On Sunday 24 August 2003 20:41, Ben Goertzel wrote:
> RE: [agi] Web Consciousness and self consciousness
> Hi Shai,
>
> I read your brief article on consciousness.
>
> Much of what you say is agreeable to me -- I do think that human
> consciousness has a lot to do with the kind of "attentional dynamics" of
> active "objects" that you mention.
Well you can't be wrong in definition of a concept, only clumsy or smart.
According to Churchland consciousness is a mongrol concept, a dirty mixture of
all kinds of notions. This explains much of the misunderstanding of each
others point in the literature of philosophy of mind.
If you look at consciousness scientifically you would like an operational
(measurement of behaviour) definition. In that case two can be
given(sketched): 1 consciousness is attention and control. 2 consciousness is
reporting of internal mental events.
An agent can have consciousness-1 without consciousness-2, but not vv. Most
(all?) animals are conscious-1, but only(?) humans are conscious-2. Of course
to be conscious-2 the ability for language is needed, and a basic model of
how the mind works (e.g. the intentional stance).
>
> I have a slightly different phraseology for discussing these topics, but I
> think my ideas on attentional dynamics are consistent with your own (I have
> an old article on www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/ that discusses consciousness
> and attention in Webmind, an AI system I was involved with in the late
> 1990's).
>
> However, you follow Daniel Dennett in completely ignoring what some folk
> call the "hard problem" of consciousness --- i.e. bridging the subjective
> experience of "qualia" and the "mechanistic" explanations of neuroscience
> and cognitive psychology. I tend to feel there is some real subtlety
> hidden in the "hard problem" --
I thought long about the problem some years ago, and well, the solution is
quite simple and elegant. Modern physics has a "hard problem" too. Nobody
knows what electrons look like, what quarks look like, what photons look
like. What is known is the structure and behaviour of these entities, but not
what they are in themselves, their intrinsic nature, metaphorically: how
nature notates the Theory Of Everything. We notate physics theories
'subjectively' with mathematics, 'nature' notates theories 'objectively' with
???.
All matter has internal states: bricks, ants, the sun, oil... These internal
states are nothing over and above their physical states, they are identical
but 'seen' from a different perspective, inside or outside, being the
material body itself or being something else modelling/perceiving that body.
We can only know the (causal) structure of material bodies, not the intrinsic
nature. We only see appearances; even if have a good/perfect model of the
behaviour there is something unknown (I would call it existential).
But of course we are things too, we are human bodies or a part of that: the
brain (or a part of that). The qualia I perceive are the 'objective' notation
of a TOE model of my brain. I can give no proof (can there be one?), but if
you want a place for qualia in your theory (unlike Dennett) and avoid
mind-bodydualism (epiphenomenalistic or interactionistic), this is the most
simple (appeal to Ockham's razor) model.
This 'solves' the metaphysical problem of qualia. '- . - = +'. two hard
problems, one easy solution.
Of course after this you would like to know which TOE states correspond to our
qualia, and also you would like to know the 'qualia' of bricks (boring no
doubt), ants etc etc (in TOE descriptions). It's hard to say what nature this
knowledge has. After TOE is found physics is finished, by definition. What's
left to know (fundamentally)? I suppose knowledge about existence itself.
Chalmers (who invented the term "hard problem") gives 'my' solution as a
solution. He got the idea from Lockwood ('Mind brain quantum'), who got it
form Russell ('The analysis of matter'), and the idea can be traced back to
Kant's ding-an-sich.
I don't agree completely with their formulations, e.g. Lockwood makes it
unnecessarily complicated, Russell is a bit vague.
What puzzles me is why so little philosophers see the solution, and why so
many reject it when they are told. Well, most philosophers don't know modern
physics very well and still have an old Lockian model of matter
(Knock-knock). Most philosophers have a sort of linguistic background, e.g.
Searle, and can only see problems in that light. Many are just hostile to
reductionistic explanation of mind and AI. Philosophers just want to keep the
problems etc etc
Some philosophically inclined physicists seemed to agree with Russell,
Eddington Einstein.
>
> However, I also feel that true AI and even superhuman AI can be created
> without solving all the deep intellectual problems associated with
> consciousness.
I agree.
Perhaps conscious AI's will one day help us to understand
> all of what consciousness really is ;-)
I think they would help to investigate consciousness: heterophenomenology in a
bubble chamber ;-)
Bye,
Arnoud
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