Does Mind Require a Biological Body to be Conscious?

[Hobbes' Choice]

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.

I don't think they did cave in. They made sure the government was secular. Most of the Christianisation of the dominant culture is a 20thC phenomenon, as the roots of the culture bubbled to the surface with the advent of greater democratization.
It was then that the unintelligent masses, minds moulded by a thousand free churches, started throwing their weight about and insisted on "In God We Trust".

Paradoxically in the UK, where the church remained established, the rise of the masses was characterised by a rejection of religion.

[UniversalAlien]

AI Has Arrived, and That Really Worries the World’s Brightest Minds

ON THE FIRST Sunday afternoon of 2015, Elon Musk took to the stage at a closed-door conference at a Puerto Rican resort to discuss an intelligence explosion. This slightly scary theoretical term refers to an uncontrolled hyper-leap in the cognitive ability of AI that Musk and physicist Stephen Hawking worry could one day spell doom for the human race.

That someone of Musk’s considerable public stature was addressing an AI ethics conference—long the domain of obscure academics—was remarkable. But the conference, with the optimistic title “The Future of AI: Opportunities and Challenges,” was an unprecedented meeting of the minds that brought academics like Oxford AI ethicist Nick Bostrom together with industry bigwigs like Skype founder Jaan Tallinn and Google AI expert Shane Legg.

Musk and Hawking fret over an AI apocalypse, but there are more immediate threats. In the past five years, advances in artificial intelligence—in particular, within a branch of AI algorithms called deep neural networks—are putting AI-driven products front-and-center in our lives. Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Baidu, to name a few, are hiring artificial intelligence researchers at an unprecedented rate, and putting hundreds of millions of dollars into the race for better algorithms and smarter computers.

AI problems that seemed nearly unassailable just a few years ago are now being solved. Deep learning has boosted Android’s speech recognition, and given Skype Star Trek-like instant translation capabilities. Google is building self-driving cars, and computer systems that can teach themselves to identify cat videos. Robot dogs can now walk very much like their living counterparts.

“Things like computer vision are starting to work; speech recognition is starting to work There’s quite a bit of acceleration in the development of AI systems,” says Bart Selman, a Cornell professor and AI ethicist who was at the event with Musk. “And that’s making it more urgent to look at this issue.”..........

See whole article here:
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/ai-arrived ... est-minds/

So you see these creators of the future are beginning to worry seriously about the Pandora's Box they may be opening.
My original question "Does Mind Require a Biological Body to be Conscious?" may only be important to philosophers
- In the real world the more important question mght be:

Is consciousness really necessary to control the Human species OR Could an advanced AI program control the species Man while possessing no conscious {in a Human sense} awareness of the species it is controlling ?

In other words, and what I'm trying to convey, is not giving 'the machine' consciousness could be more dangerous than letting AI programs advance blindly into the future - An advanced unconscious calculating machine could be your worst nightmare. - There will be no complaint department to go to if it makes a mistake






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

[Arising_uk]

... - There will be no complaint department to go to if it makes a mistake

Yes there will, you'll sue the manufacturers.

[UniversalAlien]

... - There will be no complaint department to go to if it makes a mistake

Yes there will, you'll sue the manufacturers.

When {and if} it gets to that point - the machines will be for the most part 'self-replicating' - Able to manufacture themselves
- Lawsuits will be dismissed with a simple message: ERROR

[Arising_uk]

When {and if} it gets to that point - the machines will be for the most part 'self-replicating' - Able to manufacture themselves
- Lawsuits will be dismissed with a simple message: ERROR

So what? Unless they've got to the stage of demanding 'their' rights to 'their' labour then someone will be making a profit off 'them' and that someone will be sueable.

[Obvious Leo]

Is consciousness really necessary to control the Human species OR Could an advanced AI program control the species Man while possessing no conscious {in a Human sense} awareness of the species it is controlling ?

In other words, and what I'm trying to convey, is not giving 'the machine' consciousness could be more dangerous than letting AI programs advance blindly into the future - An advanced unconscious calculating machine could be your worst nightmare. - There will be no complaint department to go to if it makes a mistake

UA. You've got to admit that this is a totally different question from the one you posed in your OP. Now all you're asking is if a self-programming computer can be dangerous and I'm pretty sure we can all agree that this is a no-brainer. If you were to analyse the statements of your so-called "geniuses" you'll find that this is all they're saying.

[JSS]

Is consciousness really necessary to control the Human species OR Could an advanced AI program control the species Man while possessing no conscious {in a Human sense} awareness of the species it is controlling ?

Consciousness is required to intentionally control just about anything.
And AI's have plenty to spare.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Is consciousness really necessary to control the Human species OR Could an advanced AI program control the species Man while possessing no conscious {in a Human sense} awareness of the species it is controlling ?

In other words, and what I'm trying to convey, is not giving 'the machine' consciousness could be more dangerous than letting AI programs advance blindly into the future - An advanced unconscious calculating machine could be your worst nightmare. - There will be no complaint department to go to if it makes a mistake

It seems to me that you have such a naive conception of what consciousness is, and what generates it, that this question does not even make sense.
I also think you have mistaken the word conscience for conscious. You seem to be implying that you can't have one without the other. Why could you not programmes a robot with ethical laws? Oh I don't know - such as "Do not harm a human, nor by inaction, allow a human to come to harm"?

[Obvious Leo]

UA. This conversation seems to be going nowhere for want of a common understanding of the definition of the word "consciousness". Until you can define what you want this term to mean, even if only for for the purpose of addressing your titular question, then all I'm seeing is different posters responding to their own definitions of this term.

You now seem to be asking if a machine can be capable of goal-directed behaviour, to which the answer is yes and no. It is capable of goal-directed behaviour but this behaviour is then a function of the programmer of the machine and not a function of the machine itself. In this respect it is nothing like a mind because a mind is a computer without a programme of any description. A mind programmes itself.

[UniversalAlien]

UA. This conversation seems to be going nowhere for want of a common understanding of the definition of the word "consciousness". Until you can define what you want this term to mean, even if only for for the purpose of addressing your titular question, then all I'm seeing is different posters responding to their own definitions of this term.

You now seem to be asking if a machine can be capable of goal-directed behaviour, to which the answer is yes and no. It is capable of goal-directed behaviour but this behaviour is then a function of the programmer of the machine and not a function of the machine itself. In this respect it is nothing like a mind because a mind is a computer without a programme of any description. A mind programmes itself.

This whole topic came up on another forum and is it is still going on after 8 years the same problem comes up - How can you determine consciousness without an accurate definition of exactly what it is ? Of course you can not - You have to make the assumption that Humans understand what it means to be conscious - I don't make that assumption. A liberal definition of consciousness would allow for anything in the environment that in some way interacts with the environment - Most will not like that because it would include inorganic matter. So if I start to develop a more restrictive definition I could come up with any agent in the environment that can act with a self-will......but what does that mean? what's a self, etc.

But when you say: "In this respect it is nothing like a mind because a mind is a computer without a programme of any description. A mind programmes itself." That also is an assumption - some do not believe in 'free-will' and don't believe any of us act out of choice - From the time we are born we are subject to continuous programming of one sort or another and our actions reflect the programming - Free will, a mind programming itself is an illusion. And without stretching this too far the Buddhist concepts of the illusory nature of the self - the self is a delusional concept. I know you don't like that viewpoint.

So I'll go back to another version of a definition I gave earlier:
"I will define as conscious any being or thing that can act independently of its programming and for the benefit of itself
- It must posses the quality of having a self- identity with an ego." So I'll accept a machine as conscious if it can talk to me and has the awareness of what it is and is even conscious of the fact that I'm feeding it energy to sustain itself, and at that level of awareness could reward the machine by offering it more power {more ram,etc} - the machine understands.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-Arthur C. Clarke

"The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible."
-Arthur C. Clarke

[Obvious Leo]

But when you say: "In this respect it is nothing like a mind because a mind is a computer without a programme of any description. A mind programmes itself." That also is an assumption -

It is not. It is a statement of biological fact.

[UniversalAlien]

But when you say: "In this respect it is nothing like a mind because a mind is a computer without a programme of any description. A mind programmes itself." That also is an assumption -

It is not. It is a statement of biological fact.

Again debatable - WHY? - Because without the input, even if it is inborn from birth - the mind is I do not know what - what is a mind without a matrix, a frame of refrence to operate out of - And if you start talking about mind as a pre-existent state then you are marching off into my theoretical concepts and I know you don't want to go there.

But I will grant you the biological mind is capable of 'creative thinking' and if you want I could add that as another criterion for determining consciousness in a non-biological machine - Is it capable of 'creative thinking'? - Using its programming to create more than the initial programming fed into it.

But I had a friend once who apparently had some mental disability and was of limited intelligence - I don't believe she was capable of any 'creative thinking' but could drive a car well- there are many people who are mentally handicapped and in many of therm it could be seriously questioned as to whether their 'mind' had any creative capability - Would you say they are not conscious ?

[Obvious Leo]

if it is inborn from birth - the mind is I do not know what

It is already evident that you do not know what a mind is. Perhaps you should seek the opinions of scientists who specialise in this field instead of computer geeks, physicists, journalists and science fiction writers.

[UniversalAlien]

if it is inborn from birth - the mind is I do not know what

It is already evident that you do not know what a mind is. Perhaps you should seek the opinions of scientists who specialise in this field instead of computer geeks, physicists, journalists and science fiction writers.

NO - You do it - You tell us what Mind is, what consciousness is - I gave you my view - what is yours ?

And if you can't prove, without a reasonable doubt, that your view is true than it is no better than the view of even a second rate science fiction writer.

"I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so.
Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth."
-Stephen Hawking

[Obvious Leo]

You tell us what Mind is, what consciousness is - I gave you my view - what is yours ?

I already told you what I reckon. I agree with the mainstream view of cognitive neuroscience that mind is an embodied process. This means every mind in the universe is unique and cannot be copied. Neither can a mind be manufactured because a mind creates itself onto a physical template. I also claim that evolution towards informational complexity is the fundamental organising principle of physical reality and that therefore mind will be ubiquitous throughout the cosmos. It is a self-mandated outcome and that therefore the existence of mind on planet earth is not in the least remarkable.