On Wednesday, October 9, 2013 8:08:01 PM UTC-4, Jason wrote: > > > > > On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 4:52 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com <javascript:>>wrote: > >> On 10 October 2013 09:47, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com<javascript:> >> > wrote: >> >>> It's not that computers can't do what humans do, it's that they can't >>> experience anything. Mozart could dig a hole as well as compose music, but >>> that doesn't mean that a backhoe with a player piano on it is Mozart. It's >>> a much deeper problem with how machines are conceptualized that has nothing >>> at all to do with humans. >>> >> >> So you think "strong AI" is wrong. OK. But why can't computers experience >> anything, in principle, given that people can, and assuming people are >> complicated machines? >> >> >> > I think Craig would say he does think computers (and many/all other > things) do experience something, >
You're half right. I would say: 1. All experiences correspond to some natural thing. 2. Not all things are natural things. Bugs Bunny has no independent experience, and neither does Pinocchio. 3. Computers are made of natural things but, like all machines, are ultimately assembled unnaturally. 4. The natural things that machines are made of would have to be very low level, i.e., not gears but the molecules that make up the gears. Unless a machine used living organisms, molecules would probably be the only natural things which an experience would be associated with. They don't know that they are part of a machine, but there is probably an experience that corresponds to thermodynamic and electromagnetic conditions. Experiences on that level may not be proprietary to any particular molecule - it could be very exotic, who knows. Maybe every atom of the same structure represents the same kind of experience on some radically different time scale from ours. It's not really important - the main thing is to see how there is no substitute for experience and a machine which is assembled from unrelated parts has no experience and cannot gain new experience in an alien context. I think that a machine (or any inanimate object or symbol) can also serve as a vehicle for synchronicity. That's a completely different thing because it is the super-personal, holistic end of the sensible spectrum, not the sub-personal, granular end. The creepiness of a ventriloquist dummy is in our imagination, but that too is 'real' in an absolute sense. If your life takes you on a path which tempts you to believe that machines are conscious, then the super-personal lensing of your life will stack the deck just enough to let you jump to those conclusions. It's what we would call supernatural or coincidental, depending on which lens we use to define it.. http://s33light.org/post/62173912616 (Don't you want to have a body?) > just that it is necessarily different from what we experience. The reason > for this has something to do with our history as biological organisms > (according to his theory). > Right, although not necessarily just biological history, it could be chemical too. We may have branched off from anything that could be made into a useful machine (servant to alien agendas) long before life on Earth. Craig > > Jason > > -- 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.
