On 03 Feb 2015, at 20:13, Jason Resch wrote:
I agree with John. If consciousness had no third-person observable
effects, it would be an epiphenomenon. And then there is no way to
explain why we're even having this discussion about consciousness.
So we all agree on this.
If we build computers that discuss and question their own
consciousness and qualia I'd consider that proof enough that they
are. The bigger question, is what machines might be conscious yet
unable to talk about, reflect upon, or signal to us that they are in
fact conscious? This requires a theory of consciousness.
The theory of consciousness is the theory of what is true about
universal machine, and what can they know, observe, hope, about
themselves, etc.
The most classical theory of knowledge provides, as a consequence of
incompleteness the needed nuance between believing, knowing,
observing, feeling, which are given by their representations in G (G*)
through []p, []p & p, []p & <>t, []p & <>t & p.
It gives an ideal case, but despite the simplicity that is
mathematically very rich and non trivial.
Consciousness, like truth, are not definable. The basic consciousness
is simply a knowledge; but it manifests itself through an instinctive
bet in a reality. It is somewhere between <>t and <>t v t. It is
trivial for the first person point of view, and undecidable or
undefinable in 3p terms.
Bruno
Jason
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 1:07 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
On 2/3/2015 10:00 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
>> If consciousness was just a lucky accident Evolution would
ensure that it didn't exist for long.
> Only if it cost something to maintain consciousness
Not so. Mutations happen all the time and nearly all of them are
harmful. In most animals If a mutation happens that renders it
blind that will be a severe handicap and the animal will not live
long enough to pass that mutated gene onto the next generation; but
if it happens in a cave creature it's no handicap at all and so it
will get into the next generation, the end result is that cave
creatures are not only blind they don't even have eyes, and yet
they survive just fine.
But it is biologically costly to make and maintain eyes.
In the same way if consciousness wasn't a byproduct of intelligence
and instead was just something tacked on that didn't effect
behavior (and of course renders the Turing Test ineffective) then a
creature with a mutation that stopped the consciousness mechanism
from working would survive just as well as one without the mutation.
But maybe it was "tacked" on to integrate information processing
from different independent modules, e.g. vision, language, touch,...
which in different developmental path, say AI, might have been
organized in a hierarchy or unified from the start. The latter
might even be more efficient, but evolution can't go back and start
over, it can only take small steps of improvement.
Pretty soon nobody would be conscious, but I know for a fact that
at least one is. So either Darwin was wrong or consciousness is a
byproduct of intelligence. I don't think Darwin was wrong.
>> So carbon atoms are conscious but silicon atoms are not. Well...
I can't prove that's wrong but I really think it is.
> If you think atoms are conscious you're more mystic than Bruno.
You're the one who was talking about a special connection between
carbon and consciousness not me.
I said carbon based life-forms, not carbon atoms. I'm sure we both
agree that intelligence and consciousness come from the organization
of atoms.
Brent
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