> > 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've had another think about this after reading the paper you sent me. It > seems that > you are making two separate claims. The first is that a zombie would not be able to > behave like a conscious being in every situation: specifically, when called upon to be > scientifically creative. If this is correct it would be a corollary of the > Turing test, i.e., > if it behaves as if it is conscious under every situation, then it's conscious. However, > you are being quite specific in describing what types of behaviour could only occur > in the setting of phenomenal consciousness. Could you perhaps be even more > specific > and give an example of the simplest possible behaviour or scientific theory which an > unconscious machine would be unable to mimic? > > The second claim is that a computer could only ever be a zombie, and therefore could > never be scientifically creative. However, it is possible to agree with the first claim and > reject this one. Perhaps if a computer were complex enough to truly mimic > the behaviour > of a conscious being, including being scientifically creative, then it would indeed be > conscious. Perhaps our present computers are either unconscious because they are too > primitive or they are indeed conscious, but at the very low end of a consciousness > continuum, like single-celled organisms or organisms with relatively simple nervous systems > like planaria. > > Stathis Papaioannou
COLIN: Hi.... a bunch of points... 1) Re paper.. it is undergoing review and growing.. The point of the paper is to squash the solipsism argument ...in particular the specific flavour of it that deals with 'other minds' and as it has (albeit tacitly) defined science's attitude to what is/is not scientific evidence. As such I am only concerned with scientific behaviour. The mere existence of a capacity to handle exquisite novelty demands the existence of the functionality of phenomenal consciousness within the scientist. Novel technology exists, ergo science is possible, ergo phenomenal consciousness exists. Phenomenal consciousness is proven by the existence of novel technology. More than 1 scientist has produced novel technology. Ergo there is more then 1 'mind' (=collection of phenomenal fields) ergo other minds do exist. Ergo solipsism is false. The problem is that along the way you have also proved that there is an external 'reality'...which is a bit of a bonus. So all the philosophical arguments about 'existence' that have wasted so much of our time is actually just that...a waste of time. 2) Turing test. I think the turing test is a completely misguided idea. It's based on the assumption that abstract (as-if) computation can fully replicate (has access to all the same information) of computation performed by the natural world. This assumption can be made obvious as follows: Q. What is it like to be a human? It is like being a mind. There is information delivered into the mind by the action of brain material which bestows on the human intrinsic knowledge about the natural world outside the human....in the form of phenomenal consciousness. This knowledge is not a model/abstraction, but a literal mapping of what's there (no matter how mysterious its generation may seem). The zombie does not have this. Nor does the Turing machine. A turing machine is a zombie. No matter what the program, it's always 'like a tape and tape reader' to be a Turing machine. The knowledge provided by phenonmenal cosnciousness is not an abstraction (programmed model)...it is a direct mapping. 3) RE: > and give an example of the simplest possible behaviour or scientific theory which an > unconscious machine (UM) would be unable to mimic? I think this is a meaningless quest. It depends on a) the sensory/actuation facilities and b) the a-priori knowledge bestowed upon the UM by its human progenitor. No matter how good the a-priori abstraction given by the human the UM will do science on its sensory feeds until it can no longer distinguish any effect because the senses cannot discriminate it (if the UM has any idea what this means anyway - remember it has no internal likfe, no idea it is in any universe, no experience of its sensory feeds...has no idea there's any thing around it, like a human...it's 'not there'). So this poor UM will learn within the confines of its ecological niche that it doesn't even know it is in, reach a point where no matter what it does nothing novel can be detected through its sensory feeds...Then it will stay that way for good. To an outide observer it would look very weird. It would also fall victim to any perceptual failure not consistent with its survival. 5) Re a fatal test for the Turing machine? Give it exquisite novelty by asking it to do science on an unknown area of the natural world. Proper science. It will fail because it does not know there is an outside world. Get it to make/guide the creation of novel technology. This is a human behaviour that a Turing machine will never be able to do...because the humans have not done it yet either.... put the Turing Machine and a human scientist together and get them to do science on true novelty. The Turing machine cannot have any a-priori knowledge of the natural world in question because the humans who would give it to the machine dont have it either! This is the real test. Can a Turing machine do science? No way. There is no 'mimicking' consciousness.... it is an oxymorom as a statement. -------------------------------- BTW I completeley agree about the continuum of consciousness. I believe it started with eukaryotes having 'proto-experiences'. In a generalised model of cognition and consciousness all critters have varying levels of phenomenal consciousness and intellectual faculties for using that to survive in an ecological niche.... however... this is not the point of my paper... the paper was to prove that phenomenal consciousness is necessary for scientific behaviour... Having reached that point in a proof...you can then look at other behaviours (like tennis!) and other species (like bats and zombies). The key aspect to the idea is that truly scientific behaviour is the only one we can use as a real proof in respect of the existence of consciousness, as it makes real demands of the external world and relates them directly in a structured way to the internal life of the scientist in a way that has nothing to do with the scientist (it's about unknown/novel natural laws operating outside the scientist). Nobody has ever thought about this like this, have they?.... I just had this shivery feeling... that maybe I've tripped over something useful... I have found it so weird lately talking to scientists, standing there...the evidence for consiousness in front of me...saying "there's no evidence..."...:-) is it any wonder scientists can't see the evidence...they ARE the evidence! regards, Colin Hales --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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