it's a very different perspective which almost nobody takes seriously and practices. My bunnies just seem to be conscious, full stop. They appear to have both interests and the capacity to feel pain (observer-relative consciousness), but it appears to be more than just an appearance! In some sense they are objective observers who their own consciousness is relative to; therefore they are objectively conscious in a way that computations just don't seem to be objectively anything.

The hope of the functionalist approach to consciousness, with its common-sensical "anything which could replace this airy-fairy consciousness stuff in all of its functional roles would be equally justified to be called conscious," is therefore that as processes with no-intrinsic-meaning become more complex and more involved, there is some way to say "no, the parts of that don't have much intrinsic meaning by themselves, but you put them together and then this thing is objectively computing X or Y, there is just no other way for an observer to view it, it has passed a complexity threshold beyond which there is only one interpretation of it." Our books, with the cat dog substitution looming in our minds, clearly don't pass this threshold by-and-large, but perhaps things more complicated processes than those books' narratives can?

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#15
The evil demon which Descartes described is very real - it is one's own mind conditioned by dogmas, traditions and so called collective consciousness, and the illusions that such a mind produces are as good as real.

Simulations can tell nothing new about the true nature of reality, because any simulator would reflect the current assumptions up to date and will be based on an oversimplified model. Weather simulation is not a weather. Map is not a territory.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#16
post #14

I am very happy to see this at least bring up one of the most strange parts of Everett's many-worlds (and others' "many-minds") theories: that in them, you are immortal; for there always exists a possible world which you didn't lose consciousness in, and your final consciousness will only propagate into those worlds. Searle's objection still seems to hold some water, though. Consciousness does not seem to be a comput…

consciousness can observe herself. the thought can't. the eyes can't observer himself. we should speak of autoconsciousness. the animal is consciousness but not autoconsciousness. the human can be autoconsciousness.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#17
post #14

I am very happy to see this at least bring up one of the most strange parts of Everett's many-worlds (and others' "many-minds") theories: that in them, you are immortal; for there always exists a possible world which you didn't lose consciousness in, and your final consciousness will only propagate into those worlds. Searle's objection still seems to hold some water, though. Consciousness does not seem to be a comput…

consciousness can observe herself. the thought can't. the eyes can't observer himself. we should speak of autoconsciousness. the animal is consciousness but not autoconsciousness. the human can be autoconsciousness.

Not only that, there is also the issue of Qualia. This can put some light on behavior of the mind but it says nothing about Qualia.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#18
post #9

Morpheus from The Matrix: "What is real? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain." Doesn't feel like there's ultimately any way out of this line of reasoning. What would it take to prove to you that you are indeed not in a simulation of some kind? as the only methods of provi…

> Doesn't feel like there's ultimately any way out of this line of reasoning. What would it take to prove to you that you are indeed not in a simulation of some kind? as the only methods of providing proof are also parts of the simulation. Simulations are just as real. Why wouldn't they be? What makes "natural laws enforced by reality" really any more "real" than "natural laws enforced by a simulation"?

Nothing, but the possibility does increase the chance of those laws changing.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

consciousness can observe herself. the thought can't. the eyes can't observer himself. we should speak of autoconsciousness. the animal is consciousness but not autoconsciousness. the human can be autoconsciousness.

Not only that, there is also the issue of Qualia. This can put some light on behavior of the mind but it says nothing about Qualia.

we can speak of Qualia as attributes of consciousness?

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#20
post #8

His book "Robots: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind" is really excellent, even if he takes quite a few gigantic logical leaps that aren't really justified, imo. It's just a great piece of futurology.

I also enjoyed the precursor, "Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence".
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