On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 4:08 PM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 07 Dec 2017, at 10:01, Telmo Menezes wrote: > >> On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 11:50 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> >> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On 12/6/2017 1:46 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> I suspect that this is perhaps why Brent want to refer to the >>>> environment >>>> for relating consciousness to the machine, and in Artificial >>>> Intelligence, >>>> some people defend the idea that (mundane) consciousness occur only when >>>> the >>>> environment contradicts a little bit the quasi automatic persistent >>>> inference we do all the time. >>> >>> >>> >>> That's Jeff Hawkins model of consciousness: one becomes conscious of >>> something when all lower, more specialized levels of the brain have found >>> it >>> not to match their predictions. >> >> >> In that sort of model, how does matter "know" that it is being used to >> run a forecasting algorithm? Surely it doesn't right? > > > Imagine a society which builds some objects. When everything go well, the > boss can sleep in his office. But then there is some accident or something > unusual. That is the time to wake up the boss. In this analogy, > consciousness is played by the (incorrigible) boss. > > > >> The only way this could work is if the forecasting algorithm and the >> cascading effects of failing predictions have the side effect of >> creating the "right" sort of interactions at a lower level that >> trigger consciousness. > > > After a moment of panic, the sub-entities dare to awake the ultimate judge: > the one capable of "going out of the box" to take a (perhaps risky) decision > in absence of complete information, and to take on its shoulder the > responsibility. > > > >> Then I want to know what these interactions >> are, and what if the "atom" of consciousness, what is the first >> principle. Without this, I would say that such hypothesis are not even >> wrong. > > > The sub-unities have specialized task, and does not need evolved forecasting > ability. You can think them as ants, when they do their usual jobs triggered > by the local pheromones left by their close neighbors. But if the nest is > attacked, or if some important food is missing, some species will needs some > order of the queen (ike to fight or to move away. Some societies can > delegate most of the power to the sub-unities, but in complex unknown > situation, if they have to make important decision, they will need a > centralization of the power, which can act much more quickly to convince the > whole society of some unusual option, like running away, closing the doors, > fighting the enemy, etc. That will happen when *many* ants complain on > something. > > In this case, the role of consciousness is focusing the attention on what is > important (with respect to survival), and to speed-up planning, decision, > etc. > > I am not sure this answer the question (we are in the "easy" part of the > problem here). > > But you will help me by telling me what is missing. I am not sure we need to > dig on the difficult part of the consciousness problem here, which is handed > at a different level, and concerned with the fact that the boss/queen is > confined in his office/chamber and can never be sure if the ants panic is > genuine, or an illusion, and still decide ...
Yes, I agree with this model and what you say. I am just criticizing the "trick" of confusing the several meanings of consciousness. I would say that here we are in the realm of intelligence / learning. This is about attention, and how attention is directed. Several AI models already work like this. When an artificial neural network fails a prediction, this triggers a cascade of changes. It wakes up the boss, as you say. In short, I feel that some scientists tend to propose an answer to the easy problem and that try to smuggle it as a solution for the hard problem, by relying on the overloading of terms. Telmo. > Bruno > > Bruno > > >> >> Telmo. >> >>> Brent >>> >>> >>> -- >>> 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]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at https://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. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > > -- > 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]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://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. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
