--- On Fri, 11/14/08, Colin Hales <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Try running yourself with empirical results instead of metabelief (belief about belief). You'll get someplace .i.e. you'll resolve the inconsistencies. When inconsistencies are testably absent, no matter how weird the answer, it will deliver maximally informed choices. Not facts. Facts will only ever appear differently after choices are made. This too is a fact...which I have chosen to make choices about. :-) If you fail to resolve your inconsistency then you are guaranteeing that your choices are minimally informed.
Fine. By your definition of consciousness, I must be conscious because I can see and because I can apply the scientific method, which you didn't precisely define, but I assume that means I can do experiments and learn from them. But by your definition, a simple modification to autobliss ( http://www.mattmahoney.net/autobliss.txt ) would make it conscious. It already applies the scientific method. It outputs 3 bits (2 randomly picked inputs to an unknown logic gate and a proposed output) and learns the logic function. The missing component is vision. But suppose I replace the logic function (a 4 bit value specified by the teacher) with a black box with 3 switches and a light bulb to indicate whether the proposed output (one of the switches) is right or wrong. You also didn't precisely define what constitutes vision, so I assume a 1 pixel system qualifies. Of course I don't expect anyone to precisely define consciousness (as a property of Turing machines). There is no algorithmically simple definition that agrees with intuition, i.e. that living humans and nothing else are conscious. This goes beyond Rice's theorem, which would make any nontrivial definition not computable. Even allowing non computable definitions (the output can be "yes", "no", or "maybe"), you still have the problem that any specification with algorithmic complexity K can be expressed as a program with complexity K. Given any simple specification (meaning K is small) I can write a simple program that satisfies it (my program has complexity at most K). However, for humans, K is about 10^9 bits. That means any specification smaller than a 1 GB file or 1000 books would allow a counter intuitive example of a simple program that meets your test for consciousness. Try it if you don't believe me. Give me a simple definition of consciousness without pointing to a human (like the Turing test does). I am looking for a program is_conscious(x) shorter than 10^9 bits that inputs a Turing machine x and outputs yes, no, or maybe. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
