Does Mind Require a Biological Body to be Conscious?

[Greta]

AI is about as smart as a cockroach at this stage. The most likely way that AI could take over is if humans choose it via ever-increasing (and useful) AI augmentation and integration.

AI (with a human core) may end up being more pleasant than humans, displaying desirable attributes such as intelligence, curiosity, understanding, rationality. They may well turn out to be more kind through having a relatively deep understanding of the consequences of their actions and the benefits of operating "with a light touch".

AI consciousness is moot in terms of Hawking's concerns. Mindlessly responsive things can be especially dangerous through their indiscriminacy, eg. venomous jellyfish, nuclear auto-response capabilities.

[Obvious Leo]

UA. You seem to be having trouble with my question so I'll try you on an easier one.

Do you reckon you HAVE a mind or do you reckon you ARE a mind?

Why don't you stop complimenting me on the quality of my questions and try answering one of them because they are intimately germane to what you're talking about? Answer the above question and then tell me what information you would be downloading if you were going to transfer a mind to a machine?

Hawking is a dualist troglodyte like all physicists so by what convoluted perversion of logic could his opinion on artificial intelligence be of many more value than anybody else's? Would you consult your proctologist for a toothache? Does talking through a machine with your eyelashes make you an expert on EVERYTHING?

[Greta]

Does talking through a machine with your eyelashes make you an expert on EVERYTHING?

These days he seems to be aiming more to inspire thoughts and ideas than be considered an authority on everything. His ideas are currently varied and quite scattershot, and he's made some public changes of mind, eg. black holes and alien contact.

[Obvious Leo]

Does talking through a machine with your eyelashes make you an expert on EVERYTHING?

These days he seems to be aiming more to inspire thoughts and ideas than be considered an authority on everything. His ideas are currently varied and quite scattershot, and he's made some public changes of mind, eg. black holes and alien contact.

I'm not trying to be overly harsh on the bloke because it's not actually his fault that the media have placed him on such a pedestal. However he's made more than his fair share of daft statements over the years and it is regrettable that his opinion is canvassed on bloody near everything and even more regrettable that so many people seem to think that if Hawking said it then it must be true. No doubt his unfortunate disability adds to his mystique but there's no valid reason why it should add to his credibility.

On the subject of black holes he's now more or less said "ignore all of the above" and he's essentially referring to his entire life's work in this field. For such a gesture of intellectual courage I hold him in the highest of regard and hope he sets an example to some of his colleagues.

[UniversalAlien]

"We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain."
-Stephen Hawking


"I believe things cannot make themselves impossible."
-Stephen Hawking


"Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change."
-Stephen Hawking

[JSS]

"We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain."
-Stephen Hawking

Yes, a vast compendium of stupidity all linked together into one huge mass of the same.

[UniversalAlien]

"We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain."
-Stephen Hawking

Yes, a vast compendium of stupidity all linked together into one huge mass of the same.

"What Me Worry"

[Hobbes' Choice]

"We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain."
-Stephen Hawking

Yes, a vast compendium of stupidity all linked together into one huge mass of the same.

Thankfully, the fact of being connected is not enough to share a consciousness. Can you imagine what an emergent gestalt organism made from the sum of the parts of the twitters, and "trending" millions would look like?

[Greta]

Can you imagine what an emergent gestalt organism made from the sum of the parts of the twitters, and "trending" millions would look like?

A hydra with a billion heads - all going blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

[Obvious Leo]

"We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain."
-Stephen Hawking

Yes, a vast compendium of stupidity all linked together into one huge mass of the same.

Thankfully, the fact of being connected is not enough to share a consciousness. Can you imagine what an emergent gestalt organism made from the sum of the parts of the twitters, and "trending" millions would look like?

I read a rather speculative article some years ago about the risk of the internet becoming conscious. The conclusion was that this was an absurd idea but this was not to say that the internet could not become dangerous, a thought shared by my sister-in-law who is a leading expert on evolutionary algorithms and neural network programming for computers. She reckons there are billions of lines of non-linear code running through the internet like loose cannons doing Christ knows what and even in principle it can never be possible to track down these algorithms and excise them. This is because they are evolving into different algorithms all the time according to selection factors which are unknowable. The Stuxnet worm is a well-known example but by all accounts there are an incalculable number of others. In theory these algorithms could even cross-pollinate with each other and produce viable offspring with characteristics utterly beyond prediction. I don't claim to know much about this sort of thing but it makes chilling sense to someone with a background in biology. The AI geeks have been picking the brains of the biologists for decades and are doing so now even more than ever. The internet could not "decide" to sabotage the air traffic control systems of North America, for instance, but that doesn't mean that the internet alone could not cause such an event to occur.

[UniversalAlien]

Can you imagine what an emergent gestalt organism made from the sum of the parts of the twitters, and "trending" millions would look like?

A hydra with a billion heads - all going blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Sometimes I see the 'new world' of internet connectivity as a new version of the old Biblical myth of the Tower of Babel
- Maybe they will repeat history in reverse and if it comes crashing down again - Call it New Babylon.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- George Santayana








"SCIENCEFICTIONALISM the Religion of the FUTURE"
http://universalspacealienpeoplesassoci ... uture.html

[Hobbes' Choice]

Can you imagine what an emergent gestalt organism made from the sum of the parts of the twitters, and "trending" millions would look like?

A hydra with a billion heads - all going blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Sometimes I see the 'new world' of internet connectivity as a new version of the old Biblical myth of the Tower of Babel
- Maybe they will repeat history in reverse and if it comes crashing down again - Call it New Babylon.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- George Santayana
l

Babel is NOT history.

“And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away all this artificial scaffolding...

{Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823}”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

Don't Hold your Breath!!!

[Dalek Prime]

Babel is NOT history.

“And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away all this artificial scaffolding...

{Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823}”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

Don't Hold your Breath!!!

If only the Deists amongst the US founders didn't cave to the Christians, and add all that god stuff in their political documents. The US is eerily too religious.

[Obvious Leo]

The US is eerily too religious.

Around about average for a theocracy I would expect.

[Hobbes' Choice]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/ ... 532191.jpg
“And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away all this artificial scaffolding...
{Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823}”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas..