Explain consciousness to the layman.

[dlorde]

You have jumped to an unwarranted conclusion (again). Who said I consider chatbots as the flagship example of thinking machines? ...It is because of the hackers outlandish claim that simpletons believe that they are true "thinking machines" that got my attention.

Hackers are a wide variety of individuals, who say a lot of things, although I don't recall hearing any say that. It's true that some 'unsophisticated' people may naively imbue chatbots with sentience (ISTR hearing of a secretary who poured out all her relationship problems to an early LISA during testing - but this may be apocryphal), and I think this may be related to the kind of anthropomorphism found in childhood play, where 'sympathetic' objects are imbued with a projected sentience. It does suggest that the lower boundary of human acceptance may be unexpectedly low, but I think most interested parties would set their sights higher than that.

 

[Leumas]

I agree that we don't seem to have any at the moment

Good....now that you see this fact then please now go back and read my numerous posts again which have stated time and again my position regarding your questions below

Just to clarify, I'm not being snarky: Are you saying that it is impossible that a computer/robot could ever be made that does all of that stuff? All the feedback and signals going back and forth etc? I agree that we don't seem to have any at the moment, but is it impossible in principle?

I know you said that you have been following the thread right from its outset and thus you must have read my many posts. However your questions below show that you have not or at least you have read them with a filter.

Now that you "agree that we don't seem to have any at the moment" maybe the filter is removed and you would be able to understand the numerous posts that I have repeated over and over stating my position and which DIRECTLY answer your questions posed above.

I too am not being snarky either....just tired of repeating my ideas especially in the light that you have already said

You are confused.

I have been following this thread for quite a while.

 

[case#46cw39]

Hackers are a wide variety of individuals, who say a lot of things, although I don't recall hearing any say that. It's true that some 'unsophisticated' people may naively imbue chatbots with sentience (ISTR hearing of a secretary who poured out all her relationship problems to an early LISA during testing - but this may be apocryphal), and I think this may be related to the kind of anthropomorphism found in childhood play, where 'sympathetic' objects are imbued with a projected sentience. It does suggest that the lower boundary of human acceptance may be unexpectedly low, but I think most interested parties would set their sights higher than that.

Check the popular zabaware http://www.zabaware.com and their outlandish claims that their program will give your computer the "power of thought" and it "understands English". What outlandish BS being hoisted on the general public simpletons. This BS shouldn't be allowed to fly. And where are the AI programmers/interested parties who should be criticizing this? Nowhere to be found. So I guess it is up to me.

 

[dlorde]

What is more exciting than machines doing things that humans can already do, however, is enabling humans to be able to do things that at the moment only machines can do. If you can give a machine the capability to compute the best route from a to b in a nanosecond, speak every single known language, see X-rays, detect lying, carbon date a fossil, why not give that capability to a human? That's where Artificial Intelligence will/could really be powerful imho. The human/AI hybrid.

If you consider what is available via the internet and smartphones, a lot of this functionality is available to us already, albeit via a clunky interface. Tidy up the interface, make it cleverer (more intelligent?) and personal, and you're almost there.

 

[Leumas]

The Chinese Room couldn't rebut its way out of a wet paper bag.
The Room as a system understands Chinese. Any argument to the contrary contradicts the premises of the argument.

The Room as Searle describes it is, of course, utterly physically impossible; that's where our intuition leads us astray. To handle even a modest exchange of messages it would have to be larger than the visible Universe and would operate on a timeframe of trillions of years.

But your "monumentally simplistic" "operational definition" which "is of no practical value" obviously can gnaw its way from under the rock of reality that already squashed it.

I really do tip my hat to your ability to persist with your "monumentally simplistic" thoughts as if they were in fact meaningful despite all the evidence showing how "monumentally simplistic" they are and not to mention them being “not of any practical value".

I am bewildered that you still have anything to say after having watched this video that shows what the REALITY of the science is.

I admire your tenacious defense of your "monumentally simplistic" ideas in the face of all the body of evidence proving them to be “monumentally simplistic” and "of no practical value”.

 

[dlorde]

Thanks for that link....have you read it? I suggest you read it again intently this time to see why it is not a rebuttal but in fact more of a affirmation.

Yes, I read it. It contains a description of the argument and its history, and various replies (rebuttals) and responses to them. If you read it as an affirmation, you may have missed the non-committal conclusion:

The many issues raised by the Chinese Room argument may not be settled until there is a consensus about the nature of meaning, its relation to syntax, and about the nature of consciousness.

 

[westprog]

That's exactly what the brain does. It crunches data, though in such massive amounts, and in such particular ways, that it generates an internal illusion of sentient subjectivity. I think that's wonderful.

The "internal illusion" is a perennial idea. It's popular because if sentience is an illusion, then everything else falls into place. We aren't conscious - the number crunching somehow fools us into thinking we are.

I've always thought that this was an incoherent concept. If there is an illusion, there has to be somebody there to be fooled. Who is being fooled into thinking it exists? The illusion is fooling itself.

What additional understanding does the concept of the illusion give us? The same processes that create consciousness create the illusion of consciousness, but give us the additional problem of how the illusion works.

 

[Leumas]

It isn't interesting to anyone doing research in AI, or even anyone who knows how to program.

Maybe if they understood it they might become interested. Maybe if they removed the filters of wishful thinking they might get what it is trying to say.

It merely boils down to ....programmed machines are not conscious despite TRICKING some wishful thinkers precisely because they are programmed.

 

[Leumas]

Self-referential information processing.

Your turn.

Which is "monumentally simplistic" definition and is "of no practical value" and has already induced you to conclude that "there are conscious computers" which you programmed yourself in so mundane a manner which was not a remarkable event whatsoever despite all the evidence of science showing how "monumentally simplistic" this idea of yours is.

Why do you persist in repeating such “monumentally simplistic” twaddle?

 

[Leumas]

Two fallacies I see in the Chinese Room thought experiment:

1) It assumes "understanding" is a magical bean, without properly examining that assumption.

2) If it's a given that there is a magic bean of understanding, the lookup table had to have been created by someone using that very bean. In that case, there's merely a time delay between the use of the magic bean and the mechanical act of looking up and replying with symbols in the room. A little like the time delay between coming up with something to say, and actually saying it. The lungs, vocal chords and tongue (like the Chinese Room) have no clue of the meaning of what's being said. It's not a philosophical problem in my estimation.

The "magic bean" you keep referring to in the case of the PROGRAMMED computer is THE PROGRAMMER..... the programmer is the REASON (which you equivocally call magic bean) the programmed computer appears to be "intelligent" just like Punch and Judy appear to be moving and thus fooling SIMPLE CHILDISH minds into thinking that they are animate.

The REASON (not magic anything) that a programmed computer might FOOL some wishful thinkers into believing that it is intelligent is because there is IN FACT A REAL INTELLIGENCE behind it ......THE PROGRAMMER....the programmer is remote controlling (over time) the machine just like Punch is controlled.

The programmed computer appears to be intelligent due to the time-remote-control of the programmer who was clever enough to fool lesser minds into believing that his program is animate.

 

[dlorde]

Check the popular zabaware http://www.zabaware.com and their outlandish claims that their program will give your computer the "power of thought" and it "understands English". What outlandish BS being hoisted on the general public simpletons. This BS shouldn't be allowed to fly. And where are the AI programmers/interested parties who should be criticizing this? Nowhere to be found. So I guess it is up to me.

They don't seem like hackers to me; but in any case, I think most people would see it as the marketing hype it clearly is - not so different from Siri on the iPhone. Many people play the game when buying, suspending disbelief so they can complain about how disappointing it is afterwards Technology on the verge of becoming useful is often overhyped into something entirely fanciful. I remember the Sinclair C5, and the Apple Newton; the marketing for Sinclair ZX80 said you could use it to run a nuclear reactor - an aspirational claim - some people may have believed it, but ignorance isn't necessarily stupidity.

 

[keyfeatures]

Hackers are a wide variety of individuals, who say a lot of things, although I don't recall hearing any say that. It's true that some 'unsophisticated' people may naively imbue chatbots with sentience (ISTR hearing of a secretary who poured out all her relationship problems to an early LISA during testing - but this may be apocryphal), and I think this may be related to the kind of anthropomorphism found in childhood play, where 'sympathetic' objects are imbued with a projected sentience. It does suggest that the lower boundary of human acceptance may be unexpectedly low, but I think most interested parties would set their sights higher than that.

Where do you think we got pagan gods from? Hey, the cloud is alive, so is the volcano, must be sentient etc etc.

 

[keyfeatures]

Where do you think we got pagan gods from? Hey, the cloud is alive, so is the volcano, must be sentient etc etc.

However, if we reduce thinking down to just data crunching, then everything in the universe 'thinks'. In fact, the entire universe becomes a giant computer, and we're just one bit within it. The space between us and the machine becomes illusory because we are both part of the one universal machine.

 

[westprog]

I'm not even going to qualify that with a response.

That qualifies as a response. It's quite informative.

 

[westprog]

Congratulations for completely missing the point.

Again.

I got the point. "I know that algorithmic means to generate mathematical proofs have been a failure so far, but I can't see any reason why they shouldn't work out at some stage in the future".

 

[dlorde]

Where do you think we got pagan gods from? Hey, the cloud is alive, so is the volcano, must be sentient etc etc.

Yes indeed, good point. So it becomes clear that we wouldn't really want to create a machine that thinks just like a human - we can do better than that

 

[dlorde]

However, if we reduce thinking down to just data crunching, then everything in the universe 'thinks'. In fact, the entire universe becomes a giant computer, and we're just one bit within it. The space between us and the machine becomes illusory because we are both part of the one universal machine.

Binary Buddhism? A machine religion?

 

[keyfeatures]

Binary Buddhism? A machine religion?

Is it a religion of it's not based on faith, but science?

As I said before, two value binary isn't the full story. The opposite of one isn't nothing.

 

[Belz...]

Transport from a to b is just one purpose.

I really should bet money when I guess things in advance. I guessed you would miss the point of the analogy and you surely did. When you see an analogy, it's pretty silly to look for the thing about it that doesn't correspond to the thing it's an analogy for, because analogies are, by definition, not that thing.

But a bicycle and a car fulfil this purpose in significantly different ways. And their form limits, or enables, additional functions they may perform - shelter / exercise / speed/ haulage / and so on.

Irrelevant to the analogy.

 

[Belz...]

That qualifies as a response. It's quite informative.

No it doesn't, and it isn't. You just keep digging that hole.

I got the point.

No you didn't. AGAIN you've completely lost track of the conversation. This is something very common with you, ever since your first few posts on this forum.