On 16 Mar 2015, at 19:44, meekerdb wrote:
On 3/16/2015 12:33 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 9:11 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 3/15/2015 7:10 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 7:00 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 3/13/2015 10:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
or under anesthesia I'm not conscious
You can't prove that. That's an assumption.
That's logic chopping. There's a big gap between proven and
assumed. In fact all of science works in that gap. It's called
"knowledge" and it is provided by evidence, not logic and not
assumption.
I agree, "prove" was a horrible choice of words.
What I meant to say is that you can't test for consciousness. You
can test for things that you assume to be sufficient and necessary
conditions for consciousness, but you can't test this assumption
itself.
Carl Sagan talks about the "dragon in the garage". I feel that
consciousness is unlike any other phenomena, because it is the
"dragon in the garage" that we *know* is there.
Is that really so different from all the other things we know? I
could be a brain-in-a-vat, my impression I'm typing on a keyboard
could be a hallucination, are there *really* other people, perhaps
this is a dream, am I really just imagining the world and other
people?
I think it is different, because all the scenarios you describe are
irrelevant to most scientific theories. Classical physics is an
excellent model to predict observations in the meso world where we
live. I can use it to predict the path of of projectile, because it
describes regularities in the mechanics of our reality. It was
conceived before any modern knowledge of subatomic particles,
relativity and so on. The substrate doesn't matter, until you go to
extreme cases. It's still good science, I think we can agree.
The same holds for all the scientific knowledge that then allows us
to predict how our world will behave, that allows us to build stuff
that we desire and so on. It doesn't matter if I'm a brain-in-a-vat
or an inhabitant of the Matrix. We used empiricism to discover
regularities in whatever this environment is.
But consciousness is different. Consider Watson. Is it conscious?
We have absolutely no way of knowing, and our intuitions about
neural activity, hormone levels, blood pressure and so on do not
help us there.
I agree those are weak evidence. But when we understand the brain
better at the level of information processing, we will have a model
which can be compared to how Watson "thinks". We will be able to
compare AIs to brains in terms of how they implement imagination,
decision making, emotion, self-reference, memory, learning, etc.
Will we *know* whether they are conscious? No. But we won't find
that an interesting question. It will be like philosophizing about
whether viruses are alive. Instead cognitive engineers will discuss
whether more or less randomness will improve the learning rate,
whether the love//hate module needs stabilizing, whether recursive
levels of abstraction should be allowed,...
For one reason or another we easily dismiss all these defeaters
of knowledge, but when it comes to consciousness it's suddenly
different and we get radical agnosticism - even though
consciousness is by definition knowledge (of something).
With all other knowledge we know who the knower is. With
consciousness, the model becomes self-referential.
I know who the knower is when I know I'm conscious, just the same as
I know who the knower is when I know I type this sentence. Both are
equally transparent - and equally mysterious. Self-reference isn't
a problem. Mars Rovers have self-reference.
Certainly. Some 3p self-reference, and perhaps the 1p too. hard to say
without seeing the code (and perhaps hard to say even seeing the code).
They know where they are, what their temperature is, how charged
their batteries are, when they can next talk to Earth,... I think
self-reference and self-awareness are used as mystifiers: Only
humans can see the truth of Godel sentences. But one can't see the
truth of one's own Godel sentence. I can be aware of myself, and I
can be aware of being aware of myself. But I just fooling myself
with words if I think I can be aware of being aware of being aware
of myself.
I don't know/ for 1p self-awareness, to be aware of one self is the
same as to be aware of being aware of oneself. The nested box
collapse, so you might get them all at once. It is more difficult with
the 3p-self in "real" situation.
Bruno
Brent
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