Explain consciousness to the layman.

[westprog]

I'm really surprised to hear that. Perhaps that's a matter of language, I've often heard adults telling a kid to say "I" - often when the kid has said "me". Granted I often disagree with the adults' correction since such usage is a matter of dialect in English.

Parents will often try to correct speech patterns learned from other children, TV, etc, if they find them inappropriate - and that sort of correction is worthwhile. Correction of the speech of children constructing language as they talk is less worthwhile.

 

[rocketdodger]

The difference between this and the simulation is that you have a real explosion in both cases.

If you recall, in my "mega post" I used doll furniture as one example of a scale replica.

But you're trying to say that the simulated tornado is a real tornado because it gives off light patterns which are similar in some respects. That's so silly it's not even worth discussing.

When we describe the simulator, it's chips and voltage potentials and monitors.

When we describe the simulation, it's high winds and funnel clouds and moisture.

Those are 2 different systems, and you can't claim that the same matter and energy are somehow really producing both.

We can observe and measure the simulator, and nowhere will we find any high winds, water, and funnel clouds.

These exist only in the mind of the observer, and more specifically only in the mind of an observer with the right kind of eyes and brain.

Period.

I never said a simulated tornado is a real tornado. Ever.

I am merely questioning your assertion that a simulated tornado doesn't exist without an observer. I don't see how it can "not exist" since a simulated tornado can lead to certain changes in the world. That doesn't make sense to me, since if changes are affected, something must be happening.

Can you try to respond to that, instead of <whatever strawmen you are currently fixated upon> ?

 

[rocketdodger]

As for simulation and emulation, I prefer the terms simulation and replica, which I think are going to be much more easily understood by most people.

Oh, so you are making up even more stuff now?

 

[rocketdodger]

I will point out that this analysis contradicts a purely behavioural view of consciousness, whereby if an entity shares the behaviour of a conscious organism, then it perforce is conscious.

There's an obvious contradiction between these two viewpoints.

I will point out that any serious behaviorist also considers "internal" behavior when it comes to consciousness, an aspect of behaviorism that you happily ignore.

There's an obvious contradiction between real behaviorists and your strawman behaviorist.

 

[rocketdodger]

The fact that you even have to explain that, is in itself mind boggling.

Do you even know what post he was responding to Leumas? Do you even know what piggy originally said that I asked him about?

I would like you to quote my original query, then piggy's response.

Then let's see if it really is "mind boggling." I have a feeling you might change your tune if you actually understand the conversation happening here.

 

[Leumas]

My argument is supported by the laws of physics, so I'm not worried on that count.

And the fact that your arguments are not supported by neurobiology is telling.

As for simulation and emulation, I prefer the terms simulation and replica, which I think are going to be much more easily understood by most people.

The tactic of equivocation especially in combination with contextomy to obfuscate is a powerful sophism.

emulate

1. to attempt to equal or surpass, esp by imitation
2. to rival or compete with
3. (Electronics & Computer Science / Computer Science) to make one computer behave like (another different type of computer) so that the imitating system can operate on the same data and execute the same programs as the imitated system

[from Latin aemulārī, from aemulus competing with; probably related to imitārī to imitate]​

simulate

1. to make a pretence of; feign to simulate anxiety
2. to reproduce the conditions of (a situation, etc.), as in carrying out an experiment to simulate weightlessness
3. to assume or have the appearance of; imitate

[from Latin simulāre to copy, from similis like]​

Notice how in the definition of Emulate there is no sub-meaning of pretending or feigning.... rather it is imitate with fidelity or even surpassing.

On the other hand notice how for simulate there is that nuance of fakery which is exactly what the INTENDED meaning is when used in regards to computer systems that create an ARTIFICIAL IMITATION.


In Engineering research, an emulation is a physical model that imitates the system under investigation in how it interacts with the environment.

Even when it comes to computers have a look at this excerpt

The word "emulator" was coined in 1963 at IBM[12] during development of the NPL (IBM 360) product line, using a "new combination of software, microcode, and hardware".[13] They discovered that using microcode hardware instead of software simulation, to execute programs written for earlier IBM computers, dramatically increased simulation speed.

Earlier in 1957, IBM provided the IBM 709 computer with an interpreter program (software) to execute legacy programs written for the IBM 704 to run on the IBM 709 and later on the IBM 7090[14] In 1963, when microcode was first used to speed up this simulation process, IBM engineers coined the term "emulator" to describe the concept.
It has recently become common to use the word "emulate" in the context of software. However, before 1980, "emulation" referred only to emulation with a hardware or microcode assist, while "simulation" referred to pure software emulation.[15]

For example, a computer specially built for running programs designed for another architecture is an emulator. In contrast, a simulator could be a program which runs on a PC, so that old Atari games can be simulated on it.

Purists continue to insist on this distinction, but currently the term "emulation" often means the complete imitation of a machine executing binary code.

Nevertheless, the term "emulation" when used in GENERAL ENGINEERING, means a PHYSICAL model that imitates the target system being researched.

When not contextomized and equivocated, I take the term in this discussion to mean a physical system that imitates the brain.....as I have mentioned a zillion times already....something like a Neural Network or for scifi fans positronic brain like in Star Trek.... a system that is not a PROGRAMMED COMPUTER executing programs.... but rather a system that acts in a similar manner to a brain where there are no programs (or perhaps just subsystems programs e.g. DSP chips).

 

[Leumas]

I never said a simulated tornado is a real tornado. Ever.I am merely questioning your assertion that a simulated tornado doesn't exist without an observer. I don't see how it can "not exist" since a simulated tornado can lead to certain changes in the world. That doesn't make sense to me, since if changes are affected, something must be happening.

Can you try to respond to that, instead of <whatever strawmen you are currently fixated upon> ?

I guess we must have misunderstood these posts then... sorry....and these are just two I found quickly.... I am still going to locate more soon.

[snip]
If I run a simulation of a tornado, and I output the results to a huge screen, from a distance the photons coming from the screen are almost identical in behavior to the photons coming from the tornado. If you want I can even add a pretty sky, a forest in the background. Then the photons coming from a given chunk of the horizon -- where the screen is -- are almost identical in behavior to the photons that would be coming from that chunk of the sky if there were no simulation + screen.

And I don't mean "identical" just to a human observer. They have very similar wavelengths and hence very similar energy, they are aligned in very similar ways, their numbers are very similar, etc. For all practical purposes the simulation has led to a change in the photons bouncing around our world that is very similar to the change that a real tornado makes.

[snip]

[snip]
But that isn't true -- one of the things a tornado does is change photons in its environment a certain way, and the simulator clearly also changes photons in its environment a certain way. And with certain restrictions applied, those two sets of changes are very similar.

[snip]

How about if we hook up a big fan to the simulation -- so now both photons and wind speed at some distance from the simulator happen to be close to that of a tornado. Sound, too? That is easy. Hey, I can even add seismic vibrations. By now even the forest animals will be running from cover -- yet it is only a simulation.
[snip]

 

[westprog]

Not much of a reader, then?

At least you didn't put in any of those cheatin' footnotes.

 

[westprog]

If a perfect, yet abstract, simulation of consciousness would have all of the relevant properties of a natural, real, consciousness; I still think it would be inaccurate to say that it wasn't actually a consciousness.

What are the relevant properties?

 

[westprog]

Well done..... very nicely put.

I would like to offer a thought that your text inspired.

If I draw a sequence of animations on a stack of papers and flip the pages the animation comes alive.

How is that different from an animation in a computer?

Would any one hesitate to deny that the animation on paper is in anyway alive or that it induces the drawn characters of the animation to be alive?

So why are people so quick to adduce life to the same characters in the flipped pages of the computerized version?

Someone might jump in and say that the characters in the computer have subroutines that make them do actions that are not just a predetermined sequence as on the paper.

I would reply..... that is just an expanded script..... extra subroutines and even ones with randomness are just an expanded script..... just like I might add a new page in the stack of paper drawings.

When I flip a dice I never predetermined which number will come up....but I flipped the dice and the number has meaning only to me. The dice did neither flip itself nor did it know or care or decide what number to show.

Think of an AI animation or any other AI as flipping a stack of papers where I could according to set rules or randomly or depending on the reaction of the observer pause the paper flipping and change a few of the papers in the stack and then continue without the observer being aware of this happening.

That is all a computer simulation is..... flipping a dynamically changeable stack of papers with symbols on them. The insertions of the changed papers are in accordance to the observer's responses to previous sequences or a random factor or some other SCRIPTED rule.

The computational approach would claim that if you just add enough pages and ever more detailed drawings, sooner or later you'll end up with something entirely identical.

 

[westprog]

So, if instead of a computer simulation of a brain, someone actually built a computer which replicated all of the functions of a human brain, would it be conscious?

What would be the difference between the computer brain and a biological brain?

If you had a computer that replicated all the functions of a steak, what would it taste like?

 

[rocketdodger]

If you had a computer that replicated all the functions of a steak, what would it taste like?

Yeah this pretty much sums up the arguments of those on your side of the issue.

Thanks for making that clear!

 

[westprog]

So basically you're telling us that the Brain Works In Mysterious Ways.

Why is it so impossible to admit that there are some things that we don't fully understand yet? The history of science is replete with examples of people confidently asserting that things worked in a particular way, because they had a model that was quite near to the data - and then they got more data and found it was wrong. There seems to be a kind of macho, prove-me-wrong attitude here which is profoundly anti-scientific.

 

[DavidByron]

There are many dumb people commenting at the beginning of this thread.
Roughly how many pages does that go on for?

 

[westprog]

Yet that is what your whole argument boils down to - an anthropomorphic metaphor i.e. "conciousness"!

There's nothing wrong in using anthropomorphic terms to describe human beings. That's what they're for. It's wrong to use them to describe other things which aren't human beings.

 

[rocketdodger]

I guess we must have misunderstood these posts then... sorry....and these are just two I found quickly.... I am still going to locate more soon.

I think it is clear that you misunderstood them.

I don't see how saying "a simulation of a tornado can lead to changes in windspeed similar to those of a tornado if the output is direct to a gigantic fan" is the same as saying "a simulated tornado is a real tornado."

If you think that is the same, then there are massive communication issues that need to be resolved.

Or, maybe you guys think that anything that produces changes in windspeed like a real tornado is a real tornado? That seems absurd though, doesn't it? That would mean that all hurricanes, and kids blowing out birthday candles, among other things, are real tornadoes under this bizarre definition.

 

[westprog]

Or we recognise that what we thought we were looking at isn't actually what we thought it was.

I wish this argument included the statement of what we (apparently) think consciousness is and what it really is. Is it that we think it's a noun and really it's an irregular adverb?

 

[rocketdodger]

There are many dumb people commenting at the beginning of this thread.
Roughly how many pages does that go on for?

89

 

[rocketdodger]

Why is it so impossible to admit that there are some things that we don't fully understand yet? The history of science is replete with examples of people confidently asserting that things worked in a particular way, because they had a model that was quite near to the data - and then they got more data and found it was wrong. There seems to be a kind of macho, prove-me-wrong attitude here which is profoundly anti-scientific.

That is a bit of a misrepresentation of the debate going on here.

Fundamentally the debate here boils down to whether there is a need for God or magic beans in order to produce consciousness, or not.

We admit that we don't understand everything, however one thing we will not admit is that there is room for God or magic beans in our heads. There certainly isn't in mine, thank you very much. That is one thing I fully understand.

 

[westprog]

The difference between this and the simulation is that you have a real explosion in both cases.

As we can see from the many logical errors in the 911 threads, explosions (and most other phenomena) do not scale evenly. Things at one scale behave differently to those at another.