On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 4:47:12 PM UTC+10, Jason wrote: > > > > On Sun, May 24, 2015 at 12:40 AM, Pierz <[email protected] <javascript:>> > wrote: > >> >> >> On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 1:07:15 AM UTC+10, Jason wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> On 19 May 2015, at 15:53, Jason Resch wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:06 AM, Stathis Papaioannou < >>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On 19 May 2015 at 14:45, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 9:21 PM, Stathis Papaioannou < >>>>> [email protected]> >>>>> > wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >> >>>>> >> On 19 May 2015 at 11:02, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >> >>>>> >> > I think you're not taking into account the level of the functional >>>>> >> > substitution. Of course functionally equivalent silicon and >>>>> functionally >>>>> >> > equivalent neurons can (under functionalism) both instantiate the >>>>> same >>>>> >> > consciousness. But a calculator computing 2+3 cannot substitute >>>>> for a >>>>> >> > human >>>>> >> > brain computing 2+3 and produce the same consciousness. >>>>> >> >>>>> >> In a gradual replacement the substitution must obviously be at a >>>>> level >>>>> >> sufficient to maintain the function of the whole brain. Sticking a >>>>> >> calculator in it won't work. >>>>> >> >>>>> >> > Do you think a "Blockhead" that was functionally equivalent to >>>>> you (it >>>>> >> > could >>>>> >> > fool all your friends and family in a Turing test scenario into >>>>> thinking >>>>> >> > it >>>>> >> > was intact you) would be conscious in the same way as you? >>>>> >> >>>>> >> Not necessarily, just as an actor may not be conscious in the same >>>>> way >>>>> >> as me. But I suspect the Blockhead would be conscious; the intuition >>>>> >> that a lookup table can't be conscious is like the intuition that an >>>>> >> electric circuit can't be conscious. >>>>> >> >>>>> > >>>>> > I don't see an equivalency between those intuitions. A lookup table >>>>> has a >>>>> > bounded and very low degree of computational complexity: all answers >>>>> to all >>>>> > queries are answered in constant time. >>>>> > >>>>> > While the table itself may have an arbitrarily high information >>>>> content, >>>>> > what in the software of the lookup table program is there to >>>>> > appreciate/understand/know that information? >>>>> >>>>> Understanding emerges from the fact that the lookup table is immensely >>>>> large. It could be wrong, but I don't think it is obviously less >>>>> plausible than understanding emerging from a Turing machine made of >>>>> tin cans. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> The lookup table is intelligent or at least offers the appearance of >>>> intelligence, but it makes the maximum possible advantage of the >>>> space-time >>>> trade off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space–time_tradeoff >>>> >>>> The tin-can Turing machine is unbounded in its potential computational >>>> complexity, there's no reason to be a bio- or silico-chauvinist against >>>> it. >>>> However, by definition, a lookup table has near zero computational >>>> complexity, no retained state. >>>> >>>> >>>> But it is counterfactually correct on a large range spectrum. Of >>>> course, it has to be infinite to be genuinely counterfactual-correct. >>>> >>>> >>> But the structure of the counterfactuals is identical regardless of the >>> inputs and outputs in its lookup table. If you replaced all of its outputs >>> with random strings, would that change its consciousness? What if there >>> existed a special decoding book, which was a one-time-pad that could decode >>> its random answers? Would the existence of this book make it more conscious >>> than if this book did not exist? If there is zero information content in >>> the outputs returned by the lookup table it might as well return all "X" >>> characters as its response to any query, but then would any program that >>> just returns a string of "X"'s be conscious? >>> >>> I really like this argument, even though I once came up with a (bad) >> attempt to refute it. I wish it received more attention because it does >> cast quite a penetrating light on the issue. What you're suggesting is >> effectively the cache pattern in computer programming, where we trade >> memory resources for computational resources. Instead of repeating a >> resource-intensive computation, we store the inputs and outputs for later >> regurgitation. >> > > How is this different from a movie recording of brain activity (which most > on the list seem to agree is not conscious)? The lookup table is just a > really long recording, only we use the input to determine to which section > of the recording to fast-forward/rewind to. > > It isn't different to a recording. But here's the thing: when we ask if the lookup machine is conscious, we are kind of implicitly asking: is it having an experience *now*, while I ask the question and see a response. But what does such a question actually even mean? If a computation is underway in time when the machine responds, then I assume it is having a co-temporal experience. But the lookup machine idea forces us to the realization that different observers' subjective experiences (the pure qualia) can't be mapped to one another in objective time. The experiences themselves are pure abstractions and don't occur in time and space. How could we ever measure the time at which a quale occurs? Sure we could measure brain waves and map them to reported experiences and so conclude that the brain waves and experiences occurred "at the same time", but the experience itself might have occurred at any time and just happen to correlate to those neuronal firing patterns. Perhaps I experience the moment I think of as "now" exactly 100 years after it actually happened - except course such an assertion is meaningless because the subjective and the objective can't be mapped to one another at all. I've said before that a recording *is* conscious to the extent that it is a representation of a conscious moment, just like the original "event" was (as seen perhaps by those who were there). I mean to say, how is a recording different from an observation? It's just a delayed or echoed observation. Again, *when* is an experience? Is it happening as the neurones fire? Even Dennett - hardly a Platonist - has critiqued this naive idea, pointing out how sequence and timing of experience are really a construction. Qualia are not *in* time and space. So if a vast lookup table can orchestrate the behaviour of a being whose every possible response has been has been recorded in every possible situation, then it is conscious, kind of. In the same way a body is. Or isn't. It isn't because an objective phenomenon is not a subjective phenomenon. It is because the consciousness that generated those behaviours does exist, just not at any particular time or place.
> > >> The cached results 'store' intelligence in an analogous way to the >> storage of energy as potential energy. We effectively flatten out time (the >> computational process) into the spatial dimension (memory). >> > > But what if intelligence were not used to create the lookup table? Does > the history/creation event, which may be arbitrarily far in the past, > really play any role in a present level of consciousness? Or the reverse: > the future creation of a one-time-pad, retroactively restores intelligence > (consciousness?) to what was previously always a dumb program. > > >> The cache pattern does not allow us to cheat the law that intelligent >> work must be done in order to produce intelligent results, it merely allows >> us to do that work at a time that suits us. The intelligence has been >> transferred into the spatial relationships built into the table, >> intelligent relationships we can only discover by doing the computations. >> The lookup table is useless without its index. So what your thought >> experiment points out is pretty fascinating: that intelligence can be >> manifested spatially as well as temporally, contrary to our common-sense >> intuition, and that the intelligence of a machine does not have to be in >> real time. That actually supports the MGA if anything - because >> computations are abstractions outside of time and space. We should not >> forget that the memory resources required to duplicate any kind of >> intelligent computer would be absolutely enormous, and the lookup table, >> although structurally simple, would embody just a vast amount of >> computational intelligence. >> >> > There is a common programming technique called memoization. Essentially > building automatic caches for functions within a program. I wonder: would > adding memorization to the functions implementing an AI eventually result > in it becoming a zombie recording rather than a program, if it were fed all > the same inputs a second time? Perhaps the recording of a counterfactual > relation retains its effectiveness. Perhaps its impossible to differentiate > the two and cases and ascribe consciousness to one but not the other. > > Jason > > > >> >> >>> A lookup table might have some primitive conscious, but I think any >>> consciousness it has would be more or less the same regardless of the >>> number of entries within that lookup table. With more entries, its >>> information content grows, but it's capacity to process, interpret, or >>> understand that information remains constant. >>> >>> >>>> >>>> Does an ant trained to perform the look table's operation become more >>>> aware when placed in a vast library than when placed on a small bookshelf, >>>> to perform the identical function? >>>> >>>> >>>> Are you not doing the Searle's level confusion? >>>> >>> >>> I see the close parallel, but I hope not. The input to the ant when >>> interpreted as a binary string is a number, that tells the ant how many >>> pages to walk past to get to the page containing the answer, where the ant >>> stops the paper is read. I don't see how this system consisting of the ant, >>> and the library, is conscious. The system is intelligent, in that it >>> provides meaningful answers to queries, but it processes no information >>> besides evaluating the magnitude of an input (represented as a number) and >>> then jumping to that offset to read that memory location. Can there be >>> consciousness in a simple "A implies B" relation? >>> >>> >>>> The consciousness (if there is one) is the consciousness of the >>>> person, incarnated in the program. It is not the consciousness of the low >>>> level processor, no more than the physicality which supports the ant and >>>> the table. >>>> >>>> Again, with comp there is never any problem with all of this. The >>>> consciousness is an immaterial attribute of an immaterial >>>> program/machine's >>>> soul, which is defined exclusively by a class of true number relations. >>>> >>>> >>> While I can see certain very complex number relations leading to a >>> human-level consciousness, I don't find that kind of complexity present in >>> the relations defining a lookup table. Especially because any meaning or >>> interpretation of the output depends on the person querying it, there's no >>> self-contained understanding of the program's own output. >>> >>> >>>> The task of a 3p machine consists only in associating that >>>> consciousness to your local reality, but the body of the machine, or >>>> whatever 3p you can associate to the machine, is not conscious, and, to be >>>> sure, does not even exist as such. >>>> >>>> I am aware it is hard to swallow, but there is no contradiction (so >>>> far). And to keep comp, and avoid attributing a mind or worst a "partial" >>>> mind to people without brain, or to movie (which handles only very simple >>>> computations (projections)), I don't see any other option (but fake magic). >>>> >>>> It is perhaps helpful to see that this reversal makes a theory like >>>> Robinson arithmetic into a TOE, and to start directly with it. >>>> >>>> In that case all what we deal with is defined in term of arithmetical >>>> formula, that is, in term of 0, s, + and *. >>>> >>>> The handling of the difference between object and their description is >>>> made explicit, through the coding, or Gödel-numbering, or programming, of >>>> the object concerned. >>>> >>>> For example, in the combinators, the number 0 is some times defined by >>>> the combinator SKK, the expression "SKK" can be represented by a Gödel >>>> number (in many different way), attributing to 0 a rather big number >>>> representing its definition, and this distinguish well 0 and its >>>> representation (which will be a rather big number). Proceeding in this >>>> way, >>>> we avoid the easy confusions between the object level and the metalevel, >>>> and we can even mixed them in a clean way, as the metalevel embeds itself >>>> at the object level (which is what made Gödel and Löb's arithmetical >>>> self-reference possible to start with). >>>> >>>> I would have believed this almost refute comp, if there were not that >>>> quantum-Everett confirmation of that admittedly shocking self-diffraction. >>>> (which is actually nothing compared to the one with information >>>> elimination >>>> or dissociation, needed for a "semantic of first person dying" in that >>>> self-diffracting reality). >>>> >>>> We can't know the truth, but we can study the consequence of comp about >>>> that, and what machines can say about that, and justify, not justify, >>>> expresses or not expresses, hope or fear, etc. >>>> >>>> >>> I appreciated the reversal, I suppose my line of questioning should be >>> interpreted as what classes of programs in arithmetic/RA/platonia have the >>> capacity to support or add measure to first person views of the type humans >>> seem to have. >>> >>> Jason >>> >>> -- >> 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] <javascript:>. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected] >> <javascript:>. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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