On Consciousness

[Roboramma]

Nope, "virtual worlds" is a misnomer to deceive one that it is a replica of the world. It's not, "virtual worlds" are based on logic. There is no evidence that the world is based on logic at all.

I'm not entirely clear what you mean "based on logic", but the work of Newton, (and those who have come after him), is pretty good evidence that the behavior of the world follows logical rules.

 

[!Kaggen]

I'm not entirely clear what you mean "based on logic", but the work of Newton, (and those who have come after him), is pretty good evidence that the behavior of the world follows logical rules.

Human invention.

 

[Roboramma]

Human invention.

Just to be clear: you're saying that the world doesn't behave according to logic rules? That's it's just... a coincidence that physics works, for instance?

 

[!Kaggen]

Just to be clear: you're saying that the world doesn't behave according to logic rules? That's it's just... a coincidence that physics works, for instance?

The same coincidence that the word chair describes a chair.

 

[Roboramma]

The same coincidence that the word chair describes a chair.

I'm actually talking about the predictions that we are able to make with physics. The fact, for instance, that Newtonian mechanics can be used to predict the next sighting of Halley's comet. Or that we can, with thermodynamics, rule out the possibility of perpetual motion machines, or that general relativity has withstood decades of experimental testing, or that QM has done the same.

These are not just descriptions of prior phenomena, they are descriptions of the world that make predictions about what we'll see in places that we haven't looked yet, and those predictions have turned out, time and again, to be incredibly accurate. You are saying that's a coincidence?

If not, why do you think those predictions have turned out to be accurate?

 

[Zeuzzz]

*rocketdodger is correct, my avatar is the title character from Howl's Moving Castle, by Miyazaki / Ghibli, in a flashback to when the fire demon stole the boy Howl's heart.

Best anime of the lot, maybe after spirited away.

Is calcifer, the fire demon, conscious, you reckon? Or is he programmed to act conscious by some demon programming programmer?

 

[!Kaggen]

I'm actually talking about the predictions that we are able to make with physics. The fact, for instance, that Newtonian mechanics can be used to predict the next sighting of Halley's comet. Or that we can, with thermodynamics, rule out the possibility of perpetual motion machines, or that general relativity has withstood decades of experimental testing, or that QM has done the same.

These are not just descriptions of prior phenomena, they are descriptions of the world that make predictions about what we'll see in places that we haven't looked yet, and those predictions have turned out, time and again, to be incredibly accurate. You are saying that's a coincidence?

If not, why do you think those predictions have turned out to be accurate?

All scientific hypothesis are falsifiable.
All scientific hypothesis are based on evidence.
All evidence is a description of the past.

 

[rocketdodger]

Nope, "virtual worlds" is a misnomer to deceive one that it is a replica of the world. It's not, "virtual worlds" are based on logic. There is no evidence that the world is based on logic at all.

The difference is irrelevant if the subject can't perceive it.

Of course there will always be a small group of hardcore ... um, whatever you claim to be ... that refuses to partake. But the other 99% of the population ( that can afford it ) will be more than happy to have amazing experiences inside a virtual world.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Nope, I did do a Google search of "neuronal network" as soon as I read about this but it just kept coming up with "neural network". After the third page I gave up looking. Try for yourself or let me know where I should be looking that I have not been. Everyone, try it for yourself if you do not believe me.

But, who knows, maybe I am missing something here??? Either way, on McFadden's page he used the word neurone where I would have just used neuron. Is this a 'color' versus 'colour' thing? Or by neuronal network are your specifically trying to refer to biological networks of neuron(e)s?

Try scholar.google.com. Putting it in quotes would also have worked. Or you could have just clicked the link. It's a different thing entirely.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Best anime of the lot, maybe after spirited away.

Is calcifer, the fire demon, conscious, you reckon? Or is he programmed to act conscious by some demon programming programmer?

Calcifer is conscious. I'm buying into Dennett's argument that the concept of a Philosopher's Zombie is incoherent and if a being acts conscious it is conscious.

Is anyone arguing that it is impossible for humans to create a conscious machine with any type of material or technology?

 

[Mr. Scott]

I am surprised you don't see the difference between computers and humans if your a Ghibli fan like me.
The difference Pixar and Ghibli sums up my arguments nicely.

I "felt the future" that a magic beaner would try to get some mileage from that.

You are in a delusional dream if you think I don't see a difference between Pixar and Ghibli.

Reminds me of a lecture I attended about computer typesetting, by Donald Knuth.

He turned the alphabet into numeric formula so a computer could typeset with adjustable features, like serif size, stroke width, etc.

It was found that when a font developed with computer aid was perfectly consistent, it was cold and lifeless. However, if the parameters were varied slightly and automatically from letter to letter, the text came to life and was warm and organic like old inky lead text. This randomness was done by the computer with no human intervention. It's easy to program randomness and not that difficult to program aspects of human taste into computers.

Pixar films are full of heart, and have made billions of dollars more than Ghibli's films, but the issue has little bearing on the nature of consciousness. Machines have aided animation since its earliest days.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Found this here:

[Professor McIntosh's] comment on how, according to an atheist view on the human mind (in that atheists don't believe in a separate 'soul' and our thoughts are just 'chemical reactions'), it would be possible to tell what someone was going to think using a large enough supercomputer was very interesting. I don't know enough about brain mapping or supercomputers to know whether this would be possible, but I can see how hypothetically it could be. However, even if it were possible I don't see what McIntosh's point was. He seemed to think that just because he found the idea disturbing that the idea was therefore flawed. He used a similar argument when talking about another aspect of the human mind, where he said that seeing humanity as 'chemical reactions' seemed 'miserable'. I'm sure some people do find the idea miserable, but that does not mean it's not true. Just because you don't like an idea does not decrease its validity.

 

[tensordyne]

Try scholar.google.com. Putting it in quotes would also have worked. Or you could have just clicked the link. It's a different thing entirely.

Very good. I will give it a go and report back what I find.

 

[Roboramma]

All scientific hypothesis are falsifiable.
All scientific hypothesis are based on evidence.
All evidence is a description of the past.

You didn't answer my question.

 

[dlorde]

No. No to all of this. No to each and every sentence. No.

That was pretty much how I felt, reading it. Hard to know where to start. I felt the same way about the analysis of the 'three main materialistic forms of basis for consciousness' (attributed broadly, and barely recognisably, to Dennet, Searle, & Chalmers).

Your brain has a network of neurons, it is not a neural network...

This needs explaining. A network of neurons is the cannonical neural network. The brain may be more than just a neural network, but it is mainly a neural network.

Also, the idea that neurons are antennae can significantly influence each other via their EMF just doesn't stack up for reasons already mentioned; if the membrane that depolarizes to cause the weak EMF was sensitive enough to be significantly affected by it, neither neurons nor brains could function - and as far as I know there's no evidence to suggest it may be, nor any requirement for it to be. It's a moribund equine, let it lie.

 

[quarky]

Well,
You've got your techno, and you've got Motown.

Its pointless evoking 'soul' here. Such an ephemeral quality.

Today, I can decipher a human from a recorded human on the phone, and I can tell a drum machine from a drummer.
This gap could close, yet, I suspect, humans will rise to that challenge, and be able to know an artificial consciousness from the flesh and blood variety.

I would think it would become something of an obsession, this motivation to decipher the real from the less-real.
Bruce Willis knows.

Yet, Ahnold was actually a compassionate machine in the Terminator flicks. Nice guy, even. Buff. Governor of California, in a different movie. Its quite confusing, but I, frankly, don't welcome our 'indistinguishable from human' machine consciousness.

I'm vaguely aware of the curmudgeoness of liking the soul of the carbon-based life forms.
Luddite, and all. (Get off my lawn, and take your robot with you, etc.)

I have a different vision of the future; perhaps hopelessly out-dated and irrelevant.

We are biological.
And funky.

I dig the funk.
I hate the beeping noises.

 

[Zeuzzz]

We are biological.
And funky.

Indeed.

Error.
Does not compute, does not compute!

 

[Zeuzzz]

Calcifer is conscious. I'm buying into Dennett's argument that the concept of a Philosopher's Zombie is incoherent and if a being acts conscious it is conscious.

Is anyone arguing that it is impossible for humans to create a conscious machine with any type of material or technology?

Can you not see how calcifur, the fire demon I used as my example, is in no way any more conscious than the traits we consciously give him (program him).

He follows his audio script (consciously created from the scriptwriters consciousness)
He follows programming for his visible form and movements (consciously created by the programmers input)

He's not conscious himself.

He is constructed out of only attributes conscious people choose, to give him those attributes.

Everything he does is linked to our conscious input, and, as any computer will, they will manifest this in a form that *may seem* conscious, but is still bound to do nothing more than the consciousness based programmer.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Can you not see how calcifur, the fire demon I used as my example, is in no way any more conscious than the traits we consciously give him (program him).

He follows his audio script (consciously created from the scriptwriters consciousness)
He follows programming for his visible form and movements (consciously created by the programmers input)

He's not conscious himself.

He is constructed out of only attributes conscious people choose, to give him those attributes.

Everything he does is linked to our conscious input, and, as any computer will, they will manifest this in a form that *may seem* conscious, but is still bound to do nothing more than the consciousness based programmer.

Don't be silly.

My first response was to be that Calcifer was pretend, so no, but I made the leap to what I thought was being asked, "If Calcifer were real, would he be conscious?" The answer is yes, as would the other main characters in the movie.

Sure, if we made a conscious machine, one could argue that it was made by conscious humans (e.g the Chinese Room), so I sense one may imply that only consciousness can beget consciousness.

All available evidence indicates consciousness formed on an unconscious planet via unconscious processes in an unconscious universe. Get used to it.

Dennett sez:

 

[Zeuzzz]

The answer is yes, as would the other main characters in the movie.

They are consciously derived machines, that result purely from our consciousness. Nothing more. They don't have their own.