[Ham] I fear that you've been playing too many video games. To suggest that robots can be programmed to be aware, or that the Internet may be self-conscious, is a trip through fantasy land.
[Case] I suspect that whatever advanced functions machine intelligence could ever be shown to have you would think of some reason why this is not really the real deal. There was a similar dispute in ape language research in the early and mid '80. Researchers had taught different apes to sign, to count to use computer generated symbol systems and no matter what they did it was dismissed because they allegedly where doing what people do... I suspect this will be even more pronounced for AIs. [Ham] The test for awareness is not sensibility, analytical ability, or behavior. As I said before, awareness is the proprietary capacity to KNOW. It is not objectively verifiable, but it exists only in conjunction with sensible object (i.e., what we perceive as beingness). In other words, awareness is being-aware. [Case] Subjective awareness can never be objectively verified. I challenge you to define what "KNOW" even means. When you deal with fuzzy concepts like consciousness and awareness you can always say someone or something else doesn't have it or doesn't get it. [Ham] Now, I will match your "almost agree" concession in one respect. What I call "sensibility" is not necessarily limited to organic creatures. Primary sensibility is the non-proprietary (undifferentiated or pre-intellectual) realization of value. [Case] See above. What is this supposed to actually mean? [Ham] It is my theory that value is the "force" that opposes negation and links the individual self to Essence. This concept is not unlike Pirsig's DQ, except that I don't define value as ultimate reality. Value is realizable only where difference is actualized, that is, in the awareness/otherness dichotomy of existence. Because the contingencies of this dichotomy are separated by nothingness, we can only be aware of value relatively. However, prior to any organic identity, value is the undifferentiated source of awareness. [Case] This is a classic example of animism run amuck. You are not ascribing volition not just to inanimate object you want to give them to concepts. Value is a force? It opposes negation? It links to individual self to Essence? Does it bowl on Thursdays? Value lies in similarity as well as difference. Your awareness/otherness dichotomy is entirely a matter of subjectivity. You can not say that these contingencies are "nothingness". This makes Nothingness something. It is that which separates contingencies. Undifferentiated source... We were doing so well too. Please make an effort to speak English. [Ham] I, too, reject the notion of inanimate awareness as 'animisim'. Since you stated previously that "imbuing the mindless with mind and agency seems to me to be a regression in understanding not an advance," why are you now advocating AI as "self-awareness"? Processing and compiling data is no more an "agency of awareness" than the Encyclopedia Brittanica. [Case] I am following Wilber on this one and it can be seen in Pirsig as well. Higher orders grow out of lower levels. Machine intelligences are emerging from the activities of humans. At present they expand the human memory and are transforming our culture. They serve as extensions of our own awareness, memory and memory processing capabilities. They are a higher order emerging from a lower one. Even as a prosthetic to our own biological processes they give us access to a higher level of awareness and expand our individual consciousnesses to include events from all over the world, heck all over the galaxy. moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
