On 5/5/2019 11:41 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 1:19 AM Bruce Kellett <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 3:59 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: On 5/5/2019 10:30 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Sun, May 5, 2019 at 10:51 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On 5/5/2019 7:30 PM, Jason Resch wrote:On Sunday, May 5, 2019, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: On 5/5/2019 5:57 PM, Jason Resch wrote:On Sunday, May 5, 2019, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: On 5/5/2019 3:49 PM, Jason Resch wrote:How do we know other humans are conscious (we don't, we can only suspect it). Why do we suspect other humans are conscious (due to their outwardly visible behaviors). Due to the Church-Turing thesis, we know an appropriately programmed computer can replicate any finitely describable behavior. Therefore a person with an appropriately programmed computer, placed in someone's skill, and wired into the nervous system of a human could perfectly mimic the behaviors, speech patterns, thoughts, skills, of any person you have ever met. Do you dispute any of the above?It assumes you could violate Holevo's theorem to obtain the necessary program. You could find the program by chance or by iteration (for the purposes of the thought experiment).In those cases you could never know that you had been successful. The question wasn't whether or not we would succeed, but given that we know it is possible to succeed, given there ezists a program that could convince you it was your friend, why doubt it is consciousness?I don't think I would doubt it was conscious even if it just acted as intelligent as some stranger. But note that it would have to be interactive. So I think Wegner's point is that makes its computations not finitely describable. Who is Wegner in this context, and what was his point? I don't see how any computation could be not finitely describable, given that any programs can be expressed as a finite integer.This guy, Peter Wegner, that pt referred to indirectly. http://www.cse.uconn.edu/~dgoldin/papers/strong-cct.pdf His point is that human consciousness is an interactive program that receives arbitrary and unknown inputs from the environment and is modified by those inputs. He calls this model a PTM, Persistent Turing Machine, because it keeps a memory and doesn't overwrite it. Of course you can say that whatever the environmental input is, it can be included in the TM code, but then it is potentially inifinite. Brent This is essentially the point that both Turing and Goedel made when they pointed out that human consciousness is not Turing emulable -- it involves intuitive leaps that are not algorithmic, presumable coming from an uncodable environment.Could you provide citations to Turing and Godel's thoughts on this? In my view Turing was the founder of functionalism/computationalism, when in his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" he wrote:“The fact that Babbage's Analytical Engine was to be entirely mechanical will help us rid ourselves of a superstition. Importance is often attached to the fact that modern digital computers are electrical, and the nervous system is also electrical. Since Babbage's machine was not electrical, and since all digital computers are in a sense equivalent, we see that this use of electricity cannot be of theoretical importance. [...] If we wish to find such similarities we should look rather for mathematical analogies of function.”As for Godel, while I am aware of instances where his ideas have been misapplied by some philosophers to argue that human consciousness is not Turing emulable, I am not aware of any writings of Godel where he expressed such ideas. It is hard for me to believe Godel himself misunderstood his own ideas to the extent necessary to believe human mathematicians somehow immune to its implications. According to Godel's 14 points (his own personal philosophy) it suggests he sees nothing special about the material composition, and he also believes all problems (including art) can be addressed through systematic methods. This suggests to me he would be a proponent of at least "weak AI", which again is sufficient for my thought experiment.1. The world is rational. 2. Human reason can, in principle, be developed more highly (through certain techniques). *3. There are systematic methods for the solution of all problems (also art, etc.).* *4. There are other worlds and rational beings of a different and higher kind.* 5. The world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived. 6. There is incomparably more knowable a priori than is currently known. 7. The development of human thought since the Renaissance is thoroughly intelligible (durchaus einsichtige). 8. Reason in mankind will be developed in every direction. 9. Formal rights comprise a real science. *10. Materialism is false.* *11. The higher beings are connected to the others by analogy, not by composition.* 12. Concepts have an objective existence. 13. There is a scientific (exact) philosophy and theology, which deals with concepts of the highest abstractness; and this is also most highly fruitful for science. 14. Religions are, for the most part, bad– but religion is not.
Reads like a lot of assertion based on wishful thinking. Brent
(Emphasis mine) Jason
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