Colin, There is a curious footnote in history that relates to your position. Are you familiar with the Harmon Neuron? This is a circuit that works much like they thought neurons worked when the circuit was designed. Now we know MUCH more, so such a circuit would need to be redesigned, or better yet, replaced with a tiny one-chip microcomputer instead of a lot of discrete components.
Or, given the power of modern one-chip microcomputers you could replace a bunch of neurons with a single microcomputer. A while back there was a sizable startup formed to do just that. I forget its name. As I recall they developed a product, but they never managed to sell any of them Now, this has all been subsumed into neural networks, until... You came along and wanted to do another iteration on the above process. Artificial neurons have one important place in the world - they are FAST, because of their entirely-parallel method of operation. Steve On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 4:00 PM, Colin Geoffrey Hales via AGI < [email protected]> wrote: > Hi folk, > > > > My (Chapter 12 PCT) test is ‘consciousness-agnostic’ as far as test > subjects are concerned. It only demands full embodiment. Can I suggest that > no matter what your attitude to consciousness is, that the PCT (or whatever > it evolves into) be considered as a way to bring science to this community > that will attract science funding (eventually)? > > > > I also note that until we actually build something that has consciousness > by physics replication nobody can proclaim to actually know anything solid > about it except that the physics of it does not exist in any computational > substrate that exists at present. I also note that the only real example of > human level general intelligence, natural general intelligence (NGI)! , has > consciousness and that we are currently using it to conduct this discussion > and that science is critically dependent on it, whatever it is. Empirical > fact .... get over it! > > > > I also note that some of the attitudes here, to computing as an AGI and > the consciousness/intelligence relation, are a bit like climate deniers. > That is there’s merely evidence-less opinion masquerading as a science > outcome. The reasons for this preference/opinion I can’t claim to > understand. It is invariant to evidence in a way that I find quite > disturbing. What is it about modern life that fosters this kind of thing? > That causes shootings in Paris?Some people would rather be self-assured > that they absolutely ‘know’ garbage rather than admit to not knowing > something. Some sort of ignorance phobia? So strange. > > > > Scientists know that when you realise you don’t know something you’re a > long way towards a solution. I’ll try not to go Rumsfeldian here. > > > > Being wrong is a job requirement for a scientist. Let yourself be wrong > and you’ll get to what is right by wrongness attrition! You can only be > wrong so many times in a row. But if you never try to make yourself wrong > you’ll never know whether you are right or not. > > > > Like climate change and its deniers, the consciousness basis of > intelligence will roll over the backs of the deniers, leaving its > tread-marks on a bewildered sub-group of denialists’ backs. Thomas Kuhn > recognised this sub-group. Ernst Mach died in denial of electrons. They get > old and become irrelevant, and are ultimately regarded as having left > science. Their preferences become a religion. Their community a cult. > > > > BTW > > Did you know the science of consciousness recently became a ‘generational’ > activity? > > > > Roughly 25. It started around 1990. An entire generation of scientists has > inhabited it. They think they are studying something real and very very > important. That community knows _*exactly*_ what it is studying. They > also know they don’t know what it is. Just like fire was, long ago. To know > what you’re studying does not mean you know what it is. > > > > That is science. That is not being done in the computer-only-centric part > of the AGI community. Which seems dominant even now after 60+ years of > failure. What the existing computer-based-AGI community has been doing for > 60+ years is examine a hypothesis that consciousness is irrelevant. This is > being done in a way that is not actually science and none of the > practitioners get that. > > > > The science-of-consciousness community will be the community that solves > the AGI problem. That community will have an explanation as to why the 60+ > years of computer-based-AGI failure has happened and could have been > predicted. With the consciousness understanding in place, then we’ll be > able to design AGI from a perspective of explicitly choosing to include > consciousness or not, by design, and by knowing what its presence or > absence does to the resulting artificial intelligence. Only then will the > ethics issues make sense. > > > > Signing off for now. 2015 beckons. Dammit I said I wouldn’t ramble. Sorry. > > > > Cheers > > Colin > > > *AGI* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/10443978-6f4c28ac> | > Modify > <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;> > Your Subscription <http://www.listbox.com> > -- Full employment can be had with the stoke of a pen. Simply institute a six hour workday. That will easily create enough new jobs to bring back full employment. ------------------------------------------- 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
