Colin Hales writes: > Please consider the plight of the zombie scientist with a huge set of > sensory feeds and similar set of effectors. All carry similar signal > encoding and all, in themselves, bestow no experiential qualities on the > zombie. > > Add a capacity to detect regularity in the sensory feeds. > Add a scientific goal-seeking behaviour. > > Note that this zombie... > a) has the internal life of a dreamless sleep > b) has no concept or percept of body or periphery > c) has no concept that it is embedded in a universe. > > I put it to you that science (the extraction of regularity) is the science > of zombie sensory fields, not the science of the natural world outside the > zombie scientist. No amount of creativity (except maybe random choices) > would ever lead to any abstraction of the outside world that gave it the > ability to handle novelty in the natural world outside the zombie scientist. > > No matter how sophisticated the sensory feeds and any guesswork as to a > model (abstraction) of the universe, the zombie would eventually find > novelty invisible because the sensory feeds fail to depict the novelty .ie. > same sensory feeds for different behaviour of the natural world. > > Technology built by a zombie scientist would replicate zombie sensory feeds, > not deliver an independently operating novel chunk of hardware with a > defined function(if the idea of function even has meaning in this instance). > > The purpose of consciousness is, IMO, to endow the cognitive agent with at > least a repeatable (not accurate!) simile of the universe outside the > cognitive agent so that novelty can be handled. Only then can the zombie > scientist detect arbitrary levels of novelty and do open ended science (or > survive in the wild world of novel environmental circumstance). > > In the absence of the functionality of phenomenal consciousness and with > finite sensory feeds you cannot construct any world-model (abstraction) in > the form of an innate (a-priori) belief system that will deliver an endless > ability to discriminate novelty. In a very Godellian way eventually a limit > would be reach where the abstracted model could not make any prediction that > can be detected. The zombie is, in a very real way, faced with 'truths' that > exist but can't be accessed/perceived. As such its behaviour will be > fundamentally fragile in the face of novelty (just like all computer > programs are). > ----------------------------------- > Just to make the zombie a little more real... consider the industrial > control system computer. I have designed, installed hundreds and wired up > tens (hundreds?) of thousands of sensors and an unthinkable number of > kilometers of cables. (NEVER again!) In all cases I put it to you that the > phenomenal content of sensory connections may, at best, be characterised as > whatever it is like to have electrons crash through wires, for that is what > is actually going on. As far as the internal life of the CPU is concerned... > whatever it is like to be an electrically noisy hot rock, regardless of the > program....although the character of the noise may alter with different > programs! > > I am a zombie expert! No that didn't come out right...erm.... > perhaps... "I think I might be a world expert in zombies".... yes, that's > better. > :-) > Colin Hales
I'm not sure I understand why the zombie would be unable to respond to any situation it was likely to encounter. Doing science and philosophy is just a happy side-effect of a brain designed to help its owner survive and reproduce. Do you think it would be impossible to program a computer to behave like an insect, or a newborn infant, for example? You could add a random number generator to make its behaviour less predictable (so predators can't catch it and parents don't get complacent) or to help it decide what to do in a truly novel situation. Stathis Papaioannou _________________________________________________________________ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
