On 11/24/2014 9:56 PM, LizR wrote:
On 25 November 2014 at 16:54, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 11/24/2014 5:36 PM, LizR wrote:
On 25 November 2014 at 13:41, John Clark <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 LizR <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> I don't think we need to worry about intelligent machines. A
smartphone is fairly
intelligent, for example, at doing what it does. Conscious
machines, which
(according to Bruno, at least) are possible, are another matter.
From a practical operational standpoint it doesn't matter if a machine
(or one
of my fellow human beings) is conscious or not, all that matters is if
it can
outsmart me or not. And by the way, if you think that "smartphone" is
more
than just a name for a certain type of phone and is really smart then
why don't
you think it's conscious too? It's almost as if you believe that
consciousness
is harder to achieve than intelligence.
We've made intelligent machines, but I don't know of any conscious ones
(except
those nature has produced, I mean)
But do you know we /*have not*/ made any conscious ones?
No, of course I don't, how could I? I said I wasn't aware of any.
You aren't aware of any that /*are */conscious. That means for each intelligent machine
you either don't know whether it's conscious or not, OR you know it's not conscious. So
my question was do you know of any in the last category?
> The main difference being that conscious beings have their own
objectives.
But even if a intelligent being is not conscious (something I am quite
sure is
not possible) it would have tendencies to act in one way rather than
another
determined by the thoughts (call them information streams if you like
euphemisms) flowing through its brain; and the more intelligent the
being is
the harder it would be for you to understand them. And those thoughts
may very
often have absolutely positively nothing to do with your best interests.
Looks like you are using an unusual definition of consciousness, so I will
pass on
this discussion.
What do you consider the usual definition of consciousness? Is it "having
an inner
narrative" (per Julian Jaynes)? Perceiving and reacting to surroundings?
Understanding Lob's theorem?
I believe it's to do with awareness of one's self and surroundings, or something like
that, but I'm not an expert and maybe you have a better definition? What I do know is
that it isn't just another word for intelligence, which is what I was objecting to (as
the quote above shows).
I don't think John's post implied that "conscious" was another word for "intelligence". I
think his position is that a being could be conscious without being intelligent (which
would be consistent with "aware of one's self and surroundings"), but not vice versa. I
don't think "being conscious" is a simple unitary attribute. I think there are different
kinds of "being conscious" some of which I suggested above.
Brent
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