On Consciousness

[!Kaggen]

While that's true after a fashion, it's also garbage.

I can take a Bach concerto and map it onto a pound of cheese. But all the useful information is in the map, not the cheese.

Lanier maps A onto B, then argues his point about A based on the properties of B, ignoring the map. That's garbage. It's completely irredeemable, and that's why I describe him as an idiot.

Not sure how your comprehension works but he is doing the exact opposite of what you say. He is not ignoring the map he is taking the map very seriously. He is showing how, if consciousness was a map, an abstraction, then it could be mapped from any medium including a rainstorm. A medium that shows no meaningful conscious behavior. The point being a map is meaningless, it is an abstraction, until a human puts it into a meaningful context. Consciousness as map makes this much more obvious.

 

[!Kaggen]

Except that there does not exist a static mapping between the dynamics of a brain and the dynamics of a rainstorm.

One that is meaningful to humans, yes I agree and so does Lanier.

 

[steenkh]

Not sure how your comprehension works but he is doing the exact opposite of what you say. He is not ignoring the map he is taking the map very seriously. He is showing how, if consciousness was a map, an abstraction, then it could be mapped from any medium including a rainstorm. A medium that shows no meaningful conscious behavior.

A chess-playing program, while not intelligent, can nevertheless be described as a map, so a chess-computer could be mapped to a rainstorm. Have you encountered any chess-playing rainstorms?

 

[Itztli]

One that is meaningful to humans, yes I agree and so does Lanier.

Not sure what you mean. I'm saying there's no static map at all that would map between a brain and a rainstorm (or any similar dynamic phenomenon).

If such a map does not exist, the analogy doesn't exist either.

 

[Roboramma]

I'm aware of the problem of induction. But once again, you didn't answer my very specific question.

Your response seems to indicate that you do think there's no reason to believe that the predictions of, say, quantum electrodynamics, will continue to be accurate, but I'm trying not to put words in your mouth so it would help if you'd just answer the question.

The scientific method is really not about the future, but about the past.

I note that you once again refuse to answer the simple question I posed. I'm at a loss as to why.

Do you or do you not expect the predictions made by the laws of physics to hold tomorrow?

Anyway, the scientific method is about the future, as well as the past (and the present). That the evidence it uses to make predictions about the future comes from the past isn't particularly interesting.

Let me try explain.
What we are predicting is that new data, which is always after the fact i.e. in the past, will map into our model of older data.
It does not account for the future, but a hypothesis of a future.

The scientific method is not about predicting all possible futures i.e. the future, but a particular future which is simply an abstract hypothesis of the past. Abstract in that it can be projected into the future, but it is not "the future".

There is only one future that you and I will interact with. That is the future whose behavior we are interested in. And that is the future in which the predictions of science will be tested.
Do you expect them to fail that test? Do you think there is reason to believe that they will not fail that test?

The accuracy of this method in mapping to new data is surely hypnotic and can give the impression of a prediction of "the future", but it is not "the future" its an abstraction of the past. A powerful one for sure.

You're not making sense. Here's a predictions about the future: if you drop a bowling ball tomorrow it will fall with an acceleration of 9.81 m/s².
That's not a prediction about the past: I'm literally talking about tomorrow.

It's true, but not very interesting, that you can't find out if the prediction is true until tomorrow, but that's true of any prediction.

 

[Dancing David]

I didn't say otherwise. So we are in 100% agreement with each other, for once.

I am certain there are many things we agree about, this board is probably not conducive to finding those.

 

[PixyMisa]

Not sure how your comprehension works but he is doing the exact opposite of what you say. He is not ignoring the map he is taking the map very seriously. He is showing how, if consciousness was a map, an abstraction, then it could be mapped from any medium including a rainstorm. A medium that shows no meaningful conscious behavior. The point being a map is meaningless, it is an abstraction, until a human puts it into a meaningful context. Consciousness as map makes this much more obvious.

No. He creates a map, then deliberately ignores it to create a false analogy. And he does this repeatedly. His argument is garbage.

 

[PixyMisa]

One that is meaningful to humans, yes I agree and so does Lanier.

No. There is no such map possible. His example is, to coin a phrase, garbage.

 

[!Kaggen]

A chess-playing program, while not intelligent, can nevertheless be described as a map, so a chess-computer could be mapped to a rainstorm. Have you encountered any chess-playing rainstorms?

Have you encountered any conscious computers?

 

[Beerina]

[X] Consciousness is a real phenomenon, and therefore has a real, physical basis, and cannot thus be purely information processing. That is all we can say for sure, at the moment.

 

[Itztli]

[X] Consciousness is a real phenomenon, and therefore has a real, physical basis, and cannot thus be purely information processing. That is all we can say for sure, at the moment.

Any system for information processing also has a real, physical basis.

 

[!Kaggen]

No. He creates a map, then deliberately ignores it to create a false analogy. And he does this repeatedly. His argument is garbage.

He is not ignoring the map he is ignoring the medium in which the map is played out. You have claimed the medium makes no difference, are you now saying it does?

 

[Itztli]

Have you encountered any conscious computers?

You're side stepping the issue. Following Lanier's logic, computers shouldn't be able to play chess, because a rainstorm cannot play chess. Since computers can play chess, there must a fault in Lanier's logic.

 

[!Kaggen]

Not sure what you mean. I'm saying there's no static map at all that would map between a brain and a rainstorm (or any similar dynamic phenomenon).

If such a map does not exist, the analogy doesn't exist either.

Consciousness as information processing is not dependent on the medium, but on the process. If you can use raindrops to process information then you can stimulate consciousness with raindrops. Unless consciousness is not information processing. Make up your mind.

 

[!Kaggen]

You're side stepping the issue. Following Lanier's logic, computers shouldn't be able to play chess, because a rainstorm cannot play chess. Since computers can play chess, there must a fault in Lanier's logic.

Lanier is discussing consciousness not chess, you are the one sidestepping the issue.

 

[Itztli]

If you can use raindrops to process information

You can't. That's the whole point.

 

[Itztli]

Lanier is discussing consciousness not chess, you are the one sidestepping the issue.

No, it's a demonstration of why the analogy is bogus.

 

[!Kaggen]

Any system for information processing also has a real, physical basis.

System, yes; information processing, no.
A model of a storm running on a computer does not produce rain.
A computer that runs this model gets hot not wet.

 

[Itztli]

System, yes; information processing, no.
A model of a storm running on a computer does not produce rain.
A computer that runs this model gets hot not wet.

Nonetheless, the computer is real. So, Beerina's requirement that consciousness requires a real, physical basis, has been fulfilled.

 

[violinner]

If it just requires the right programming to make HAL have goodwill towards other conscious beings then the whole history of mankind is rubbish.

The history of mankind is largely unconscious, just like the ancient Greek tragedies, but with more useless details and bigger weapons. I would hope we can create more consciousness without the history, or at least with consciousness of the consequences shown to us through history.