Philosophy Now Forum

Obvious Leo wrote:

UniversalAlien wrote: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.

In fact it self programmes in a rather interesting way, using a form of natural selection.
http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/089 ... all%3Dtrue

Hobbes' Choice wrote: In fact it self programmes in a rather interesting way, using a form of natural selection.

Furthermore natural selection is more than just an interesting metaphor for a self-programming informational system. The mechanism for the evolution of a mind is precisely the same as the mechanism for the evolution of life itself and it is no coincidence that in AI research such self-programming codes are called evolutionary, or genetic, algorithms.

Greta wrote:A hydra with a billion heads - all going blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

We don't need A.I. for that then.

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

What conscious AI's?

UniversalAlien wrote:...
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. ...[/b]

So currently we are far, far, far away from this.

Arising_uk wrote:

UniversalAlien wrote:...
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. ...[/b]

So currently we are far, far, far away from this.

It is under your nose. You just don't recognize it. You are "unconscious" of it. But it is not.

Arising_uk wrote:

UniversalAlien wrote:...
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. ...[/b]

So currently we are far, far, far away from this.

We're a very long way from this and probably always will be. UA speaks of a mind as acting independently of its programming but this is completely wrong-headed. A mind has no programming of any sort. It simply receives information from its external environment and then LEARNS how to process it into a comprehensible MAP of this external world. How it does this is completely arbitrary and thus a mind can make no true statements about the objective nature of the world it observes, if indeed the notion of such an objectivity is a valid notion at all. Reality just IS and the way we learn to comprehend it is not a programmed function of any biological system.

JSS wrote:... But it is not.

It is not is about right.

Obvious Leo wrote:Reality just IS and the way we learn to comprehend it is not a programmed function of any biological system.

I see it differently. The programming of our DNA and by our conditioning is reflected in both our unconscious behaviours and our conscious decision making.

Greta wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:Reality just IS and the way we learn to comprehend it is not a programmed function of any biological system.

I see it differently. The programming of our DNA and by our conditioning is reflected in both our unconscious behaviours and our conscious decision making.

That's not what I'm talking about. DNA specifies only for the hardware components of our neural network and these hardware components naturally specify for the mechanisms of cognition. In a sense we can say that they define how we think but they can't and don't specify for what we think. In fact what we think is specified as much by our endocrine and immune systems as it is by our central nervous system. All of the various regulatory and control mechanisms needed for homeostasis in a complex organism need to be integrated in an electro-chemical process such as cognition. Which is why I'm still waiting for UA to explain to me how such a complex and dynamic biochemical process could be downloaded onto an inorganic substrate. The idea is frankly ludicrous.

Obvious Leo wrote:Reality just IS and the way we learn to comprehend it is not a programmed function of any biological system.

Reality is what we make of the world, and it can't be the same for everyone. There is no way out of this conundrum as we have no means beyond our perceived conception to understand a reality beyond.

When we are born we are not perfect Tabula Rosa, there are predefined structures in the brain which guide and limit the quality of the reality we build. Most of our understanding is that which is built upon this nascent structure, and as we have discussed, the selection of neural cells, structures, upon the base modules. This is for each of us the only reality that is within our grasp.

Greta wrote: I see it differently. The programming of our DNA and by our conditioning is reflected in both our unconscious behaviours and our conscious decision making.

No, DNA has about as much importance to what we do; as the design of a stage has to the plays that are performed upon it.
DNA basically gives you a helpless baby. The baby has the sense organs humans are limited by, and knows to search for a nipple. But there is precious little determining power beyond that. After all there are only 32k genes.
It's more about what the baby sees and the failures and successes of its actions that form the brain and its memories. Being plastic means being adaptable. If it were just about genes we'd still be hunting and gathering.

Hobbes' Choice wrote: If it were just about genes we'd still be hunting and gathering.

Actually if it was just about genes we'd be dumber than a nematode worm, which is often cited as the least sentient of all organisms with a brain. This bloke is no Rhodes scholar but he's still capable of learning from his mistakes, provided they're not fatal ones.

Greta wrote:I see it differently. The programming of our DNA and by our conditioning is reflected in both our unconscious behaviours and our conscious decision making.

Obvious Leo wrote:That's not what I'm talking about. DNA specifies only for the hardware components of our neural network and these hardware components naturally specify for the mechanisms of cognition. In a sense we can say that they define how we think but they can't and don't specify for what we think.

Obvious Leo wrote: In fact what we think is specified as much by our endocrine and immune systems as it is by our central nervous system. All of the various regulatory and control mechanisms needed for homeostasis in a complex organism need to be integrated in an electro-chemical process such as cognition. Which is why I'm still waiting for UA to explain to me how such a complex and dynamic biochemical process could be downloaded onto an inorganic substrate. The idea is frankly ludicrous.

Yet those processes are very much programmed - when events happen the systems call various subroutines.

I too used to think there was something special about the disgusting goo that we in truth are under the "pretty candy coating". Then I came across the idea that lifelike complexity could conceivably be contained in an inorganic substrate because the flow of electricity can act as an alternative to water's free flow and reactivity.

I find it hard to imagine a civilisation far more advanced than us tolerating the limitations of biological wetware, especially in regard to space exploration. The idea of building AI from the ground seems unrealistic but I can imagines humans gradually replacing painful and poorly functioning biological parts with robust and painless synthetic ones until they become almost, or even entirely, inorganic entities.

Greta wrote: Then I came across the idea that lifelike complexity could conceivably be contained in an inorganic substrate because the flow of electricity can act as an alternative to water's free flow and reactivity.

It can. But only the carbon atom is capable of being the base element needed for the complex chemistry needed for an entity of such informational complexity as a mind. In other words for a mind to naturally evolve, as ours has done, then the consensus view of the astro-biologists is that it could only do so in a carbon-based lifeform. There is plenty of evidence to support this argument but this doesn't mean that a mind could not evolve on some other substrate if such an appropriate substrate had first been deliberately engineered by a mind with the smarts to engineer such a thing. We are not such a mind, and won't be in the short to medium term future, but that doesn't mean we couldn't evolve into such a mind eventually if we manage to smarten up our act.

However I very much doubt that any truly advanced technological species would ever try and build an artificial mind. It is impossible to imagine what possible use such a thing could be and all too easy to imagine how dangerous such a thing could be. Minds have a bad habit of doing what THEY want to do instead of what YOU want them to do and once you try and programme them only to do what YOU want them to do then they are no longer a mind.