The Minds of Machines

[keithprosser2]

MQ - I'm sorry if I mistook your unconventional style of writing as being deliberately sarcastic.
I don't think your questions are so simple. For example:
"word "mind" seems to be some kind of beauty award?" I simply don't know what you are asking. I could make a guess as what it means if I was tortured on a rack, but I'd rather try to answer what it is you really want to know.

@A_UK, I better make it clear at the outset that I am not actually a dualist! A major part of the problem I have with artificial consciousness is that the problem is not in building a device that is conscious (whatever that means!), but that we have no good theory or framework for how we should set about building such a machine. Bottom-up or top-down, all we seem to be doing is 'trial and error', in hope rather than expectation that something will come of it.

I think we really need a 'theory of consciousness' to guide us in our attempts to create AC. Certainly philosophers like Dennett and Chalmers etc have proposed ideas, but nothing an engineer could work from! Having spent the odd hour (or many) thinking about this over the years, consciousness seems more 'deep and difficult' than when I started. I think we need a theoretical - perhaps a philosophical - breakthrough, a radical innovation in our thinking to solve this one.

Consciousness, free will, qualia... these are things that are more important to us as humans than the strong nuclear force or QCD... but we can't get a 'scientific' handle on them. I find that extremely annoying.

I'd prefer it if the solution did not involve mainstreaming dualism into science, but it seems to me we have to find some way of thinking 'outside the box' because we are a bit stuck as things stand.

[Arising_uk]

Have we built a cybernetic being yet?

do you have eye glasses? wireless mobile headphone and other gadgets? artificial heart or other body parts? artifically intelligent clothes and tools? wooden leg? eye patch? education? third part knowledge?...?
do we have to think again what is life, biology and all other words in lexicons?
word "mind" seems to be some kind of beauty award?

Sorry, changed the phrase when I obviously should not have. "Cybernetic brain".

[Mark Question]

"Cybernetic brain".

you mean the guy with artificial hand, electrically wired and controlled by his brain? or chemically, academically, electronically or other way boosted brains? something else? do AI have to mimic human brains, why? what is intelligence anyway?

[Thundril]

But I can't see anything to answer in Thundril's post! I'm sure he'll tell me what I missed.

You're right, KP2. There wasn't a question in there. I just tossed a few thoughts into the pot.

[Thundril]

nuance is seldom binary...

is nuance or is it not seldom binary? binary logically: yes or no? maybe?
is logical thinking seldom binary or is it not? yes or no? maybe?
can logical thinking think nuances or not? yes or no? maybe?
is logic all about correct reasoning or not? yes or no? maybe?
can correct reasoning reason correctly nuance or not? yes or no? maybe?
is nuance seldom reasoned correctly? yes or no? maybe?

"Seldom" implies "maybe sometimes", and therefore can't refer to anything binary. I think that was Imp's point. It's nuanced. See?
Old journalists' saying - "There ain't no typeface called 'ironic'."

[Arising_uk]

"Cybernetic brain".

you mean the guy with artificial hand, electrically wired and controlled by his brain? or chemically, academically, electronically or other way boosted brains? something else? do AI have to mimic human brains, why? what is intelligence anyway?

Good question and one the philosophers have no clear definition of.

I literally meant a 'cybernetic 'brain' ', a physical artificial instantiation of the human neuronal net.

The last time I looked, twenty odd years ago, the 'AI' community did not use the term 'AI' anymore(in fact I gave my tutors their second biggest laugh when I told them I was there to see if philosophy could help build a thinking machine(the biggest was the first draft of my thesis)), it was Advanced Information Technology(AIT), a rough mishmash of computational maths, parallel processing(neural nets, 'genetic' algorithms, etc), formal logics and automated theorem proving, natural language processing and expert systems.

[Mark Question]

You're right, KP2. There wasn't a question in there. I just tossed a few thoughts into the pot.

ok. questions must have been in my head.

nuance is seldom binary...

is nuance or is it not seldom binary? binary logically: yes or no? maybe?
is logical thinking seldom binary or is it not? yes or no? maybe?
can logical thinking think nuances or not? yes or no? maybe?
is logic all about correct reasoning or not? yes or no? maybe?
can correct reasoning reason correctly nuance or not? yes or no? maybe?
is nuance seldom reasoned correctly? yes or no? maybe?

"Seldom" implies "maybe sometimes", and therefore can't refer to anything binary. I think that was Imp's point. It's nuanced. See?
Old journalists' saying - "There ain't no typeface called 'ironic'."

so, is nuance reasoned correctly if logic is all about correct reasoning and if thinking is logical and if basic logic is binary and if thinking nuance is thinking and if seldom can't refer to anything binary and refers to nuance? see?

I literally meant a 'cybernetic 'brain' ', a physical artificial instantiation of the human neuronal net.
if philosophy could help build a thinking machine

lets try: why build human brain? would 3d copy machine do the trick in atomic scale near future? what is the point? what you mean "thinking"? are best chess machines or softwares thinking? better than you? are we reading anthropomorphism from this thread or subject?

[Mark Question]

I don't think your questions are so simple. For example:
"word "mind" seems to be some kind of beauty award?" I simply don't know what you are asking. I could make a guess as what it means if I was tortured on a rack, but I'd rather try to answer what it is you really want to know.

do you mind if i like to do the same. trying to figure out what people are saying.
so, is there any simple questions at all? have you found any?

[Thundril]

so, is nuance reasoned correctly if logic is all about correct reasoning and if thinking is logical and if basic logic is binary and if thinking nuance is thinking and if seldom can't refer to anything binary and refers to nuance? see?

the kind of logic that is binary isn't nuanced. The kind of logic that is nuanced isn't binary.
A question that contains five separate 'IF' clauses is complex. Some parts of it might be binary. Some parts of it might not be subject to logic. Some parts of it might be straightforward. Some parts might be nuanced. But I'm not very good at knowing which is which.

[Arising_uk]

lets try: why build human brain? ...

Why not? You got anything better to do?

would 3d copy machine do the trick in atomic scale near future? ...

Maybe, and the molecular level may be good enough.

what is the point?

I don't know, what could you do with a super-fast, massively parallel, bowling ball sized, emotionally neutral pattern-processor?

what you mean "thinking"?

Personally, its the ability to re-present the representations of the senses to do thought with, i.e. achieve a goal or outcome. It may also be having a Language but I'm not so sure about this anymore, its intimately linked for sure tho'.

are best chess machines or softwares thinking?

Not in my sense no, but they are now doing what a chess-grandmaster does, its why they are beating them at last and why the grandmasters get the idea that there is 'intention' behind the machine. Now many might say there is, its the coders but the coders all together could not beat a grandmaster without the machine processing.

better than you?

Miles better than me at beating grand chess masters.

are we reading anthropomorphism from this thread or subject?

Don't think so, "anthropomorphism" is the assigning of human characteristics to things. In the case of such programs we are specifically building them to do the kind of thinking we apparently do when performing those activities. Still, there appear to be a few popular games left for the human, Poker, Bridge and Go come to mind.

[keithprosser2]

I don't know, what could you do with a super-fast, massively parallel, bowling ball sized, emotionally neutral pattern-processor?

Quite a lot, provided it doesn't leap to unjustified conclusions, make huge mistakes and try to cover them up, get bored or sulky or distracted, decide to take over the world... hmm...perhaps we shouldn't mimic the human brain too closely!

[Mark Question]

lets try: why build human brain? ...

Why not? You got anything better to do?

if the subject is "The Minds of Machines" then is building human brain the subject? is human a machine? if human is machine and if human have mind then machine have mind? how can we build human brain? how is your brain build?

would 3d copy machine do the trick in atomic scale near future? ...

Maybe, and the molecular level may be good enough.

maybe. maybe we get the cloning and creation machines sooner than we can say pimp my little pony frankenstein under the brainy sober christmas tree.

I don't know, what could you do with a super-fast, massively parallel, bowling ball sized, emotionally neutral pattern-processor?

i could do with that better than that? are you talking human brains when you talk emotionally neutral pattern-prosessor? what do you mean by "emotionally neutral"? deep depression? dead human brains?

what you mean "thinking"?

Personally, its the ability to re-present the representations of the senses to do thought with, i.e. achieve a goal or outcome. It may also be having a Language but I'm not so sure about this anymore, its intimately linked for sure tho'.

are best chess machines or softwares thinking?

Not in my sense no, but they are now doing what a chess-grandmaster does, its why they are beating them at last and why the grandmasters get the idea that there is 'intention' behind the machine. Now many might say there is, its the coders but the coders all together could not beat a grandmaster without the machine processing.

so, robots with senses and thinking software that is re-presenting the representations of the senses to do thought with, i.e. achieve a goal or outcome are not thinking according to your definition of thinking? how many might also say there is "intention" to play chess behind human baby? do we need coders, society, parents, friends, cultural codes also if we want to see a chess playing human and maybe some day playing very well it?

Still, there appear to be a few popular games left for the human, Poker, Bridge and Go come to mind.

still, there appear to be also a few planets in our own solar system left for the human. not for machines. so what? is it just a question of time or not when machine beats man in poker, go or bridge? send the machine where no man cant go and play go there?

the kind of logic that is binary isn't nuanced. The kind of logic that is nuanced isn't binary.
A question that contains five separate 'IF' clauses is complex. Some parts of it might be binary. Some parts of it might not be subject to logic. Some parts of it might be straightforward. Some parts might be nuanced. But I'm not very good at knowing which is which.

are you saying that more complex logic is not basically basic binary logic? is more complex logic more complex logic or not? maybe? maybe not? both? whatever? or is the answer in form of a poem or an aphorism? are you saying that basically binary logical machine cant do more complex logical prosesses? computers cant use nuanced logics softwares? what if humans can only recognize about 30 levels of gray while standard image formats have 256?

[Arising_uk]

if the subject is "The Minds of Machines" then is building human brain the subject? is human a machine? if human is machine and if human have mind then machine have mind? how can we build human brain? how is your brain build?

Molecularly. Reproduce. Depends, could it think in ways we do but quicker and maybe 'better', maybe. We'd have to agree what 'mind' and 'machine' are before I could agree. Is a mechanical arm an arm?

maybe. maybe we get the cloning and creation machines sooner than we can say pimp my little pony frankenstein under the brainy sober christmas tree.

Maybe but I think like most technologies it'll depend upon the cost and the needs. Although I do come down upon the side of Biology in this issue. But if we could do franken-pony with 3-d printing then the costs will be pretty simple.

i could do with that better than that? are you talking human brains when you talk emotionally neutral pattern-prosessor? what do you mean by "emotionally neutral"? deep depression? dead human brains?

Dead human brains aren't processing anything. Not sure what depression has to do with it? By "emotionally neutral" I mean no endocrine or digestive system, so no, I'm not talking about human beings. Can't understand your first sentence.

so, robots with senses and thinking software that is re-presenting the representations of the senses to do thought with, i.e. achieve a goal or outcome are not thinking according to your definition of thinking? ...

Not quite as they don't have endocrine or digestive systems, or motion come to that.

how many might also say there is "intention" to play chess behind human baby?

No idea, as I have no idea what this means.

do we need coders, society, parents, friends, cultural codes also if we want to see a chess playing human and maybe some day playing very well it?

Do we need them there with us as we play? Although I take your point that is what we have and does produce amazing chess players and I think the chess machines are modelling in some sense what they do. Just not making an experience of it.

still, there appear to be also a few planets in our own solar system left for the human. not for machines. so what? is it just a question of time or not when machine beats man in poker, go or bridge? send the machine where no man cant go and play go there?

Well, send them to the asteroid belt and collect the resources might be a use for our little pony Frank. Machines are already taking money-off punters and sites in the world of cyber-poker.

You heard the updated Ship of Theseus story? If you could produce a silicon neuron(SN) that replicated the function of a neuron and then keep replacing the neurons in a brain until the whole brain is silicon, "Is it the same mind, brain, person, etc?". My take is that if the SN has been 'stepped down' to the actual speed of a real neuron then yes but what if its allowed to run at silicon speeds? Would a 'mind', etc, be the 'same'? As I can think of odd effects if you allow 'thinking' to speed-up by a magnitude but keep the meat body.

the kind of logic that is binary isn't nuanced. The kind of logic that is nuanced isn't binary.
A question that contains five separate 'IF' clauses is complex. Some parts of it might be binary. Some parts of it might not be subject to logic. Some parts of it might be straightforward. Some parts might be nuanced. But I'm not very good at knowing which is which.

You mean "if...then" clauses? As all of it can be reduced to binary logic, "or" and "not" in the case of "if...then" clauses. All its parts are subject to logic but its contents may not be straight forward I agree.

[zinnat13]

Hi friends,

AI is perhaps the most discussed topic in last 50 years or so. I also tried to read and thought a lot about it last 5-6 years.

Maybe it is my layman’s commonsense which fails me again and again, but, I cannot help and conclude every time that AI is not possible to achieve.

Furthermore, it does not appear to me that it requires than much effort to derive this cogitation.

Let us take artificial organs first for example. Now, with the help of science, we can provide an artificial leg. It works fine, just like the original one, as far as the performance is concerned, but, there is very clear difference between the two. The original is evolving one; the size of a leg automatically increases from childhood to maturity. This character is missing in the artificial one.

This is to say that the artificial one cannot evolve on its own, but the original one can do so. The original one has the capacity to create new human cells, when required, but, the artificial cannot create some atoms for itself, without some help from outside.

HENCE, THE DIFFERENCE IS EVOLUTION.

The same is the difference between the mind and the software. Mind has the capacity to think or ‘will’. This is to say that it can manifest new thoughts on its own, and thus, evolve. Software, no matter how sophisticated it would be, cannot create something new on its own. The capacity of will is missing in it. If it is not given help from outside, it will remain at the same level forever. But, it is not in the case of mind. It learns continuously, and thus, tends to improve all the time. That is how and why the mankind has come so far, from the Stone Age.

HENCE, THE DIFFERENCE IS THE CAPACITY TO WILL.

And friends, I do not think that any software could have the capacity to will; neither now, not even in the future.

I feel that we tend to miss one more point. The language of the computer is still binary. The building block of any software is still 0 and 1. We have created some intermediate forms of language like c++ of some others, but, all of them still think in the terms of 0 and 1. So, a super computer and a 1 dollar calculator are still the same.

We are confusing the complexity with the evolution.

But, on the other hand, we do not know the building block of thought.

We still do not know exactly that how mind operates.

Do we know?

If not so, then how can we enable a machine to ‘will’ and ‘think’; when, even we do not understand these phenomena, in the first place.

Prior to create the AI, we have to create the ‘will”.

If science could do so, then, the AI is possible for sure, otherwise not.

Hence,It is simple.

with love,
sanjay

[Mark Question]

We'd have to agree what 'mind' and 'machine' are before I could agree. Is a mechanical arm an arm?

so, what mind and machine are?
is mechanical arm an arm which is mechanical? is old car a car which is old?

Dead human brains aren't processing anything. Not sure what depression has to do with it? By "emotionally neutral" I mean no endocrine or digestive system, so no, I'm not talking about human beings. Can't understand your first sentence.

somehow, we were talking about artificial brains which have to be like human brains. dont ask me why? firstly, can you imagine "emotionally neutral" living human brains? secondly, can you imagine "emotionally neutral" artificial brains which are like human brains?

so, robots with senses and thinking software that is re-presenting the representations of the senses to do thought with, i.e. achieve a goal or outcome are not thinking according to your definition of thinking? ...

Not quite as they don't have endocrine or digestive systems, or motion come to that.

i see. robots dont have human brains so they are not thinking like humans? so what? what if they become better thinkers and wipe out the annoyingly stupid arrogant and aggressive human race from earth? do we want to think like worms? can we? do self-accelerating evolved technology in robots have to think like us? can they?

how many might also say there is "intention" to play chess behind human baby?

No idea, as I have no idea what this means.

sorry. do babies have built-in "intention" to play chess?

do we need coders, society, parents, friends, cultural codes also if we want to see a chess playing human and maybe some day playing very well it?

Do we need them there with us as we play? Although I take your point that is what we have and does produce amazing chess players and I think the chess machines are modelling in some sense what they do. Just not making an experience of it.

so, chess machines and chess softwares cant evolve and become better and better anymore? like fishes could not evolve to humans, quite slowly? do best chess machines also need machine coders like babies, youngsters and even old people need human life coders in their own infrastructure, culture and social life? why not chess machines are not making any experience of it if their coders get feedback from that experience and starts to improve those machines and softwares? why cant machines have better and better self-learning structures and softwares, autonomous learning? are you looking only yesterday or today and not tomorrows new machines and humans or whatever they will be then?

what if its allowed to run at silicon speeds? Would a 'mind', etc, be the 'same'? As I can think of odd effects if you allow 'thinking' to speed-up by a magnitude but keep the meat body.

i ques that mind and body is together one working system which cant work if only mind is altered too much. like if you put a jet engine in your shiny morris mini and accelerate full speed. good luck!

All its parts are subject to logic but its contents may not be straight forward I agree.

are you saying that "its contents" can be something without no logic at all? can you think anything without no logic at all? is language also logical, does it have rules and structures?

Maybe it is my layman’s commonsense which fails me again and again, but, I cannot help and conclude every time that AI is not possible to achieve.

modern science has also crushed many times our laymans commonsense. nothing new. it can be helped.

Furthermore, it does not appear to me that it requires than much effort to derive this cogitation.

i cant believe it took so much time to get dumb humans, according to evolution theorys timeline. shall we give the AI same time that we took to develop from the sea of brainless to the biggest wiseguys on earth?

Let us take artificial organs first for example. The original is evolving one; the size of a leg automatically increases from childhood to maturity. This character is missing in the artificial one.

if its missing now does it mean its missing tomorrow?
if its missing to you does it mean its missing to all. do you mean that artificial has no non-artficial evolution? but maybe it has artificial evolution? like we all have to have all new expensive iphone 4 and all new versions to be come? windows 7 is old wooden leg to us vista users. update your legs faster and more unnoticed like before. nanotechnology is capable of big miracles to come and its not the end of development either.

HENCE, THE DIFFERENCE IS EVOLUTION.

if you are talking about only biological evolution before humans new gm-technology and all other new ways to mimic and design better biological and other new structures.

The same is the difference between the mind and the software. Mind has the capacity to think or ‘will’. This is to say that it can manifest new thoughts on its own, and thus, evolve. Software, no matter how sophisticated it would be, cannot create something new on its own. The capacity of will is missing in it. If it is not given help from outside, it will remain at the same level forever. But, it is not in the case of mind. It learns continuously, and thus, tends to improve all the time.

you call it "thinking" when you see a human but you dont call it "thinking" when you see a machine? so what? i have been called many names. you call it "will" if human is doing something but you dont call it "will" when you see a team of robots trying to play football? why? does all that come from your word "mind" if you believe it is only humans thing?

But, on the other hand, we do not know the building block of thought.

We still do not know exactly that how mind operates.

Do we know?

If not so, then how can we enable a machine to ‘will’ and ‘think’; when, even we do not understand these phenomena, in the first place.

Prior to create the AI, we have to create the ‘will”.

If science could do so, then, the AI is possible for sure, otherwise not.

seems like we dont know philosophically what even human "will" or "mind" are? should we need philosophy to find it out first, what the hell we are talking about here? can we use even science to find out something we dont know what we are seeking and what are the right methods and tools to use?