On Consciousness

[Roboramma]

Plato's cave.

That's not an answer. Please be specific.

 

[annnnoid]

That's not an answer. Please be specific.

If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, smells like a duck, and quacks like a duck… is it a duck?

"...I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you..."

IOW….why it is impossible to describe an accurate understanding of the unintelligibility of unintelligibility?

For a further discourse on the matter…go down the nearest rabbit hole (remember to bring your red and blue pills).

But in all fairness…there are horizons beyond which our vision requires a different variety of vision. I wonder if a sufficiently advanced HLMI might be capable of adding a sunny post-script to Russell’s gloomy prognosis:

“Brief and powerless is man’s life; on him and all his race the slow sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way.”

As things currently stand...the only AI postscript would seem to be 'I will now fireball you to death!"

My prediction is that Apple will leap to the AI forefront with the introduction of the IMe (for which I will have received a $200M copyright payment)...which will be shipped with its own birth certificate and Social Security Number. IMe #1 will reincarnate the essence of Steve Jobs and be installed as the CCEO of MegaAppleCorp. MegaAppleCorp will buy out Google, Facebook, Ebay, Microsoft, Groupon, Intel, Walmart, China, and Martha Stewart, and institute one-world proprietary government after setting up a new tax-free HQ on a suitable banana republic third world Caribbean Island (...say...Turks and Caicos).

ETA…and further…we will all be hardwired to our IPhone '0' (they forgot that number…the metaphysical equivalent of ultimate space-time) at which point life will become ‘app-functional’. The ultimate ‘killer-app’ will be ‘HAPPINESS….NOW!’. Dial it up… and drift away on oceans of Apple bliss (legal drugs….yay!) ‘Time’ in App(le)-World will be everywhere-now and everyone will be able to commune with Steve Jobs contemporaneously (or some equivalently big sounding meaning) and feel like they are ‘the one’.. There….a sunny postscript!

 

[AlBell]

Clearly you don't understand what these words actually mean. Let me correct that for you...

Emulation: Running a program or other software designed for a different system.
Simulation: Something which simulates a system or environment in order to predict actual behaviour.
Simulate: To model, replicate, duplicate the behavior, appearance or properties of.



Yes, although precise whole-cell molecular model is still being developed.




Presumably you believe the words you've bolded and highlighted are in contradiction with each other (which would be strange because my clarification that the second paragraph addresses "a different question entirely" is part of the highlighted text).

If so, this would be further evidence of your inadequate reading comprehension skills. I see no reason to continue arguing with someone either unable or unwilling to comprehend plainly worded posts.

Plainly worded posts appear to mean different things to different people. You have provided the computationalists view.

For me and I suspect others here, wrt brain and consciousness, an Emulation is replacing some part of a brain (neuron has been mentioned, although I doubt that level carries sufficient detail, I suggest getting the connections correct is the magic bean) with an electronic black box(EBB). And yes the result is expected by most if not all to be conscious.

A Simulation imo would be constructing a computer model of a brain using only EBB's, and that is where the argument begins. Computationalists, of course it's conscious; others, maybe but actually unknown.

just my 2cts!

 

[annnnoid]

Plainly worded posts appear to mean different things to different people. You have provided the computationalists view.

For me and I suspect others here, wrt brain and consciousness, an Emulation is replacing some part of a brain (neuron has been mentioned, although I doubt that level carries sufficient detail) with an electronic black box(EBB). And yes the result is expected by most if not all to be conscious.

A Simulation imo would be constructing a computer model of a brain using only EBB's, and that is where the argument begins. Computationalists, of course it's conscious; others, maybe but actually unknown.

just my 2cts!

EBB = ?

Three possibilities:

1 Exponentially bounded bustiness

2 Events beyond bacon

3 Electronic Bulletin Board

(...are there more? ...perhaps a topic for a new thread)

Apparently you have established your point. Plainly worded posts can in fact have multiple meanings.

 

[AlBell]

EBB = ?

Three possibilities:

1 Exponentially bounded bustiness

2 Events beyond bacon

3 Electronic Bulletin Board

(...are there more? ...perhaps a topic for a new thread)

Apparently you have established your point. Plainly worded posts can in fact have multiple meanings.

As I posted: "electronic black box(EBB)".

 

[annnnoid]

As I posted: "electronic black box(EBB)".

Not surprisingly...my fallible human programming looked right past the obvious. I am in dire need of an update!

 

[quarky]

Meanwhile, I'm brewing up a batch of artificial quarks in the hopes of creating AI.

I can't use the normal ones, in case they are the source of consciousness.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Meanwhile, I'm brewing up a batch of artificial quarks in the hopes of creating AI.

I can't use the normal ones, in case they are the source of consciousness.

Yes, Penrose. Is there any evidence for quarks or quantum consciousness, or is it still only conjecture and argument from ignorance? (e.g we don't know how consciousness works, so it must happen at the quantum mechanical and quark level, since we don't know how that works, either).

 

[quarky]

Well, you can't be too careful.
The last time I created what I thought was AI, turns out the sample was contaminated with bed bugs, and it was their intelligence I was observing.

The itchy bastards check-mated me, too.

 

[PixyMisa]

But do any players notice all this? I don't think so. They just switch to a strong weapon and kill him as fast as they can, rather than dancing with him like I intended. Oh well. But -- he is still very smart, and a far better combatant than any AI in any game prior. Thus, game AI definitely is improving.

Players don't notice the details of good AI, but they sure notice bad AI.

Your efforts are appreciated. Maybe not so much when we're restarting a level for the fifth time, but on the whole, yes.

 

[Mr. Scott]

"Consciousness is a kind of data processing and the brain is a machine that can be in principle replicated in other substrates, but general purpose computers are just not made of the right stuff."

How do you know general purpose computers are not made of the right stuff? What is the right stuff we'd need to make consciousness?

 

[!Kaggen]

How do you know general purpose computers are not made of the right stuff? What is the right stuff we'd need to make consciousness?

The future

 

[Mr. Scott]

The future

Elaborate

 

[!Kaggen]

The future is a requirement for humans.
The future is not a requirement for computer simulations.

 

[Mr. Scott]

The future is a requirement for humans.
The future is not a requirement for computer simulations.

That would be easy to program a computer to feel the future is a requirement. Sounds to me like you're just making stuff up. Why don't you tell us what you're thinking instead of posting useless, cryptic quips? Is your intent to degrade the conversation?

 

[!Kaggen]

That would be easy to program a computer to feel the future is a requirement. Sounds to me like you're just making stuff up. Why don't you tell us what you're thinking instead of posting useless, cryptic quips? Is your intent to degrade the conversation?

No, you cannot program a computer to feel the future.
All the information you would use is from the past which has nothing to do with the future. Unless you believe in magic, do you?

 

[rocketdodger]

Q: What happens if you invite him in for a coffee?
A: He will fireball you to death.

... snip ...

So can we expect AI ‘personalities’ that reflect the various neurosis of their creators… either individually or collectively?

I have this inexplicable urge to spit a fireball at you.

In all seriousness, though, I would say yes. In this particular case, I have been playing multiplayer FPS games for 18 years ( as long as they have existed, actually ) and I am pretty darn good at every aspect of them. I know that using splash damage is a very powerful learned skill, far more useful for killing an opponent than being able to track a target directly. So when I had an AI handed to me whose weapon did splash damage, I made him fight like I fight.

I don't know of any other AI programmers that have played as much FPS multiplayer as I have. Most of them are more into other types of games, at least all the ones I know personally are. So I wouldn't expect them to make an AI use splash damage -- they don't particularly use splash damage themselves. They would probably beef up the AI logic in other areas, which admittedly might make a better AI in other ways, ways that I wouldn't even consider unless someone brought it up. I am pretty sure there is AI out there that can out-strategize my AI, and AI out there that prioritize targets better, AI that can capture the flag better, and all sorts of other things.

But none of them can use fireballs, rockets, or any other projectile that explodes when it hits things, better than my AI. Probably because none of their programmers can use fireballs, rockets, or any other projectile that explodes on impact, better than me.

 

[Brian-M]

No, you cannot program a computer to feel the future.
All the information you would use is from the past which has nothing to do with the future. Unless you believe in magic, do you?

But humans cannot "feel" the future either. All the information we use is also from the past (and present).

However, if you can demonstrate a genuine capacity to perceive ("feel") or anticipate future events that could not be anticipated based on past information (with better results than just guessing), I know an organization that will give you a million dollars.

 

[Mr. Scott]

No, you cannot program a computer to feel the future.
All the information you would use is from the past which has nothing to do with the future. Unless you believe in magic, do you?

Is that another magic bean, that humans have and machines don't, the bean of feeling the future?

If you think humans can feel the future, then you believe in magic, right? No, I don't believe in magic.

 

[!Kaggen]

But humans cannot "feel" the future either.

Sure we do, anticipation, expectation, anxiety, fear are all feelings we have before we jump out of an aeroplane for the first time with a parachute on our backs.

All the information we use is also from the past (and present).

So someone that never jumped out of an aeroplane with a parachute knows what it feels like to jump out of an aeroplane with a parachute before they actually feel what it feels like? How?

However, if you can demonstrate a genuine capacity to perceive ("feel") or anticipate future events that could not be anticipated based on past information (with better results than just guessing), I know an organization that will give you a million dollars.

It is a trivial ability of humans which developed through evolution. No magic there. You computationalists should study biology sometime, you might learn something instead of assuming everything that is not about computers is magic.