By the way the brain produces high fidelity illusions for us most of our waking lives. For example the way we perceive our sight is very different from the intermittent stream of neural signals that begin their journey from our retinas. Did you know that every time you shift your eyes from one focus point to another that during the period of time the eyeball is in movement from one focus to the next no visual signals are being sent down the optic nerve. That if the brain was not producing an illusion for us the world we see should vanish each time we move our eyes (or blink them) Does the world disappear each time you blink or move your eyes? Of course it doesn't. Your mind maintains a steady and beautifully rendered illusion of the world in your mind that is seamlessly stitched into the new stream of optic signals as they arrive. There is no discontinuity. When you turn your head from one side to the other does the world spin? -- the world around you is instead held in a majestic stability that is not real, because it should be instead spinning as your head spins. Instead in our perception the world stays stable and it is our "perspective" -- our inner view -- that shifts. This makes sense from the point of view of the inner observer, but the mind needs to do a lot of work to build the illusion. Our brains are, grand masters of illusion and we live in illusion (a reification of sensorial reality) all our waking lives. The perfection of our visual illusion is a masterpiece of interpretive processing where the raw signals we get are stitched together into a field of view and a focus within that field of view that -- though it clearly is reflective of our sensorial reality is also quite different; the "world" we see is very different than the world as it is recorded on our eyeballs (even to the extent of smoothly persisting without the barest hint of any interruption even as our eyes are not seeing a single thing at all. Cheers, -Chris
________________________________ From: Dennis Ochei <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, September 3, 2013 12:38 PM Subject: Re: When will a computer pass the Turing Test? >>Of course it didn't. In order to avoid the impression of "free will" >>evolution would have had to provide us with conscious perception of the >>working of our brain. This would not only have been expensive in biological >>resources and totally unnecessary to our survival, I want to add that this would also be impossible to do in full fidelity. The appearance of free will and qualia make sense given this limitation On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 1:01 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: On 9/3/2013 10:54 AM, Chris de Morsella wrote: > > >> >> >>From: meekerdb mailto:[email protected] >>To: [email protected] >>Sent: Tuesday, September 3, 2013 10:43 AM >>Subject: Re: When will a computer pass the Turing Test? >> >> >> >> >>On 9/3/2013 9:27 AM, Chris de Morsella wrote: >> >>Evolution did not go through all the trouble and to expend all the energy our >>species expends on creating this sensation within ourselves – whether it is >>actually real or an elaborate (and evolutionarily costly adaptation) to >>carefully create this deeply layered and highly convincing illusion of free >>will within us – for no reason at all. >> >>>>Of course it didn't. In order to avoid the impression of "free will" >>>>evolution would have had to provide us with conscious perception of the >>>>working of our brain. This would not only have been expensive in >>>>biological resources and totally unnecessary to our survival, it would have >>>>posed the danger of entering do-loops. >> >>I do not see how that follows. The brain could have simply worked, supplying >>us with answers that we acted on robot like without questioning or >>contemplating how it arrived in the first instance. Why couldn't we exist as >>intelligent automata, behaving intelligently -- in any given generalized >>problem space -- without any inner life at all. Why would evolution be >>required to provide us with a conscious perception of the inner workings by >>which the brain arrived at whatever intelligent decision it arrived at; which >>is what I think you are stating; please correct me if I am off the mark. >> > You are assuming that the brain has to *do something extra* to provide your inner life. I'm saying probably not. If I constructed a robot that could act and learn just as a human does, it would probably having similar feelings and "inner life". I think what you refer to as "inner life" is the inner narration as your brain formulates its story of what's happened so that it can be compared to what you expected. If it's unexpected you can learn from it. If not it can safely be forgotten. My robot might use a similar strategy for learning and so feel a similar "inner life". > >Brent > > > > >>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 [email protected]. >>To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>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 - http://www.avg.com/ >>Version: 2013.0.3392 / Virus Database: 3222/6634 - Release Date: 09/03/13 >>-- >>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 [email protected]. >>To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> > >-- >You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google >Groups "Everything List" group. >To unsubscribe from this topic, visit >https://groups.google.com/d/topic/everything-list/jtxyZmemH64/unsubscribe. >To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to >mailto:everything-list%[email protected]. >To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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