Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Jason Resch]

Artificial Life such as these organisms:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX

( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )

Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food" and "poison" in their environment.

If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be conscious for the same reasons?

Why or why not?

Jason

[smitra]

Yes. If states of consciousness are identified with algorithms, then the
world as viewed from the point of view of a particular worm is defined
by that particular algorithm that the worm's brain is implementing. If
you run that same algorithm also in a simulation, then that same
consciousness exists both in the simulation as a simulated worm and in
the real world as a real worm. The consciousness cannot locate itself in
one or the other situation, as it is identical in both situations.

Saibal


> Jason
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUiDN4eRtmiW7YZuQZSLvzu2Sp%3D4bELoFKfO-YY7394uqQ%40mail.gmail.com
> [1].
>
>
> Links:
> ------
> [1]
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUiDN4eRtmiW7YZuQZSLvzu2Sp%3D4bELoFKfO-YY7394uqQ%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

[John Clark]

Is non-artificial life, other than me of course, conscious? 

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

o00

[Alan Grayson]

On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 3:03:49 AM UTC-6 smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:

On 23-04-2022 04:38, Jason Resch wrote:
> Artificial Life such as these organisms:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX
>
> ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )
>
> Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt
> to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food"
> and "poison" in their environment.
>
> If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they
> have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms
> be conscious for the same reasons?
>
> Why or why not?
>

Yes. If states of consciousness are identified with algorithms, then the
world as viewed from the point of view of a particular worm is defined
by that particular algorithm that the worm's brain is implementing. If
you run that same algorithm also in a simulation, then that same
consciousness exists both in the simulation as a simulated worm and in
the real world as a real worm. The consciousness cannot locate itself in
one or the other situation, as it is identical in both situations.

Saibal

This, of course, is nonsense. The question you should ask yourself is, How can anything know anything? AG 

[Jason Resch]

On Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 11:27 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 3:03:49 AM UTC-6 smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:

On 23-04-2022 04:38, Jason Resch wrote:
> Artificial Life such as these organisms:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX
>
> ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )
>
> Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt
> to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food"
> and "poison" in their environment.
>
> If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they
> have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms
> be conscious for the same reasons?
>
> Why or why not?
>

Yes. If states of consciousness are identified with algorithms, then the
world as viewed from the point of view of a particular worm is defined
by that particular algorithm that the worm's brain is implementing. If
you run that same algorithm also in a simulation, then that same
consciousness exists both in the simulation as a simulated worm and in
the real world as a real worm. The consciousness cannot locate itself in
one or the other situation, as it is identical in both situations.

Saibal

This, of course, is nonsense. The question you should ask yourself is, How can anything know anything? AG 

I disagree with your assessment that what Saibal said was nonsense, however I agree with you that the real question of consciousness is:

 "What is a knower?"

What properties must a system posses to know something? I don't have an answer but I have some ideas. I'm interested to hear your or other's take on these:

Consciousness is:

• Awareness of Information
• A knowledge State
• An Infinite Class (infinite possible variations and permutations, configurations)
• A requirement for: Experience, Thought, Feeling, Knowing, Seeing, Noticing (can any of these things exist absent consciousness? E.g. some part of system that acts like it knows must really know.)
• An activity (not a passive state of 0s and 1s, operations/behavior/actions give meaning and context to information and how it is processed and what it means)
• Is it a recursive relationship? A model of environment including self?
• Is it undefinable?
• Word origin: "con" (together/with/unified/united) "scious" (knowledge): unified knowledge
• It exists in the abstract informational state, not in the material
• A meaningful interpretation of information

Information is:

• A difference that makes a difference
• A comparison, differentiation, distinction
• Specification / Indication
• Negative entropy
• A decrease in uncertainty
• A probability of being in different states
• Bits, digits, a number (representations of information)
• A subspace of a larger space
• A state of a finite state machine
• Requires an interpreter (A system to be informed) to be meaningful

A subject is:

• A system to be informed
• A processor of information
• A knower (a believer)
• An inside viewer
• A first-person
• A possessor of knowledge
• An interpreter of information
• A modeler of environment or self (or both)

Knowledge is:

• An apprehended truth
• A true belief (bet)
• Not always shareable (when self-referential)
• A relationship between two objects or object and itself

Jason

[Alan Grayson]

I've encounted "the Knower". If you grant it must be awesome, it can't resemble, even remotely, any algorithm. You have to look elsewhere, within. AG 

[Alan Grayson]

Look at it this way. If you grant that the Duality of Knower and Known can't exist in a Unitary reality, the Knower you seek must be the dual of You that allows for the duality of self-referencing to exist. It's well hidden, extraordinarily subtle, but obviously not remotely any kind of algorithm. AG

[Brent Meeker]

I don't see how you can define it as an infinite anything, since all examples are finite.

• A requirement for: Experience, Thought, Feeling, Knowing, Seeing, Noticing (can any of these things exist absent consciousness? E.g. some part of system that acts like it knows must really know.)

In most contexts "experience" implies memory, reflection, and learning.  A the level of awareness and reaction a bacterium or a jellyfish might be conscious but not have experience.An activity (not a passive state of 0s and 1s, operations/behavior/actions give meaning and context to information and how it is processed and what it means)

• Is it a recursive relationship? A model of environment including self?

I think that's step above bacteria; maybe planaria.  But the recursion is very limited.  And even humans can't do very deep recursion, they just pass it off to language.  My LISP can do a lot deeper recursions than I can.Is it undefinable?

• Word origin: "con" (together/with/unified/united) "scious" (knowledge): unified knowledge
• It exists in the abstract informational state, not in the material
• A meaningful interpretation of information

I think you missed an essential aspect of higher level consciousness.  The subconscious is predictive and what is noticed consciously are little (or sometimes big) corrections to what was predicted.


Brent

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUhbRPEiQxRT-KgOAekuB1FG47%2BQW5UQ1fsGiZwwGrXYOA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Jason Resch]

An algorithm is just a very explicit description of a process. Would you say that a knower is a process of some kind?

Jason

 

[Jason Resch]

Hi Brent,

I knew that one would throw people off and I should have stated it more clearly. What that point is meant to mean is that the set or class of consciousness, (i.e. the set of all ways there are to be conscious), is infinite and infinitely varied, perhaps even as infinite and as varied as the objects of mathematics. Though, there may only be a countable infinity of unique conscious states, if conscious states are in any way equivalent to computable states.

 

• A requirement for: Experience, Thought, Feeling, Knowing, Seeing, Noticing (can any of these things exist absent consciousness? E.g. some part of system that acts like it knows must really know.)

In most contexts "experience" implies memory, reflection, and learning.  A the level of awareness and reaction a bacterium or a jellyfish might be conscious but not have experience.An activity (not a passive state of 0s and 1s, operations/behavior/actions give meaning and context to information and how it is processed and what it means)

True, I would not say that Experience, Thought, Feeling, Knowing, Seeing, Noticing are required for consciousness, but consciousness is required for them. That is to say, you can't have an entity that experiences, thinks, feels, knows, sees, or notices, unless that thing is in some sense conscious.

To me, this precludes the logical possibilities of zombies, as in some cases thinking, or knowing, etc. manifest as observable behaviors, and therefore, if a purported zombie thinks, it's not a zombie as thinking implies consciousness.

 

• Is it a recursive relationship? A model of environment including self?

I think that's step above bacteria; maybe planaria.  But the recursion is very limited.  And even humans can't do very deep recursion, they just pass it off to language.  My LISP can do a lot deeper recursions than I can.Is it undefinable?

• Word origin: "con" (together/with/unified/united) "scious" (knowledge): unified knowledge
• It exists in the abstract informational state, not in the material
• A meaningful interpretation of information

I think you missed an essential aspect of higher level consciousness.  The subconscious is predictive and what is noticed consciously are little (or sometimes big) corrections to what was predicted.

I agree that is an important trait of human consciousness. If I were to speculate, I would say the lower level sub-conscious processes of our brains are conscious in their own right, but when these sub processes fail, or disagree, or encounter something new or unexpected, they can kick it up to other areas of the brain and when this happens it is noticed by the parts of our brain that can remember and talk (and thereby convince others as well as oneself) that we consciously perceived that piece of information, when otherwise it might not have been promoted to that level of awareness and thus been forgotten.

Jason

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/45af04e8-76bd-a0a1-c14d-8c2769b8bdfe%40gmail.com.

[Alan Grayson]

 I don't believe any process, in and of itself, can be self-referential.  In this model, it always takes two to tango. AG

[Brent Meeker]

On 4/23/2022 4:40 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

I think you missed an essential aspect of higher level consciousness.  The subconscious is predictive and what is noticed consciously are little (or sometimes big) corrections to what was predicted.

I agree that is an important trait of human consciousness. If I were to speculate, I would say the lower level sub-conscious processes of our brains are conscious in their own right,

Again I think this points to different levels and degrees of awareness/consciousness that we need to develop a vocabulary to talk about.  I expect that AI research will eventually develop more explicit definitions of these kinds of thinking processes.

Brent

[Russell Standish]

Most insects can't be consious (see my paper "Ants are not
conscious"). Most ALife forms created to date are simpler than
insects, and probably even worms, so are unlikely to be consious either.


--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders hpc...@hpcoders.com.au
http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[John Clark]

On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 5:30 AM Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> wrote:

> Most insects can't be consious (see my paper "Ants are not conscious").

 

I just read the abstract, and its very first sentence is: 

"Anthropic reasoning is a form of statistical reasoning based upon finding oneself a member of a particular reference class of conscious beings."

My question to you is, how do you know for a fact you are a member of a "class of conscious beings"? How do you even know that rocks aren't conscious?  I DO know for a fact that I'm conscious, but I don't know for a fact that you are. The second sentence is:

 "By considering empirical distribution functions defined over animal life on Earth, we can deduce that the vast bulk of animal life is unlikely to be conscious."

This is a classic example of assuming what you're trying to prove.  

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

ovu

[Jason Resch]

On Mon, May 2, 2022, 5:30 AM Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> wrote:

On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 09:38:40PM -0500, Jason Resch wrote:
> Artificial Life such as these organisms:
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX
> ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )
>
> Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt to a
> changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food" and "poison"
> in their environment.
>
> If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they have
> brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be conscious
> for the same reasons?
>
> Why or why not?

Most insects can't be consious (see my paper "Ants are not
conscious"). Most ALife forms created to date are simpler than
insects, and probably even worms, so are unlikely to be consious either.

Hi Russell,

Thanks for sharing. I had read this argument before, I believe in your book, and reread it again just now. It is compelling and a quite novel approach to the question.

However, I do not see it as bullet proof. For example:

The reasoning could be applied equally as an argument that we are living in a computer simulation where simulating minds of higher level organisms is more common than simulating simpler creatures, and so common as to outclass simpler minds.

It could be used as an argument for Unificationism (the idea that instantiating same mind more than once does not ascribe more measure to the experience). Then the power law would reflect unique possible conscious states across reality, and human and higher level minds would dominate in that there are more ways for a human brain to create unique conscious states.

It could also be that simple conscious states can jump or shift to equivalent conscious states until they stabilize on an experience that is less likely to stabilize. For instance, the question is sometimes asked "What is it like to be a thermostat?" One answer could be that it is like a person waking up in the morning. (Where the conscious state of a waking person intersects the state of a thermostat, and a thermostat's mind is equivalent to a wide class of many minds, it is not really like anything to be a thermostat). I don't know that insect consciousness is simple enough for this argument to apply though.

Then there's the question of whether it is correct to divide minds, or whether something like universalism is true, which states there is only one mind, and all experiences belong to it. Then any experience is one I am 100% likely to experience.

I am not sure what to think, but "why are we not ants?" is indeed a mystery that calls for an explanation.

Jason

[spudb...@aol.com]

I had read that spindle cells delineate consciousness, according to neurobiologists. Anyone see anything different?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.

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

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/20220502093004.GA16990%40zen.

[Russell Standish]

Hi John, always a pleasure to cross swords with your brain :).

However, your quibbles below are easy to address - see below.

On Mon, May 02, 2022 at 06:03:47AM -0400, John Clark wrote:
> On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 5:30 AM Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> wrote:
>
>
> > Most insects can't be consious (see my paper "Ants are not conscious").
>
>  
> I just read the abstract, and its very first sentence is: 
>
> "Anthropic reasoning is a form of statistical reasoning based upon finding
> oneself a member of a particular reference class of conscious beings."
>
> My question to you is, how do you know for a fact you are a member of a "class
> of conscious beings"? How do you even know that rocks aren't conscious?  I DO
> know for a fact that I'm conscious, but I don't know for a fact that you are.
> The second sentence is:
>

I know that I am conscious. Therefore I must be a member of the set of
consious entities. It is true I don't know what else is in the set.

I do assume that all humans are conscious (at least at some point
in their lives), but if you assume the opposite, then the argument is
even stronger.

>  "By considering empirical distribution functions defined over animal life on
> Earth, we can deduce that the vast bulk of animal life is unlikely to be
> conscious."
>
> This is a classic example of assuming what you're trying to prove.  
>

No - it is a deduction. You're reading the abstract. It is usual to
state the conclusion in the abstract so you know whether it is worth
digging into the paper body to see to proof.

[Jason Resch]

On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 3:39 PM spudboy100 via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I had read that spindle cells delineate consciousness, according to neurobiologists. Anyone see anything different?

Spindle neurons are very large cells, with their fibers stretching long enough to connect distant brain regions.

I would think then, an equally valid explanation of spindle neurons is they are a necessary adaptation in any creature with a sufficiently large brain.

Since we tend to associate consciousness with complex behaviors, and complex behaviors are often associated with animals that have large brains, I think may account for the correlation between the presumed consciousness of other species and presence of spindle neurons in those species' brains.

At least, I think this is a reasonable alternative explanation.

Jason

 

[Russell Standish]

On Mon, May 02, 2022 at 08:03:21AM -0400, Jason Resch wrote:
> Hi Russell,
>
> Thanks for sharing. I had read this argument before, I believe in your book,
> and reread it again just now. It is compelling and a quite novel approach to
> the question.
>
> However, I do not see it as bullet proof. For example:
>
> The reasoning could be applied equally as an argument that we are living in a
> computer simulation where simulating minds of higher level organisms is more
> common than simulating simpler creatures, and so common as to outclass simpler
> minds.

Why would this be? The Solomonoff-Levin theorem would indicate simpler
programs would be exponentially more common than more complex ones, so
the same scaling would apply to minds.

>
> It could be used as an argument for Unificationism (the idea that instantiating
> same mind more than once does not ascribe more measure to the experience). Then
> the power law would reflect unique possible conscious states across reality,
> and human and higher level minds would dominate in that there are more ways for
> a human brain to create unique conscious states.
>

Interesting line of attack, but I think it fails due to the
expectation that you should be maximally complex (and probably
maximally old). There's no reason to think that human beings are the
most complex consciousnesses possible in the multiverse.

> It could also be that simple conscious states can jump or shift to equivalent
> conscious states until they stabilize on an experience that is less likely to
> stabilize. For instance, the question is sometimes asked "What is it like to be
> a thermostat?" One answer could be that it is like a person waking up in the
> morning. (Where the conscious state of a waking person intersects the state of
> a thermostat, and a thermostat's mind is equivalent to a wide class of many
> minds, it is not really like anything to be a thermostat). I don't know that
> insect consciousness is simple enough for this argument to apply though.
>
> Then there's the question of whether it is correct to divide minds, or whether
> something like universalism is true, which states there is only one mind, and
> all experiences belong to it. Then any experience is one I am 100% likely to
> experience.
>
> I am not sure what to think, but "why are we not ants?" is indeed a mystery
> that calls for an explanation.
>

Indeed. Of course, you are right that the argument is not bullet
proof. But as is typical of doomsday arguments, peoples reactions are
"WTF?", and there's no engagement. On Google Scholar, there is
precisely 1 citation to that paper, and admittedly I haven't read it,
but based on the abstract, I think the citation was just of similar
example of anthropic reasoning, rather than engaging with the argument itself.

Arguments against this argument have to date been unconvincing, just
like the ones against the DA.

Personally, I think it is interesting that we can provide some hard
numbers around the nature of the "hard question", contra John Clark's
assertion that nothing can be said about consciousness.

Cheers

[John Clark]

On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 7:06 PM Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> wrote:

> Hi John, always a pleasure to cross swords with your brain :).

Greetings Russell, and I feel the same way you do; or at least I'm pretty sure I do, but there is always a bit of uncertainty when determining the conscious state of another human being.

> I know that I am conscious. Therefore I must be a member of the set of consious entities. It is true I don't know what else is in the set.

Mathematical proofs demand absolute certainty, and If you demand absolute certainty the possibility that the set of conscious entities contains only one member cannot be excluded by any logical argument. But of course in our everyday lives we never encounter absolute certainty nor do we need it, except when we're taking a calculus examination.

> I do assume that all humans are conscious

I assume the same thing for 2 reasons:

1) The evidence is overwhelming that Charles Darwin was right, thus Evolution produced me and I am conscious, but evolution can NOT directly see consciousness anymore then we can directly see consciousness in others, because consciousness alone, regardless of how much we may value it, can confer no reproductive advantage, and that's all Evolution cares about. However, Evolution most certainly CAN see intelligent behavior. The only thing that is compatible with all this is that consciousness is the inevitable byproduct of intelligence, so it must be a brute fact that consciousness is the way data feels when it is being processed intelligently.  A corollary of this would be that the Turing Test works just as well for consciousness as it does for intelligence. It's far from perfect but the Turing Test is the only tool we have to investigate consciousness.

2) I simply could not function unless I assumed I was not the only conscious being in the universe.  

> (at least at some point in their lives),

Yes, neither of us believes that our fellow human beings are conscious when they're sleeping, or under anesthesia, or dead, and for the same reason, when they are in those states they just don't behave very intelligently.  And that's why I'm interested in AI and intelligence research, but I'm not interested in consciousness research. And that's also why consciousness research has not advanced an inch, or even a nanometer, in a 1000 years.

> but if you assume the opposite, then the argument is even stronger.

Assuming the opposite would be assuming that everything is always conscious regardless of its behavior, so even rocks are conscious, even electrons.  

> No - it is a deduction. You're reading the abstract. It is usual to state the conclusion in the abstract so you know whether it is worth digging into the paper body to see the proof.

 

It takes time to carefully read a scientific paper, and so the abstract was invented to give a reader just enough information to decide if reading the entire paper is worth their time. Your abstract makes clear that the conclusion that insects are not conscious is based on "finding oneself a member of a particular reference class of conscious beings" with the implicit assumption the set contains more than one member. I concede that if one makes that assumption then it might not be unreasonable to conclude that insects are not conscious (although I see no reason to believe that consciousness is an all or nothing matter) , but now you admit you "don't know what else is in the set" of conscious beings. And determining what else is in that set is exactly what this entire controversy is all about.

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

ifq

[Philip Benjamin]

[Philip Benjamin]
The question: "If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they
have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be conscious for the same reasons? " is irrelevant. Simple creatures reproduce. Will robots reproduce? Baby robots? Do they have a desire for and grow on the pablum of metal powder and vaseline? Simple creatures trans-speciated from what ? Worms evolve into worms? The oldest fossils found are algae and bacteria. Still the same type of bacteria and algae today!!
Philip Benjamin
Nonconformist to Marxist-Socialist pagan globalism of the WAMP.

-----Original Message-----
From: everyth...@googlegroups.com <everyth...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Russell Standish
Sent: Monday, May 2, 2022 4:30 AM
To: Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 09:38:40PM -0500, Jason Resch wrote:
> Artificial Life such as these organisms:

> Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt
> to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food" and "poison"
> in their environment.
>
> If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they
> have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms
> be conscious for the same reasons?
>
> Why or why not?

Most insects can't be consious (see my paper "Ants are not conscious"). Most ALife forms created to date are simpler than insects, and probably even worms, so are unlikely to be consious either.


--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders hpc...@hpcoders.com.au

https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hpcoders.com.au%2F&amp;data=05%7C01%7C%7C994979c7169d4376c94208da2c1e5fc1%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637870806212880403%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=83WOv896FmcadjcAn%2BRPvGHnwrlUeOB6oOVPL8u9zXU%3D&amp;reserved=0

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgroups.google.com%2Fd%2Fmsgid%2Feverything-list%2F20220502093004.GA16990%2540zen&amp;data=05%7C01%7C%7C994979c7169d4376c94208da2c1e5fc1%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637870806212880403%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=a72uDHfrFb87RtfQdXsntOZ4uVHin80s5PfHX5YlBEU%3D&amp;reserved=0.

[spudb...@aol.com]

Beyond my intellectual pay scale Jason. So far, nobody has developed a Turing passable machine that knocks us down with it's effectiveness to pass as a human "soul."  I would be happy to let humans be human and instead, & amp up our technological capabilities via machine intelligence.Thus, making wonderful medicines, and anti-pollution systems, and keep the conversations from human to human. For neurobiology I suppose I know what I read. :-(   Beyond this, for me it's akin to postulating whether there is a multiverse and if it is initiated by Everett's MW, or Linde (and company) Eternal Inflation? 

So the other shoe needs to be dropped: Do we get a choice in this?  If we do, can we travel back and forth for trade missions to either clone earths, or entirely different inhabited worlds unrelated to being copies and variations? If we are conscious do we get a choice with this over that? imitating, via complex computer processes that imitate or emulate what spindle cells do might make machinery conscious, maybe? Should this, will this get a budget? 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com>
To: Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Mon, May 2, 2022 7:18 pm
Subject: Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.

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

To view this discussion on the web visit

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUjNiiPu%2B-Zi%2BvbYJt7nmL874jFiAiF5WKvdtViSYY0CXg%40mail.gmail.com

.

[Philip Benjamin]

Philip Benjamin Thursday, May 5, 2022 9:19 AM  general...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

Hi, Rosie:

Doesn’t that depend on how you define life itself? If life is defined as energy then almost everything is energy and life!! Then the question is what is energy? Nobody knows. A good beginning will be to define self-consciousness, i.e. to be conscious of “self”. Then if self is not real, consciousness is also unreal and does not belong to the realm of science. If self is real and invisible the only candidate for that is bio dark-matter body “twin” cocreated with its own chemistry (computational) at the moment of conception, made of dark particles of negligible mass with respect to electron. Resonance between the twins will be a basis for self-consciousness. Resonance is rudimentary recognition.

Philip.

From: 'Rosemary Rock-Evans' via Consciousness-Online <general...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 4, 2022 12:54 PM
To: general...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

 

Dear Philip,

 

1. To be conscious does something have to have a brain?

2. To be conscious does it have to be capable of reproducing?

 

rosie

 

------ Original Message ------
From: "Philip Benjamin" <medin...@hotmail.com>
To: "general...@googlegroups.com" <general...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 4 May, 22 At 18:43
Subject: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

everyth...@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Philip Benjamin]
The question: "If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be conscious for the same reasons? " is irrelevant. Simple creatures reproduce. Will robots reproduce? Baby robots? Do they have a desire for and grow on the pablum of metal powder and vaseline? Simple creatures trans-speciated from what ? Worms evolve into worms? The oldest fossils found are algae and bacteria. Still the same type of bacteria and algae today!!
Philip Benjamin
Nonconformist to Marxist-Socialist pagan globalism of the WAMP.
-----Original Message-----

From: everyth...@googlegroups.com <everyth...@googlegroups.com>  .

[Jason Resch]

On Tue, May 3, 2022 at 6:50 PM <spudb...@aol.com> wrote:

Beyond my intellectual pay scale Jason. So far, nobody has developed a Turing passable machine that knocks us down with it's effectiveness to pass as a human "soul."  I would be happy to let humans be human and instead, & amp up our technological capabilities via machine intelligence.

It becomes a practical question then, how much can we augment human capabilities while retaining our humanity. If you gave an ant human-level intelligence, how much would remain of its ant-ness?

 

Thus, making wonderful medicines, and anti-pollution systems, and keep the conversations from human to human. For neurobiology I suppose I know what I read. :-(   Beyond this, for me it's akin to postulating whether there is a multiverse and if it is initiated by Everett's MW, or Linde (and company) Eternal Inflation? 

I would say both are initiated by the same source: platonic equations. Eternal inflation is the result of certain satisfactions of GR/QM equations, while Everett's MW is a manifestation of observerhood within an infinite ensemble of indistinguishable situations (which again, I think share a common source in platonic objects, which exist necessarily as denying them leads to contradiction).

 

So the other shoe needs to be dropped: Do we get a choice in this?  If we do, can we travel back and forth for trade missions to either clone earths, or entirely different inhabited worlds unrelated to being copies and variations?

I don't think that QM will allow this, but simulation will allow us to explore other worlds, and also we might enable trade and interaction between such simulated worlds, when they are not entirely closed off.

 

If we are conscious do we get a choice with this over that? imitating, via complex computer processes that imitate or emulate what spindle cells do might make machinery conscious, maybe? Should this, will this get a budget? 

The EU has given over a billion euros to the human brain project, which has the stated goal of simulating the human brain.

Jason

[spudb...@aol.com]

Thanks Jason. The ant or the fish or the ape will retain whatever as long as it produces survival, now, no longer just a biochemical thing. I once thought of creating a comic where a room temp QC chip could be attached to a sponge in a fishbowl. Developing consciousness, the chipped sponge decided he could do better than hanging about the lab. Thus, Mr. Sponge along with bowl absconds with a humanoid type, robot body, and a professors' English Fog trench coat to seek his fortune in the city. Falling on hard times, Mr Sponge engages in a life crime to sustain his interests, which is chiefly, the stock market, doing muggings of elderly women from alleyways. At this point I ceased my comic efforts because, I could either make Spongy a gang boss, or get him onward as commander of a Hedge Fund? Beh!

My point is that with as physicist Greg Benford wrote of decades ago, you Uplift something dumb into something smart and resourceful, you end of with the nearly same result. A conscious colony of algae, forming a very bright intelligence on Seti-Alpha 6 would eventually get to maths, metals, maybe morals (if we humans ever do?), and gaze starward. Different starting place, same eventual result. 

The physics of the cosmos I will leave to you. Right now the only thing humans can achieve currently is the nascent simulation entertainment industry. Yeah, astronomers are doing good withs with computational astronomy. GIGO as far as I am concerned. If the observations are accurate (and why not?) then their sims are wonderful.

Benford also wrote a book 2 years ago called Re-write, in which he was one of a few humans who were reborn into the same cosmos-worldline after they died, retained memory of their pasts, and sought to make a more justice oriented worldline. It's applied MWI, and was a nice story in the Heinlein sense of things. Heinlein is one of the characters that carries knowledge past each world.

I yak about MWI, but I'd rather have working solar power across the planet for survival's sake. 

[Philip Benjamin]

Saturday, May 7, 2022 3:53 PM 'general...@googlegroups.com' general...@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

 

[Rosemary Rock Evans]

“And although I do not disagree with your idea of the immortal soul being dark energy, …. The brain alone does nothing. The emotion is by far the most important factor and all of it is metaphysical.”

[Philip Benjamin]

   No, I never equated dark energy with soul/spirit, because in all ancient languages soul/spirit have their roots in breath/breeze. When the last breath was gone, the ancients discerned that life is over. Thus ‘life principle’ was equated with something similar to  wind! If they had any understanding of “invisible matter” they might have equated ‘life principle’ with that--  “matter” nevertheless.

 Dark matter PARTICLES— not dark energy – as any other matter will have chemistries i.e. spin governed particle configurations called chemical bonds. A resonant dark twin made of PARTICLES is cocreated at the moment of conception. Resonance is rudimentary recognition. That is plausibly the basis of self-awareness, if “ self” is real and invisible. Self-talk, self-respect etc. cannot be dark-energy talk and dark-energy self-respect. None talks to dark energy.

    Dark energy is an invention to save the Big Bang speculation and the mathematics associated with it. Dark-matter was more accurately termed “missing matter” by Fritz Zwicky, because there was a real measurable mass difference of distant rotating hot bodies calculated optically and gravitationally. Vera Rubin confirmed that. Astrophysical hot bodies are composed of H, He and perhaps innumerable particles of the corresponding dark-matter. Biosphere consists of 92 + ordinary ‘light matter’ and possibly corresponding dark-matter. There is nothing outlandish about that.

Philip Benjamin

 

 

From: 'Rosemary Rock-Evans' via Consciousness-Online <general...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 5, 2022 10:19 AM
To: general...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

 

I can understand why the young man who commented , said what he did. There is a great emphasis on AI and robotics at the moment in many universities. He mentionned neural nets, for example, and these are used for finger print recognition in the police.

 

But it is as if we are trying to make things which are artificial have some degree of 'soul' because we want them to be humane - kind. Can we program kindness, empathy, self awareness, etc into a machine?

 

It is very laudible, because whoever is doing this, wants machines to be 'humane'. It would be wonderful if we could - do not hurt - but machines should be under our control, so that they don't hurt, because only things which have a soul can be hurt - whether physically or emotionally.

 

Memory, learning ability - are just functions - that in many ways can be replicated - but love, hurt, hate, joy, desire, grief, etc - the emotions? Our soul experiences them.

 

And maybe by this simple statement I have defined what 'life' is and consciousness. It is the ability to be hurt and to love and be loved. To experience emotions. And I would hope that a convincing enough number of youtube videos show that animals do both - and that is why we are all 'animals' - we have applied this definition without even thinking about it.

 

And although I do not disagree with your idea of the immortal soul being dark energy, it is the immortal soul that counts as the ultimate test of whether one is conscious. A person can have a brain and die of grief or loneliness or fear. The brain alone does nothing. The emotion is by far the most important factor and all of it is metaphysical.

 

Self consciousness is, I think, something else. A child and a dog do not really experience self consciousness, although they are clearly conscious.

 

I think we need to start valuing the things that make us [and living things] 'human', without attempting to replicate them - be 'God'. I may be given a self driving car, but only David can point out the beauty of the cloud formations and talk about the clarity of the light. A machine does not know beauty.

 

It is the separation of the 'feminine' emotional, perceptive side from the symbolically unemotional, memory driven so called scientific side that has got us into the mess we are in - in Ukraine for example.

The 'masculine' has entirely taken over, where personal desires and objectives, avoidance of all unfiltered perceptions of reality, and an ability to devise a strategy that meets objectives, but loses all sense of humanity, produces carnage.

Note that I have named no names, as Mr Putin is probably not the actual one doing this. I suspect he is a puppet. I want to know 'who' or 'what' is pulling his strings.

 

best wishes to you

rosie

 

PS Sorry this is a bit long, but the writing is big

 

------ Original Message ------
From: "Philip Benjamin" <medin...@hotmail.com>
To: "general...@googlegroups.com" <general...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, 5 May, 22 At 15:18
Subject: RE: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

Hi, Rosie:

Doesn’t that depend on how you define life itself? If life is defined as energy then almost everything is energy and life!! Then the question is what is energy? Nobody knows. A good beginning will be to define self-consciousness, i.e. to be conscious of “self”. Then if self is not real, consciousness is also unreal and does not belong to the realm of science. If self is real and invisible the only candidate for that is bio dark-matter body “twin” cocreated with its own chemistry (computational) at the moment of conception, made of dark particles of negligible mass with respect to electron. Resonance between the twins will be a basis for self-consciousness. Resonance is rudimentary recognition.

Philip.

From: 'Rosemary Rock-Evans' via Consciousness-Online <general...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 4, 2022 12:54 PM
To: general...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

Dear Philip,

1. To be conscious does something have to have a brain?

2. To be conscious does it have to be capable of reproducing?

rosie

 

------ Original Message ------
From: "Philip Benjamin" <medin...@hotmail.com>
To: "general...@googlegroups.com" <general...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 4 May, 22 At 18:43
Subject: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

everyth...@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Philip Benjamin]
The question: "If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be conscious for the same reasons? " is irrelevant. Simple creatures reproduce. Will robots reproduce? Baby robots? Do they have a desire for and grow on the pablum of metal powder and vaseline? Simple creatures trans-speciated from what ? Worms evolve into worms? The oldest fossils found are algae and bacteria. Still the same type of bacteria and algae today!!
Philip Benjamin
Nonconformist to Marxist-Socialist pagan globalism of the WAMP.
-----Original Message-----
From: everyth...@googlegroups.com <everyth...@googlegroups.com> .

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Consciousness-Online" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to unsub...@googlegroups.com">general_theory+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/general_theory/SJ0PR14MB5264FABC8C887B01461EA896A8C29%40SJ0PR14MB5264.namprd14.prod.outlook.com.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Consciousness-Online" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to general_theor...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/general_theory/118f4b0d.dd03.18094cda37f.Webtop.89%40btinternet.com.

[spudb...@aol.com]

Look, if a convinced Christian like Frank Tipler, or Don Page, have little trouble with machinery achieving mind at some point in the future, then you should have no problem with postulating that machinery can do the trick, If it emulates, what it takes, say, spindle cells, then why not? I am not saying it has to, being no scientist at all, but philosophically it may work. Your views on life may hold for a long while as well, since Urey-Miller may be more profound, since who has throw carbon and water together (sulphur too I read) and a plant, or an original cell. I am not saying this cannot have happened, just that it has not. For a hypothesis on mind, I lean towards Penrose- Hameroff, unless you have something better?

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/SJ0PR14MB5264B600BC7BA3BF569E1288A8C49%40SJ0PR14MB5264.namprd14.prod.outlook.com.

[Philip Benjamin]

Philip Benjamin  Monday, May 9, 2022 9:13 AM 'general...@googlegroups.com' <general...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: RE: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

 

[Philip Benjamin]

As for Wikipedia, there is no contradiction here! As far as chemistry is concerned an atom is the smallest unit of matter for any chemical bonds. No atom, no chemistry. As for the British Encyclopedia, “without the release of electrically charged particles” (i.e. before division into constituent fundamental particles) is the keynote. It is high time that the sciences think in terms of Dark atoms and their Dark chemistries.  

    Brilliant Niels Bohr and his ardent followers did not think in terms of chemistry. There are physicists who still think of Socialist PAGAN Hitler and Marxist PAGAN Stalin and Fascist PAGAN Mussolini or appeaser-occultist PAGAN Neville  Chamberlain still carrying out their activities in the Many Worlds!!  Absurdly, they have no need of a Many World chemistry!!  There are eminent physicists who follow the late brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking in proposing “self-creation” of the Universe (Many Worlds?), without being aware of the basic logical Law of Noncontradiction” and the basic laws of chemistry.

Philip Benjamin

(Nonconformist to anarchist Marxist pagan globalism of WAMP-the-Ingrate)     

 

From: 'Rosemary   via Consciousness-Online  general...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 8, 2022 3:02 PM Subject: RE: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

 

Dear Philip,

 

Definition from Encyclopaedia Britannica
An atom, is the smallest unit into which matter can be divided without the release of electrically charged particles. It is also the smallest unit of matter that has the characteristic properties of a chemical element. As such, the atom is the basic building block of chemistry.

 

Definition according to Wikipedia
An atom is the smallest unit of ordinary matter that forms a chemical element. Every solid, liquid, gas, and plasma is composed of neutral or ionized atoms. Atoms are extremely small, typically around 100 picometers across. They are so small that accurately predicting their behavior using classical physics—as if they were tennis balls, for example—is not possible due to quantum effects.

 

Overall, it appears that 'science' has multiple definitions for a thing, and a very long time ago it was established that it is impossible to determine laws or theses until all one's terms are defined - that you have a common language.

 

And I have just discovered three definitions, none of which agree, about one of the most important things in chemistry and physics. It is no wonder no women want to go into science as it is now, as the first thing a woman [or child] would ask is - yes but what is it? And the answer seems to be 'scientists' don't know.

 

Incidentally one could argue logically that if there are no definitions that can be agreed upon, no 'science' has taken place for quite a long time. It seems that your red and my red and wikipedia's red and britannica's red are all different.

 

I find it quite extraordinary that two respected sources [and a third if we count your good self] can't produce a common definition. Is your particle Britannica's particle? Where are particles in Wikipedia?

I am not trying to be obstructive here, but there are billions in schools and universities being taught this stuff - why on earth should they bother if the top brass can't even agree on fundamentals?

 

The only thing that seems common is that 'something' exhibits properties that tell you what it is. But how it does this is unknown, apparently because no one has bothered to ask - which let's face it is not very scientific.

Maybe some more fundamental thinking needs to be undertaken going back to some fundamental 'truths' that can be agreed upon.

best wishes

rosie

 

 

 

 

[Philip Benjamin]

[Philip Benjamin]

  Hi Rosie, They are PHYSICAL matter particles. Chemistry means  PHYSICAL chemical bonds which are PHYSICAL duets and octets of PHYSICAL particles (electrons). Dark matter is PHYSICAL, gravitationally and optically measurable.  Spin is amathematical derivative and PHYSICAL. There is no  PHYSICAL need to bring metaphysics or mysticism or occultism or the breaking of basic Laws of Logic into any REAL science.

Philip Benjamin

PS. Glad to know that Serge is alive and well in Ukraine, as a real patriotic citizen against fascist PAGAN tyranny.

From: 'Rosemary Rock-Evans' via Consciousness-Online <general...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Monday, May 9, 2022 9:29 AM
To: general...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

 

so atoms are matter [material] but they are formed from particles.

These particles must have a very fundamental set of functions in order to bond - the laws of attraction and repulsion for example - and form an atom. Do they literally spin or only figuratively spin?

Are they material or non material ? Atums [with a u, o 'objects' maybe ?]

rosie

------ Original Message ------
From: "Philip Benjamin" <medin...@hotmail.com>
To: "general...@googlegroups.com" <general...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Monday, 9 May, 22 At 15:12
Subject: RE: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/9/2022 7:15 AM, Philip Benjamin wrote:

Philip Benjamin  Monday, May 9, 2022 9:13 AM 'general...@googlegroups.com' <general...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

 

[Philip Benjamin]

As for Wikipedia, there is no contradiction here! As far as chemistry is concerned an atom is the smallest unit of matter for any chemical bonds. No atom, no chemistry. As for the British Encyclopedia, “without the release of electrically charged particles” (i.e. before division into constituent fundamental particles) is the keynote. It is high time that the sciences think in terms of Dark atoms and their Dark chemistries.  

    Brilliant Niels Bohr and his ardent followers did not think in terms of chemistry. There are physicists who still think of Socialist PAGAN Hitler

Whatever else he was, Hitler was a Christian...of a vengeful variety.

"Christ was the greatest early fighter in the battle against the
world enemy -- the Jews. The work that Christ started but did not
finish, I, Adolf Hitler, will conclude."
   --- "The Book of Political Quotes," London: Angus & Robertson
Publishers, 1982, p. 195)

"The party as such represents the point of view of a positive
Christianity without binding itself to any one particular
confession."
         ---- Adolf Hitler, in the Nazi manifesto:

"We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
    ---Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933

"We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity in fact our movement is Christian."
    ---Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Passau, 27 October 1928, Bundesarchiv Berlin-Zehlendorf,         [cited from Richard Steigmann-Gall¹s The Holy Reich]

"God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that he was sent to us by God to save Germany."
    --- Hermann Goering, speaking of Adolf Hitler

Brent

[Philip Benjamin]

Socialist Hitler was a Nordic PAGAN with the Aryan Swastika. He was also reported to be an astrology fanatic and occultist, probably a Satanist. PAGANS have infiltrated everywhere from the Whitehouse to the outhouse, in the pulpits and pews, vivil and military, almost entirely the Western academia and media.

Philip Benjamin

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/498d2049-6395-7449-88e5-4bbc86f704a4%40gmail.com.

[John Clark]

On Mon, May 9, 2022 at 3:52 PM Philip Benjamin <medin...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Socialist Hitler was a Nordic PAGAN with

Ah, your favorite word yet again. Tell me Phillip, is there anybody or anything that was not a PAGAN?

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

qzz

yzz

 

[Philip Benjamin]

[Philip benjamin].

“Was” is okay. Abraham “WAS” a pagan. Augustine “WAS” a Greco-Roman- Phoenician pagan. Pagan means  Pan-Gaia-n, earth-worshippers, modern environmental fanatic. An “unawakened consciousness” is a natural product. “Awakening” has to be by an extrinsic source. Athenian Mars Hill discourse (Acts 17) gives the clue. Augustinian “transformation” is an example. The historic and historical “Two Great Awakenings” in the American Colonies are other examples. In these instances Adonai (plural) YHWH (singular) Elohim (uni-plural) was the external Source. Those events shaped the Western Civilization. Yoga, TM, Jungian sorceries, occultism, Psycho-Therapy etc. also may eventually lead to a completely different external source, with a completely different outcome. Politicians of all stripes are mostly inclined to the latter pagan techniques.

Philip Benjamin  

 

 

From: everyth...@googlegroups.com <everyth...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Monday, May 9, 2022 3:15 PM
To: 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: FW: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

 

On Mon, May 9, 2022 at 3:52 PM Philip Benjamin <medin...@hotmail.com> wrote:

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv3c%2Buiw5y2RVxZZOf5Ko3_D4Omkn_3r4mLNjrPjDuGfTQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[spudb...@aol.com]

I agree with this assessment based on an old book called Nazis and the Occult or Hitler and the Occult, I forget which. The big cheese in this manner of thinking we SS chieftain, Heinrich Himmler, who believed in a hollow earth in which "moons" arose, and the nordic race was spawned forth. The funny thing is that Himmler and his SS buds used to hold seances using the severed heads of the SS members or the those of the SA who were killed by the police during the 1923 Putsch, and held at Bewewelsburg Castle. The funny thing is that back in the 1970's so did Ugandan dictator, idi Amin Dada, a Muslim, did the same practice with some of his dispatched associates. Go figure? 

On the religious history of the Church, please note that if we look back to the bishops of the church and the rise of the Pope, I discovered that through reading a history book called The Bad Popes, that the bishops in Italy, were from the lineage of the land owners (Lantinafundia) who were originally Roman senators! The empire fell but these guys were still rich land owners who maintained their own private armies. Allow me. 

Amazon.com: The Bad Popes (The Mad, Bad and Ugly of Italian History) eBook : Chamberlin, E.R.: Kindle Store

So the organization of the Church, based on the once, pagan Roman Empire, and organized as such deliberately, were not such wonderful people. They made wars (not the popes per say) upon each other incessantly. Costing thousands of lives every few years, and these were their fellow Christians, Phil. In fact it is a tool right up to this very hour with the Ukrainian Church and Putin's church-both Eastern Orthodox.

What of the Jews? Weak, weak, weak, all waiting close to Jerusalem, for the messiah to come, so they could be raised in this new wonderful age. What about the Muslims? Slightly better in behavior but still kill kill kill, over land, power, God. What about the Hindus? Very tolerant. The Chinese Buddhists and Confucius and Daoist's, mostly nice. So, based on pure behavior Phil, show me how the medieval Christians were "Jesus like" in temperament, from the nice pagans????  

As the preachers of the 20th century said Phil, ya gotta walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

What about communists, socialists, and progressives? I think Phil has a point on barbarity being a go-to. What about Rightist Church goers? Yeah, I can see a totalitarian tendency here as well, tho' not funded like the Corporate Boards of Directors that fund the dems. As the preachers (fundamentalist's) of the 20th century spake; "We are all sinners!" I agree, because we all make mistakes and we like to hit! Atheist, Believer, Pagan, Thief, we all suck!

On the other hand Phil, can you blame anyone for getting weak of spirit for Jesus's return (Matt:24) after 21 centuries? Many people hold on for  fear, others just have move on, I suppose? 

Pax et fortuna omnibus!

-Spud, da sinner!

-----Original Message-----
From: Philip Benjamin <medin...@hotmail.com>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/SJ0PR14MB5264A4EC01454388F688115FA8C69%40SJ0PR14MB5264.namprd14.prod.outlook.com.

[Samiya Illias]

... if you slip 

https://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2020/01/if-you-slip.html 

Muhammad's letters to the heads of state 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad%27s_letters_to_the_heads_of_state 

On 10-May-2022, at 2:19 AM, spudboy100 via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/1362527823.719852.1652131172601%40mail.yahoo.com.

[Philip Benjamin]

general...@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: FW: FW: FW: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Philip Benjamin] How much more precisely can PHYSICAL be defined? There are five fundamental questions pertaining to any observation: what, why, how, when, where?  The ultimate meaning of what of anything remains unknown to science or philosophy!! What is a photon? Electron? Etc. That is true of why also? Why something rather than nothing? Can any science or philosophy tell that? Science is about observations. Observations are primarily about when, where, how. The ultimate or final ‘who’ and ‘what’ are not within the purview of science or any finite minds. The questions of aseity and infinite regress have to be settled for that.  WAMP-the-Ingrate can only PRETEND to know everything!! They are the most dangerous specimens of mankind today. They did not and could not exist during the dominance of the sphere of influence of Augustinian or Thomist thoughts and experiential facts.  

Philip Benjamin  

 

From: 'Rosemary Rock-Evans' via Consciousness-Online <general...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2022 2:24 PM
To: general...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: FW: FW: FW: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

 

But a definition of terms would help enormously.

 

Supernatural is just parts of Nature 'unexplained'. It is all natural.

 

And when James Randi tried his best to weed out the deluded, I know from my own experience, they exist. But he also weeded out people who were genuine, people he regarded as dangerous, because they didn't realise what their powers really were, or how they worked and as a consequence were a potential risk. If I can bend metal from a distance I can down planes. I become a weapon.

 

But I was with Bill, our neighbour's border collie, the other night and though he looks at me directly eye for eye, with great soulful brown eyes , occasionally, he follows heaven knows what around the room.

 

There are numerous things hovering over me if his eyes are any indicator and, just like Muffin, he seems to take orders from entities unseen. It may be dark matter or dark energy, but things outside my perception system exist. And animals can 'see' [perceive] them - especially border collies.

This realm of other worlds - caused by the fact we seem to be 'interleaved' with many other things - each of which may be perceiving things differently, simply isn't being taken into account.

 

Dark matter is matter [let us leave it at that] that humans cannot perceive and other animals often can, and these animals offer us a far better opportunity to explore it [as long as they are treated with kindness of course] than shooting at atoms in very expensive colliders, for all they tell you is that if you shoot something valuable enough times, some of the pieces may appear similar, but you are simply destroying something precious, without actually realising the effects could be catastrophic.

 

I hope you can see the point I am making. All these Higgs bosoms [joke] and leptons and so on are simply the effects of matter we cannot perceive doing things. The effects aren't the matter, they are only effects, because we don't have the equipment or perception systems to ever realise they are there.

 

And we never will, unless we use other species to help us, and humans who, by some fluke of nature get glimpses of other realms and can report back.

 

Long again, sorry, but I am genuinely very worried by the approach many 'scientists' are taking. There is the potential in what you are all doing, to produce absolutely catastrophic results and don't seem to realise how dangerous what you are doing is.

 

rosie

 

 

 

------ Original Message ------
From: "Philip Benjamin" <medin...@hotmail.com>

To: "general...@googlegroups.com" <general...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 10 May, 22 At 19:34
Subject: FW: FW: FW: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Philip Benjamin]

There are many flippant notions of “spirituality” thoughtlessly promoted by WAMP-the-Ingrate; but physical, metaphysical, mental, ‘spiritual’ etc. must be reevaluated as ordinary materialism of ordinary light matter with its chemistry and extraordinary materialism of extraordinary matter with its chemistry. Physical originally meant natural and was used for medicinal lingo of the ancient Greeks. The difference between physical and spiritual then in many instances become very tenuous.

Philip Benjamin

From: general...@googlegroups.com <general...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Philip Benjamin
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2022 10:13 AM
To: general...@googlegroups.com
Subject: FW: FW: FW: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

PHYSICAL meaning:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” 1John 1:1

From: 'Rosemary Rock-Evans' via Consciousness-Online <general...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2022 9:57 AM
To: general...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: FW: FW: [Consciousness-Online] FW: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

I know Philip.

But there again your reply was full of the word physical - with no definition as to what 'physical' was. As such I can choose whatever meaning I like

.

[Lawrence Crowell]

Since consciousness is a subjective experience, how can one know for sure?

LC

On Friday, April 22, 2022 at 9:38:52 PM UTC-5 Jason wrote:

Artificial Life such as these organisms:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX

( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )

Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food" and "poison" in their environment.

If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be conscious for the same reasons?

Why or why not?

Jason

[John Clark]

On Thu, May 12, 2022 at 7:54 PM Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Friday, April 22, 2022 at 9:38:52 PM UTC-5 Jason wrote:

 

>If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be conscious for the same reasons?

> Since consciousness is a subjective experience, how can one know for sure?

You can't know for sure just as you can't know for sure that solipsism is untrue, but you know that consciousness by itself produces no evolutionary advantage only behavior does, and you know you are conscious, so if you believe in Darwin's theory you'd know that evolution managed to produce at least one conscious thing and conclude that things that behave intelligently are conscious. So to the extent that worms and artificial life behave intelligently they are also conscious. Probably.

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

pne

[Alan Grayson]

This discussion is worse than establishing some propositions are undecidable. In those cases, at least we know what we're referring to. In this case NOT. If we're unable to define what we're talking about, we can't reach any conclusions. AG

[Brent Meeker]

There's very little we know for sure.  But most of us have confidence other people, dogs, birds, octopuses,... are conscious because they act certain ways.   And we even have some evidence about the level of consciousness based on behavior.  As AI is developed I expect we will further quantify and classify types and levels of consciousness.

Brent

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/dd227ef8-0bee-4d5a-86e9-fe2903e64eb4n%40googlegroups.com.