The Hard Problem of Gravity

[AkuManiMani]

I would like to know exactly how you distinguish "living" from "non-living", given that even scientists in the field of biology cannot agree on such a distinction. Machines and people are both things, and they operate in different ways for sure, but there is no fundamental difference that would make consciousness possible in one but not the other without evidence.

Well I've been proposing ways to do just that and I've mostly had an uphill struggle just defending the basic premises of my arguments -- let alone what my Definition is. Claim that it would be a good idea to devise a unified theory of life [with would include a precise definition of it] and I get accused of invoking 'magic' or that I somehow don't know what I mean when I say something.

Now, with all that whining outta that way...*ahem*...I would like to state for the record that I don't see why it would not be possible in principle to generate an instance of consciousness in an inanimate object or system I haven't seen any convincing evidence or reason to assume that such examples currently exist.

I smell a hint of dualism, here.

Erm...okay?

Then tell me, what, exactly, would YOU consider "life" that were synthetic ? Where would you draw the line and how could you distinguish it from non-life ?

I guess the most obvious and unambiguous method would be to create a cellular organism from scratch, which I believe is what some current researchers are trying hard to do.

 

[Darat]

No, I didn't say that. I didn't define living material. ...snip....

Oh right then! Sorry I thought when you quoted my comment about you not being able to provide a coherent definition and then made a comment that looked likely a definition that you were providing a definition.

Fair enough.

So what is your definition?

 

[westprog]

Oh right then! Sorry I thought when you quoted my comment about you not being able to provide a coherent definition and then made a comment that looked likely a definition that you were providing a definition.

Fair enough.

So what is your definition?

My definition? I don't have one. I'm happy enough with the biological consensus.

A rock is definitely not alive. A person definitely is. At the boundaries there is ambiguity. Perhaps life isn't binary, but a spectrum of behaviours.

 

[Darat]

My definition? I don't have one. I'm happy enough with the biological consensus.

A rock is definitely not alive. A person definitely is. At the boundaries there is ambiguity. Perhaps life isn't binary, but a spectrum of behaviours.

You can't provide a definition yet you can use the phrase "living matter" and make assertions about it and base arguments on those assertions. What you are saying is what you posted had no meaning.

 

[Belz...]

Well I've been proposing ways to do just that and I've mostly had an uphill struggle just defending the basic premises of my arguments -- let alone what my Definition is. Claim that it would be a good idea to devise a unified theory of life [with would include a precise definition of it] and I get accused of invoking 'magic' or that I somehow don't know what I mean when I say something.

That's because even the experts can't tell you if such a thing is even possible. Life is fuzzy, and it may very well be that there is no clear boundary, as I believe, between life and non-life. Your assertion that such a boundary exists is, in my opinion, unwarranted.

I guess the most obvious and unambiguous method would be to create a cellular organism from scratch, which I believe is what some current researchers are trying hard to do.

So, you assume that even "synthetic" life would be organic ? There is no way to do this with transistors ?

 

[AkuManiMani]

What I said before, assuming you read it, is that there is no missing time, as far as I'm concerned. Even a verifiable sleep time of only a minute or two can and will result in a dream of similar duration. Explain.

So you've gone into REM during a cat nap; so have I. I'm failing to see how this contradicts the fact that there are portions of the sleep cycle in which we are completely unconscious

 

[AkuManiMani]

Wow... you really don't get it. Of course I want to understand as much as I possibly can. And I want to be as right as I possibly can. What I do not want to do is make **** up. I would love to know "the truth", but I recognize that the only criteria I have is usefulness. It is the only one you have, too.

[...]

Incurious? Incurious? Wow. You may have latched onto "usefulness" or "pragmatic" incorrectly. As I said, usefulness includes the ability to explain. It does not have to fix my plumbing, or put money in my pocket. I want to know as much as I can, as accurately as I can. I am not interested in certainty; look at Iacchus's posts to find someone who was absolutely certain and absolutely wrong. I have rejected your view not because I don't want to explore it, but because I have explored it, and much more, for years, and it does not explain what needs to be explained.
Again, you are completely misunderstanding what pragmatic utility is. The ability to better explain something, even if that something is purely abstract knowledge, is pragmatic. There is no "mere application" about it.
Not understanding has that effect sometimes.

[...]

My rejection of your view has nothing to do with any personality limitations I might have. Look at my posting history if you want to know whether I can experience wonder. Sorry, there is another possibility; you may simply be wrong.

Woah! Dude, chill

Seems like we're talking passed each other. In the portion of my post you're responding to I was just trying to express where I was coming from -- didn't mean to offend you.

Another really long post to answer... I will do this bit by bit as time allows...

BTW, sorry for the uber long post. I'll try to keep them shorter.

 

[AkuManiMani]

That's because even the experts can't tell you if such a thing is even possible. Life is fuzzy, and it may very well be that there is no clear boundary, as I believe, between life and non-life. Your assertion that such a boundary exists is, in my opinion, unwarranted.

Even if one regards life as a continuum from inanimate->animate present day technology falls father toward being inanimate than even a single bacterium.

So, you assume that even "synthetic" life would be organic ? There is no way to do this with transistors ?

Life isn't merely a specific mechanical structure; its a kind of self-organizing state. An organism can generate forms that perform the functions of transistors, such as neurons. But, unlike the technological analogs we employ today a neuron is a dynamic entity; there's a continuous flow of matter/energy organizing and maintaining it's structure. A present day transistor's integral structure, on the other hand, is inert; it performs the function of channeling and amplifying electrical signals but it cannot metabolize to maintain itself against entropy.

 

[Belz...]

So you've gone into REM during a cat nap; so have I. I'm failing to see how this contradicts the fact that there are portions of the sleep cycle in which we are completely unconscious

I was under the impression that you meant that REM sleep only occurs after a certain while. My bad.

 

[Belz...]

Even if one regards life as a continuum from inanimate->animate present day technology falls father toward being inanimate than even a single bacterium.

In the biological sense, perhaps, but I think that, today, it's difficult to define "life" only in biological terms.

Life isn't merely a specific mechanical structure; its a kind of self-organizing state.

Something that is possible, in principle, with transistors and software. There are machines that build other machines, and certainly there are programs that emulate evolution by using variation and selection. So, why would this be so different from the biological equivalent ?

 

[rocketdodger]

In the biological sense, perhaps, but I think that, today, it's difficult to define "life" only in biological terms.



Something that is possible, in principle, with transistors and software. There are machines that build other machines, and certainly there are programs that emulate evolution by using variation and selection. So, why would this be so different from the biological equivalent ?

Well, its like this -- they are hiding behind the non-definitions of "biological life" because so far our technology doesn't allow us to manipulate cells and DNA like we can manipulate transistors and source code.

So for the time being, this is how they get to say "we are special in the universe."

Once we do start designing biological systems the way we design silicon ones, they will simply find something else to hide behind. You can see it already -- as our understanding of biological systems grows, so does the number of people who buy into kooky "QM interface" theories.

 

[volatile]

Something that is possible, in principle, with transistors and software. There are machines that build other machines, and certainly there are programs that emulate evolution by using variation and selection. So, why would this be so different from the biological equivalent ?

I think the key word is "emulate". These machines must be designed, and are instructed to evolve. I think that idea of a limited set of formal capabilities was mentioned earlier.

Not that I'm arguing that AI is impossible, not at all, and I feel that synthetic intelligence most certainly must be - but we do need to have these kids of ontological and epistemological debates if we are even to know if we have managed to create artificial or synthetic intelligence at all. We're just defining the problem here, right?

What would an conscious machine look like? What would an intelligent machine look like? Is there a difference between self-reference and self-awareness? These are complex but not intractable problems, but we need a sense of what the answers might be if only to be able to quantifiably judge the success of the kind of work AI programmers are doing.

 

[plumjam]

You can't provide a definition yet you can use the phrase "living matter" and make assertions about it and base arguments on those assertions. What you are saying is what you posted had no meaning.

So I guess that means life doesn't exist..
The fact that it's often very difficult to provide a quibbleproof (I'm gonna copyright that word) verbal definition of x does not mean that x does not exist; nor does it mean that it is illegitimate to base arguments on assertions regarding x.
That's just basic.
You could apply this approach of yours to most things, and come away feeling like you've made a significant point; but you haven't.

 

[Darat]

So I guess that means life doesn't exist.. ...snip...

It means if you want to base an argument on something it helps if you are able to say what it is you are basing your argument on....

 

[westprog]

What?

Living material behaves in a different way to non-living material.

The individual atoms of ice are identical to individual atoms of liquid water. But a solid is different to a liquid, because of the way the atoms are organised.

There's some justification for looking at life as just another combination of chemical reactions. That's what it probably looks like on a small scale. However, the riddle of how life creates awareness remains.

 

[Belz...]

Once we do start designing biological systems the way we design silicon ones, they will simply find something else to hide behind. You can see it already -- as our understanding of biological systems grows, so does the number of people who buy into kooky "QM interface" theories.

I'm still trying to understand what QM has to do with anything at that scale.

 

[Belz...]

I think the key word is "emulate". These machines must be designed, and are instructed to evolve.

Biological systems, too.

What would an conscious machine look like?

A conscious machine.

 

[Belz...]

Living material behaves in a different way to non-living material.

The individual atoms of ice are identical to individual atoms of liquid water. But a solid is different to a liquid, because of the way the atoms are organised.

So, again, it's a matter of function. It's just a matter of making things work the right way.

 

[volatile]

Biological systems, too.

Biological systems are "instructed"?

A conscious machine.

That's tautological.

Tell me how we would distinguish a conscious machine from, say, a really good chat-bot? Or would a really good chat-bot by definition be conscious? I don't know, but the answers are most certainly not self-evident.

 

[volatile]

So, again, it's a matter of function. It's just a matter of making things work the right way.

That's true, of course. But the question is - how do we know when we've found the right way? How would you falsify the consciousness hypothesis?