On Friday, February 22, 2013 1:05:14 AM UTC-5, John Clark wrote: > > On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com <javascript:>>wrote: > > >>unlike the other sciences or even art mathematics does not require >>> experimentation. >>> >> >> > But they require thinking, >> > > Obviously. > > >which you are saying is nothing but the brain. >> > > What to you think with, your elbow? >
So my point was that you have a double standard about which brain activities represent nothing but evolutionary driven illusions and which ones represent an independent and absolute truth. I'm pointing out that bias so you can see that your position is riddled with confirmation bias. > > > The act of looking is to see out of your eyes. Are you saying that >> electrical signals look out of your eyes? >> > > I'm saying that eyes produce a sequence of electronic signals that are > sent to the brain which interprets that input as a 3D image; already > experimental procedures have used electronic cameras to replace non > functioning eyes in blind people, and they report seeing a image, a very > poor low resolution image to be sure but better than no image at all, and > as the technology improves the image will improve too. And for a number of > years electronic ears (cochlear implants) have been available, and it is no > longer experimental, it's just mainstream medicine. > A signal is a sign. A sign means that it has to be interpreted by someone or some thing. Our experience of 3D images is not useful to the brain in any way. The electronic sequences need not be interpreted at all because they are already neurological signals. It is like saying that putting a 3D television inside of your CPU would help it process a video game. Even if we say that the brain interprets signals, why would it interpret as some 'experience'? If all that is needed is math, then why have anything but data in the brain? Why have geometry when you can have glorious certain digital number sequences? The signals that you are talking about aren't even physically coherent. Are you talking about ion channels opening, or neurotransmitters being secreted, or just the general measure of current or field strength as measured by an fMRI? The brain that you describe is a cartoon. > > Do you understand what is meant by 'the map is not the territory'? >> > > Do you understand that you can't have a map of a adjective? Do you > understand that despite what your third grade teacher taught you "Craig > Weinberg" is a adjective? > I'll take that as a no. What's this about being adjectives though? What other kinds of things that our third grade teachers taught us about nouns and proper nouns are you saying is wrong? So you have a budding theory to overthrow parts of speech? > >> > There is no 'the thing'. There is only qualia in the universe, > > > Then it would be impossible to make a computer that did not deal in > qualia, > Right! But qualia is hierarchical...it's sort of the essence of hierarchy in a way. The qualia which originated in the creation of a water molecule is not the same as the qualia which originated from the creating of a human being. > although I must say that if everything in the universe is qualia then the > word "qualia" has zero informational value and you are just causing > needless wear and tear on your keyboard when you type the word. > The word qualia is only useful now because we are stuck with legacy physics which posits non-qualia in the form of realities which are external to sense. Once we understand that physics is sense, then yes, there's no need for the term. Although it has some use relativistically to suggest personal direct experience rather than indirect experience. > > > Neurons are physical experiences > > > No they are not, neurons are just cells, > cells are physical experiences. > and about 97% of what neurons do has nothing to do with thinking or > consciousness, most of their activities are just to stay alive and is > identical with what a liver or skin or intestinal cell does. > Yes, exactly. Cells have their own (sub-personal) lives. > > > It's not possible for spatial presentation to have any effect at all. >> It doesn't do anything functional. > > > Bullshit. > Which means I'm right and you have no argument. Explain to me how any spatial presentation can possibly have a function which improves upon unpresented data processing. This is the point of the whole thread, and that point is undeniable as far as I can tell. Geometry is a zombie. It has no connection to math at all except after the fact of our sense's presentation of geometry to us. Geometry cannot be derived from math alone, and neither can color, sound, touch, thought, or feeling. > > >> > If something works perfectly fine with no consciousness or presentation, >> > > It must be grand being a "hard problem" theorist because it's the easiest > job in the world bar none, no matter how smart something is you just say > "yeah but it's not conscious" and there is no way anybody can prove you > wrong. > You said that already. Ad hominem sour grapes going once, going twice... > > >> unlike complex numbers symmetrical apple pies may be able to signify a >>> arbitrary magnitude but they can not simultaneously signify a arbitrary >>> unique direction. >>> >> >> > >They can if you cut a wedge out of it. >> > > Yes, but of course for 3D navigation you'd need a way to specify how the > non symmetrical pie is orientated and fortunately there is a way to do > this, complex numbers. In fact they do the job so well that you can get rid > of the pies entirely and just use the complex numbers. > Or you could just look at the pie. > > >> >> A Video Graphic Array is a Turing Machine, >>> >> >> No >> > > Bullshit. > Again - your answer when I am clearly and incontrovertibly correct and you have no retort. > > > a VGA is a physical device. >> > > So is your brain. > Did you mean to say "Oh, you're right, a VGA is a physical device and not a Turing machine, which is an abstract concept that can be applied to certain physical machines and logical systems.' My brain is a physical organ, but not a device: "Device: a thing made for a particular purpose; an invention or contrivance, " > > >> > Behavior is overrated. > > > Behavior is the only thing that determines success in life, and it doesn't > matter if "success" means making money or making friends or avoiding > predators or catching prey; > Those things only mean success if you have meaning to begin with. Otherwise behavior is, as Whitehead might have said "...a dull affair, soundless, scentless, colorless, merely the hurrying of material, endlessly, meaninglessly ." That's what I mean by behavior being overrated. If you overlook sense from the start, then sure it's easy to value the things which we sense are valuable, but the most valuable thing of all, surely, is sense itself. > and besides, imperfect it may be but behavior is the only tool we have to > determine if our fellow human beings are conscious. > But we need the tool of sense to determine if there are fellow human beings at all. > > > A movie can duplicate the behavior of John Wayne. > > > If a movie tried to pass the Turing Test is would flop big time on the > very first interaction. > So let's say that we have an AI which will pass the Turing Test, and we have an video simulator as well which has digitized every photograph and film of John Wayne and can produce CGI movies that pass the Scorcese Test. Is the whole system now John Wayne? If it sounds like him and looks like him talking, why shouldn't we believe it's him? What if he starts saying how he's been resurrected by a computer and now lives again in movies? Is he telling the truth? > > Why didn't I become a living being by myself? >> > > Because you lack the ability. > How do you know though? Isn't it just your brain activity that you are taking as truth? How do you know your own abilities except through that? The idea that we choose to incarnate, while I don't care one way or another about, is pretty popular in some crowds. > > >>I repeat, I do not believe that for one single second! Nobody, >>> absolutely positively nobody would find your vague convoluted and >>> contradictory arguments convincing unless they had already decided that >>> they very much wished for it to be true. >>> >> >> > Why do you think I would I wish for it to be true? >> > > From reading your posts it is bloody obvious that you desperately want > consciousness to be something that is uniquely biological perhaps even > uniquely human; > Where do you get that? I say explicitly over and over that there is nothing but sense in the universe. Human quality consciousness does seem to belong to humans alone as far as we can tell, and despite claims to the contrary, AI is no closer to that than it is turning bits per second into potable drinking water. > as for why you wish this I don't know I'm not a psychologist. However I do > know with absolute certainty that you desperately want consciousness to be > something that is uniquely biological for a reason, or you desperately want > consciousness to be something that is uniquely biological for no reason. > I don't have a dog in this fight at all. I only want people to know that there is another way to understand the apparent mystery of why computer simulations and services are so universally empty and non-sentient. Biology is just the symptom. Time is the cause. Experiences through time are what the universe is, and what shapes its becoming. Doorknobs don't become people, no matter how many there are, or how interesting and complex their configuration. If you look at a human body microscopically, yes, I understand that it can seem like nothing more than such a configuration of robots. What you don't see is that when we look outside of our body, we see a reduced set of qualities - a minimal, barebones set. At that level, everything looks the same except for particular configurations. If you believe that is 'reality' from the start, then sure it seems that it *must* be the case that these slight differences in configuration (like between the neural networks in the gut and the neural network style in the brain) which make the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness - but that's just the bias of your method of observation. You are only taking into account the view which specifically excludes all possibility of private experience being visible, and then internalizing that absence arbitrarily - ignoring your own interior experience entirely...even though it is through that experience which you are thinking of these things in the first place. Craig > John K Clark > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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