What do others on this list think about Mark Tegmark's definition of consciousness:
"I believe that consciousness is, essentially, the way information feels when being processed. Since matter can be arranged to process information in numerous ways of vastly varying complexity, this implies a rich variety of levels and types of consciousness." Source: http://www.edge.org/q2007/q07_7.html Jason On Jun 3, 6:11 am, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 03/06/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > How do you derive (a) ethics and (b) human-friendly ethics from reflective > > > intelligence? I don't see why an AI should decide to destroy the world, > > > save the world, or do anything at all to the world, unless it started > > off > > > with axioms and goals which pushed it in a particular direction. > > > When reflective intelligence is applied to cognitive systems which > > reason about teleological concepts (which include values, motivations > > etc) the result is conscious 'feelings'. Reflective intelligence, > > recall, is the ability to correctly reason about cognitive systems. > > When applied to cognitive systems reasoning about teleological > > concepts this means the ability to correctly determine the > > motivational 'states' of self and others - as mentioned - doing this > > rapidly and accuracy generates 'feelings'. Since, as has been known > > since Hume, feelings are what ground ethics, the generation of > > feelings which represent accurate tokens about motivational > > automatically leads to ethical behaviour. > > Determining the motivational states of others does not necessarily involve > feelings or empathy. It has been historically very easy to assume that other > species or certain members of our own species either lack feelings or, if > they have them, it doesn't matter. Moreover, this hasn't prevented people > from determining the motivations of inferior beings in order to exploit > them. So although having feelings may be necessary for ethical behaviour, it > is not sufficient. > > Bad behaviour in humans is due to a deficit in reflective > > > intelligence. It is known for instance, that psychopaths have great > > difficulty perceiving fear and sadness and negative motivational > > states in general. Correct representation of motivational states is > > correlated with ethical behaviour. > > Psychopaths are often very good at understanding other peoples' feelings, as > evidenced by their ability to manipulate them. The main problem is that they > don't *care* about other people; they seem to lack the ability to be moved > by other peoples' emotions and lack the ability to experience emotions such > as guilt. But this isn't part of a general inability to feel emotion, as > they often present as enraged, entitled, depressed, suicidal, etc., and > these emotions are certainly enough to motivate them. Psychopaths have a > slightly different set of emotions, regulated in a different way compared to > the rest of us, but are otherwise cognitively intact. > > Thus it appears that reflective > > > intelligence is automatically correlated with ethical behaviour. Bear > > in mind, as I mentioned that: (1) There are in fact three kinds of > > general intelligence, and only one of them ('reflective intelligence') > > is correlated with ethics. The other two are not. A deficit in > > reflective intelligence does not affect the other two types of general > > intelligence (which is why for instance psychopaths could still score > > highly in IQ tests). And (2) Reflective intelligence in human beings > > is quite weak. This is the reason why intelligence does not appear to > > be much correlated with ethics in humans. But this fact in no way > > refutes the idea that a system with full and strong reflective > > intelligence would automatically be ethical. > > Perhaps I haven't quite understood your definition of reflective > intelligence. It seems to me quite possible to "correctly reason about > cognitive systems", at least well enough to predict their behaviour to a > useful degree, and yet not care at all about what happens to them. > Furthermore, it seems possible to me to do this without even suspecting that > the cognitive system is conscious, or at least without being sure that it is > conscious. > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
