I don't really understand this thread - magical thinking? The neural network between our ears is who / what we are, and everything that we will experience. It is the source of consciousness - even if consciousness is regarded as an epiphenomenon.
Gandalph On Feb 11, 2012, at 9:34 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I think you are radically overestimating the size of the book and the > importance of the size to the experiment. ELIZA was about 20Kb. > > TO HELL WITH ELIZA!!!! That prehistoric program is NOT intelligent! What is > the point of a though experiment that gives stupid useless answers to > questions? > > >If it's a thousand times better than ELIZA, then you've got a 20 Mb rule > book. > > For heavens sake, if a 20 Mb look-up table was sufficient we would have had > AI decades ago. > > Since you can't do so let me make the best case for the Chinese Room from > your point of view and the most difficult case to defend from mine. Let's say > you're right and the size of the lookup table is not important so we won't > worry that it's larger than the observable universe, and let's say time is > not a issue either so we won't worry that it operates a billion trillion > times slower than our mind, and let's say the Chinese Room doesn't do ELIZA > style bullshit but can engage in a brilliant and interesting (if you are very > very very patient) conversation with you in Chinese or any other language > about anything. And lets have the little man not only be ignorant of Chinese > but be retarded and thus not understand anything in any language, he can only > look at input symbols and then look at the huge lookup table till he finds > similar squiggles and the appropriate response to those squiggles which he > then outputs. The man has no idea what's going on, he just looks at input > squiggles and matches them up with output squiggles, but from outside the > room it's very different. > > You ask the room to produce a quantum theory of gravity and it does so, you > ask it to output a new poem that a considerable fraction of the human race > would consider to be very beautiful and it does so, you ask it to output a > original fantasy children's novel that will be more popular than Harry Potter > and it does so. The room certainly behaves intelligently but the man was not > conscious of any of the answers produced, as I've said the man doesn't have a > clue what's going on, so does this disprove my assertion that intelligent > behavior implies consciousness? > > No it does not, or at least it probably does not, this is why. That reference > book that contains everything that can be said about anything that can be > asked in a finite time would be large, "astronomical" would be far far too > weak a word to describe it, but it would not be infinitely large so it > remains a legitimate thought experiment. However that astounding lookup table > came from somewhere, whoever or whatever made it had to be very intelligent > indeed and also I believe conscious, and so the brilliance of the actions of > the Chinese Room does indeed imply consciousness. > > You may say that even if I'm right about that then a computer doing smart > things would just imply the consciousness of the people who made the > computer. But here is where the analogy breaks down, real computers don't > work like the Chinese Room does, they don't have anything remotely like that > astounding lookup table; the godlike thing that made the Chinese Room knows > exactly what that room will do in every circumstance, but computer scientists > don't know what their creation will do, all they can do is watch it and see. > > But you may also say, I don't care how the room got made, I was talking about > inside the room and I insist there was no consciousness inside that room. I > would say assigning a position to consciousness is a little like assigning a > position to "fast" or "red" or any other adjective, it doesn't make a lot of > sense. If your conscious exists anywhere it's not inside a vat made of bone > balancing on your shoulders, it's where you're thinking about. I am the way > matter behaves when it is organized in a johnkclarkian way and other things > are the way matter behaves when it is organized in a chineseroomian way. > > And by the way, I don't intend to waste my time defending the assertion that > intelligent behavior implies intelligence, that would be like debating if X > implies X or not, I have better things to do with my time. > > >The King James Bible can be downloaded here > > > No thanks, I'll pass on that. > > >> Only?! Einstein only seemed intelligent to scientifically literate > >> speakers in the outside world. > > > No, he was aware of his own intelligence too. > > How the hell do you know that? And you seem to be using the words > "intelligent" and "conscious" interchangeably, they are not synonyms. > > >If you start out defining intelligence as an abstract function and > category of behaviors > > Which is the only operational definition of intelligence. > > > rather than quality of consciousness > > Which is a totally useless definition in investigating the intelligence of a > computer or a person or a animal or of ANYTHING. > > > I use ELIZA as an example because you can clearly see that it is not > intelligent > > So can I, so when you use that idiot program to try to advance your > antediluvian ideas it proves nothing. If you want to make a point use Watson > or Siri or some other program that produces useful information rather than > silly evasions > > > Ok, make it a million times the size of ELIZA. A set of 1,000 books. > > That's not going to do it, make it a million million million million billion > trillion times the size of Eliza and that still will not do it if it's just a > lookup table, even scientific notation would not be sufficient to describe > how large that lookup table would need to be. > > > > If I'm a chef and I walk into a room, the room doesn't become a restaurant. > > Why stop at the room, why not say the entire city speaks Chinese? If > > consciousness worked this way then there could be no localization at all - > > the universe would be one big intelligence that knows everything about > > everything > > > Consciousness has no unique localization, but it's important to remember that > differences in position is not the only way to differentiate one thing from > another; "slow" is clearly different from "fast" but not because they are in > different places. The same thing could also be said about the number eleven > and the number twelve, they are different but position has nothing to do with > it. > > > Are you saying that if Watson takes 2 seconds to answer a question it is > > intelligent but if it takes 2 hours to answer the same question correctly > > is it somehow less intelligent? Speed is meaningless for this thought > > experiment. > > But it's supposed to prove something about consciousness not intelligence. > and if your mind worked as slowly as the Chinese Room you might be conscious > of the life and death of stars but not anything that happened faster than > that. > > > We are alive because we are made of living organisms. > > And living organisms are made of atoms, just exactly like everything else > including computers. Life generally behaves in a more complex way than > non-life but there is not a sharp line between life and non-life, and it's > getting less sharp every day. > > > > You can't make a stem cell out of a semiconductor, > > Certainly you can. The difference between stem cells and semiconductors is > exactly the same > difference between my brain and last years mashed potatoes, the way the atoms > are organized. > > >I don't think the brain produces consciousness. > > Then some other organ must, your big toe perhaps? > > > I think awareness produces consciousness. > > That's not very enlightening, awareness and consciousness are synonyms. > > > > Machines are automatic and pre-recorded, not live and aware. > > A computer recently figured out what the trillionth digit of PI was, do you > really think that number was pre-recorded? > > > A bullet can do that because it's causing a physical catastrophe to the > > brain as a whole, not because it is reprogramming the organization of the > > mind. > > I don't know what your talking about, a bullet to the brain is a > reprogramming, things behave very differently after that. > > John K Clark > > > > > > > > > > > -- > 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. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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