On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:
> > > So what you are saying is that "consciousness is the > > way matter feels when it participates in an intelligent computation". > More precisely what I am saying is consciousness is the way data feels like when it is being processed. > > > This "explanation" begs the question > If the chain of "why" questions extends far enough the question is *always* begged because there are only 2 possibilities, the chain of why questions extends to infinity and never ends, or it ends in a brute fact and there is no "why" to explain it. You may not find either possibility to be entirely satisfactory but reality doesn't care if you like it or not, that's just the way things are. > > > Then there's the issue of defining "processed intelligently". That's not all, there is also the issue of defining "defining". I said it before I'll say it again, definitions are derivative, real knowledge comes from examples not definitions. > > > What > > does that even mean? Mean? That word is unfamiliar to me, so please use other words to explain the word "mean". And then use more words to explain the words you used to explain the word "mean". And then use yet more words to explain the words you used to explain the word "mean". And then use even more words to explain the words you used to explain the words you used to explain the word "mean". And then..... So why isn't language just random noise? It's certainly not because of definitions, it's because of examples from the real world. I point to a roughly cylindrical food and say "banana" and children get the idea. In fact if you ask a child "what is a banana?" they won't say "a berry produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa", instead they will just point to one. > > > Where do you draw the line between intelligent > > and non-intelligent processing? Not everything is separated by a line, some things are separated by a fuzzy blob. A 70 pound man is undoubtedly thin, a 700 pound man is undoubtedly fat, and yet there is no sharp line between fat and thin. There is not a exact instant where day turns into night, and yet there is a difference between day and night that is as clear as, well, day and night. > > > Let me guess: intelligent processing > > is the kind that generates consciousness. > No you guessed wrong. I judge that intelligent processing is the sort of thing that if done by a man Telmo Menezes would make a noise with his mouth that sounds like "that man is smart". And yes it's a judgement call and judgement can be wrong, but it's the only tool we have. > > > Nobody ever came up with a way to test for the presence of > > consciousness (probably because it's the wrong way to think about it), > > so there is no scientific theory about it. Zero. I agree, so why is it so many on this list want to talk about nothing except consciousness when all such discussions lead precisely nowhere? I'll tell you why, because it's easy, no consciousness theory can every be proven wrong. Intelligence theories on the other hand are devilishly hard and that's why few want to talk about those even though they do lead somewhere. > > >> > >> What science doesn't yet have is a complete theory explaining >> >> how to produce intelligence, but enormous progress has been made in just >> the >> last few years. > > > > > Not really. What is happening is that the artificial neural network > models from the 80s are finally paying off, because of the orders of > magnitude more computational power and training data that we have now. > Even if improved hardware were the entire answer (it's not) how do you figure that's not enormous progress? > > Progress is being made, but it has been very slow. If progress in AI is slow it's because they keep moving the goal posts and say that true AI is whatever computers aren't good at *YET*. B a ck in 1997 after a computer became the world's best chess player chess grand master Hans Berliner said: " What's happening with Chess is that it's gradually losing its place as the par excellence of intellectual activity . Smart people in search of a challenging board game might try a game called Go" In 2008 Milton N. Bradley said: " In sharp contrast [to chess] the best computer Go programs are still mired at just beyond an advanced beginner's level ", and to play GO " immense scale makes the application of "standard" techniques infeasible even on supercomputers. [Go] Requires a real breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence which has not yet been achieved. " http://users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/Compare.html But things have changed since 2008, back then intelligence was needed to win at GO but in 2016 a computer became the world's best GO player, so that means GO no longer requires intelligence. > > Evolution is a theory on the origins of biological complexity. We know > nothing about consciousness. > If Darwin was right then we know something about consciousness. You and I are examples of biological complexity , I am certainly conscious and perhaps you are too. Evolution can see intelligent behavior and thus can select for it, but evolution is as blind to consciousness as we are (except for our own) and thus can not select for consciousness. And yet I am conscious and perhaps you are too. Therefore the only logical conclusion is that consciousness is a byproduct of intelligence. > > Ok, so you only recognise something as a religion if you think it's > > stupid. All known religions are stupid but that is not they're most recognized characteristic, and lots of things are stupid that are not religions. Although nobody has ever found one there is nothing logically inconsistent with the idea of a non-stupid religion. The most recognized characteristic of a religion is belief in a omnipotent omniscient conscious person who created the universe. 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