On Consciousness

[PixyMisa]

Thinking, obviously.

Functionally. How can you distinguish the two?

Or not an example at all. The definition of feeling must articulate what it's like to subjectively experience something, such as joy. If a thermostat can feel, you should be able to ask Nagel's question: what is it like to be a thermostat? Such a question, with regards to thermostats, is ludicrous.

Simple thermostats are not conscious, not be-able things. Computers are.

No, but organisms with nervous systems are the only things we know that are capable of feeling anything.

And how do you know that?

If it was an artificial brain, it would compute like an organic brain. It would do everything an organic brain does.

And what, exactly, is the functional difference between that and a simulation?

 

[PixyMisa]

There is certainly a "magic" in language in that the more effective it is in the above task the more difficult it becomes in differentiating between the abstraction and the thing abstracted.
This can lead to the religious mystical idea of human language being related to a cosmic creative process.

No, that's just you.

 

[PixyMisa]

So you are relying on a successfully passed Turing test as complete proof your computer is human level conscious. As I suspected. Thanks.

Your response bears no relation to what rocketdodger wrote, so again I'll say: No, that's just you.

Agreed that coding could differentiate the correct wavelengths we 'experience' as red. And none of us can ever verify how others 'experience' red either.

We could always, y'know, ask them.

 

[AlBell]

Your response bears no relation to what rocketdodger wrote, so again I'll say: No, that's just you.

Wrong.

We could always, y'know, ask them.

That doesn't give any indication of what was 'experienced'. For all I'll ever know what I see as red may look to you like some different part of the spectrum for example what I might term orange; of course for the red wavelenths we can agree 'that's red' as our parents and peers tought us.

 

[PixyMisa]

Wrong.

Wrong.

That doesn't give any indication of what was 'experienced'.

Wrong again. Humans can and do describe their experiences.

 

[AlBell]

Wrong.

No.

Wrong again. Humans can and do describe their experiences.

And no one will ever know what for example, pain, actually feels like to someone else.

 

[PixyMisa]

No.

Wrong.

And no one will ever know what for example, pain, actually feels like to someone else.

Wrong. We can't know precisely what it feels like to the last detail - because to know that you have to, by definition, be that person, and even then you'd fail because you don't know to the last detail what anything feels like even to you.

But we do know what pain feels like to other people, through multiple methods of investigation, not least of which is asking them.

 

[dlorde]

... we do know what pain feels like to other people, through multiple methods of investigation, not least of which is asking them.

I'm particularly fond of the Schmidt Pain Index of Insect Stings. Poetic at times...

 

[Modified]

I'm particularly fond of the Schmidt Pain Index of Insect Stings. Poetic at times...

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see any way honey bee and yellowjacket can have the same pain value. I barely notice honey bee stings, and just get a tiny red bump for each, while yellowjacket stings are fairly painful, and result in a swellings upon which I can use a fingernail to doodle.

 

[AlBell]

Compare all the reporting you want to: None of it gets to the heart of the situation; 'what it actually feels like to me vs anyone else'.

 

[PixyMisa]

Compare all the reporting you want to: None of it gets to the heart of the situation; 'what it actually feels like to me vs anyone else'.

Wrong.

 

[PixyMisa]

I'm particularly fond of the Schmidt Pain Index of Insect Stings. Poetic at times...

Thanks, I hadn't seen that before.

"How the sting feels: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue."

 

[annnnoid]

Thanks, I hadn't seen that before.

"How the sting feels: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue."

…so if I suddenly feel ….:

" Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue."

…I may definitively conclude that I have just been stung by a yellowjacket ?!?!?!?!?!?

Y’know…I’d be willing to bet that if you lined up one million people and stung each and every one of them with a yellowjacket you wouldn’t get a single one who would describe the experience in those words (unless, perhaps, they were an accomplished sommelier with a thing for old movies).

What is amazing is the lengths to which you guys will go to defend your absurd positions (is this supposed to be clear evidence that subjective experience can be effectively communicated? [ you are WRONG AlBell!...or so says Pixy]). Sometimes it gets truly laughable.

…but very scientific just the same. For all you programmers…be sure and use that as a metric when assigning reaction categories to your nascent creations as they develop the ability to achieve tactile sensation. R2D2 gets stung on the finger (or equivalent simulated appendage). How to determine exactly which variety of creature was the guilty party? Well…you can be damn sure it’s a yellow jacket if R2D2 feels…

…” Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue."

…but I suppose R2D2 would have to 'understand' the ten trillion different permutations and combinations of ‘smoky, hot, irreverent…etc. etc.’…not to mention all the ones that haven’t even been created yet (not to mention what it's like to be have a cigar extinguished on your tongue)…and no doubt it would be useful to have personally met W.C. Fields (or his computer avatar).

 

[PixyMisa]

…so if I suddenly feel ….:

" Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue."

…I may definitively conclude that I have just been stung by a yellowjacket

No.

is this supposed to be clear evidence that subjective experience can be effectively communicated?

Obviously - obviously even to you - it's an example of subjective experience being communicated. One small example, out of the billions that happen every single day.

 

[dlorde]

…so if I suddenly feel ….:

" Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue."

…I may definitively conclude that I have just been stung by a yellowjacket ?!?!?!?!?!?

That would be silly - one person's experience of some event is not the same as another's because they are different people with different physiologies, histories, and memories. This is precisely why it is interesting to hear other people's descriptions of their experiences and attempt to identify possible similarities and commonalities with our own experiences. This is why so much literature is basically "Let me tell you how it felt..." or "Imagine what it would be like...". It may also be another way of engaging our mirror neurons to mentally put ourselves into someone-else's situation.

Y’know…I’d be willing to bet that if you lined up one million people and stung each and every one of them with a yellowjacket you wouldn’t get a single one who would describe the experience in those words...

Exactly!

 

[Zeuzzz]

But we do know what pain feels like to other people, through multiple methods of investigation, not least of which is asking them.

Ooo ooo ask me ask me!

You should try meditating some time pixy. If you are averse to strong psychedelic drugs.

David Lynch on Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain (Transcendental Meditation)


Russell Brand talks about Transcendental Meditation at Operation Warrior Wellness launch

 

[Belz...]

Really now. When scientists simulate the early conditions of the Big Bang, do you believe there's a tiny universe in the computer? Do you think they go in a bomb shelter when they model nuclear explosions? Physical processes are obviously not the same thing as simulations. I don't know what to say to those who claim they are. There's such a disconnect there, it's unbridgeable. Maybe this advice: don't cry over the people you murder in Grand Theft Auto. It's all right.

I get the impression that some of you never read or simply ignore the posts that answer all those points of yours, and then act as though they were never posted.

If consciousness is computational, a simulation of consciousness is conscious because computation is what's required.

 

[Belz...]

Compare all the reporting you want to: None of it gets to the heart of the situation; 'what it actually feels like to me vs anyone else'.

So we're back to solipsist magic ? How is that useful ?

So you are relying on a successfully passed Turing test as complete proof your computer is human level conscious.

How else would you do it ? Really, how else do you know if anything/anyone is conscious, Al ? By observing behaviour ?

 

[Belz...]

Mathematics "works" no better than any other language.

It does, obviously.

 

[Zeuzzz]

I get the impression that some of you never read or simply ignore the posts that answer all those points of yours, and then act as though they were never posted.

If consciousness is computational, a simulation of consciousness is conscious because computation is what's required.

So then we have Godel:

"According to my notes, Gödel’s response went as follows: It should be possible to form a complete theory of human behavior, i.e., to predict from the hereditary and environmental givens what a person will do. However, if a mischievous person learns of this theory, he can act in a way so as to negate it. Hence I conclude that such a theory exists, but that no mischievous person will learn of it. In the same way, time travel is possible, but no person will ever manage to kill his past self. Gödel laughed his laugh then, and concluded, The a priori is greatly neglected. Logic is very powerful. Apropos of the free will question, on another occasion he said: There is no contradiction between free will and knowing in advance precisely what one will do. If one knows oneself completely then this is the situation. One does not deliberately do the opposite of what one wants."

“Conversations with Gödel”, in Rudy Rucker, Infinity and the Mind, Princeton University Press, 1995,