On Sunday, August 18, 2013 12:24:18 AM UTC-4, Brent wrote: > > On 8/17/2013 8:59 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > > On Saturday, August 17, 2013 11:14:22 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: >> >> On 8/17/2013 7:05 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: >> >> >> >> On Saturday, August 17, 2013 9:59:26 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: >>> >>> On 8/17/2013 2:01 PM, John Mikes wrote: >>> >>> Consciousness is different: it is a hoax some high hatted >>> scientists/pholosophers invented to make themselves smart. No basis, every >>> author uses the term for a content that fits her/his theoretical stance. >>> Me, too. >>> Mine is: a response to relations we get to know about. Nothing more. Not >>> human/elephant/dolphin, not universe, not awareness, not nothing, just >>> RESPONSE. >>> >>> >>> Just *any* response? Doesn't the response have to be something we can >>> identify as intelligent or purposeful? >>> >>> By anything on anything. You may even include the figments of the >>> Physical World into the inventory. >>> >>> >>> So do you agree that if we build a machine, such as a Mars Rover, that >>> exhibits intelligence in its response then we may conclude it is >>> aware/conscious? >>> >> >> >> What if you wanted to build a Mars Rover that was completely unconscious, >> but still followed a sophisticated set of instructions. Would that be >> impossible? If the Mars Rover detects enough different kinds of compounds >> in the Martian atmosphere, is there no way of preventing it from developing >> a sense of smell? >> >> >> To exhibit intelligence the Rover would have to do more than "follow >> instructions", it would have to learn from experience, act and plan through >> simulation and prediction. >> > > Would you say that it is impossible to build a machine which learns and > plans without it developing perception and qualia automatically? Could any > set of instructions suppress this development? If qualia can appear > anywhere that learning and planning behaviors can be inferred, does that > mean that there are also be programs or processes which must be protected > from qualitative contamination or leakage? > > > >> If it did exhibit intelligence like that, I'd grant it 'consciousness', >> whatever that means. >> > > Why would you grant that it has a quality which you claim not to > understand? > > > Because it helps me understand what it would do as it helps me understand > what other people may do. I didn't claim not to understand it, but I'm not > sure your understanding is the same as mine. >
But why does it help you understand anything? It sounds like you are saying that granting a system consciousness is a formality that you find superfluous, but then you are saying that this empty gesture helps you understand something. > > > > >> If it learns and acts based on chemical types I'd grant it has a sense of >> smell. >> > > Would the sense of smell be like our sense of smell automatically, or > could its sense of smell be analogous to our sense of touch, or intuition, > or sense of humor? > > > No. As you would realize if you thought about it. > That was an either or question, so it can't have an answer of 'no'. > > Why have any of them? What does a sense of smell add to your > understanding of how chemical detection works? > > > Don't be so dense, Craig. > Don't be so evasive, Brent. Being dense is how science works. It's about stripping away your assumptions. Your assumption is that somehow a sense of smell is an expected outcome of chemical detection, so I ask you to explain why you assume that. You are bluffing. How about this. Could a TV show be closed captioned so thoroughly that a deaf person could read it and have the same experience as someone who listened to the show? Is a scroll of type that reads [grunting] enough of an understanding of the sound that it represents to say it is identical? Could there be a particular sound which would best and most unambiguously fit the description of [grunting], or could the description be extended to such a length and nuance that any sound could be described with 100% fidelity? > If there were no such thing as smell, could anything even remotely > resembling olfactory qualia be justified quantitatively? > > Unless you can explain exactly why you grant a machine qualities that you > claim not to understand and why you grant a superfluous aesthetic dimension > to simple stochastic predictive logic, I will consider the perspective that > you offer as lacking any serious scientific justification. > > >> To say it's "conscious" is just a way of modeling how it learns and acts >> that we can relate to (what Dennett calls "the intentional stance"). >> > > If that were true, then nobody should mind if they spend the rest of their > life under comatose-level anesthetic while we replace their brain with a > device that models how it learns in the same way that you once did. > > > I specifically wrote "and acts" above. > I specifically omitted 'acts' because it is too loaded with metaphorical connotations in this context. You are trying to smuggle intention into an algorithm which is unintentional. Either way though, it makes no difference. Should we be glad to enter a permanent coma to make room for a device which acts like us...even if it does a better job, objectively, of surviving and reproducing? Did you even consider answering any of my questions? Craig > > Brent > > > It's not true though. There is an important difference between feeling and > doing, between being awake and having your body walk around. Can you really > not see that? Can you really not see why a machine that acts like we expect > a person to act doesn't have to mean that the machine's abilities > automatically conjure feeling, seeing, smelling, etc out of thin air? > > Craig > > > >> >> Brent >> >> >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com<javascript:> > . > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 2013.0.3392 / Virus Database: 3211/6586 - Release Date: 08/17/13 > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
