> Personally, I would like the cosmos to be occupied by evolved, technological, minds.
> Keep watching the skies.
> AFAIK, all attempts to create life in a test tube have failed.
> Am I supposed to believe that computer scientists have created conscious entities even though they have zero understanding of what consciousness is? AG
868
> Yes, because you believe YOU are conscious and we're similarly constituted; that is, created by a virtually identical process.
> But for computers to be conscious, implies those who built them somehow stumbled onto constructing a living entity without knowing what life or living is.
> The fact is about 5% of the sightings are inexplicable
> Incidentally, I read yesterday that William Shatner is hugely skeptical about aliens coming hundred or thousands of light years from Earth, only to remain anonymous.
> It's pretty clear, in fact obvious, that you regard other human beings as conscious
> for the reasons I stated.
> But whatever Evolution did, it took billions of years.
> Claiming human computer scientists did something similar in a few decades at most, is hugely implausible.
> What's hugely reasonable, is that something almost indistinguishable from consciousness or intelligence has been created, but nothing more.
> If you insist on huge distortions of what UFO believers claim, there's no point in continuing this discussion. It's not unike Trumpers who [blah blah]
> This is a dumb discussion.
> You admit, more or less, that you don't know what consciousness is, yet you insist that's what AI is manifesting.
> This discussion can go nowhere as long as you persist in this type of behavior, which in principle not unlike what Trumpers [blah blah]
On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 3:25 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:> It's pretty clear, in fact obvious, that you regard other human beings as consciousYES.> for the reasons I stated.NO. For thousands of years, long before anyone knew anything about Evolution or electronics or much of anything else people believed that their fellow human beings were conscious some of the time but not all of the time. They believed they were conscious when they were behaving intelligently but they did not believe their fellow human beings were conscious when they were sleeping or under anesthesia or dead because then they were not behaving intelligently.> But whatever Evolution did, it took billions of years.That's because Evolution is ridiculously slow and clumsy but until it got around to inventing a brain it was the only way complex objects could get built. These days, ironically thanks to intelligent design, things happen much faster and they are about to happen even faster.> Claiming human computer scientists did something similar in a few decades at most, is hugely implausible.Hugely implausible or not, that is exactly precisely what is happening right before your eyes. I'm not a young man but I'm starting to think there is a good chance I will live long enough to personally experience the Singularity, and I wouldn't have said that six months ago. And I'm not sure that's a good thing because it might not be much fun.> What's hugely reasonable, is that something almost indistinguishable from consciousness or intelligence has been created, but nothing more.Do you believe the Pope when he says every Catholic Mass is able to magically turn bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, not symbolically but literally, even though the bread and wine at the end of the silly religious ceremony is indistinguishable from what it was at the beginning? If you believe in the above voodoo about consciousness it's not much of a step to believe in the Pope's voodoo too.
v0o
>> JC: I just insist that it's equally logical for me to conclude an AI is conscious as it is for me to conclude that Alan Grayson is conscious.
>AG: That's wrong.
> As far as consciousness is concerned, you've done your research on AG and determined his creation was remarkably similar to yours. Hence, if you consider yourself conscious, you can extend that belief to AG.
> Generally, that in principle is what we humans habitually do. But AI does not fall into this category of YOUR knowing. To equate your knowledge of AG with AI is just a foolish extrapolation. AG
>Consistent with your de facto Trumper [blah blah]
> Yes, typical Trumpering [blah blah]
> Being a Trumpkin myself, with a little RFK on the side,