I am glad that somebody understands my post. I too am mystified by why it is that anything exists. The simple answer is that if nothing existed, then there would be nobody to ponder the question. It is completely logical but nevertheless unsatisfying. By a similar token, I understand that my expression of belief in qualia is a conditioned response to decades of positive reinforcement of sensory perception. But that doesn't change my expression of belief in something that by definition has no observable effect on behavior.
The topic of phenomenal consciousness seems to be a distraction from AGI development. (I use the term phenomenal consciousness or p-consciousness -- that which distinguishes humans from philosophical zombies -- to make clear I am not talking about the mental state of wakefulness, which is not controversial). Since p-consciousness has no observable effect on behavior, it makes no difference whether an AGI is p-conscious or not. We are only interested in whether it can do the things that humans can do. For an AGI to successfully imitate human behavior (if required, e.g. for an upload), then it must claim to be p-conscious. Making an AGI believe or claim something is just a software problem. I hope that my comments have helped clarify how the code could be written. It's not magic. On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 1:42 PM, Anastasios Tsiolakidis <[email protected]> wrote: > As my tablet can be deceptive about the length of emails, I actually stopped > reading the first time round before this part of yours Matt, I thought you > left those other authors do the "debunking". Now, of course I would have some > ad hominem observations, and there are people who have written books along > the lines of "why smart people believe they do not exist". Because > undoubtedly, and what a major distraction this is, "qualia" is really the > level at which we exist, and if I had your qualia too then clearly I would > not exist but Mattanastasios would be the name of the game, and if evolution > hit some major optimizations then why didn't it go all the way and convince > us that our selfish genes exist, a-la-Dawkins, while "we" don't. > > It could, however, be you that are committing mistakes here, at least my > point of view a priori is non dualistic, meaning it don't think qualia have > to be non physical to play a magical role, just like superstrings and even > electrons don't need to be physical to actually do their magic. And regarding > the prevalence of qualia, let's be upfront and admit that for a lot of us, > certainly for me, the entire animal kingdom is populated with qualia, after > all why would the rat brain or lizard brain be exempt from your alleged > evolution into qualia-perpetuating-pleasure-and-especially-food-sex-child > care. I can't believe I have become a Gurdjieff and can only express myself > with unwieldy compounds and hyphens :) . I presume that most of us would not > blend frogs the way we blend our coffee or our watercolours. One has to > observe of course that in a way plants "want" to be blended/eaten, it is > totally part of their lifecycle. I admit that I attributed qualia to plants > long before reading of the controversial experiments on the > electrical/Kirlian life of plants, of water etc. I don't consider such > phenomena as proven, but I consider them likely in certain contexts. I also > find it plausible that plants may be more involved in our evolution than > even Terence McKenna would acknowledge. > > I remain of course totally mystified by existential questions such as why/if > I exist and how can anything exist etc. obviously here multiple meanings of > "exist" come into play. But I am not so naive as to join all major theologies > to believe that qualia are "so physical" that I will be rewarded by perfect > chocolate and tight virgins, or that out there my perfect face and body > exists in a platonic qualiaverse. > > What does this all mean about the measurement of consciousness or AGI? Not > much. We think we are more conscious than a salivating dog in front of a > steak, but we have indeed no fxxxxxing idea! > > AT > >> On 08.09.2014, at 19:45, "Matt Mahoney via AGI" <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> What we should be asking instead about consciousness is why a >> collection of neurons that obeys physical laws would model itself as >> having some property that exists outside of physics. -- -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
