Philosophy Now Forum

We don't know how we think so we cannot design an AI that can think.

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 6:55 pm We don't know how we think so we cannot design an AI that can think.

Do you believe consciousness emerges (not strong emergence, weak emergence) from brains?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 6:58 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 6:55 pm We don't know how we think so we cannot design an AI that can think.

Do you believe consciousness emerges (not strong emergence, weak emergence) from brains?

I don't think so. Consciousness, namely the ability to experience, is the ability of the mind.

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 7:06 pm

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 6:58 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 6:55 pm We don't know how we think so we cannot design an AI that can think.

Do you believe consciousness emerges (not strong emergence, weak emergence) from brains?

I don't think so. Consciousness, namely the ability to experience, is the ability of the mind.

And the mind doesn't come from the brain? Where are minds? Not here as a consequence of the physical world ?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 7:07 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 7:06 pm

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 6:58 pm

Do you believe consciousness emerges (not strong emergence, weak emergence) from brains?

I don't think so. Consciousness, namely the ability to experience, is the ability of the mind.

And the mind doesn't come from the brain?

No. The mind does not come from the brain. Mind experiences and causes changes in the material.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 7:07 pm Where are minds?

Each mind is either in a vat or in a location that I call the universe of mind where all minds reside.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 7:07 pm Not here as a consequence of the physical world?

They could be here. By here I mean the vat but they are not consequences of the physical world.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 6:58 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 6:55 pm We don't know how we think so we cannot design an AI that can think.

Do you believe consciousness emerges (not strong emergence, weak emergence) from brains?

This is a tangent, but I have always been bothered by the reduction of, for example, consciousness to brains. I think it is better to say humans or animals or life and if you want to commit to materialism/physicalism you can say living bodies. Why am I fussy here? Well, the brain is not separate from the rest of the body (other things also, but I'll start humbly). The endocrine system is affecting consciousness or part of what it emerges from or is a facet of. The posture of the body. There's no brain with is not in constant interaction with the senses and the endocrine system. And these are all affected by and not separable from posture, movement, facial expression. There are wag the dog causal chains and happiness leading to wagging causal chains. The whole body (at least) is creating or has as a facet consciousness. We could go in the other direction and start saying 'these parts of the brain' are conscious, but we don't we refer to brains as a 'whole'.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 2:06 pm

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 6:58 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 6:55 pm We don't know how we think so we cannot design an AI that can think.

Do you believe consciousness emerges (not strong emergence, weak emergence) from brains?

This is a tangent, but I have always been bothered by the reduction of, for example, consciousness to brains. I think it is better to say humans or animals or life and if you want to commit to materialism/physicalism you can say living bodies. Why am I fussy here? Well, the brain is not separate from the rest of the body (other things also, but I'll start humbly). The endocrine system is affecting consciousness or part of what it emerges from or is a facet of. The posture of the body. There's no brain with is not in constant interaction with the senses and the endocrine system. And these are all affected by and not separable from posture, movement, facial expression. There are wag the dog causal chains and happiness leading to wagging causal chains. The whole body (at least) is creating or has as a facet consciousness. We could go in the other direction and start saying 'these parts of the brain' are conscious, but we don't we refer to brains as a 'whole'.

So the concept of a brain in a vat doesn't make sense to you? What about a brain transplant - if one person's brain was transplanted into another person's head, you wouldn't expect the first person to have some kind of continuity of experience?

I think most people intuit an identification of our mind with our brain for very important reasons. You can lose your arm or your leg or your nose and retain your conscious sense of identity - can you lose your brain and do so?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 2:06 pm

Brain damage, we know from empirical examples, can fundamentally change how you think, how you make decisions, and what you remember. Those things are all central to what we identify as our "selves" and our minds.

I would expect to largely have the same memories and thought processes tomorrow if I lost my pinky, but not if I had a lobotomy. Do you share that expectation?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 2:16 pm So the concept of a brain in a vat doesn't make sense to you? What about a brain transplant - if one person's brain was transplanted into another person's head, you wouldn't expect the first person to have some kind of continuity of experience?

It's more like this. A brain isn't a human. I think if there was a brain in a vat, there would be experiencing, but we are not just brains.

Now to the scenario. The person would no longer be the same in some fundamental ways. They'd be frankenstein's monster-ish. How much the new person would realize, notice this, I don't know.

I'll throw in two other 'parts' of us that have huge effects on consciousness - the nerve nexuses around the heart and gut. These have complicated inter-causal relations with the nerves in the brain. Of course there are more nerves in the brain, but this doesn't necessarily translate directly into how much of identity, for example, comes from the brain in comparison to these other nerve nexuses. We can have a CEO in a very hierarchical company that has much more sway over the company despite having less neurons. There's also the whole Candace Pert conscciousness spread out over the body theory/hypothesis.

I think most people intuit an identification of our mind with our brain for very important reasons. You can lose your arm or your leg or your nose and retain your conscious sense of identity - can you lose your brain and do so?

No. But that doesn't justify the reduction. I also didn't mention arms and legs. Further despite my generally agreeing, I will be that people who lose a leg talk about how they became a different person afterwards. Others may not, but I think we underestimate how much other parts of us compose the whole. Note my point is not that the brain isn't essential to the sense of self, my point is it's not at all the whole. And there really is no need to reduce to self to the brain. It's not like it's a logical default to implicitly refer to the brain as the self (or explicitly as some do). There really is no need for that reduction. I think there are good reasons not to do it.

I suppose I am also raising the issue of degrees of self, degrees of continued identity. If the nerve nexus around your heart and gut no longer communicated with your brain, I will be you would not feel like yourself - I don't know what this does to survival, but for the moment we set that aside and assume you manage to live without this connection. Or if people's endocrine system change significantly, I would bet many of them would say they don't feel like themselves and also that others would chime in the same way.

Let's take one part of the endocrine system, the adrenals and some of the sypmtoms when they are changed:

Middle Insomnia: Difficulty sleeping during the middle of the night. And consider the affects on personality of this.
Higher Perceived Stress: Feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
Lower Perceived Social Support: Feeling less supported by others.

Interestingly, the results of even a tumor can include positive or potentially postive personality/cognition changes: improvement in verbal fluency, symbol coding, and planning abilities - some of which is related to executive function and called Tower of London - news to me.

I am not my brain (alone). Cut out my heart and I am gone also.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 2:26 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 2:06 pm

Brain damage, we know from empirical examples, can fundamentally change how you think, how you make decisions, and what you remember. Those things are all central to what we identify as our "selves" and our minds.

I would expect to largely have the same memories and thought processes tomorrow if I lost my pinky, but not if I had a lobotomy. Do you share that expectation?

But now you're down to pinkies. It's not like I am saying the brain isn't important, I am saying it is not the whole. I have also tended to focus on things that seem more central than pinkies.

I am arguing against brains being equated with the self, period. As in Brain=Self. I happen to think they are less central than many realize, but I am not arguing, in any way, that they are less central to personality/self than pinkies. I am saying 1) really there is no need to reduce the self to brains. IOW it is as if the onus is on me to prove this reduction false. And 2) I am saying that other parts contribute to our self/personality. This is not me dismissing brains as part of selves, or even saying it is not the most important part of the self.

Me, I do not see the default position as brains are the selves. The pinky of a pianist on the other hand.....

We make this reduction, or better put certain kinds of educated people make this reduction as if, in a sense it is a given, that anything else is trivial. I think this is unjustified, but further there's no need for it. We have no reason to be less complete. Even if you think the rest of the body is trivial, we have no need to just focus on the brain. I happen not to think the rest is trivial.

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 6:55 pm We don't know how we think so we cannot design an AI that can think.

Yes that’s true. We cannot make a machine think no more than we can make ourself think. Thinking just happens all by itself, spontaneously and randomly from out of the unknowable ethers.

Auntie going sensationalist: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0k3700zljjo

And we don't have to know how mind emerges in matter to stumble across it in silico. But we won't.