Mike,
Bit of confusion here. "Consciousness" is best used to refer to the
thing that Chalmers refers to as the "Hard Problem" issues.
The thing you are mainly referring to is what cog psych people would
talk about as "executive processing" (as opposed to "automatic
processing"). Big literature on that.
The important thing, for me, is that I would even begin to engage you in
debate on the ideas you have raised here, because it is just too messy
of these two totally different ideas are mixed up together.
Richard Loosemore
Mike Tintner wrote:
Well, there obviously IS a conscious, executive mind, separate from the
unconscious mind, whatever the enormous difficulties cognitive
sicentists had in first admitting its existence and now in identifying
its correlates! And you still seem to be sharing some of those old
difficulties in talking about it. Science generally still has some of
those difficulties too. They shouldn't be there. Social organizations
have chief executives and appear more or less incapable of functioning
without them. The individual organization that is a human being appears
to need an executive mind for much the same reasons - though those
reasons need defining.
Note that Fodor acknowledges the embarrassing truth that sicence can
currently offer no explanation of why the conscious mind exists -
rational, deterministic computers and machines clearly do not have or
need one, functioning perfectly as entirely unconscious affairs.
One immediate reason, applicable to AGI - although it will take the next
Cognitive Revolution to recognize this - is that the two minds, almost
certainly, think very differently. The unconscious mind thinks more or
less algorithmically, (at least most of the time), rapidly in set ways -
like a rational computer - it has to. Its function is to get things done.
The conscious mind thinks literally, freely. How long it will spend on
any given decision, and what course of thought it will pursue in
reaching that decision are definitely NOT set, but free. (How does Pei's
NARS fit in here?) Should I buy the marshmallow or the creme caramel
ice cream? Hmm that's a tough one. I want to get this right... And I
could and will resolve that decision in a few more seconds OR at other
times, I could still be here thinking about it several minutes later OR
at other times I could wander off in mid-thought to another subject
entirely. No computer currently thinks like this - thinks freely and
"crazily" as opposed to rationally and deterministically. Anyone who
produces one - that has a similar practicality to the animal/human
executive mind - will literally usher in the next Cognitive Revolution.
You guys are clearly moving that way - but still appear to have a
somewhat confused philosophical understanding of why all this is really
necessary.
(One interesting, but tangential issue is that the unconscious mind does
appear to have a certain freedom too - it's hard to see dreams, for
example, as deterministic affairs, Well, your dreams maybe, but not
mine, you understand...).
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Benjamin Goertzel <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*To:* agi@v2.listbox.com <mailto:agi@v2.listbox.com>
*Sent:* Sunday, May 06, 2007 10:37 AM
*Subject:* Re: [agi] The Advantages of a Conscious Mind
Mike,
The extent to which there is a rigid distinction between these two
tiers in the human brain/mind is not entirely clear. The human
brain seems to have some distinct memory subsystems associated with
various sorts of "short term memory" or "working memory", but the
notion of "executive processing" overall is IMO best thought of as a
fuzzy set. Yes, there are some parts of the brain clearly shown (by
fMRI and PET) to be involved with overall coordination, but the
knowledge/memories associated by these brain regions is not
necessarily the totality of what can occur in subjective conscious
awareness.
I think that the working memory and the autonomic nervous system are
best viewed as two extremes, with a continuum of "conscious
intensity levels" existing between them.
For relatively recent thinking on the underpinnings of consciousnes
in the human brain, check out the edited volume
-- "Neural Correlates of Consciousness", by Thomas Metzinger
His single-author book
-- "Being No One"
is also very good, though I disagree with his take on AI at the end
of the book. (he argues it would be unethical to create AGI's
because it would be unethical to experiment on their half-formed,
probably buggy conscious minds.)
In Novamente we do have an AttentionalFocus concept which is much
like what you call the "conscious" tier. We have chosen the term
"attentional focus" to avoid getting into arguments related to the
nature of consciousness and the first person versus third person
perspectives on mind. Each item in the attentional focus is
associated with a distributed network of other items that are not
necessarily in the attentional focus, which ties in with the
fuzziness of the executive function as mentioned above.
-- Ben G
On 5/6/07, *YKY (Yan King Yin)* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
On 5/6/07, Mike Tintner < [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
> YKY: Consciousness is not central to AGI .
>
> The human mind consists of a two-tier structure. On top, you
have this conscious, executive mind that takes most of the
decisions about which way the system will go - basically does
the steering. On bottom, you have the unconscious, subordinate
mind that does nearly all the information processing, both
briefing and executing the executive mind's decisions, putting
the words in its mouth and forming the thoughts in its head,
while continually pressuring the executive mind with conflicting
emotions, and at the same time monitoring and controlling the
immensely complex operations of the body.
That sounds reasonable. You're talking about the executive /
planner module. My focus is on the truth maintenance module,
which operates somewhat passively, and would require high-level
directives from the planner, including value-based bias. The
executive should be able to control all other modules.
I tried not to use the term "emotion" in AGI, but I guess most
people like it as a metaphor.
YKY
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