Aeon: "AIs should have the same ethical protections as animals"

[cloud...@gmail.com]

AIs should have the same ethical protections as animals

John Basl is assistant professor of philosophy at Northeastern University in Boston

https://aeon.co/ideas/ais-should-have-the-same-ethical-protections-as-animals

...

A puzzle and difficulty arises here because the scientific study of consciousness has not reached a consensus about what consciousness is, and how we can tell whether or not it is present. On some views – ‘liberal’ views – for consciousness to exist requires nothing but a certain type of well-organised information-processing, such as a flexible informational model of the system in relation to objects in its environment, with guided attentional capacities and long-term action-planning. We might be on the verge of creating such systems already. On other views – ‘conservative’ views – consciousness might require very specific biological features, such as a brain very much like a mammal brain in its low-level structural details: in which case we are nowhere near creating artificial consciousness.

It is unclear which type of view is correct or whether some other explanation will in the end prevail. However, if a liberal view is correct, we might soon be creating many subhuman AIs who will deserve ethical protection. There lies the moral risk.

Discussions of ‘AI risk’ normally focus on the risks that new AI technologies might pose to us humans, such as taking over the world and destroying us, or at least gumming up our banking system. Much less discussed is the ethical risk we pose to the AIs, through our possible mistreatment of them.

...

 

My 'conservative' view: information processing (alone) does not achieve experience (consciousness) processing.

https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2018/10/14/experience-processing/

-

@philipthrift

[Cosmin Visan]

Also my plush rabbit toy should have the same rights. Freedom for all the objects in the world!

[Bruno Marchal]

On 26 Apr 2019, at 15:33, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

AIs should have the same ethical protections as animals

John Basl is assistant professor of philosophy at Northeastern University in Boston

https://aeon.co/ideas/ais-should-have-the-same-ethical-protections-as-animals

...

A puzzle and difficulty arises here because the scientific study of consciousness has not reached a consensus about what consciousness is, and how we can tell whether or not it is present. On some views – ‘liberal’ views – for consciousness to exist requires nothing but a certain type of well-organised information-processing, such as a flexible informational model of the system in relation to objects in its environment, with guided attentional capacities and long-term action-planning. We might be on the verge of creating such systems already. On other views – ‘conservative’ views – consciousness might require very specific biological features, such as a brain very much like a mammal brain in its low-level structural details: in which case we are nowhere near creating artificial consciousness.

It is unclear which type of view is correct or whether some other explanation will in the end prevail. However, if a liberal view is correct, we might soon be creating many subhuman AIs who will deserve ethical protection. There lies the moral risk.

Discussions of ‘AI risk’ normally focus on the risks that new AI technologies might pose to us humans, such as taking over the world and destroying us, or at least gumming up our banking system. Much less discussed is the ethical risk we pose to the AIs, through our possible mistreatment of them.

The humans are still the main threat for the human. The idea to give human right to AI does not make music sense. It is part of the work of the AI to learn to defend themselves. We can be open mind, and listen, but defending their right can only threat the human right, I would say. In the theology of the machine, it can be proved that hell is paved with the good intentions … (amazingly enough, and accepting some definitions, of course).

 

My 'conservative' view: information processing (alone) does not achieve experience (consciousness) processing.

Mechanism makes you right on this, although it can depend how information processing is defined. Consciousness is not in the processing, but in truth, or in the semantic related to that processing,. The processing itself by is only a relative concept, where consciousness is an absolute thing. 

Bruno

https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2018/10/14/experience-processing/

-

@philipthrift

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[Cosmin Visan]

There is no definition for such a thing. It is just a non-sensical concept. It's as if stepping in the mud and saying: "Look! The mud information processed the shape of my foot! The mud is so intelligent! He must have rights!!!"

[cloud...@gmail.com]

On Monday, April 29, 2019 at 7:27:26 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 26 Apr 2019, at 15:33, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

AIs should have the same ethical protections as animals

John Basl is assistant professor of philosophy at Northeastern University in Boston

https://aeon.co/ideas/ais-should-have-the-same-ethical-protections-as-animals

...

A puzzle and difficulty arises here because the scientific study of consciousness has not reached a consensus about what consciousness is, and how we can tell whether or not it is present. On some views – ‘liberal’ views – for consciousness to exist requires nothing but a certain type of well-organised information-processing, such as a flexible informational model of the system in relation to objects in its environment, with guided attentional capacities and long-term action-planning. We might be on the verge of creating such systems already. On other views – ‘conservative’ views – consciousness might require very specific biological features, such as a brain very much like a mammal brain in its low-level structural details: in which case we are nowhere near creating artificial consciousness.

It is unclear which type of view is correct or whether some other explanation will in the end prevail. However, if a liberal view is correct, we might soon be creating many subhuman AIs who will deserve ethical protection. There lies the moral risk.

Discussions of ‘AI risk’ normally focus on the risks that new AI technologies might pose to us humans, such as taking over the world and destroying us, or at least gumming up our banking system. Much less discussed is the ethical risk we pose to the AIs, through our possible mistreatment of them.

The humans are still the main threat for the human. The idea to give human right to AI does not make music sense. It is part of the work of the AI to learn to defend themselves. We can be open mind, and listen, but defending their right can only threat the human right, I would say. In the theology of the machine, it can be proved that hell is paved with the good intentions … (amazingly enough, and accepting some definitions, of course).

 

My 'conservative' view: information processing (alone) does not achieve experience (consciousness) processing.

Mechanism makes you right on this, although it can depend how information processing is defined. Consciousness is not in the processing, but in truth, or in the semantic related to that processing,. The processing itself by is only a relative concept, where consciousness is an absolute thing. 

Bruno

https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2018/10/14/experience-processing/

-

@philipthrift

On "Consciousness is not in the processing, but in truth, or in the semantic related to that processing, ..." I address in the next article:

https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2018/12/14/material-semantics-for-unconventional-programming/ 

But my mode of thinking is that of an engineer, not a truth-seeker.

@philipthrift

[Telmo Menezes]

I would say that engineering is a form of truth-seeking.

Telmo.

[Cosmin Visan]

Semantics means meaning, and meaning is something that exists in consciousness. You cannot use that for any "programming".

[cloud...@gmail.com]

Now that is something programming language theorists would not agree with:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics_(computer_science) :

In programming language theory, semantics is the field concerned with the ... study of the meaning of programming languages. 

@philipthrift

[Brent Meeker]

On 4/29/2019 5:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 26 Apr 2019, at 15:33, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

AIs should have the same ethical protections as animals

John Basl is assistant professor of philosophy at Northeastern University in Boston

https://aeon.co/ideas/ais-should-have-the-same-ethical-protections-as-animals

...

A puzzle and difficulty arises here because the scientific study of consciousness has not reached a consensus about what consciousness is, and how we can tell whether or not it is present. On some views ??? ???liberal??? views ??? for consciousness to exist requires nothing but a certain type of well-organised information-processing, such as a flexible informational model of the system in relation to objects in its environment, with guided attentional capacities and long-term action-planning. We might be on the verge of creating such systems already. On other views ??? ???conservative??? views ??? consciousness might require very specific biological features, such as a brain very much like a mammal brain in its low-level structural details: in which case we are nowhere near creating artificial consciousness.

It is unclear which type of view is correct or whether some other explanation will in the end prevail. However, if a liberal view is correct, we might soon be creating many subhuman AIs who will deserve ethical protection. There lies the moral risk.

Discussions of ???AI risk??? normally focus on the risks that new AI technologies might pose to us humans, such as taking over the world and destroying us, or at least gumming up our banking system. Much less discussed is the ethical risk we pose to the AIs, through our possible mistreatment of them.

The humans are still the main threat for the human. The idea to give human right to AI does not make music sense. It is part of the work of the AI to learn to defend themselves. We can be open mind, and listen, but defending their right can only threat the human right, I would say. In the theology of the machine, it can be proved that hell is paved with the good intentions ??? (amazingly enough, and accepting some definitions, of course).

A right is some action that society agrees both to not interfere with and to protect against interference.Humans give to other humans the rights they want for themselves, so it is a reciprocal agreement.The problem with extending this to AI is that AI are easily distinguished and so there must be some commonality to be the basis for reciprocity.It's like the problem of racism.?? It was easy to deprived blacks of rights so long as they were seen a distinct.?? So what do we have in common with AI's?Intelligence.Do we have any values, like empathy, love of children, need for companionship...in common?I think it depends on the AI.

Brent

??

My 'conservative' view: information processing (alone) does not achieve experience (consciousness) processing.

Mechanism makes you right on this, although it can depend how information processing is defined. Consciousness is not in the processing, but in truth, or in the semantic related to that processing,. The processing itself by is only a relative concept, where consciousness is an absolute thing.??

Bruno

https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2018/10/14/experience-processing/

-

@philipthrift

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[Cosmin Visan]

Well... if you want to do words-play, you can word-play all day long as you want. I see that AI believers are experts in words playing. They endow their toy with all the human capacities in the world and they awe at their live object. Their little puppy is alive, intelligent, smart, beautiful, can play Chess, can colonize the entire galaxy, lol. Probably too much loneliness and lack of genuine human interactions.

[cloud...@gmail.com]

It's simply  distinguishing informational/physical semantics from experimental/psychical semantics.

- @philipthrift

[Brent Meeker]

And I see that you have no rational response to any criticism.?? Only "It doesn't exist" and unsupported assertions about what can't be true.

Brent

On 4/30/2019 12:15 AM, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List wrote:

Well... if you want to do words-play, you can word-play all day long as you want. I see that AI believers are experts in words playing. They endow their toy with all the human capacities in the world and they awe at their live object. Their little puppy is alive, intelligent, smart, beautiful, can play Chess, can colonize the entire galaxy, lol. Probably too much loneliness and lack of genuine human interactions.

On Monday, 29 April 2019 21:54:47 UTC+3, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

Now that is something programming language theorists would not agree with:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics_(computer_science)??:

In??programming language theory,??semantics??is the field concerned with the ... study of the meaning of??programming languages.??

@philipthrift

[Cosmin Visan]

Sure I have lots of rational responses. But you have to be intelligent to understand them. Otherwise, what can you say to people that believe objects can become alive just by writing a line of code ?

On Wednesday, 1 May 2019 01:06:54 UTC+3, Brent wrote:

And I see that you have no rational response to any criticism.?? Only "It doesn't exist" and unsupported assertions about what can't be true.

Brent

On 4/30/2019 12:15 AM, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List wrote:

Well... if you want to do words-play, you can word-play all day long as you want. I see that AI believers are experts in words playing. They endow their toy with all the human capacities in the world and they awe at their live object. Their little puppy is alive, intelligent, smart, beautiful, can play Chess, can colonize the entire galaxy, lol. Probably too much loneliness and lack of genuine human interactions.

On Monday, 29 April 2019 21:54:47 UTC+3, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

Now that is something programming language theorists would not agree with:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics_(computer_science)??:

In??programming language theory,??semantics??is the field concerned with the ... study of the meaning of??programming languages.??

@philipthrift

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 29 Apr 2019, at 14:34, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

There is no definition for such a thing.

Of “information processing”? 

Of course there are definition, even formalised in arithmetic. To be clear, by information I ALWAYS use Shannon 3p definition. It is not the mundane usage, which often put the meaning of the information in the definition, which is reasonable, but confusing when we address the mind-body issue.

By information processing, I mean mainly “computation”, which means sequence of expression related through some universal system (universal in the mathematical sense of Church, Turing, etc.).

It is just a non-sensical concept. It's as if stepping in the mud and saying: "Look! The mud information processed the shape of my foot! The mud is so intelligent! He must have rights!!!”

Not at, all. Those will be defined by the notion of first person, and eventually, be related to machine through the mechanist hypothesis, and also the self-rerefntial discourse, including silence, of the universal machine.

Bruno

On Monday, 29 April 2019 15:27:26 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 it can depend how information processing is defined.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 29 Apr 2019, at 15:50, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Semantics means meaning, and meaning is something that exists in consciousness.

No problem with this.

You cannot use that for any "programming”.

But computer science is in a large part the study between the relation between program and their semantics. The machine which relate the two is the universal machine. If my computer was unable to associate some semantic to a program, this mail would never been sent to you.

Bruno

On Monday, 29 April 2019 16:16:49 UTC+3, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

On "Consciousness is not in the processing, but in truth, or in the semantic related to that processing, ..." I address in the next article:

https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2018/12/14/material-semantics-for-unconventional-programming/ 

But my mode of thinking is that of an engineer, not a truth-seeker.

@philipthrift

[Cosmin Visan]

There are different ways of arriving at the shape of my foot in the mud:

1) I step in the mud.

2) I make a super-duper complicated AI that does pattern recognition and plays Chess and make him sculpt the shape of my foot in the mud.

3) I personally using my own consciousness sculpt the shape of my foot.

Based on the belief that "behavior is everything" that lots of people have, since the result in all the 3 cases is identical, it means that the mud itself is intelligent since he can process the shape of my foot exactly as the super-duper AI and exactly as me personally. And since people name option 2) as computation and claim that since the result is the same in all cases, it means that all 3 cases are computations. So stepping in the mud is computation. QED

On Wednesday, 1 May 2019 12:11:16 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote:

It is just a non-sensical concept. It's as if stepping in the mud and saying: "Look! The mud information processed the shape of my foot! The mud is so intelligent! He must have rights!!!”

Not at, all. Those will be defined by the notion of first person, and eventually, be related to machine through the mechanist hypothesis, and also the self-rerefntial discourse, including silence, of the universal machine.

Bruno

On Monday, 29 April 2019 15:27:26 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 it can depend how information processing is defined.

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[Cosmin Visan]

On Wednesday, 1 May 2019 12:15:37 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 29 Apr 2019, at 15:50, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Semantics means meaning, and meaning is something that exists in consciousness.

No problem with this.

You cannot use that for any "programming”.

But computer science is in a large part the study between the relation between program and their semantics. The machine which relate the two is the universal machine. If my computer was unable to associate some semantic to a program, this mail would never been sent to you.

Bruno

First you say that you have no problem with "semantics" meaning "meaning in consciousness" and 1 second later you talk about computers having semantics. What am I missing ?

[John Clark]

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:33 AM <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:

> AIs should have the same ethical protections as animals

I would maintain that question is of no practical importance whatsoever because AI's won't need our protection. The important question is the one a AI might ask himself:  Should I give humans the same ethical protection that I give to other AI's?

 John K Clark

 

[Bruno Marchal]

On 1 May 2019, at 12:16, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, 1 May 2019 12:15:37 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 29 Apr 2019, at 15:50, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Semantics means meaning, and meaning is something that exists in consciousness.

No problem with this.

You cannot use that for any "programming”.

But computer science is in a large part the study between the relation between program and their semantics. The machine which relate the two is the universal machine. If my computer was unable to associate some semantic to a program, this mail would never been sent to you.

Bruno

First you say that you have no problem with "semantics" meaning "meaning in consciousness”

OK. (Without making the technical nuances needed to make this entirely clear), but meaning and consciousness are deeply related, and quasi-identifiable if we take some precaution.

and 1 second later you talk about computers having semantics. What am I missing ?

That a computer can be conscious. To be sure, usually, we can build semantic for simple programs, and the computer is everything but a simple machine, so the semantic associated to a universal computer is infinitely complex, and accessible in direct way by the person associated with the computer, but in a way which it cannot communicate or prove to another. Yet, it can communicate part of it, and he can prove that it cannot prove it to another. By introspection, you can verify this on yourself, and this explain in part why people are confused with the term consciousness, because it involves the undefinable meaning of … meaning.

Bruno

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/1/2019 2:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 29 Apr 2019, at 15:50, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Semantics means meaning, and meaning is something that exists in consciousness.

No problem with this.

You cannot use that for any "programming”.

But computer science is in a large part the study between the relation between program and their semantics. The machine which relate the two is the universal machine. If my computer was unable to associate some semantic to a program, this mail would never been sent to you.

Which illustrates that meaning is a relation to environments and actions.

Brent

[Cosmin Visan]

How is a computer conscious ? Magic ? Are you even aware of the Chinese Room argument ? Are you even aware of what the phenomenon of Understanding is about ? Are you aware that consciousnesses work by Understanding ? Namely bringing new qualia into existence out of nothing ? Are you aware that a computer is just a collection of billiard balls banking into each others ? Are you aware that consciousness is a unified entity, while "computer" is not ? And so on. It seems to me that you have no understanding of consciousness whatsoever. You just randomly play with concepts and live under the impression that you talk about consciousness, when in fact since you have no understanding whatsoever of even elementary phenomenological facts, you are actually talking about anything but consciousness ? For example, are you aware that time is just a quale in consciousness, so there being no "physical time" ? If there is no physical time, you computer becomes once more what it always been: a fantasy.

I would really like you to answer all of the above questions, to see for yourself your own ignorance regarding consciousness.

[John Clark]

On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 1:13 PM 'Cosmin Visan'  <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> How is a computer conscious ?

The same way I am and perhaps you are.

>  Are you even aware of the Chinese Room argument ?

Yes, the silliest thought exparament in the history of the world, the only thing it proves is that Searle is a very bad philosopher.  

 John K Clark 

[Brent Meeker]

What ethics attempt to do is to allow an interacting social group to realize their individual values to the greatest degree possible by some measure, even though they have some conflicting values.  The problem with AI's is they may have very different values, not only from humans, but also from one another.  For example, humans value companionship of other humans.  This is a big evolutionary advantage and appears in other social animals.  But there's no reason that an AI, say built as a Mars Rover, would be provided with a desire for the companionship of another Mars Rover.  In fact we'd want them to explore independently and would provide that as a hard-wired value the way evolution provides us with a hard-wired value for sex.

In some ways this may make the problem of AI ethics easier, they may have values that don't conflict with each other  or with humans.  An AI may not care if it's turned off for a year or scrapped for parts.  But also it may not care if it has to eliminate the human race to achieve it's values.

Brent

[Quentin Anciaux]

Le mer. 1 mai 2019 à 18:13, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :

How is a computer conscious ? Magic ? Are you even aware of the Chinese Room argument ?

Yes, and how is the chinese room not conscious ? Because you have to associate it either to the dumb person acting as processor or the rules ? The chinese room as a whole information processing unit is conscious. If you ask it, it will tell you so... Prove it is not.

Quentin

[Terren Suydam]

I would argue for "pancyberpsychism" (I'm no good at naming - is there a name for that already?) which is to say that there it is something it is like to do information processing of any kind. However, the quality of the consciousness involved in that processing is related to its dynamics. So banging on a rock involves a primitive form of information processing, as vibrations ripple through the rock - there it is something it is like for that rock to be banged on. For ongoing consciousness, some sort of feedback loop must be involved. A thermostat would be a primitive example of this, or a simple oscillating electric circuit. The main idea is that consciousness is associated with cybernetic organization and has nothing to do with substrate, which might be material or virtual. 

In the Chinese Room example the cybernetic characteristics of the thought experiment lack any true feedback mechanism. This is the case with most instances of software as we know it - e.g. traditional chess engines. There is something it is like to be them, but it's not anything we would recognize in terms of ongoing subjective awareness. One could argue that operation systems (including Mars Rovers) embody the cybernetic dynamics necessary for ongoing experience, but I'd guess that what it's like to be an operating system would be pretty alien. 

With biological brains, it's all about feedback and recursivity. Small insects with rudimentary nervous systems are totally recursive, feeding sensory data in and processing it continuously. So insect consciousness is much closer to our own than ordinary Von-Neumann architecture data-processing.

As nervous systems get more complex, feeding in more data and processing data in much more sophisticated ways, the consciousness involved would likewise be experienced in a richer way.

Humans, with our intricate conceptual, language-based self-models, achieve true self-consciousness. The self-model is a quantum leap forward, giving us the ability to say "I am". The ego gets a bad rap but it's responsible for our ability to notice ourselves and live within and create ongoing narratives about what we are, in relation to what we aren't.  This explains why ego-dissolving psychedelics lead to such profound changes in consciousness.

Terren

[Quentin Anciaux]

Map lookup is a valid implementation for any program you can conceive, albeit a very ineffective one... The chinese room is such implementation... And as much as my parts are not me, i'm not the sum of my parts...

Quentin

[John Clark]

Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment is not just wrong it's STUPID. I say this because it has 3 colossal flaws, just one would render it stupid and 3 render it stupidity cubed:

1) It assumes that a small part of a system has all the properties of the entire system.

2) It assumes that slowing down consciousness would not make things strange and that strange things can not exist. Yes it's strange that a room considered as a whole can be conscious, but it would also be strange if the grey goo inside your head was slowed down by a factor of a hundred thousand million billion trillion.

3) This is the stupidest reason of the lot. Searle wants to prove that mechanical things may behave intelligently but only humans can be conscious. Searle starts by showing successfully that the Chinese Room does indeed behave intelligently, but then he concludes that no consciousness was involved in the operation of that intelligent room. How does he reach that conclusion? I will tell you. 

Searle assumes that mechanical things may behave intelligently but only humans can be conscious, and it is perfectly true that the little man is not aware of what's going on, therefore Searle concludes that consciousness was not involved in that intelligence. Searle assumes that if consciousness of Chinese exists anywhere in that room it can only be in the human and since the human is not conscious of Chinese he concludes consciousness was not involved. And by assuming the very thing he wants to prove he has only succeeded in proving that he's an idiot.

And now let me tell you about Clark's Chinese Room: You are a professor of Chinese Literature and are in a room with me and the great Chinese Philosopher and Poet Laozi. Laozi writes something in his native language on a paper and hands it to me. I walk 10 feet and give it to you. You read the paper and are impressed with the wisdom of the message and the beauty of its language. Now I tell you that I don't know a word of Chinese; can you find any deep philosophical  implications from that fact? I believe Clark's Chinese Room is every bit as profound as Searle's Chinese Room. Not very.

John K clark

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/1/2019 12:34 PM, Terren Suydam wrote:

I would argue for "pancyberpsychism" (I'm no good at naming - is there a name for that already?) which is to say that there it is something it is like to do information processing of any kind. However, the quality of the consciousness involved in that processing is related to its dynamics. So banging on a rock involves a primitive form of information processing, as vibrations ripple through the rock - there it is something it is like for that rock to be banged on. For ongoing consciousness, some sort of feedback loop must be involved. A thermostat would be a primitive example of this, or a simple oscillating electric circuit. The main idea is that consciousness is associated with cybernetic organization and has nothing to do with substrate, which might be material or virtual. 

In the Chinese Room example the cybernetic characteristics of the thought experiment lack any true feedback mechanism. This is the case with most instances of software as we know it - e.g. traditional chess engines. There is something it is like to be them, but it's not anything we would recognize in terms of ongoing subjective awareness. One could argue that operation systems (including Mars Rovers) embody the cybernetic dynamics necessary for ongoing experience, but I'd guess that what it's like to be an operating system would be pretty alien.

Yes, that's one of the things I find interesting about AI.  Human-like consciousness requires learning from memory, prediction and planning.  This means internal simulation of prospective actions.  But even within those conditions there could be a lot of variations.  For example, human memory involves a lot confabulation, as shown by many experiments.  This obviously conserves memory since only key things are actually stored in a narrative and a lot of a memory is reconstructed.   An AI Mars Rover wouldn't necessarily work this way.  Electronic memories can be much bigger and still have reasonable access times.  So an AI might simply have everything recorded.  So what would it be like to an AI Mars Rover with many more kinds of sensory systems and eidetic memory?

Brent

With biological brains, it's all about feedback and recursivity. Small insects with rudimentary nervous systems are totally recursive, feeding sensory data in and processing it continuously. So insect consciousness is much closer to our own than ordinary Von-Neumann architecture data-processing.

As nervous systems get more complex, feeding in more data and processing data in much more sophisticated ways, the consciousness involved would likewise be experienced in a richer way.

Humans, with our intricate conceptual, language-based self-models, achieve true self-consciousness. The self-model is a quantum leap forward, giving us the ability to say "I am". The ego gets a bad rap but it's responsible for our ability to notice ourselves and live within and create ongoing narratives about what we are, in relation to what we aren't.  This explains why ego-dissolving psychedelics lead to such profound changes in consciousness.

Terren

On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 3:02 PM Quentin Anciaux <allc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Le mer. 1 mai 2019 à 18:13, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :

How is a computer conscious ? Magic ? Are you even aware of the Chinese Room argument ?

Yes, and how is the chinese room not conscious ? Because you have to associate it either to the dumb person acting as processor or the rules ? The chinese room as a whole information processing unit is conscious. If you ask it, it will tell you so... Prove it is not.

Quentin

[cloud...@gmail.com]

I would say that one could have a Jupiter planet-sized network of Intel® Core™ processors + whatever distributed program running on it, and it will not be conscious. 

It is not composed of the kind of matter needed for consciousness, which could include biochemical alternatives.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry

@philipthrift

 

[John Clark]

On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 7:24 PM <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I would say that one could have a Jupiter planet-sized network of Intel® Core™ processors + whatever distributed program running on it, and it will not be conscious. It is not composed of the kind of matter needed for consciousness, which could include biochemical alternatives.

Your theory, which you offer without a single particle of evidence, is that dry and hard things can be intelligent and even super intelligent but only wet and squishy things can be conscious. My theory, which has exactly as much supporting evidence as your theory, is that only people with a size 13 shoe size are conscious. Guess what my shoe size is.  

John K Clark

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/1/2019 4:24 PM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:
> I would say that one could have a Jupiter planet-sized network of
> Intel® Core™ processors + whatever distributed program running on it,
> and it will not be conscious.

Based on what?  Human hubris?

Brent

[cloud...@gmail.com]

A racist is [via Google definition] "a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another".

I'm not that, but I do think that different types of matter have different capabilities (as materials scientists do).

I am a materialist.

On the other hand, the  new materialists [ https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/mirroring-and-mattering-science-politics-and-the-new-feminist-materialism/ ]

reconceptualize “the terms of social theory, such that the social is seen as a part of, rather than distinct from, the natural, an undertaking that requires a rethinking of the natural too.” In this newly monist view, the proper response to the threat of biological determinism — the claim that biology is destiny or that our fate lies in our genes — is not to reject the natural sciences and assert the primacy of the social, nor indeed to treat the world as text, but rather to grasp the inseparability of the “bio” and the “social,” as captured in the word “biosocial.” In place of a linguistic process of representing the world, the new materialism proposes “mattering” as the generative process through which matter comes into being. 

Material stuff — bodies, tools, objects — are understood as imbued with vitality and dynamic force. 

This is a philosophical claim, but one that entails a political sensibility. And while materialism is a venerable school of thought, this conception of “mattering” seems, as I have suggested, very much of the moment.

@philipthrift

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/2/2019 12:58 AM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

On Wednesday, May 1, 2019 at 7:10:03 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 5/1/2019 4:24 PM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:
> I would say that one could have a Jupiter planet-sized network of
> Intel® Core™ processors + whatever distributed program running on it,
> and it will not be conscious.

Based on what?  Human hubris?

Brent

A racist is [via Google definition] "a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another".

I'm not that, but I do think that different types of matter have different capabilities (as materials scientists do).

Is there a type that is different from quarks and leptons?

I am a materialist.

Except you imbue matter with properties that are undetectable.  You place emphasis on matter having experience, but that seems like a half-measure to me.  Why not go all the way and say that it has libertarian free will too.

Brent

On the other hand, the  new materialists [ https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/mirroring-and-mattering-science-politics-and-the-new-feminist-materialism/ ]

reconceptualize “the terms of social theory, such that the social is seen as a part of, rather than distinct from, the natural, an undertaking that requires a rethinking of the natural too.” In this newly monist view, the proper response to the threat of biological determinism — the claim that biology is destiny or that our fate lies in our genes — is not to reject the natural sciences and assert the primacy of the social, nor indeed to treat the world as text, but rather to grasp the inseparability of the “bio” and the “social,” as captured in the word “biosocial.” In place of a linguistic process of representing the world, the new materialism proposes “mattering” as the generative process through which matter comes into being. 

Material stuff — bodies, tools, objects — are understood as imbued with vitality and dynamic force. 

This is a philosophical claim, but one that entails a political sensibility. And while materialism is a venerable school of thought, this conception of “mattering” seems, as I have suggested, very much of the moment.

@philipthrift

[Bruno Marchal]

Practically yes, but “of course”, theoretically, when assuming mechanism, there is no “ontologically material” environment, just long and complex histories/computations. The plausible stable environment is given by the statistics on the infinitely many computations (realised in arithmetic) going through our states.

Bruno

Brent

[Bruno Marchal]

On 1 May 2019, at 19:13, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

How is a computer conscious ? Magic ? Are you even aware of the Chinese Room argument ?

Of course. I even wrote a paper on it, but then Hofstadter and Dennett have been quicker than me. Searle made a gross level confusion error, obligatory from his belief that it is the physical activity of the brain which makes consciousness. 

The computer, in the 3p sense is NOT conscious. Only a (first) person is conscious. The computer just delineate the flux of the consciousness. The brain just select the consciousness, which differentiate on all variants of it in all computations (which are realised in arithmetic).

Are you even aware of what the phenomenon of Understanding is about ?

That is too much vague to me.

Are you aware that consciousnesses work by Understanding ?

Depends on the definition involved.

Namely bringing new qualia into existence out of nothing ?

No. This I do not understand. Unless it is a sort of analogy perhaps?

Are you aware that a computer is just a collection of billiard balls banking into each others ?

Sure. Even a bunch of true arithmetical relations.

Are you aware that consciousness is a unified entity, while "computer" is not ?

Consciousness can be felt as unified, and can be unified in some sense, but I can hardly imagine a computer not being a unified notion, even if it has multiple parts. None are Turing universal, but the whole is.

And so on. It seems to me that you have no understanding of consciousness whatsoever. You just randomly play with concepts and live under the impression that you talk about consciousness, when in fact since you have no understanding whatsoever of even elementary phenomenological facts, you are actually talking about anything but consciousness ?

Not only I am aware of the phenomenology, but I explain in all details why computer, more exactly the person attached to the computer (and infinitely many other in arithmetic) get a phenomenology, and find it as mysterious as us, but get the “correct” (assuming mechanism) theory soon or later. My theory is not mine. I just expose the theory already given by the machine.

For example, are you aware that time is just a quale in consciousness, so there being no "physical time" ? If there is no physical time, you computer becomes once more what it always been: a fantasy.

There are many notion of time, and yes, most are explained by some mode of self-reference. The first-person (meta-described by the Theaetetus idea (the standard theory of knowledge by philosophers)) []p&p explains a notion of subjective duration, close to Goethe, Bergson and Brouwer, and the []p & <>t gives a plausible physical notion of time. But the “time” of the universal dovetailer is simply given by the successor operation on the natural numbers.

I would really like you to answer all of the above questions, to see for yourself your own ignorance regarding consciousness.

You are the ne who seem not having study my papers. It answers already all your questions, in all details.

Bruno

On Wednesday, 1 May 2019 19:41:14 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote:

That a computer can be conscious.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 1 May 2019, at 21:41, Quentin Anciaux <allc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Map lookup is a valid implementation for any program you can conceive, albeit a very ineffective one…

?

An implementation must be finite. For most programs, to implement them with a look up table would need an infinite look up table.

Bruno

[Quentin Anciaux]

Any finite execution trace can be replaced by a finite lookup map. So it is always finite. So up to N steps you can implements with a finite lookup table. Unless you have an infinite execution you have to have an infinite lookup table...but you can approximate the execution with a finite lookup table up to N steps... To fill it, you have to execute a correct implementation in the first place. 

[cloud...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 10:52:50 AM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 5/2/2019 12:58 AM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

On Wednesday, May 1, 2019 at 7:10:03 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 5/1/2019 4:24 PM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:
> I would say that one could have a Jupiter planet-sized network of
> Intel® Core™ processors + whatever distributed program running on it,
> and it will not be conscious.

Based on what?  Human hubris?

Brent

A racist is [via Google definition] "a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another".

I'm not that, but I do think that different types of matter have different capabilities (as materials scientists do).

Is there a type that is different from quarks and leptons?

Apparently matter is not "reducible" to just the physics a couple of particles.

Phases  of matter is a mystery:

   https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-aim-to-classify-all-possible-phases-of-matter-20180103/

    https://news.stonybrook.edu/oncampus/simons-center-lecture-on-new-electronic-phases-of-matter-may-8/

     https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/04/new-phase-matter-confirmed-solid-and-liquid-same-time-potassium-physics/

No one can say except via the certainty of fundamentalist religion that all of chemistry, biochemistry, biology, neurobiology can be reduced to the physics of a few particles.

 

I am a materialist.

Except you imbue matter with properties that are undetectable.  You place emphasis on matter having experience, but that seems like a half-measure to me.  Why not go all the way and say that it has libertarian free will too.

Brent

Consciousness itself - my 'self'  - is detected.

Galen Strawson (on free will):

via http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/strawsong/

"[T]he best way to try to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the free will debate, and of the reason why it is interminable, is to study the thing that keeps it going — our experience of freedom. Because this experience is something real, complex, and important, even if free will itself is not real. Because it may be that the experience of freedom is really all there is, so far as free will is concerned.* [footnote *] It may then be said that free will is real after all, because the reality of free will resides precisely in the reality of the experience of being free."

(on consciousness):

Consciousness Never Left

https://www.academia.edu/35683187/Consciousness_Never_Left

"... So there is no mystery of consciousness. What we do not understand, what we find a mystery [(that is, matter)], is how conscious experience can be simply a matter of goings-on in the brain. But this is not because we do not know what consciousness is. It is because we do not know how to relate the things we know about the brain, when we use the language of physics and neurophysiology, to the things we know about the brain simply in having conscious experience – whose nature we know simply in having it."

@philipthrift

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/2/2019 11:39 AM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

On Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 10:52:50 AM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 5/2/2019 12:58 AM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

On Wednesday, May 1, 2019 at 7:10:03 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 5/1/2019 4:24 PM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:
> I would say that one could have a Jupiter planet-sized network of
> Intel® Core™ processors + whatever distributed program running on it,
> and it will not be conscious.

Based on what?  Human hubris?

Brent

A racist is [via Google definition] "a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another".

I'm not that, but I do think that different types of matter have different capabilities (as materials scientists do).

Is there a type that is different from quarks and leptons?

Apparently matter is not "reducible" to just the physics a couple of particles.

Then you're not a materialist.  You think there is matter plus something else, that everyone calls "mind", but you're going to call it "matter" and add it to everyone else's list of matter so you can still call yourself a materialist.

Phases  of matter is a mystery:

   https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-aim-to-classify-all-possible-phases-of-matter-20180103/

    https://news.stonybrook.edu/oncampus/simons-center-lecture-on-new-electronic-phases-of-matter-may-8/

     https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/04/new-phase-matter-confirmed-solid-and-liquid-same-time-potassium-physics/

No one can say except via the certainty of fundamentalist religion that all of chemistry, biochemistry, biology, neurobiology can be reduced to the physics of a few particles.

 

I am a materialist.

Except you imbue matter with properties that are undetectable.  You place emphasis on matter having experience, but that seems like a half-measure to me.  Why not go all the way and say that it has libertarian free will too.

Brent

Consciousness itself - my 'self'  - is detected.

Galen Strawson (on free will):

via http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/strawsong/

"[T]he best way to try to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the free will debate, and of the reason why it is interminable, is to study the thing that keeps it going — our experience of freedom. Because this experience is something real, complex, and important, even if free will itself is not real. Because it may be that the experience of freedom is really all there is, so far as free will is concerned.* [footnote *] It may then be said that free will is real after all, because the reality of free will resides precisely in the reality of the experience of being free."

And the "experience of being free" consists entirely of your inability to reliabilty predict what you will do.

Brent

(on consciousness):

Consciousness Never Left

https://www.academia.edu/35683187/Consciousness_Never_Left

"... So there is no mystery of consciousness. What we do not understand, what we find a mystery [(that is, matter)], is how conscious experience can be simply a matter of goings-on in the brain. But this is not because we do not know what consciousness is. It is because we do not know how to relate the things we know about the brain, when we use the language of physics and neurophysiology, to the things we know about the brain simply in having conscious experience – whose nature we know simply in having it."

@philipthrift

 

On the other hand, the  new materialists [ https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/mirroring-and-mattering-science-politics-and-the-new-feminist-materialism/ ]

reconceptualize “the terms of social theory, such that the social is seen as a part of, rather than distinct from, the natural, an undertaking that requires a rethinking of the natural too.” In this newly monist view, the proper response to the threat of biological determinism — the claim that biology is destiny or that our fate lies in our genes — is not to reject the natural sciences and assert the primacy of the social, nor indeed to treat the world as text, but rather to grasp the inseparability of the “bio” and the “social,” as captured in the word “biosocial.” In place of a linguistic process of representing the world, the new materialism proposes “mattering” as the generative process through which matter comes into being. 

Material stuff — bodies, tools, objects — are understood as imbued with vitality and dynamic force. 

This is a philosophical claim, but one that entails a political sensibility. And while materialism is a venerable school of thought, this conception of “mattering” seems, as I have suggested, very much of the moment.

@philipthrift

[cloud...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 5:37:26 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 5/2/2019 11:39 AM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

Apparently matter is not "reducible" to just the physics a couple of particles.

Then you're not a materialist.  You think there is matter plus something else, that everyone calls "mind", but you're going to call it "matter" and add it to everyone else's list of matter so you can still call yourself a materialist.

Brent

But everything reducing to the physics of particles is thought of as physicalism (not materialism):

Physicalism and materialism  

Reductive physicalism...is normally assumed to be incompatible with panpsychism. Materialism, if held to be distinct from physicalism, is compatible with panpsychism insofar as mental properties are attributed to physical matter, which is the only basic substance.

[Wikipedia]

This is "hard-nosed materialism", or "real materialism" (Galen Strawson).

I am not a physicalist. I am a (real) materialist.

The mind+matter thing is perhaps the worst idea ever invented.

@philipthrift 

 

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/2/2019 4:55 PM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

On Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 5:37:26 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 5/2/2019 11:39 AM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

Apparently matter is not "reducible" to just the physics a couple of particles.

Then you're not a materialist.  You think there is matter plus something else, that everyone calls "mind", but you're going to call it "matter" and add it to everyone else's list of matter so you can still call yourself a materialist.

Brent

But everything reducing to the physics of particles is thought of as physicalism (not materialism):

Physicalism and materialism  

Reductive physicalism...is normally assumed to be incompatible with panpsychism. Materialism, if held to be distinct from physicalism, is compatible with panpsychism insofar as mental properties

What mental properties?  intention?  reflection? remembering?  That's what I mean by saying attributing "experience" to matter is an unprincipled half-measure.

Brent

[cloud...@gmail.com]

Brains are matter, just as livers, legs, trees, tables, rocks, comets, planets, stars, cockroaches, galaxies, bacteria  .. are matter.

Brains produce intentions, reflections, remembrances, ... .

So (at least some) matter of the cosmos has psychical (mental) properties.

The body+mind idea, the idea that mind is something separate from body, is perhaps the worst idea ever invented.

@philipthrift

[Terren Suydam]

One way to get around this is to hold that consciousness is associated with the way information is processed. This is substrate independent - the fact that a brain is physical is beside the point. You could implement a brain in software, and insofar as the same kinds of information processing occur, it would be conscious in the same kind of way.

I find this idea compelling because it makes the link between brains and consciousness without requiring matter, and provides a framework for understanding consciousnesses of other kinds of machines.  All that's required is to assume there is something it is like for computation to occur.

Terren

--

[cloud...@gmail.com]

The general response here is that there has never existed a program that has executed outside a computer. And computers are made of matter.

Now one can  generalize "computer": There were things like the abacus and slide rule, that executed "programs". Or one executes programs in the head (so to speak). But this is the brain,. Again, matter. Or one takes one's hand and a pencil or pen and executes a program on a piece of paper.  Again. all matter 

Now one can watch a movie (like 2001 with the HAL 9000)  or read a book of fiction where there is a program running on a some computer. But this is a fictional story.

One can imagine a program running on an imaginary computer, but this imagining is all done in the brain. Matter.

But give me an example of a program running in a "matter free" environment: No brains, hands, pencils, computers, abacuses, slide rules, around.

Is it like some ghost out on its own in some immaterial realm?

@philipthift

[Terren Suydam]

What happened to "only brains can be conscious"? 

Are you familiar with virtual machines?  Machines simulated in software?

[Brent Meeker]

I think that is right.  But when you consider some simplified cases, e.g. a computation written out on paper (or Bruno's movie graph) it becomes apparent that consciousness must ultimately refer to other things.  Much is made of "self-awareness" but this is usually just having an internal model of one's body, or social standing or some other model of the self.  It is not consciousness of consciousness...that is only a temporal reflection: "I was conscious just now."  In general terms we could say consciousness is awareness of the evironment, where that includes one's body.  Damasio identifies emotions as awareness of the bodies state.  The point is that the stuff of which we are aware and which we find agreement with other people's awareness is what we infer to be the physical world.  It might be possible to be conscious in some sense without a physical world, but it would be qualitatively different.

Brent

[cloud...@gmail.com]

All software that has ever run has run on computers made of materials and assembled in factories.

There is no spiritual/heavenly realm - as fat as I know - where software is running.

Can you show me such a place? Have you seen it?

@philipthrift

[Terren Suydam]

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 1:10 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I think that is right.  But when you consider some simplified cases, e.g. a computation written out on paper (or Bruno's movie graph) it becomes apparent that consciousness must ultimately refer to other things. 

Right, the movie graph argument shows that consciousness doesn't supervene on physical computation. Nevertheless, the character of my consciousness still corresponds with the kind of cybernetic system implemented by e.g. my brain and body, as instantiated by the infinity of programs going through my state.

 

Much is made of "self-awareness" but this is usually just having an internal model of one's body, or social standing or some other model of the self.  It is not consciousness of consciousness...that is only a temporal reflection: "I was conscious just now." 

I see it a little differently. The self-model/ego is a higher-order construct that organizes the system in a holistic way. We take this for granted - it's the water we swim in - but our minds are radically re-organized as children by the taught narrative that we have an identity and this unitary identity is the cause of our behavior (when the evidence shows that we merely rationalize our behavior in terms of that narrative). Point being, the way the cybernetic system is organized takes a quantum leap in complexity as a result - and this is responsible for the subjective awareness of ourselves as people. 

In the dream state (except for lucid dreaming), our self-model is not energized - ongoing experience in dreams is not organized in terms of that narrative of being someone. When lucid dreaming begins, it is because we can say "I am dreaming", which is to say that the self-model becomes active. In that moment, the character of that dream consciousness changes dramatically.

 

In general terms we could say consciousness is awareness of the evironment, where that includes one's body.  Damasio identifies emotions as awareness of the bodies state.  The point is that the stuff of which we are aware and which we find agreement with other people's awareness is what we infer to be the physical world.  It might be possible to be conscious in some sense without a physical world, but it would be qualitatively different.

Yes. However, it's not clear what it would mean for a conscious agent to experience something that wasn't a "physical" world, even if the environment was completely virtual. The Matrix illustrates that nicely.

Terren

[cloud...@gmail.com]

Consciousness "executing" in an immaterial (nonphysical) realm is what Christians call Heaven. God made this place.

Mormons have a more material afterlife idea, I think.

@philipthrift

[Terren Suydam]

You should check out Bruno's Universal-Dovetailer-Argument (UDA). It shows that inasmuch as you believe your brain could substituted by an artificial one, the physical world must therefore be generated by computation. If so, all computation exists in a timeless mathematical reality, and our experience of the world is an instantiation of some infinite subset of that computation. It's a view of the arithmetical world from the inside.

[cloud...@gmail.com]

If "consciousness doesn't supervene on physical [or material] computation" then does that mean there is realm for (A) consciousness and one for (B) physical [or material] computation?

Is A like some spirit or ghost that invades the domain of B? Or does B invade A?

@philipthrift

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[cloud...@gmail.com]

Re: " timeless mathematical reality"

    there are no such things as mathematical objects

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fictionalism-mathematics/

cf. https://www.iep.utm.edu/mathfict/

@philipthrift

[Terren Suydam]

I see them as two sides of the same coin - as in, you don't get one without the other.

[Terren Suydam]

The argument assumes mathematical realism. It's not much of an assumption, and it has an intuitive appeal. Do we create properties of numbers or discover them?  It seems more natural to me that we discover them, but reasonable people could argue.

Asserting "there are no such things as mathematical objects" is itself an assumption. The question is, what's the price you pay by making the assumptions you must make to articulate a theory of everything?

--

[cloud...@gmail.com]

I see the coin made (as the ones lying on my desk right now made of metal) of matter.

The two sides of the coin (of matter) are physical and psychical:

https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2019/01/22/matter-gets-psyched/

If ὕ – the first Greek letter for “hyle”, upsilon (υ) with diacritics dasia and oxia (U+1F55) – is used for the symbol of matter, φ (phi) for physical, + ψ (psi) for psychical, then

           ὕ = φ + ψ

 

(i.e., the combination of physical and psychical properties is a more complete view of what matter is). The physical is the (quantitative) behavioral aspect of matter – the kind that is formulated in mathematical language in current physics, for example – whereas the psychical is the (qualitative) experiential aspect of matter, at various levels, from brains on down. There is no reason in principle for only φ to the considered by science and for ψ to be ignored by science.

@philipthrift

[Jason Resch]

On Thu, May 2, 2019 at 2:58 AM <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, May 1, 2019 at 7:10:03 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 5/1/2019 4:24 PM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:
> I would say that one could have a Jupiter planet-sized network of
> Intel® Core™ processors + whatever distributed program running on it,
> and it will not be conscious.

Based on what?  Human hubris?

Brent

A racist is [via Google definition] "a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another".

I'm not that, but I do think that different types of matter have different capabilities (as materials scientists do).

Are you familiar with the Fading Qualia thought experiment: http://www.consc.net/papers/qualia.html ?

If so I am very interested to know what your conclusions on it are.  I.e., what would someone feel/experience/say as their bio neurons are gradually replaced with artificial silicon neurons?

Jason

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/3/2019 11:44 AM, Terren Suydam wrote:

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 1:10 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I think that is right.  But when you consider some simplified cases, e.g. a computation written out on paper (or Bruno's movie graph) it becomes apparent that consciousness must ultimately refer to other things. 

Right, the movie graph argument shows that consciousness doesn't supervene on physical computation. Nevertheless, the character of my consciousness still corresponds with the kind of cybernetic system implemented by e.g. my brain and body, as instantiated by the infinity of programs going through my state.

What makes it "your state"?  It's just a bunch of programs. Why those programs and not others?

 

Much is made of "self-awareness" but this is usually just having an internal model of one's body, or social standing or some other model of the self.  It is not consciousness of consciousness...that is only a temporal reflection: "I was conscious just now." 

I see it a little differently. The self-model/ego is a higher-order construct that organizes the system in a holistic way.

? That sounds like a kind of dualism.  You're postulating something that creates a "higher-order construct".  If you're following Bruno's idea things have to just come out of the UD threads.  There's nothing to create anything more.

We take this for granted - it's the water we swim in - but our minds are radically re-organized as children by the taught narrative that we have an identity

You don't have teach a kid he has an identity.  He knows who's hungry.  He has a view point.

Brent

[Jason Resch]

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 1:44 PM <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:

All software that has ever run has run on computers made of materials and assembled in factories.

There is no spiritual/heavenly realm - as fat as I know - where software is running.

Can you show me such a place? Have you seen it?

The idea that "If I can't see it, it doesn't exist" served us well on the savanna, but it betrays us when we consider the ultimate extent of reality.

Jason

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/3/2019 12:00 PM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

If "consciousness doesn't supervene on physical [or material] computation" then does that mean there is realm for (A) consciousness and one for (B) physical [or material] computation?

No, the theory is that all possible computations (the UD) exist and they instantiate all conscious thoughts, including those we call perception of an external reality.   There isn't anymore to reality; it's just the statistical regularities among the different threads of the UD.  At least that's Bruno's idea.

Brent

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.

[Terren Suydam]

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 4:19 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On 5/3/2019 11:44 AM, Terren Suydam wrote:

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 1:10 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I think that is right.  But when you consider some simplified cases, e.g. a computation written out on paper (or Bruno's movie graph) it becomes apparent that consciousness must ultimately refer to other things. 

Right, the movie graph argument shows that consciousness doesn't supervene on physical computation. Nevertheless, the character of my consciousness still corresponds with the kind of cybernetic system implemented by e.g. my brain and body, as instantiated by the infinity of programs going through my state.

What makes it "your state"?  It's just a bunch of programs. Why those programs and not others?

It's the set of programs that implements the body/brain used to construct my inner world.

 

Much is made of "self-awareness" but this is usually just having an internal model of one's body, or social standing or some other model of the self.  It is not consciousness of consciousness...that is only a temporal reflection: "I was conscious just now." 

I see it a little differently. The self-model/ego is a higher-order construct that organizes the system in a holistic way.

? That sounds like a kind of dualism.  You're postulating something that creates a "higher-order construct".  If you're following Bruno's idea things have to just come out of the UD threads.  There's nothing to create anything more.

For the self-image construct, I mean 'construct' in the same way that anything we learn is a construct. The self-image represents a higher-order construct on top of the types of constructs that, say, a dog might employ. A dog has a self-image of a certain type, but with humans (for whom I'll call the self-image 'ego' to differentiate from animal self-image), the ego's construction is conceptual and requires language. The ego is a narrative, and that narrative acts to organize the system as a whole.

 

We take this for granted - it's the water we swim in - but our minds are radically re-organized as children by the taught narrative that we have an identity

You don't have teach a kid he has an identity.  He knows who's hungry.  He has a view point.

Just like a dog. But a kid knows his name (learned) and can answer the question, "why did you do that?". The answer to that question is also largely learned. We are told who to be, what's right, wrong, appropriate, taboo, etc., for the culture we grow up in. IOW why I do something is filtered through learned cultural constructs. Most of the time the answer amounts to a justification in terms of what's appropriate, logical, or some other descriptor that benefits me in some way relative to the implicit values I'm socialized to.  This form of self-image is of a higher order than whatever self-image my dog has. 

Terren

[Terren Suydam]

My question for panpsychists is similar to my question for Cosmin: what does it buy you in terms of explanations or predictions?

Just blanket-asserting that all matter is conscious doesn't tell me anything about consciousness itself. For example, what would it mean for my fingernails to be conscious?  Does my fingernail consciousness factor in somehow to my own experience of consciousness?  If so, how? What about all the other parts of my body, about individual cells?  Does the bacteria living in my body contribute its consciousness somehow? It quickly runs aground on the same rocks that arguments about "soul" do - there's no principled way to talk about it that elucidates relationships between brains, bodies, and minds. Panpsychism does nothing to explain the effect of drugs on consciousness, or brain damage. Like Cosmin's ideas, it's all just post-hoc rationalization. Panpsychism is the philosophical equivalent of throwing your hands up and saying "I dunno, I guess it's all conscious somehow!"

What I'm suggesting posits that consciousness arises from the cybernetic organization of a system, that what the system experiences, as a whole, is identified with the informational-dynamics captured by that organization. This yields explanations for the character of a given system's consciousness... something panpsychism cannot do.

Terren

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[cloud...@gmail.com]

I've found David Chalmers a bit hard to digest. He seems to keep jumping around on what he thinks consciousness is (from the 1990s to soon-to-be 2020s).  As Philip Goff said (via a Twitter response), he has one type of view on panpsychism or consciousness Monday-Wednesday and another the rest of the week. 

Synthetic neurons (polymer-based) are in the science news of course. Replacing one's original neurons with these (w/similar chemical abilities) seems doable.

@philipthrift

[cloud...@gmail.com]

On Friday, May 3, 2019 at 3:26:26 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 5/3/2019 12:00 PM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:

If "consciousness doesn't supervene on physical [or material] computation" then does that mean there is realm for (A) consciousness and one for (B) physical [or material] computation?

No, the theory is that all possible computations (the UD) exist and they instantiate all conscious thoughts, including those we call perception of an external reality.   There isn't anymore to reality; it's just the statistical regularities among the different threads of the UD.  At least that's Bruno's idea.

Brent

There could be UD-computing that is being executed by the brain. One can't rule this out a priori.

I just say if so, it is being executed in a material substrate - the brain!

There is no heavenly realm where UD-computing is churning away.

 

@philipthrift

[Jason Resch]

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 3:50 PM <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Friday, May 3, 2019 at 3:19:00 PM UTC-5, Jason wrote:

On Thu, May 2, 2019 at 2:58 AM <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, May 1, 2019 at 7:10:03 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 5/1/2019 4:24 PM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:
> I would say that one could have a Jupiter planet-sized network of
> Intel® Core™ processors + whatever distributed program running on it,
> and it will not be conscious.

Based on what?  Human hubris?

Brent

A racist is [via Google definition] "a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another".

I'm not that, but I do think that different types of matter have different capabilities (as materials scientists do).

Are you familiar with the Fading Qualia thought experiment: http://www.consc.net/papers/qualia.html ?

If so I am very interested to know what your conclusions on it are.  I.e., what would someone feel/experience/say as their bio neurons are gradually replaced with artificial silicon neurons?

Jason

I've found David Chalmers a bit hard to digest. He seems to keep jumping around on what he thinks consciousness is (from the 1990s to soon-to-be 2020s). 

You can ignore anything he may have said before or sense and consider just what is written in the "Fading Qualia" experiment, which is described on that link.

 

As Philip Goff said (via a Twitter response), he has one type of view on panpsychism or consciousness Monday-Wednesday and another the rest of the week. 

Synthetic neurons (polymer-based) are in the science news of course. Replacing one's original neurons with these (w/similar chemical abilities) seems doable.

So would a person with 1 artificial neuron still be conscious? What if 10% were replaced? What if 51% were replaced, what if 99% were artificial, what if all but 1 biological neuron was left?

Jason

[Jason Resch]

Why are you so sure of this? Do you know the full extent of reality?

Jason

[cloud...@gmail.com]

There is a whole spectrum of panpsychisms (plural) - from micropsychism to cosmophychism:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/

cf. https://www.iep.utm.edu/panpsych/

That is not a "real science" yet is its basic problem of course. But consciousness science in general really isn't yet either.

One would think there would be a group of theoretical psychologists - there is theoretical physics, chemistry, and biology, but theoretical psychology is in a much weirder state - who would be involved.

@philipthrift

[John Clark]

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 2:44 PM <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Now one can  generalize "computer":  

Turing could and did generalize a computer and did so way back in 1935. That's why he's famous, ...well for that and for breaking the German Enigma code. 

> All software that has ever run has run on computers made of materials and assembled in factories.

That's not true for all software. DNA is software and it's run on ribosomes made of materials assembled in cells.  And a racist judges somebody not by their actions or the content of their character but by some trivial characteristic, for some it's if the skin is black or white, for others it's if the brain is wet and squishy or dry and hard.  

 John K Clark

[Terren Suydam]

Panpsychism of any flavor that identifies matter with a psychic aspect is subject to the problems I described earlier. 

It never occurred to me to google something like "theoretical psychology" but there's a lot there. How much of it is interesting, I don't know. 

I think as we flesh out the connectome, theoretical psychology will take on more legitimacy and importance.

[cloud...@gmail.com]

Well we know some matter has a psychical aspect: human brains.

Unless one is a consciousness denier.

- https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/13/the-consciousness-deniers/

@philipthrift

[Terren Suydam]

Then you're missing the point of the alternative I've been offering. It's not about the matter itself, it's about the cybernetic dynamics implemented in the matter. So I would predict that you could replace your brain neuron by neuron with functional equivalents and your consciousness wouldn't change, so long as the cybernetics were unchanged.

[cloud...@gmail.com]

I don't believe in the "functional equivalence" principle

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_(philosophy_of_mind)

as it does not capture the nature of what is needed for consciousness (as many critics - some listed there - have pointed out).

If I had to pick something vs. "cybernetic dynamics" it would be "neurochemical dynamics". That seems closer to me.

@philipthrift

[John Clark]

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 7:50 PM <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't believe in the "functional equivalence" principle

If you don't believe in that then logically you must believe you are the only conscious being in the universe.

John K Clark 

 

[cloud...@gmail.com]

As you see in the article on functionalism:

    Functionalism developed largely as an alternative to identity theory ...

which is at least in the same ballpark as my view.

@philipthrift

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/3/2019 1:35 PM, Terren Suydam wrote:

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 4:19 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On 5/3/2019 11:44 AM, Terren Suydam wrote:

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 1:10 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I think that is right.  But when you consider some simplified cases, e.g. a computation written out on paper (or Bruno's movie graph) it becomes apparent that consciousness must ultimately refer to other things. 

Right, the movie graph argument shows that consciousness doesn't supervene on physical computation. Nevertheless, the character of my consciousness still corresponds with the kind of cybernetic system implemented by e.g. my brain and body, as instantiated by the infinity of programs going through my state.

What makes it "your state"?  It's just a bunch of programs. Why those programs and not others?

It's the set of programs that implements the body/brain used to construct my inner world.

But that doesn't explain why there is such a thing as "your inner world" that is separate from "my inner world".  Why don't the programs produce overlapping or mixing "inner worlds".

 

Much is made of "self-awareness" but this is usually just having an internal model of one's body, or social standing or some other model of the self.  It is not consciousness of consciousness...that is only a temporal reflection: "I was conscious just now." 

I see it a little differently. The self-model/ego is a higher-order construct that organizes the system in a holistic way.

? That sounds like a kind of dualism.  You're postulating something that creates a "higher-order construct".  If you're following Bruno's idea things have to just come out of the UD threads.  There's nothing to create anything more.

For the self-image construct, I mean 'construct' in the same way that anything we learn is a construct. The self-image represents a higher-order construct on top of the types of constructs that, say, a dog might employ. A dog has a self-image of a certain type, but with humans (for whom I'll call the self-image 'ego' to differentiate from animal self-image), the ego's construction is conceptual and requires language. The ego is a narrative, and that narrative acts to organize the system as a whole.

 

We take this for granted - it's the water we swim in - but our minds are radically re-organized as children by the taught narrative that we have an identity

You don't have teach a kid he has an identity.  He knows who's hungry.  He has a view point.

Just like a dog. But a kid knows his name (learned) and can answer the question, "why did you do that?". The answer to that question is also largely learned. We are told who to be, what's right, wrong, appropriate, taboo, etc., for the culture we grow up in. IOW why I do something is filtered through learned cultural constructs. Most of the time the answer amounts to a justification in terms of what's appropriate, logical, or some other descriptor that benefits me in some way relative to the implicit values I'm socialized to.  This form of self-image is of a higher order than whatever self-image my dog has.

I don't disagree with any of that, but I don't see that any of it is entailed by there being the infinite programs of the UD.

Brent

[Brent Meeker]

The question is whether there is a realm consisting of arithmetic.

Brent

[cloud...@gmail.com]

I'm not a believer in either a realm of spirits (like Heaven*) or a realm of arithmetics.

A realm of arithmetics would be ontologically like a realm of fiction (like the Marvel Universe**).

* [Wikipedia] Heaven, or the heavens, is a common religious, cosmological, or transcendent place where beings such as gods, angels, spirits, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or live. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to earth or incarnate, and earthly beings can ascend to heaven in the afterlife, or in exceptional cases enter heaven alive.  

** [Wikipedia] The Marvel Universe is a fictional universe where the stories in most American comic book titles and other media published by Marvel Comics take place. Super-teams such as the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Defenders, the Inhumans, the New Warriors, the Nova Corps and other Marvel superheroes live in this universe, including characters such as Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Captain America, Daredevil, Wolverine, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, Blade, Ghost Rider, the Punisher, Deadpool, Silver Surfer, Nova, Moon Knight and numerous others. The Marvel Universe is further depicted as existing within a "multiverse" consisting of thousands of separate universes, all of which are the creations of Marvel Comics and all of which are, in a sense, "Marvel universes". In this context, "Marvel Universe" is taken to refer to the mainstream Marvel continuity, which is known as Earth-616 or currently as Earth Prime.

@philipthrift

[Terren Suydam]

Maybe you could tell me what specific criticism you have rather than quoting a wikipedia article. 

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 7:50 PM <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:

[John Clark]

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 8:19 PM <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:

> As you see in the article on functionalism:

Functionalism developed largely as an alternative to identity theory ...

which is at least in the same ballpark as my view.

Just tell me if you believe you're the only conscious being in the universe and if not why not.

John K Clark

[Terren Suydam]

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 8:28 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

What makes it "your state"?  It's just a bunch of programs. Why those programs and not others?

It's the set of programs that implements the body/brain used to construct my inner world.

But that doesn't explain why there is such a thing as "your inner world" that is separate from "my inner world".  Why don't the programs produce overlapping or mixing "inner worlds".

My inner world is constructed from the signals originating inside my body, not yours or anyone else's. My consciousness corresponds with the activity happening inside my brain, not yours. 

 

 Just like a dog. But a kid knows his name (learned) and can answer the question, "why did you do that?". The answer to that question is also largely learned. We are told who to be, what's right, wrong, appropriate, taboo, etc., for the culture we grow up in. IOW why I do something is filtered through learned cultural constructs. Most of the time the answer amounts to a justification in terms of what's appropriate, logical, or some other descriptor that benefits me in some way relative to the implicit values I'm socialized to.  This form of self-image is of a higher order than whatever self-image my dog has. 

I don't disagree with any of that, but I don't see that any of it is entailed by there being the infinite programs of the UD.

Yeah, I agree. The UDA assumes consciousness. The AUDA argument formalizes a notion of qualia, but the machines involved there are too simple to say anything about the diversity of consciousnesses in the much more complicated machines actually realized in the world. I consider the ideas I'm talking about here to be separate, but compatible with the UDA/AUDA.  

Terren

 

Brent

[cloud...@gmail.com]

I must assume you have already studied (hopefully over many years) in philosophy the difference between 

functionalism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/

    and

identity theory: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/

A short way of expressing identity theory over functionalism is

    A simulation is not a synthesis.

Experiential materialism is a variant of identity theory in which 

• psychical properties, as well as physical ones, are attributed to matter, which is the only basic substance

     so that

• the material composition of the brain has both physical and psychical aspects.

@philipthrift

[Terren Suydam]

What I'm suggesting draws on both functionalism and identity theory. It's functional in the sense that the constitutive aspect of cybernetics is entirely functional. There is nothing in a cybernetic description beyond the functional relationships between the parts of that system. It draws on identity theory in the sense that I'm claiming that consciousness is cybernetic dynamics. What I'm adding is the same move that panpsychism makes - that there is something it is like to be any cybernetic system, and this includes many more things than brains, and crucially, does not depend on a specific substrate.

[Terren Suydam]

I should add that the cybernetic description of a system is entirely functional, but the emphasis is on the holistic perspective. Functionalism tends to be reductive, but the consciousness identified with a given cybernetic description is the system as a whole. That's why replacing a neuron with an artificial replacement does not change the consciousness.

[cloud...@gmail.com]

I understand basically what your idea is, but "cybernetic dynamics" reminds me of Norbert Weiner's subject of cybernetics, something I read about decades ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics:_Or_Control_and_Communication_in_the_Animal_and_the_Machine

One should be able to replace every neural+glial cell with a synthetic one, but the technology has to advance:

https://neo.life/2018/05/the-birth-of-wetware/

...

Pink juice

Koniku’s chemical sensor is still in development, so what Agabi and Sadrian show me is likely to continue evolving for some time. On the outside, it sports a globular, gray-green shell with a vaguely alien look, about eight inches wide. Inside, metal architecture supports a silicon chip with spidery wires converging in the center, where networked neurons sit inside a clear bubble made of a biocompatible polymer.

When a client tells Koniku what substance it wants to sense, the company identifies cellular receptors that would ordinarily bind to that substance. Then it creates neurons that have those receptors. To do that, it uses gene-editing technology to tweak the DNA of neuron precursors. Koniku obtains those from a supplier, which manipulates skin or blood cells from mice into blank-slate cells known as induced pluripotent stem cells.

Once Koniku has nurtured these engineered precursors into living neurons, they could, in theory, smell odors like a drug-sniffing dog might. Or they could detect any number of substances that have corresponding receptors. Some receptors are more sensitive and narrowly tuned to attach to one substance. Others are, as Agabi puts it, more “promiscuous,” accepting an entire class of chemicals, like nitrates. The Koniku Kore contains neurons with both types of receptors.

After they’ve created their mix of customized neurons, Agabi and his colleagues use the Death Star laser to build a polymer structure for the neurons to sit on. Then they place the cells on that structure and wait for them to begin to network together among a set of mushroom-shaped electrodes. Ultimately, a few “reporter” neurons will serve as the essential neuron-silicon connection. This means they are both connected to the neuron network and “plugged in” to the chip using the natural process of endocytosis, in which a cell gradually engulfs foreign matter. Agabi says Koniku has developed a special DNA coating for its electrodes. When a neuron tries to engulf the DNA, it creates a seal that will later let the electrode pick up electrical signals the neuron produces when its receptors bind to a given chemical or class of chemicals.

Almost all of this technology was around before Koniku, though not exactly in this arrangement. Perhaps the newest element here is what Agabi calls “pink juice.” The usual life span of a neuron in a lab is counted in days or weeks, but Koniku’s neurons can survive for up to two months. That’s because they’re bathed in pink juice, which feeds them and keeps them alive.

At first, Agabi won’t tell me the exact recipe beyond saying that they’re a mix of “vitamins, minerals, and sugars.” But I piece some of it together by talking to Thomas DeMarse, a neuroscientist at the University of North Carolina.

Biology is technology, Agabi says. Everything else is a simulation

DeMarse spent time in the spotlight in the early 2000s for his research teaching rat neurons in a dish to fly a virtual plane by connecting them to flight simulator software. He also did groundbreaking research on neuron survival. He points out that there are a number of similar “juices” already on the market, with names like BrainPhys and Neurobasal. Those pink juices get their color from a substance called phenol red, which indicates the liquid’s pH level. They also contain a carbonate buffer that helps maintain acidity and simulates conditions in the brain. Using similar materials, DeMarse was able to keep neurons alive on a desk for two years. They would have lived longer, he says, but during that time he moved from Caltech to Georgia Tech, and the plates started to leak en route.

Later, when I ask Agabi if he’ll at least tell me whether his pink juice contains phenol red and a carbonate buffer, he confirms the first and denies the second. Academic groups may have needed the carbonate buffer to simulate the brain, but unlike those neuroscience labs, Koniku is unconcerned with mimicking the brain, Agabi says. “The power of the neuron comes from the computational density — as long as we maintain that, we can change everything else.”

With the help of Koniku’s pink juice and a new automated pump system that will be incorporated into each sensor, Agabi expects to eventually reach DeMarse’s record for neuron longevity. Even then, his customers would have to swap out their Koniku equipment every two years, but no one has requested products with greater neuron longevity — and therefore, Agabi says, it has not been a development priority. With the technology at hand, he says, he could develop a Koniku Kore that would last five years, were a customer to require it.

Improving on evolution

“To me the devil is in the details here,” says DeMarse. What he means is: before Koniku, its kind of wetware lived in academic and government labs. In addition to DeMarse’s research, scientists at DARPA have worked for a long time on an artificial nose to detect cancer. William Ditto, now of the Nonlinear Artificial Intelligence Lab at North Carolina State University, used leech neurons in a dish to carry out basic computations. Although no one has done exactly what Koniku says it’s doing, there’s plenty to back up the argument that someone could do it. In fact, DeMarse says he was “tickled” to read about Koniku’s innovations. Gabriel A. Silva, director of the Center for Engineered Natural Intelligence at the University of California, San Diego, is also intrigued by Koniku’s potential. “I never underestimate groups like this because they’re trailblazers,” he says.

Still, Agabi’s colleagues in the academic world maintain some skepticism about whether his technology can live up to his grand ambitions and radical vision for the future of machine intelligence.

For one thing, neurons have evolutionary baggage that might be unnecessary for a computer. As an example, Rajesh Rao, director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Washington, points to myelin, the fatty sheath that insulates nerve fibers and helps signals propagate in the brain. It’s not clear, Rao says, that the optimal computer would have to mimic that method of communication. Or consider dendrites, the branches that stretch out from the body of a neuron. Neuroscientists aren’t sure whether dendrites actually participate in information processing or are just wires that pass information from cell to cell. Does moving information in a computer really demand some version of dendrites?

With issues like this in mind, all the scientists I spoke with for this article said that while looking to biology for inspiration will be essential for the development of AI, they were not entirely convinced by Agabi’s argument that it will require biology itself. Just as planes use the same principles of lift as birds do without feathers or hollow bones, “we can extract the computational principles of how the brain processes information” and use them in a manner “independent of actual implementation in biological tissue,” Rao says.

For example, neuromorphic chips are silicon chips designed using biological principles, attempting to mimic some ways that the brain processes information while leaving some of its baggage behind. Ditto, the researcher who once made a computer out of leech neurons, is now working on a “chaotic chip,” which constantly changes from analog to digital processing — as often as a billion times a second — in order to solve problems more efficiently. He argues that AI will require the plasticity and adaptive capacity of biology, but that the biological element is optional.

After all, coaxing neurons in a dish into computation isn’t so easy, either. Even making sure they grow successfully is difficult; Silva remembers struggling during graduate school with neurons that had suddenly stopped growing, seemingly for no reason. “It turned out that the manufacturer of the coverslips we used had changed the formulation of the glass,” he says. “That alone was enough to make the neurons unhappy.” Even when they do grow, a group of neurons, however well networked and organized, do not automatically make a brain. The distance from chemical sensing to cognition is awfully long, and the slippery nature of even the idea of cognition complicates this question. A basic system that uses reward or punishment to teach things to computers “is going to give you some behavior that will look intelligent,” Rao says. But isn’t there more to cognition than that, more ingredients and sensory inputs that help us react to, interact with, and make sense of the world? The wetware recipe for that is far from clear.

...

@philipthrift

[Terren Suydam]

I'm beginning to suspect that you're a chatbot... a pretty good one - the best I've seen, even. Your responses are syntactically correct and seemingly relevant semantically, but whenever I or anyone else tries to pin you down and get you to articulate specifics, your response is inevitably to quote some article or another. Getting closer to passing the Turing Test - give your creator my respect.

[cloud...@gmail.com]

It seems people will remain in the delusion that software or programming in a conventional computer device - even with many processors - will achieve consciousness. Searle's Chinese Room argument still does apply here, as anyone should clearly be able to see.

One can wave the magic word "cybernetic" around all one wants, but it is clearly not useful.

There are lots of delusions in the world: Ghosts, spirits, gods, and the "cybernetic" one above is among them.

@pphilipthrift

[cloud...@gmail.com]

But you have contributed to establishing a term:

cybernetic delusion -  the delusion that software or programming in a conventional computer device (even one with many processors) will ever achieve consciousness

That is useful.

@philipthrift

[John Clark]

On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 10:58 AM <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It seems people will remain in the delusion that software or programming in a conventional computer device - even with many processors - will achieve consciousness.

Do you also believe it's a delusion to think a person with a different skin color or sex than you - even if they behave very intelligently - is conscious? If not why not?  

> Searle's Chinese Room argument still does apply here, as anyone should clearly be able to see.

Searle should be embarrassed for proposing a thought exparament that was as easy to poke logical holes in  as the Chinese Room. And the only reason Searle isn't embarrassed is because you are the only one who experiences qualia, you are the only conscious being in the universe.  If certain assumptions regarding a linkage between qualia and behavior are not made no other conclusion is possible.

 John K Clark 

[Terren Suydam]

It's not a delusion if you're starting from the same assumptions I am. Your assumptions involve a delusion from my perspective, which is that there's something special about biological material that makes it conscious, but not, potentially, computers.

Sometimes you invoke panpsychism, but when you do that, you again make it possible for computers to be conscious. I'm not sure where you stand, but either way, you're either allowing consciousness in computers or you have to say what's so special about wetware.

--

[Terren Suydam]

Let's say we were visited by aliens and we were able to communicate with them such that it seemed obvious they were conscious. 

Then, we discovered that their nervous systems, or whatever the analog of such was, was constituted from silicon, but let's call it organic, wet, and so on, just an alternative chemistry.

What then? Are they zombies?

What if after talking to them for a while and attributing consciousness to them based on that, they revealed that they were actually robots constructed by an alien race on their home planet. Zombies?

[cloud...@gmail.com]

This is more than the 20th time I have said here there could be conscious beings made of biochemical alternatives: 

Hypothetical types of biochemistry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry

cf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organosilicon

This obviously has nothing to do with Searle's argument or your cybernetic delusion.

@philipthrift

[Terren Suydam]

OK, thrift-bot, that addresses the first part of my hypothetical, what about the second part?  That the beings who are visiting are actual robots synthesized by an alien race?  Are they still conscious?  If not, why not?

Terren

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/4/2019 6:30 AM, Terren Suydam wrote:

What I'm suggesting draws on both functionalism and identity theory. It's functional in the sense that the constitutive aspect of cybernetics is entirely functional.

So what is the function that makes a system "cybernetic" and is that sufficient to make it conscious?

Brent

[Brent Meeker]

Why isn't a silicon based cpu a "biochemical alternative"?  Your links are about life and reproduction.  So if AI robots can make other AI robots they'd be biochemical.

Brent

[cloud...@gmail.com]

I am not a chemist, biochemist, or neurochemist, but of the list of alternatives listed:

• 1Shadow biosphere
• 2Alternative-chirality biomolecules
• 3Non-carbon-based biochemistries
  • 3.1Silicon biochemistry
  • 3.2Other exotic element-based biochemistries
• 4Arsenic as an alternative to phosphorus
• 5Non-water solvents
  • 5.1Ammonia
  • 5.2Methane and other hydrocarbons
    • 5.2.1Azotosome
  • 5.3Hydrogen fluoride
  • 5.4Hydrogen sulfide
  • 5.5Silicon dioxide and silicates
  • 5.6Other solvents or cosolvents
• 
  

I assume there could possibly be an "alternative brain" that could be made.

Do you see a possibility with silicon (as it was addressed in the silicon section 3.1)? It seems doubtful.

(And  of course this has nothing to do with the cybernetic delusion.)

@philipthrift

[cloud...@gmail.com]

What is the interest in silicon, BTW?

Do you own stock in a silicon production company?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_silicon_producers


@philipthrift

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/4/2019 3:37 PM, cloud...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> What is the interest in silicon, BTW?

It's the main component of modern electronics, and hence the basis of AI
the way carbon is the basis of life.

Brent

[John Clark]

On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 12:35 PM <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:

> This obviously has nothing to do with Searle's argument

What's that? I've never seen an argument, all I've seen is Searle's Chinese Room and that's not an argument that's just an exercise in typing. 

John K Clark

[cloud...@gmail.com]

Being in an AI lab, I went to AI and NN (neural net) conferences for 20 years.

Today if I was interested in an AI research career and I was in my 20s again, I would begin in bio-AI.

Synthetic biology routes to bio-artificial intelligence

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5264507/

@philipthrift

[Terren Suydam]

The cybernetic description of a system is a description of a system's relationships, both internally in terms of the system's organization - how its components relate to each other functionally, and externally in terms of a system's functional relationship to its environment. A cybernetic description explicitly leaves out the materiality of the components - it's only about the relations. Therefore cybernetics is exclusively about information - the way a system creates/updates information about its environment, and how that information is processed as a function of the system's organization as a whole.

What I'm saying is that for any system that has a cybernetic description (which can cover a very broad range of systems), there it is something it is like to be that system, which is to say a system that processes information in one form or another. A lot of this comes from the site Principia Cybernetica which is a pretty expansive treatment of cybernetics. 

[Brent Meeker]

It appears to me that every system that has a function will have a cybernetic description, i.e. one that only mentions functional relationships but not the matter.  I can imagine such a description of my thermostat: There's an element that changes with temperature and makes a connection below a certain temperature that energizes a source of heat...and so on.  Right?

Brent