On 29 January 2014 05:39, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Tuesday, January 28, 2014 8:37:04 AM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: >> >> On 27 January 2014 16:07, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> Do you think Barack Obama is conscious? If you do, then in whatever >> >> sense >> >> you understand that, can the Chinese Room also be conscious? Or do you >> >> think >> >> that is impossible? >> > >> > >> > Yes, I think that Barack Obama is conscious, because he is different >> > from a >> > building or machine. Buildings and machines cannot be conscious, just as >> > pictures of people drinking pictures of water do no experience relief >> > from >> > thirst. >> >> If Barack Obama revealed that he was a machine, would that change your >> view of whether machines could be conscious? > > > If nobody ever survived a translation into machine simulation, would that > change your mind of whether consciousness can be simulated?
Yes. But you didn't answer my question. >> > The Chinese Room is not important. You are missing the whole point. >> > Consciousness is beyond reason and cannot be discovered through evidence >> > or >> > argument, but sensory experience alone. >> >> So the Chinese Room is conscious not through evidence or argument, but >> through sensory experience alone. > > > It would be if the Chinese Room had sensory experience. Our experience of > the Chinese Room doesn't matter. That's the question: could the Chinese Room have sensory experience? For entities such as Barack Obama, you guess that they do based on your observation of their behaviour. >> What if it were revealed that John Wayne's body while he was asleep on >> the night of his 40th birthday was annihilated and replaced by a copy? >> Would you still say there can only be one John Wayne? > > > What if you were annihilated at age 5, but you were replaced by a copy? > Would you still say that the body using your name was you, even though you > are not using it? As a matter of fact, I was annihilated when I was 5. The atoms making up my body then are long gone, dispersed throughout the Earth and probably even beyond. >> Why couldn't we >> make a John Wayne Mk3 long after his death, who would stand in >> relation to John Wayne Mk2 as John Wayne Mk2 stood in relation to John >> Wayne Mk1? > > > For the same reason that we can't build a model of Paris out of clay and > have it actually become Paris. It is because the publicly measurable end of > what we are is not sufficient to describe who we have been and who we are > becoming. Do you think it is impossible that John Wayne was replaced by a copy at age 40 and nobody noticed? >> And he purports to do that by showing that despite external >> appearances the Chinese Room cannot be conscious because the >> components are not conscious, which you agree is not a valid argument. > > > It's not because the components are not conscious, it is because the > description of the Room or 'system' as a whole is consistent with the > absence of consciousness. This is the double standard of functionalism which > makes the hard problem hard. Functionalism asserts on the one hand that all > functions of consciousness can be produced mechanically, but then the effect > of consciousness could not provide any additional functionality to the > mechanism. The hard problem exposes the hypocrisy of 'We don't need > consciousness to explain everything" when consciousness itself is what needs > to be explained. The machine's definition of itself does not include > consciousness. Building machines based on that definition will therefore not > include consciousness. If the machine were conscious, then its definition of itself would include consciousness. Functionalism asserts that consciousness emerges from function, but it's a non sequitar to say that therefore consciousness should provide additional functionality. >> > My hypotheses go further into the ontology of awareness, so >> > that we are not limited to the blindness of measurable communication in >> > our >> > empathy, and that our senses extend beyond their own accounts of each >> > other. >> > Our intuitive capacities can be more fallible than empirical views can >> > measure, but they can also be more veridical than information based >> > methods >> > can ever dream of. Intuition, serendipity, and imagination are required >> > to >> > generate the perpetual denationalization of creators ahead of the >> > created. >> > This doesn't mean that some people cannot be fooled all of the time or >> > that >> > all of the people can't be fooled some of the time, only that all of the >> > people cannot be fooled all of the time. >> >> You still haven't come up with any reason better than a vague >> prejudice why, for example, the AI in the movie "Her" could not be >> conscious. > > > Because she doesn't need to be conscious. She could just as easily be > programmed as a chameleon, which analyzes the profile of each user and > builds an ad hoc identity to reflect some Bayesian extraction of their > preferences. Would such a chameleon have to be all of the different people > that it pretends to be? Samantha in the film claims that she was based on the personalities of the programmers, but then develops her own personality; much as children may be shaped by the genes and personalities of their parents but then use this as a basis to develop their own unique personalities. Samantha is fictional, but do you think that if she existed and you interacted with her over a long period you could maintain your conviction that she could not possibly be conscious? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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.
