Ben,
Thanks for responding. I would deeply appreciate any clarification you could give to my several questions below. (No need to respond immediately. And I have your book "The Hidden Pattern," so If there are any five to fifteen page section therein that would help answer these questions please refer to them.) ################My prior post ################>>>> I have said many times on this list that I believe there is nothing we know > about reality that is anything other than computing, and that there is > nothing we know about consciousness that is anything other than computing, > other than our sense of awareness, which can be considered an attribute of > computation, itself. ########### Ben's response ###########>>> I think this is an unnecessarily limited interpretation of the concept of "knowing" ###### My response ######>>> In what way do you think it limited? ################My prior post ################>>>> > I believe the richness of our own consciousness is derived from the richness > of sensations we have derived from external reality and the computational > and sensory machinery our own bodies provides to sense, give meaning to, > record, and generalize from them. ########### Ben's response ###########>>> Well, it's fine with me if you believe this ... so long as you recognize that it's a sort of article of faith, not something that can be proven empirically or logically. Similarly, my own belief that consciousness is the underlying reality, and physical and computational systems merely *focus* this consciousness in particular ways, is also not something that can be proven empirically or logically... ###### My response ######>>> Agreed. The beliefs we have expressed are certainly beyond humanity's current powers of explanation, and at least certain aspects of them probably always will be. But as I expressed in my recent discussion of Richard's paper, I think science will know much more about consciousness in 50 years (roughly 30 of which should be after the advent of human level AGI. Not enough to remove all of its mysteries, but probably enough to remove some of them. More interesting is your belief that computational systems *focus" consciousness in particular ways. Can you be any more specific about this belief? Ed Porter -----Original Message----- From: Ben Goertzel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 8:27 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [agi] To what extent can our minds experience the consciousness of external reality? Hi, > I have said many times on this list that I believe there is nothing we know > about reality that is anything other than computing, and that there is > nothing we know about consciousness that is anything other than computing, > other than our sense of awareness, which can be considered an attribute of > computation, itself. I think this is an unnecessarily limited interpretation of the concept of "knowing" > I believe the richness of our own consciousness is derived from the richness > of sensations we have derived from external reality and the computational > and sensory machinery our own bodies provides to sense, give meaning to, > record, and generalize from them. Well, it's fine with me if you believe this ... so long as you recognize that it's a sort of article of faith, not something that can be proven empirically or logically. Similarly, my own belief that consciousness is the underlying reality, and physical and computational systems merely *focus* this consciousness in particular ways, is also not something that can be proven empirically or logically... > So I am not denying that all reality has consciousness. But I am > questioning at what level and through what media human consciousness is > capable of experiencing the consciousness of reality that is external to our > minds. And I am questioning to what extent our sense of oneness with the > consciousness of external reality is anything more than a sensory awareness, > perhaps amplified by deep emotions, of that level of the computations of > external reality which our senses --- and the models and recordings of > experience we used to understand them --- provide to our own miraculous, yet > very limited consciousnesses. Again the resolution of these sorts of questions goes beyond science... -- Ben G ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
