On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 11:52 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:

>> He [Graziano]says consciousness is just another name for attention, but
>> computers have been paying attention to some things and not others form
>> almost as long as they've existed. For example the LHC produces nearly a
>> billion particle collisions per second and each collision produces about
>> one megabyte of data, so you'd need 200,000 DVDs each second the LHC is in
>> operation to store that much information, and it's designed to be in
>> operation 20 hours a day 300 days a year. Even a computer can't remember
>> all that, Instead the computers looks at each collision and quickly decides
>> if there is anything that *might* be worthy of its attention and remembers
>> only them.
>> So out of the billion collisions each second the computer only remembers
>> and pays attention to what happened in about 200 collisions, all the other
>> data is just thrown away. Even so that's still a HUGE amount of information
>> to store. There is always the possibility you're throwing away something
>> important but there is no alternative, you just can't keep it all.
>
>
> > As I understand it the proper analogy would not be selecting which
> collisions to analyze in real time, it would be a level up from that:
> managing the allocation computer resources (most of which are off the LHC
> site) to the selection process.
>

I don't understand your distinction. The LHC just can't record a billion
collisions a second, it can only remember about 200 and even that takes a
herculean effort, so it uses a fast but very well crafted algorithm to pick
out the 200 out of that billion that seem most interesting to it and pays
attention only to them. Likewise when you spot a Saber Toothed Tiger you
pay attention only to the sense data that is related to the tiger, so even
though it's within your field of view you ignore the fact that your shoes
don't seem to be polished. And it's the same with internal signals, you
stop thinking about Plato's philosophy and stop reminiscing about the
birthday party you had when you were ten the instant you spot the tiger and
devote the entire computational resources of your brain to matters that you
judge to be of more immediate concern.

  John K Clark






>
>
>
>  > under Graziano's theory it's a way of augmenting or improving
>> intelligence within constraints of limited computational resources.
>
>
>  Is so then it would be easier to make a intelligent conscious computer
> than a intelligent non-conscious computer.
>
>
> Yes, an so consciousness would be "visible" to natural selection as an
> improvement in intelligence.
>
> Brent
>
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