I challenge you: your best alternate to materialism

[punshhh]

That is not what "control" means.

Each time you say what some word doesn't mean you're not actually saying anything, it's nothing more than hand waving, as you disappear up your own defintions.
From wiki;

"A scientific control is an experiment or observation designed to minimize the effects of variables other than the single independent variable. This increases the reliability of the results, often through a comparison between control measurements and the other measurements. Scientific controls are a part of the scientific method".

Or what "definition" means.

In this case the definition is imprecise so the use of a control, which can be tested, in the experiment, negates a requirement for a precise definition(or a definition limited by language).

Which is not at all what you actually illustrated. What your argument actually showed was that the same sound could be produced through two different means - that the means of production does not have to be identical to create the same product.

Yes my point still stands, you must have a blind spot or something. Two different appearances of self-consciousness (which appear identical) can be produced from two different objects. It's the object in the control which is conscious, not its behavior and the other object is a machine, (no consciousness there(or more pertinent, no self-consciousness required)).

Which has been my point all along. You somehow try to twist this into "the lyrebird makes the same sound as a chainsaw and therefore must have a chainsaw in its throat", which is so entirely, staggeringly wrong that I honestly have no response to it, because it obviously isn't an actual response to what has been said.

My point was to prove mimicry, it has worked, as you now accept mimics. I.e. If mimics, of sound, were impossible it would not be possible to make an identical sound with different hardware.the lyrebird illustrates that it can be done(by a bird brain). Likewise it can be done with self-consciousness.

This being the case it will always be in doubt that any constructed self-conscious device is actually conscious at all, and not just a dumb machine putting on a good show for our benefit. Unless you can devise a test to screen out the mimics.

You do understand that two different computers can compute the same thing via different hardware, yes? Your desktop can do anything that ENIAC could do.

Again, the Church-Turing thesis is that any Turing-equivalent computer can compute anything that any other Turing-equivalent computer can. It might do so less efficiently, through different means, more slowly, or any number of other things, but it can still be done.

Agreed, this is not in dispute.

If it's impossible to distinguish, it's not an imperfect mimic.

Perhaps this is the whole problem, here. Humans have limited capacity, therefore limited capacity to distinguish between mimics. The really clever mimics could always out witt the human observer and we would be non the wiser.

If it's not an imperfect mimic, it is the thing it's mimicking.

Yes it would be a perfect replica of the control, down to every atom and it would be expected to be just as conscious as the control (if it were alive that is). It could be a perfect mimic and not be conscious at all, ie. dead, or just not alive.

Is not a perfect model.

You seem to have missed something here, given your definition of behaviour, the computation must somehow simulate the neurochemical activity in the brain?

If the cause of death was not the brain, then the brain is still active. The brain does not stop working so long as it is alive; the moment it does, you are dead.

And it only stops if it has been damaged in some way. What you are asking is not a matter of simply turning it back on, but restructuring what has been destroyed. Which is technically possible, but is a matter of exceedingly delicate neurosurgery.

Interesting, the brain goes from being alive to being irreversibly dead in an instant. This alive thing(being active) seems to have some importance now.

So yes, it can be done, but the fact that we can't do it now isn't an indication that it's impossible. It's just damn hard.

. The brain would deteriorate faster than it could be repaired. Anyway you seem to have it in your head that the moment the person dies the brain is significantly damaged. Why, what has happened in that millisecond? Surely if it is wired up correctly and put in a jar quickly enough, it would be self-conscious as soon as you flick the switch.
Or would it have to be transferred to the jar in a living state to be self-conscious?

I have never talked about perfect replicas of humans. I have talked about perfect replicas of consciousness. This does not require duplication of humans.

Well I hate to bring it up again(because you shot yourself in the foot) but your definition of the behaviour of self-consciousness, includes the neurochemistry of the brain. So the biology of the brain has to be replicated in some way. Which is why I asked you if it is simulated.

Pay attention.

I suggest you look in the mirror and repeat that.

No. It would, by definition, be self-conscious.

Sorry, what was that definition again?

Whether or not I "feel it would be necessary" is irrelevant.

I was just trying to help you out there.

You don't understand it.

Others don't have that problem.

I do understand that physical matter is not fully understood, only described.

 

[realpaladin]

Since x is non-particular (please see http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10470356&postcount=1825) according to Neutral monism, existence itself is neutral w.r.t contradiction or tautology, as explained in http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10437382&postcount=1405.

So instead of the traditional way of existence ("there exists x such that...") the neutral way is as follows:

"x (where x is neutral WFF), such that NOx|SOMEx|EVERYx|YESx (where these four states are x minimal properties)".

Direct awareness of x is neutral (it is not restricted to NOx|SOMEx|EVERYx|YESx) and enables that is directly aware of x to be developed into an harmoniums factor among x minimal restrictions NOx|SOMEx|EVERYx|YESx (as explained in http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10440785&postcount=1481 and http://www.sciencechatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=27823#p269301).

Nobody cares Doron. Your 'wordsaladism' has disqualified you from just about any scientific forum and your connection with the TM crowd has removed any credibility, such as any you may have had, of someone with insights of his own.

 

[punshhh]

Obviously.

Ok.

So, now, what is it you are arguing? I'm pretty sure modern autonomous robots have behavour patterns a good deal more complicated than ants (and certainly than amoeba). If you want to argue such simple brains to have consciousness, you have clearly defeated the claim that life is needed for it.

I am arguing consciousness is a peculiarity of living organisms, a particular method of achieving agency.
But what are the robots doing? They are doing it parrot fashion with the help of some software. No requirement for consciousness, or experience, indeed to lead onto my next point, there is no requirement for consciousness or experience in highly advanced AI.

However, all this is really just a narrow slice of the problem of consciousness. How about a non-living entity, e.g. a super-large computer? How do we recognize consciousness in that?

I don't know, I am sure that advanced AI would include consciousness and personal experience at some point in the future, but there is probably no requirement for it and it may be humans are projecting their ideas onto something else.

 

[LarryS]

punshhh, note that no one is suggesting we can (reverse?) engineer the entire domain of human consciousness. Having self-awareness, command of language, having emotions, or functional long term memory . . . these are not requirements for 'being conscious'. We are referring to the more brutish end of the spectrum, ie negotiating terrain, or if presented with a series of images, a conscious entity could orientate them (right-side up vs upside down), or perhaps a conscious entity could distinguish a happy face from a sad face. We're not including being able to negotiate a deal with a used car salesman or write a love sonnet.

 

[Donn]

robots .. are doing it [agency] parrot fashion with the help of some software.

I think this is the nub of it. In my opinion, we're all doing agency parrot fashion on rails of software.

We are robots. Step our brains down in complexity and our robotic nature becomes more and more obvious in crudity.

You seem, I don't know, it's hard to follow you, to be saying that we are not robots; that some other situation applies. I don't think wishing is going to change the essence of the thing: atoms under physical laws, make us high-res robots.

 

[Nonpareil]

Each time you say what some word doesn't mean you're not actually saying anything, it's nothing more than hand waving, as you disappear up your own defintions.

I'm really not. You are just saying things that have no actual meaning, and I am pointing this out.

Human consciousness is not the "control" in any sort of experiment to create consciousness. The idea is not even coherent. You even point this out yourself by giving the definition.

Human consciousness is also not the definition of "consciousness".

Yes my point still stands, you must have a blind spot or something. Two different appearances of self-consciousness (which appear identical) can be produced from two different objects. It's the object in the control which is conscious, not its behavior and the other object is a machine, (no consciousness there(or more pertinent, no self-consciousness required)).

My point was to prove mimicry, it has worked, as you now accept mimics.

I never disputed mimics. What I said was that a perfect mimic is, by definition, the thing it is mimicking. You seem to have some issue with this, but you can never quite define what it is other than "but it's not really", at which point I have to reiterate that you cannot show any difference between the two. Not that you, personally, lack the ability, but that it cannot be done, because there is no difference.

Meanwhile, you seem to be lost in the idea that there must be some sort of intangible pseudo-property of a substance that both tells you where it comes from and somehow makes it so that the rest of its characteristics don't count when determining whether or not it's actually the same thing as something else.

The lyrebird and the chainsaw both produced the same sound. The lyrebird's sound is a perfect mimic of the chainsaw's sound. They are the same sound. My point is that the same product can be produced through two different means, not that the product being identical means that the means must be too.

Your point seems to be that either the two products are not identical (which is wrong) or that my argument indicates that the means must be (which is also wrong).

Either way, it's wrong.

I.e. If mimics, of sound, were impossible it would not be possible to make an identical sound with different hardware.the lyrebird illustrates that it can be done(by a bird brain). Likewise it can be done with self-consciousness.

This being the case it will always be in doubt that any constructed self-conscious device is actually conscious at all, and not just a dumb machine putting on a good show for our benefit. Unless you can devise a test to screen out the mimics.

Yes. Which is, in fact, trivially easy, as I have pointed out before. All you need is an operational definition of whatever it is you're looking for mimics of.

What you actually want is a means of screening out the lyrebird sound as well, which is nonsensical. All we're looking for is the sound, not its origin.

Perhaps this is the whole problem, here. Humans have limited capacity, therefore limited capacity to distinguish between mimics. The really clever mimics could always out witt the human observer and we would be non the wiser.

"But you can't really be sure" is not an actual argument. God of the gaps is not going to help you.

Yes it would be a perfect replica of the control, down to every atom and it would be expected to be just as conscious as the control (if it were alive that is). It could be a perfect mimic and not be conscious at all, ie. dead, or just not alive.

You keep trying to insert biological life as a requirement for consciousness without a basis for doing so.

Stop.

You seem to have missed something here, given your definition of behaviour, the computation must somehow simulate the neurochemical activity in the brain?

Yes. Which it can do to any degree of accuracy, but the moment it actually starts doing all the computations itself - the moment it becomes a perfect mimic - it stops being a simulation.

Interesting, the brain goes from being alive to being irreversibly dead in an instant. This alive thing(being active) seems to have some importance now.

If you smash a computer, it stops working, unless you repair it.

What's your point?

Anyway you seem to have it in your head that the moment the person dies the brain is significantly damaged.

If it wasn't significantly damaged, it wouldn't be dead.

 

[Nonpareil]

I am arguing consciousness is a peculiarity of living organisms, a particular method of achieving agency.

No.

You are asserting this. Repeatedly. Without basis.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Perhaps so. This is why I am using a human being as a control, (the definition).

That means that you are, deliberately or not, trying to build a circular argument: The perfect mimic of a human being will, obviously, be indistinguishable from a human being. That would be very interesting if we could do that, but it would not tell us wether a biological entity is needed to attain self-awareness. It would also not tell us wether humans have a soul, since you could well argue that the artificial human also has one.

If the experiment produces an object which appears to be as conscious as the control, then we move onto the next stage of the experiment, how to make it, or establish that it is, either conscious, or self-conscious(given my definitions).

First of all that is putting the cart before the horse: Obviously, if we have produced shuch an object we will know how to make it.

Secondly, you are missing the point: The question is wether an artificial entity can be self-aware. It does not have to be identical to a human consciousness, it just has to have something we can recognize as consciousness.

It is an imperfect analogy. It was to demonstrate that mimics can in principle exist.

Uhm, OK, but we already knew that.

The important distinction between the mimic and the person or chainsaw it is mimicking is that the mimic of the person is not actually self-conscious, but performs parrot fashion all the behaviours of the person.

You have no way of claiming that something that fully mimicks a person is not a person and is not self-aware. THAT is the very point: Assuming a perfect mimick, you cannot point to anything that would not qualify the mimicka as a self-aware being.

Likewise the lyrebird is not actually a chainsaw but performs parrot fashion all the vibrations in the environment that a chainsaw would produce.

However, if we were to produce a perfect mimick of a chainsaw; sound, weight, look, smell, fuel consumption, tree-cutting, etc, how would you distinguish it from a chainsaw? How might you claim that it was NOT a chainsaw?

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

I am arguing consciousness is a peculiarity of living organisms, a particular method of achieving agency.

No, you are not. You are (as already remarked) asserting it. You have presented no arguments, however.

But what are the robots doing? They are doing it parrot fashion with the help of some software. No requirement for consciousness, or experience, indeed to lead onto my next point, there is no requirement for consciousness or experience in highly advanced AI.

There is a very simple reason for that: AI is produced for practical purposes. Computers are constructed in order NOT to be conscious. We want our computers, including their software, to be as deterministic (=reliable) as we can make them. If we want to add the human factor, we will hire a human.

At some point, there might be a scientific drive for actually proving the point that machines can be made conscious, but the motivation is not that strong. Why? Well, scientists generally don't have to be convinced that consciousness is a product of a physical brain; they already understand that. The ones that need convincing are believers, and they are notoriously not likely to be convinced by scientific arguments anyway, so why bother?

I don't know, I am sure that advanced AI would include consciousness and personal experience at some point in the future, but there is probably no requirement for it and it may be humans are projecting their ideas onto something else.

Exactly my point! I don't want my robot to be like a human. I want it to be reliable, obedient, and not arguing or making demands.

Hans

 

[punshhh]

punshhh, note that no one is suggesting we can (reverse?) engineer the entire domain of human consciousness. Having self-awareness, command of language, having emotions, or functional long term memory . . . these are not requirements for 'being conscious'. We are referring to the more brutish end of the spectrum, ie negotiating terrain, or if presented with a series of images, a conscious entity could orientate them (right-side up vs upside down), or perhaps a conscious entity could distinguish a happy face from a sad face. We're not including being able to negotiate a deal with a used car salesman or write a love sonnet.

Perhaps so. The materialist position is that all those abilities are possible via computation and consciousness as I am describing it doesn't exist other than as an emergent behaviour of a certain weight of computation. So from that position the device would have those abilities, at least in capacity, before the consciousness would emerge. From here they simply look at a human and say this is how you are self-conscious and how we can replicate the same experience in any other form in which an equivalent degree of computation occurs.

Talk about putting the human intellect on a pedestal! They would also put a rope and pulley computer on a pedestal! All sorted and explained.

 

[punshhh]

I think this is the nub of it. In my opinion, we're all doing agency parrot fashion on rails of software.

We are robots. Step our brains down in complexity and our robotic nature becomes more and more obvious in crudity.

Yes agreed.

You seem, I don't know, it's hard to follow you, to be saying that we are not robots; that some other situation applies. I don't think wishing is going to change the essence of the thing: atoms under physical laws, make us high-res robots.

Not quite, I agree that we are robots, but robots which have a conscious experience of being, as part of being a living organism, as well as a computer for a brain.
The opposing position is that the personal experience of being is caused only by the computation in the brain and not in the body. So you don't need the body, only the computer.

It's that simple.

 

[punshhh]

I'm really not. You are just saying things that have no actual meaning, and I am pointing this out.

Im pointing out that there is a meaning, the meaning given in the dictionary, but only in the mind of the observer in an abstraction and therefore an abstract knowledge of the outside world.

Human consciousness is not the "control" in any sort of experiment to create consciousness. The idea is not even coherent. You even point this out yourself by giving the definition.

You are beginning to waffle now, there are two ways of knowing what self-conscoiusnes is, 1, an intellectual defintion as a distinction in a school of thought, such as science. 2, what is experienced by a human being. All your attempts to reduce the argument to semantics are irrelevant because in "2", we all know what self-consciousness is, without having to think about it.

Human consciousness is also not the definition of "consciousness".

Correction, human consciousness is equivalent to the definition of self-consciousness.

I never disputed mimics. What I said was that a perfect mimic is, by definition, the thing it is mimicking. You seem to have some issue with this, but you can never quite define what it is other than "but it's not really", at which point I have to reiterate that you cannot show any difference between the two. Not that you, personally, lack the ability, but that it cannot be done, because there is no difference.

You're lost now, I agree that a perfect mimic is the same as the thing it is mimicking and have said so. It is only when an imperfect mimic, given your definition of behaviour, that consciousness cannot be assumed.

Meanwhile, you seem to be lost in the idea that there must be some sort of intangible pseudo-property of a substance that both tells you where it comes from and somehow makes it so that the rest of its characteristics don't count when determining whether or not it's actually the same thing as something else.

Word salad.

The lyrebird and the chainsaw both produced the same sound. The lyrebird's sound is a perfect mimic of the chainsaw's sound. They are the same sound. My point is that the same product can be produced through two different means, not that the product being identical means that the means must be too.

Yes the sound waves travelling through the air are equivalent. But the lyrebird isn't a perfect mimic of the chainsaw given your definition of behaviour, because that includes the molecular source (neurochemistry in the case of consciousness) of the sound.

Your point seems to be that either the two products are not identical (which is wrong) or that my argument indicates that the means must be (which is also wrong).

Your position relies on the notion that the phenomena we are discussing (consciousness) is the product/sound. I am pointing out that the phenomena (consciousness) we are discussing is a property of the production apparatus, not an epiphanomenon of the product.

Either way, it's wrong.

It's your assessment of the argument which is wrong.

Yes. Which is, in fact, trivially easy, as I have pointed out before. All you need is an operational definition of whatever it is you're looking for mimics of.

Your operational defintion is assumed. All attempts to define sef-consciousness independent of the human body are provisional, until it has been replicated or shown in a human body which is not living at the time of the beginning of the experiment. Because in order to assume that life is not necessary it is necessary to show it independent of life. This has not been done yet, or has it?

What you actually want is a means of screening out the lyrebird sound as well, which is nonsensical. All we're looking for is the sound, not its origin.

it is assumed that self-consciousness is an epiphenomenon of an intelligent brain.

"But you can't really be sure" is not an actual argument. God of the gaps is not going to help you.

Unfortunately we have no choice but to say you can't really be sure. As we don't have the full knowledge of the situation out there in the external world. Really all we can say for sure is that we don't know as yet, so all assumptions are off.

You keep trying to insert biological life as a requirement for consciousness without a basis for doing so.

I don't need to assert it, as all examples in existence to our knowledge come in a living organism. Show it absent a living organism?

Stop.

Show self-consciousness absent life?

Yes. Which it can do to any degree of accuracy, but the moment it actually starts doing all the computations itself - the moment it becomes a perfect mimic - it stops being a simulation.

Nice, but assumed.

If you smash a computer, it stops working, unless you repair it.

What's your point?

Surely we have the technology to cryogenically preserve a brain from a living person, put it in a jar and wake it up, can't we?

If it wasn't significantly damaged, it wouldn't be dead.

Are you sure about this, what if the body died suddenly such as the heart is stopped suddenly. The person is dead, at what point does the brain become significantly damaged? Is the person still alive until the brain damage reaches a certain point?

 

[LarryS]

Perhaps so. The materialist position is that all those abilities are possible via computation and consciousness as I am describing it doesn't exist other than as an emergent behaviour of a certain weight of computation. So from that position the device would have those abilities, at least in capacity, before the consciousness would emerge. From here they simply look at a human and say this is how you are self-conscious and how we can replicate the same experience in any other form in which an equivalent degree of computation occurs.

Talk about putting the human intellect on a pedestal! They would also put a rope and pulley computer on a pedestal! All sorted and explained.

I think what Koch is attempting ( for example), is study human brain tissue to establish how it generates (some functions of) consciousness, then replicate that hardware synthetically. I think you're criticizing the approach of beginning with a set of (outward) behaviors associated with consciousness, then try to build a hardware/software appliance to 'mimic' those outward behaviors. I also would be suspicious of that approach, and I believe Koch would be as well.

 

[Nonpareil]

Perhaps so. The materialist position is that all those abilities are possible via computation and consciousness as I am describing it doesn't exist other than as an emergent behaviour of a certain weight of computation. So from that position the device would have those abilities, at least in capacity, before the consciousness would emerge.

No, it wouldn't.

Talk about putting the human intellect on a pedestal! They would also put a rope and pulley computer on a pedestal! All sorted and explained.

Yes.

Because it is explained.

Not quite, I agree that we are robots, but robots which have a conscious experience of being, as part of being a living organism, as well as a computer for a brain.
The opposing position is that the personal experience of being is caused only by the computation in the brain and not in the body. So you don't need the body, only the computer.

It's that simple.

Again, you are asserting that an organic body is a requirement for consciousness.

You have yet to provide even the most basic argument in favor of this.

You are beginning to waffle now, there are two ways of knowing what self-conscoiusnes is, 1, an intellectual defintion as a distinction in a school of thought, such as science. 2, what is experienced by a human being. All your attempts to reduce the argument to semantics are irrelevant because in "2", we all know what self-consciousness is, without having to think about it.

I am physically capable of seeing. This does not immediately entail that I understand what photons are.

I am neither waffling nor reducing the argument to semantics. You are simply attempting to avoid having to define your terms, because the second you do, your position falls apart.

Correction, human consciousness is equivalent to the definition of self-consciousness.

Repeating your errors does not make them true.

Word salad.

Yes.

Because it's your argument.

Yes the sound waves travelling through the air are equivalent. But the lyrebird isn't a perfect mimic of the chainsaw given your definition of behaviour, because that includes the molecular source (neurochemistry in the case of consciousness) of the sound.

I never said the lyrebird was a perfect mimic of a chainsaw. I said the sound produced was a perfect mimic of the chainsaw's sound.

Pay attention.

Your position relies on the notion that the phenomena we are discussing (consciousness) is the product/sound. I am pointing out that the phenomena (consciousness) we are discussing is a property of the production apparatus, not an epiphanomenon of the product.

And you're wrong.

All attempts to define sef-consciousness independent of the human body are provisional

So you would argue that animals are not conscious.

You are wrong.

until it has been replicated or shown in a human body which is not living at the time of the beginning of the experiment.

That is one way to do it, yes. You assert that it is the only way.

Your position is incoherent.

it is assumed that self-consciousness is an epiphenomenon of an intelligent brain.

It is concluded.

Unfortunately we have no choice but to say you can't really be sure. As we don't have the full knowledge of the situation out there in the external world. Really all we can say for sure is that we don't know as yet, so all assumptions are off.

This is just playing word games with the definition of "sure".

I don't need to assert it, as all examples in existence to our knowledge come in a living organism. Show it absent a living organism?

All examples of flight prior to the invention of the airplane were the result of a living organism.

Never once was it assumed that life was a requirement for flight, because we can look at flight and see that it is a result of aerodynamic properties in the system, and aerodynamics does not care whether you are organic or not.

You assert that consciousness requires organic life. We know that consciousness is a result of computation. We know that computation does not require organic life.

You are wrong.

Nice, but assumed.

That's not an assumption. That's a definition.

You really need to learn to make the distinction between those.

Are you sure about this, what if the body died suddenly such as the heart is stopped suddenly. The person is dead, at what point does the brain become significantly damaged? Is the person still alive until the brain damage reaches a certain point?

Yes. That is why we make the distinction between clinical death (heart stops) and brain death (the brain loses its ability to function).

If your heart stops, you do not die instantly, because your brain will continue to function for a few seconds while you die of oxygen starvation. Only once the lack of oxygen has caused the brain cells to die do you actually reach the point of no return.

This is extremely basic medical knowledge. This is not controversial or arguable. Death is the cessation of brain function, which does not happen unless the brain is damaged by some means, be it blunt force trauma or hypoxia.

 

[Donn]

Yes agreed. [That we are robots]

You agree but then ..

Not quite, I agree that we are robots, but ..

..you stop agreeing. Within the same subject. Because...

robots which have a conscious experience of being, as part of being a living organism, as well as a computer for a brain.

.. we are robots that are more than robots. In other words, we are not robots.

If you are water that is milk, then you are not water. See?

To me, the "high-res" robots are what we are. Conscious experience, living and all of it. There is no missing magic.

So, no, you don't agree at all.

The opposing position is that the personal experience of being is caused only by the computation in the brain and not in the body. So you don't need the body, only the computer.

The body is the computer.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Prior to MRIs and such, the only way to infer things about mind was through observation of behavior. Although that meant a great deal of erroneous rationalist constructs about mind and consciousness could be posited, some good work was done. For example, since linguistics actually has an objective data set, it was used in conjunction with brain lesions to verify theory against observation, and confirm minor hypotheses in cognitive psychology, prior to all the fancy equipment today.

But the idea of mind beyond observation is getting progressively outdated.

The structure of the brain, in very fine cellular terms, shows a great deal of its evolutionary past, tied to specific functionality. What the brain does, physically, is becoming progressively clearer, with specific parts affecting concrete and measurable mental phenomenon. And when you turn the brain off artificially, consciousness can be stopped, no longer recording any time or experience.

I cannot think of that as anything other than biological machinery; complex, but not mysterious.

So, if/when there is an AI that can basically fool everyone, and who ardently confesses to be sentient, I'll tend to lend it credence.

 

[LarryS]

Prior to MRIs and such, the only way to infer things about mind was through observation of behavior. Although that meant a great deal of erroneous rationalist constructs about mind and consciousness could be posited, some good work was done. For example, since linguistics actually has an objective data set, it was used in conjunction with brain lesions to verify theory against observation, and confirm minor hypotheses in cognitive psychology, prior to all the fancy equipment today.

But the idea of mind beyond observation is getting progressively outdated.

The structure of the brain, in very fine cellular terms, shows a great deal of its evolutionary past, tied to specific functionality. What the brain does, physically, is becoming progressively clearer, with specific parts affecting concrete and measurable mental phenomenon. And when you turn the brain off artificially, consciousness can be stopped, no longer recording any time or experience.

I cannot think of that as anything other than biological machinery; complex, but not mysterious.

So, if/when there is an AI that can basically fool everyone, and who ardently confesses to be sentient, I'll tend to lend it credence.

. . . . except that the types of brain studies conducted, one could perform the same types of studies on a TV and conclude the TV alone generates the signal.

 

[Nonpareil]

. . . . except that the types of brain studies conducted, one could perform the same types of studies on a TV and conclude the TV alone generates the signal.

No, you couldn't.

 

[tsig]

. . . . except that the types of brain studies conducted, one could perform the same types of studies on a TV and conclude the TV alone generates the signal.

If you ignored the "cable in" jack.

 

[LarryS]

If you ignored the "cable in" jack.

I'm talking TV like when I was a kid . . . over the air

you can cut wires, add components, damage components, pull the plug and etc.