Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On 19 May 2015 at 15:42, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou Sent: Monday, May 18, 2015 10:07 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia On 19 May 2015 at 14:45, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 9:21 PM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On 19 May 2015 at 11:02, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com 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. Yes... but, the table's immensely large is a measure of its capacity to store information. A complex real time system also requires the ability to handle immense scale of throughput; for example our sensorial streams. Without a capacity for scaling up in the dimension of capacity to handle streams of information all one can ever end up with is a mass storage system (bottlenecked by its limited capacity for handling throughput) We could never experience the exquisitely rendered reality we all perceive -- from the vantage pint of our privileged inside looking out point of view -- were it not for the incredible parallelism accelerated ability of our advanced (for this planet) brains to process reality *as it happens*! Our brains are not only big in their ability to store information; they are incredibly powerful parallel processors that chew through massive real time streams, performing all manner of pattern detection matching; memory recall operations, decisional executive processing, memory update and commit operations. For every thought we are consciously aware of, a vast parallelized self-error correcting distributed processing and quorum based decisional neural network has been in operation. Ability to handle massive throughput matters! The Blockhead could pass the Turing test but it would not be equivalent to a human. The point I was making is that it should not be dismissed as obviously non-conscious. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Physicists Are Philosophers, Too
On 18 May 2015, at 18:15, Samiya Illias wrote: On 18-May-2015, at 7:24 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 13 May 2015, at 08:23, Samiya Illias wrote: On 12-May-2015, at 9:39 pm, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 13 May 2015 at 14:29, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: 1) The Quran reminds us that humans have been made Incharge of Earth and hence are responsible for the welfare of the Earth and all in it 2) The Quran also tells us that we will be held accountable for all that we've been gifted with, hence the more worldly riches or power one has, the greater the responsibility and the greater the accountability So yes, it speaks of all of us and says that every action, intention, everything is being recorded and will be replayed and the criminals will not be able to say anything, rather their bodies will bear witness against themselves. Humans will be recompensed in full in complete justice, and nobody will be wronged in the least. It's a nice fantasy, at least. As opposed to the (apparent) reality that rich people can screw everyone else, each other, and the planet, and still make out like bandits. That is why I suppose facts about creation have been mentioned across the Quran so that those who doubt its authenticity can study and assess for themselves whether this message is from the One who created, knows and is in perfect control of everything to the minutest detail, and is therefore able to carry out His Will and keep His Promise, or if this is just a fantasy. The greeks, may be not so much the indians, got the same idea/ fantazy. The idea that God is Good. With comp, good is a protagorean virtue: it obeys []x - ~x But what is good? Can a God be good and accepts that one of its creature kills another of its creature ... in its Name? Can a teacher be good who sets an exam for his students, allows the students to refer to the textbook and patiently allows the students time to attempt the exam? Can an movie maker be good who assigns roles to the characters, gives them the script, and then let's them enact their roles? Can an employer be good who sets mock assignments (aptitude tests) for his prospective employees, and then gives them the liberty to execute it, and only later appraises them for their actions? The students', the actors' and the potential employees' performance in their exam, movie or mock assignment determines their future potential and possible career. If we consider this life as the only life and death as a finality, then of course the perspective is different. But if we realise that it's just the end of the trial, then the perspective changes completely. With comp you already sin once you feel superior, or inferior, with respect to Her/It/He. It's not about feeling superior or inferior, it's about realising that we are the 'creation' and God is the 'Creator'. It's about being Just and Justice cannot be a sin. Do you take for granted that the Homo Sapiens is the favorite creature of God? Never claimed to be the favourite. Perhaps among the favoured creation, but certainly not the only one. Does Arithmetical truth loves the Löbian numbers? Ttruth is certainly an attractor for the löbian numbers. ?? God is good, I agree! Thank you :) but with comp both of them are undefinable, and you might sin by deciding what is good and bad by using publicly its Name. Everyone knows the difference between good and bad I think it's called Conscience (it is like the difference between eating a fruit and being burned), Like Garden of Eden and Fire of Hell? but above that you have to open your mind on how others talk about God, and concentrate on what is common, and discard the difference. Reality is beyond the Fairy tales, indeed it is even beyond the correct humans' and machine's theories. Yes, we have been given very little knowledge, most of it is unknown. With comp it is almost obvious that any finite text on God can only be a lie. God is beyond texts. Maybe comp is 'almost obviously' wrong? The Creator who created us to the exact cellular and atomic detail, can the same Creator not also provide a User Manual? After all, the scriptures are not 'about God', they are about humans! Texts can help, but texts can delude, also, especially if you attach yourself with literal interpretations. God, who created in us the ability to speak and express ourselves in word and in writing, can express and communicate better than we can. There is no need to philosophise the scriptures. Literal readings are our best chance to attempt to understand the message of the scriptures. In the middle-east, people have discussed the Plato/Aristotle view longer than in Occident, and the influence of Plato, and thus of that open-mindness toward both reason and mysticism, is quite palpable. But the Jews, with Maimonides, and most
Re: My comments on The Movie Graph Argument Revisited by Russell Standish
On 18 May 2015, at 18:46, John Clark wrote: On Mon, May 18, 2015 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Well then let's make this simple, just use your patented way to make calculations without using matter or energy or any of the laws of physics and tell me what the factors of 3*2^916773 +1 and 19249 × 2^13018586 + 1 are. Opportunist fallacy. Fallacy my ass! Science demands evidence, if somebody claims they can cure cancer the claim is not enough, even a detailed description of how they intend to cure cancer is not enough, they must actually cure cancer. And so I don't want to hear any more about how you can make a calculation without using matter or energy or any of the laws of physics, I want you to actually do it. Just do it and you've won the argument. Straw man fallacy. Nobody can do a physical computation out of a physical reality. The question is not about doing a computation, but about the existence of computation in the block-mind offred by the (sigma_1) arithmetical reality, which provably emulates all computation, but obviously not in a physical, or locally reproductible way. Indeed the physical will emerge from those computations, already there in the block-mind or block-computer science reality. if you agree that 2+2=4, and if you use the standard definition, then you can prove that a tiny part of the standard model of arithmetic run all computations. The word run involves changes in physical quantities like position and time. And what sort of thing are you running these calculations on? No: run is defined mathematically, without any reference to physics. Yes, so I guess you retract your previous comment and now realize that you can't run all computations or run any computation at all without making use of the physical. ? ! The set of all true statements is contained within the set of all statements, the trick is to separate the true from the false. We cannot separate them mechanically, but we can separate them mathematically, Wow that is wonderful news! Since you know how to separate truth from falsehood mathematically you know if Goldbach conjecture is in the set of all true statements or in the set of all false statements and thus you have won the argument. Ah but by the way, which is it? To separate mathematically does not mean to separate effectively. Effectively means in such a manner as to achieve a desired result, With CT, it means computably. so if you desire to separate all true statements from all false statements and can do it but not do it effectively then you can do it but you can not do it. Do think maybe just maybe there might be something a bit wrong with that? Then you defend intuitionism, and we are out of computationalism. I have explained that there is no possible effective way to separate the code of total and strictly partial program, but to have Church thesis, we need an enumeration of all (strictly or not) partial computable functions, which will mix the total and strictly partial functions in a non computable, non effective way. Actually, I gave you other arguments, but you have never answered them, so I am not sure all this is not, like in step 3, pure rhetorical hand waving. In this case, you abandon the excluded middle principle, which is in comp, by definition, as you need it to have the classical Church thesis. Most theorems in theoretical computer science are not constructive, like in the usual math, and in computer science many of them are provably necessarily non constructive (unlike the usual math where we don't know, in most case). Bruno John K Clark -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On 18 May 2015, at 22:50, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On Tuesday, May 19, 2015, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 5/18/2015 10:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: What about Mister D. During his conference his brain completely melted down, disappeared, say, in this thought experience, but a lucky cosmic ray, by pure chance, will activate the exact motor's neurons, so that he will pursue his conference like if nothing happened. Once, an auditor interrupted him and asked a question, but Mister D was so lucky that at that moment the lucky ray sent, by pure chance, the right activation of the motor nerves. Note that Mister D as no inputs, no cortex, no lymbic system, no cerebral stem, as the lucky rays activates only the motor nerves. Is him a zombie? In this case the empty brain is as good as a normal brain. For the right 3p behavior, you need just the right impulse at the muscles. What if the brain does not melt down, but get dissociated and manages a dream, unrelated to the conference. Who would be Mister D from his (?) perspective? It strikes me that these arguments based on extreme improbabilities are worthless. What difference would it make whether Mister D is conscious or not in a hypothetical that is so improbable as to never happen in the history of the universe? We could accept either answer. It's like reasoning, If pigs could fly, then... There is a difference in kind, not degree, between the impossible and the highly improbable. In ordinary life we can take them as equivalent, and do so multiple times a day without thinking about it, but not in philosophical discussions such as these. Agreed. It is the difference between reasoning in a theory, and deriving things from counterfactuals, which is very hard. In if pig could fly ..., you need to revise the concept of pig to give sense to the premise, and here, that would ask for many arbitrary decisions. But in the thought experiment that we discuss, we need only to take the usual hypothesis (comp) seriously enough. There is no counterfactuals at this level, even if the discussion is about their role at the object level. Bruno -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On 18 May 2015, at 22:47, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On Tuesday, May 19, 2015, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 May 2015, at 17:05, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On Tuesday, May 19, 2015, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 16 May 2015, at 07:10, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 13 May 2015, at 11:59 am, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: Chalmer's fading quailia argument shows that if replacing a biological neuron with a functionally equivalent silicon neuron changed conscious perception, then it would lead to an absurdity, either: 1. quaila fade/change as silicon neurons gradually replace the biological ones, leading to a case where the quaila are being completely out of touch with the functional state of the brain. or 2. the replacement eventually leads to a sudden and complete loss of all quaila, but this suggests a single neuron, or even a few molecules of that neuron, when substituted, somehow completely determine the presence of quaila His argument is convincing, but what happens when we replace neurons not with functionally identical ones, but with neurons that fire according to a RNG. In all but 1 case, the random firings of the neurons will result in completely different behaviors, but what about that 1 (immensely rare) case where the random neuron firings (by chance) equal the firing patterns of the substituted neurons. In this case, behavior as observed from the outside is identical. Brain patterns and activity are similar, but according to computationalism the consciousness is different, or perhaps a zombie (if all neurons are replaced with random firing neurons). Presume that the activity of neurons in the visual cortex is required for visual quaila, and that all neurons in the visual cortex are replaced with random firing neurons, which by chance, mimic the behavior of neurons when viewing an apple. Is this not an example of fading quaila, or quaila desynchronized from the brain state? Would this person feel that they are blind, or lack visual quaila, all the while not being able to express their deficiency? I used to think when Searle argued this exact same thing would occur when substituted functionally identical biological neurons with artificial neurons that it was completely ridiculous, for there would be no room in the functionally equivalent brain to support thoughts such as help! I can't see, I am blind! for the information content in the brain is identical when the neurons are functionally identical. But then how does this reconcile with fading quaila as the result of substituting randomly firing neurons? The computations are not the same, so presumably the consciousness is not the same. But also, the information content does not support knowing/believing/ expressing/thinking something is wrong. If anything, the information content of this random brain is much less, but it seems the result is something where the quaila is out of sync with the global state of the brain. Can anyone else where shed some clarity on what they think happens, and how to explain it in the rare case of luckily working randomly firing neurons, when only partial substitutions of the neurons in a brain is performed? So Jason, are you still convinced that the random neurons would not be conscious? If you are, you are putting the cart before the horse. The fading qualia argument makes the case that any process preserving function also preserves consciousness. Any process; that computations are one such process is fortuitous. But the random neurons does not preserve function, nor do the movie. OK? I don't see why you're so sure about this. Function is preserved while the randomness corresponds to normal activity, then it all falls apart. If by some miracle it continued then the random brain is as good as a normal brain, and I'd say yes to the doctor offering me such a brain. If you don't think that counts as computation, OK - but it would still be conscious. What about Mister D. During his conference his brain completely melted down, disappeared, say, in this thought experience, but a lucky cosmic ray, by pure chance, will activate the exact motor's neurons, so that he will pursue his conference like if nothing happened. Once, an auditor interrupted him and asked a question, but Mister D was so lucky that at that moment the lucky ray sent, by pure chance, the right activation of the motor nerves. Note that Mister D as no inputs, no cortex, no lymbic system, no cerebral stem, as the lucky rays activates only the motor nerves. Is him a zombie? In this case the empty brain is as good as a normal brain. For the right 3p behavior, you need just the right impulse at the muscles. He's not a zombie, because if only part of his brain melted he would be a partial zombie. Then all dreams supervene on the empty brain. But then supervene seems
Subsidies for fossil fuel - $5.3 trillion/year
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/18/big_oils_astronomical_hand_out_fossil_fuels_receive_5_3_trillion_in_global_subsidies_each_year/ Of course some of these are hidden costs like cleaning up after them, but even so the G-20 nations give them an estimated $88 billion / year. Gravy train ahoy! -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: My comments on The Movie Graph Argument Revisited by Russell Standish
On 20 May 2015 at 04:41, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, May 19, 2015 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Well then let's make this simple, just use your patented way to make calculations without using matter or energy or any of the laws of physics and tell me what the factors of 3*2^916773 +1 and 19249 × 2^13018586 + 1 are. Opportunist fallacy. Fallacy my ass! Science demands evidence, if somebody claims they can cure cancer the claim is not enough, even a detailed description of how they intend to cure cancer is not enough, they must actually cure cancer. And so I don't want to hear any more about how you can make a calculation without using matter or energy or any of the laws of physics, I want you to actually do it. Just do it and you've won the argument. Straw man fallacy. I thought it was the opportunist fallacy. Lets get our fallacies straight around here. I wouldn't be too proud of being called out on multiple fallacies. Bruno's just pointing out that you aren't addressing the issue - which is true, as far as I can see. To paraphrase someone, all you need to do is to successfully address the issue, and you've won the argument. Nobody can do a physical computation out of a physical reality. Nobody has ever been able to perform a computation of ANY sort without matter that obeys the laws of physics and nobody has even come close, nobody has ever come within a billion light years of being able to do it. Yes, that is definitely a straw man. It's like saying there can't be laws of physics because no one can make them operate without using them, or maybe just shut up and calculate. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
I am a strange loop. Sorry, that should read fruit. (I will leave it as an exercise to the reader which word to best replace with fruit.) -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Physicists Are Philosophers, Too
Actually the name of the tune was The Future, not everybody knows. Except me, apparently. Sent from AOL Mobile Mail -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, May 19, 2015 07:18 PM Subject: Re: Physicists Are Philosophers, Too div id=AOLMsgPart_2_4ae97f0d-86d6-4251-8c7c-634975e19cf3 div dir=ltr Yeah, he's good. I guess everybody knows that... div class=aolmail_gmail_extra /div /div p/p -- 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 a target=_blank href=mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com;everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com/a. To post to this group, send email to a target=_blank href=mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com;everything-list@googlegroups.com/a. Visit this group at a target=_blank href=http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list;http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/a. For more options, visit a target=_blank href=https://groups.google.com/d/optout;https://groups.google.com/d/optout/a. /div -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 5:09 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 5/19/2015 11:47 AM, Terren Suydam wrote: While I applaud IIT because it seems to be the first theory of consciousness that takes information architecture seriously (and thus situating theoretical considerations in a holistic rather than reductionist context) and to make predictions based on that, I agree with Aaronson's criticisms of it - namely, that IIT predicts that certain classes of computational systems that we intuitively would fail to see as conscious get measures of consciousness potentially higher than for human brains. One key feature of consciousness as we know it is *ongoing subjective experience**. *So a question I keep coming back to in my own thinking is, what kind of information architecture lends itself to a flow of data, such that if we assume that consciousness is how data feels as it's processed, we might imagine it could correspond to ongoing subjective experience? It seems to me that such an architecture would have, at a bare minimum, its current state recursively fed back into itself to be processed in the next iteration. This happens in a trivial way in any processor chip (or lookup table AI for that matter). As such, there may be a very trivial sort of consciousness associated with a processor or lookup table, but this does not get us anywhere near understanding the richness of human consciousness. I think you need to consider what would be the benefit of this recursion. How could it be naturally selected. Jeff Hawkins idea is that the brain continually tries to anticipate, at the perceptual level and even in lower layers of the cerebral cortex. Then signals that don't match the prediction get broadcast more widely at the next higher level where they may have been anticipated by other neurons. At the highest level (he says there are six in the cortext as I recall) signals spread to language and visual modules and one becomes aware of them or they spring to mind. This would have the advantage of directing computational resources to that which is novel, while leaving familiar things to learned responses. To this I would add that the novel/conscious experience is given some value, e.g. emotional weight, which makes it more or less strongly remembered. And of course it isn't remembered like recording; it's synopsized in terms of it's connection to other remembered events. This memory is needed for learning from experience. Brent The biggest benefit I can think of right now would be that the chaotic dynamics involved with a recursive architecture would allow for a much more dynamic and volatile range of possible behaviors, and less predictability - certainly a trait that would get selected for among prey. A feed-forward architecture OTOH is much more linear and would be easy prey by comparison. A nervous system kept on the edge of chaos (as in chaos theory) would settle into attractors of behavior, and these can change on a dime. I have often thought of Jung's archetypes as exactly that - strange attractors that arise in given contexts. Hawkins' ideas are great and not mutually exclusive with a feedback model like the above. I would say that what you described of his model can explain some aspects of attention but would fail to explain ongoing subjective experience. Terren -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Physicists Are Philosophers, Too
I was making a teensy little Leonard Cohen joke. Having to explain jokes kills them but just so you know...(what everybody knows...) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody_Knows_(Leonard_Cohen_song) -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Physicists Are Philosophers, Too
Yeah, he's good. I guess everybody knows that... -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
It's sometimes important for animals to be unpredictable in their interactions with their own species, especially social animals like humans. (Although even flies have unpredictable behaviour to avoid predators, especially ones carrying rolled up magazines.) -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:54 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On 19 May 2015 at 11:05, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 10:05 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday, May 19, 2015, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 16 May 2015, at 07:10, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 13 May 2015, at 11:59 am, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: Chalmer's fading quailia argument shows that if replacing a biological neuron with a functionally equivalent silicon neuron changed conscious perception, then it would lead to an absurdity, either: 1. quaila fade/change as silicon neurons gradually replace the biological ones, leading to a case where the quaila are being completely out of touch with the functional state of the brain. or 2. the replacement eventually leads to a sudden and complete loss of all quaila, but this suggests a single neuron, or even a few molecules of that neuron, when substituted, somehow completely determine the presence of quaila His argument is convincing, but what happens when we replace neurons not with functionally identical ones, but with neurons that fire according to a RNG. In all but 1 case, the random firings of the neurons will result in completely different behaviors, but what about that 1 (immensely rare) case where the random neuron firings (by chance) equal the firing patterns of the substituted neurons. In this case, behavior as observed from the outside is identical. Brain patterns and activity are similar, but according to computationalism the consciousness is different, or perhaps a zombie (if all neurons are replaced with random firing neurons). Presume that the activity of neurons in the visual cortex is required for visual quaila, and that all neurons in the visual cortex are replaced with random firing neurons, which by chance, mimic the behavior of neurons when viewing an apple. Is this not an example of fading quaila, or quaila desynchronized from the brain state? Would this person feel that they are blind, or lack visual quaila, all the while not being able to express their deficiency? I used to think when Searle argued this exact same thing would occur when substituted functionally identical biological neurons with artificial neurons that it was completely ridiculous, for there would be no room in the functionally equivalent brain to support thoughts such as help! I can't see, I am blind! for the information content in the brain is identical when the neurons are functionally identical. But then how does this reconcile with fading quaila as the result of substituting randomly firing neurons? The computations are not the same, so presumably the consciousness is not the same. But also, the information content does not support knowing/believing/expressing/thinking something is wrong. If anything, the information content of this random brain is much less, but it seems the result is something where the quaila is out of sync with the global state of the brain. Can anyone else where shed some clarity on what they think happens, and how to explain it in the rare case of luckily working randomly firing neurons, when only partial substitutions of the neurons in a brain is performed? So Jason, are you still convinced that the random neurons would not be conscious? If you are, you are putting the cart before the horse. The fading qualia argument makes the case that any process preserving function also preserves consciousness. Any process; that computations are one such process is fortuitous. But the random neurons does not preserve function, nor do the movie. OK? I don't see why you're so sure about this. Function is preserved while the randomness corresponds to normal activity, then it all falls apart. If by some miracle it continued then the random brain is as good as a normal brain, and I'd say yes to the doctor offering me such a brain. If you don't think that counts as computation, OK - but it would still be conscious. My third-person function would indeed be preserved by such a Miracle Brain, but I would strongly doubt it would preserve my first-person. Why do you think that the random firing neurons preserve consciousness? Do you think they would still preserve consciousness if they became physically separated from each other yet maintained the same firing patterns? I think the random neurons would preserve consciousness because otherwise you could make a partial zombie, as you pointed out. There is nothing incoherent about randomly firing neurons sustaining consciousness, but there is about partial zombies. If the neurons became physically separated but maintained the same firing pattern, including motor neurons, then yes, that would also preserve consciousness. I see. Yes the
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:54 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 5/18/2015 9:45 PM, Jason Resch wrote: 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? What is there is there in a neural network? A computational state containing significant information content. Integrated Information Theory makes some strides in explains this I think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:06 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On 19 May 2015 at 14:45, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 9:21 PM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On 19 May 2015 at 11:02, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com 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. 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? 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: My comments on The Movie Graph Argument Revisited by Russell Standish
On Tue, May 19, 2015 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Well then let's make this simple, just use your patented way to make calculations without using matter or energy or any of the laws of physics and tell me what the factors of 3*2^916773 +1 and 19249 × 2^13018586 + 1 are. Opportunist fallacy. Fallacy my ass! Science demands evidence, if somebody claims they can cure cancer the claim is not enough, even a detailed description of how they intend to cure cancer is not enough, they must actually cure cancer. And so I don't want to hear any more about how you can make a calculation without using matter or energy or any of the laws of physics, I want you to actually do it. Just do it and you've won the argument. Straw man fallacy. I thought it was the opportunist fallacy. Lets get our fallacies straight around here. Nobody can do a physical computation out of a physical reality. Nobody has ever been able to perform a computation of ANY sort without matter that obeys the laws of physics and nobody has even come close, nobody has ever come within a billion light years of being able to do it. The question is not about doing a computation, but about the existence of computation in the block-mind offred by the (sigma_1) arithmetical reality, which provably emulates all computation, It can't emulate a damn thing unless the block-mind offred by the (sigma_1) exists and if it does then produce it and have it calculate 1+1. Do that and you will have won the argument. but obviously not in a physical, or locally reproductible way. Or to say the same thing with different words, not in a way that corresponds with reality, or to use yet different words, not in a way that isn't Bullshit and a complete waste of time. Indeed the physical will emerge from those computations, already there in the block-mind or block-computer science reality. Then do so! Starting from pure mathematics tell us why it would be a logical absurdity for the proton to be anything other than 1836 times as massive as the electron and for the neutron to be 1842 times as massive as the electron. Explain what's so special about those two numbers, do that and you'll have won the argument and as I've said I will personally pay for your first class airline ticket to Stockholm for the ceremonies. Effectively means in such a manner as to achieve a desired result, With CT, it means computably. It means a mechanical method, and nobody has ever made one single calculation using a non effective method, in fact the ONLY thing anybody has ever produced with a non-effective method is randomness. That is the sum total of non-effective method's accomplishments to date, the only thing we know for sure it can do. you abandon the excluded middle principle, which is in comp, I don't abandon the excluded middle and I don't care if it's in comp or not because comp bores me. And don't tell me it's just short for computationalism because I know what computationalism is and whatever the hell comp is it's not that. John K Clark -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
While I applaud IIT because it seems to be the first theory of consciousness that takes information architecture seriously (and thus situating theoretical considerations in a holistic rather than reductionist context) and to make predictions based on that, I agree with Aaronson's criticisms of it - namely, that IIT predicts that certain classes of computational systems that we intuitively would fail to see as conscious get measures of consciousness potentially higher than for human brains. One key feature of consciousness as we know it is *ongoing subjective experience**. *So a question I keep coming back to in my own thinking is, what kind of information architecture lends itself to a flow of data, such that if we assume that consciousness is how data feels as it's processed, we might imagine it could correspond to ongoing subjective experience? It seems to me that such an architecture would have, at a bare minimum, its current state recursively fed back into itself to be processed in the next iteration. This happens in a trivial way in any processor chip (or lookup table AI for that matter). As such, there may be a very trivial sort of consciousness associated with a processor or lookup table, but this does not get us anywhere near understanding the richness of human consciousness. An architecture that supports that richness - the subjective experience, IOW, of an embodied sensing agent - would involve that recursion but at a holistic level. The entire system, potentially, including the system's informational representations of sensory data (whatever form that took) would be involved in that feedback loop. So the phi of IIT has a role here, as the processor/lookup table architecture has a low phi. What is missing from phi is a measure of recursion - how the modules of a system feedback in such a way as to create a systemic, recursive processing loop. My hunch is that this would address Aaronson's objections, as brains would score high on this measure but the systems that Aaronson complains about, such as systems that do nothing but apply a low-density parity-check code, or other simple transformations of their input data would score low due to lack of recursion. Terren On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:23 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 5/19/2015 6:47 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:54 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 5/18/2015 9:45 PM, Jason Resch wrote: 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? What is there is there in a neural network? A computational state containing significant information content. A lookup table has significant information content. Integrated Information Theory makes some strides in explains this I think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. 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. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Physicists Are Philosophers, Too
God wants communists preaching communism whilst gloming cash hypocritically God wants spitting at the Christian God whilst kissing up to the Islamist one The great silence of the neo-sovets! God wants to write The Turning Away, in angst over the win of the horrible Margret Thatcher Waaahh! God wants his son to be a rioter and hurl down bricks onto police, like a good soviet does in a capitalist hell. It's 1926 again -, zombie zombie zombie-time for a national strike, my Red brothers!' What! a Red choking on a Cranberry? Zombie Zombie Zombie-get the Jews-they oppose our Islamist chums! We Reds can march in jackboots too! So stylish! God wants you to Run Rabbit Run, back to your champagne communism limousine Better by far then my crap, of the Water's narcissism is Canadian, Lenoard Cohen's Give me back my broken night My mirrored room, my secret life It's lonely here, There's no one left to torture Give me absolute control Over every living soul And lie beside me, baby, That's an order! Give me crack and anal sex Take the only tree that's left And stuff it up the hole In your culture Give me back the berlin wall Give me stalin and st paul I've seen the future, brother It is murder. Things are going to slide, slide in all directions Won't be nothing Nothing you can measure anymore The blizzard, the blizzard of the world Has crossed the threshold And it has overturned The order of the soul When they said repent repent I wonder what they meant When they said repent repent I wonder what they meant When they said repent repent I wonder what they meant You don't know me from the wind You never will, you never did I'm the little jew Who wrote the bible I've seen the nations rise and fall I've heard their stories, heard them all But love's the only engine of survival Your servant here, he has been told To say it clear, to say it cold: It's over, it ain't going Any further And now the wheels of heaven stop You feel the devil's riding crop Get ready for the future: It is murder. Things are going to slide There'll be the breaking of the ancient Western code Your private life will suddenly explode There'll be phantoms There'll be fires on the road And the white man dancing You'll see a woman Hanging upside down Her features covered by her fallen gown And all the lousy little poets Coming round Tryin' to sound like charlie manson And the white man dancin' Give me back the berlin wall Give me stalin and st paul Give me christ Or give me hiroshima Destroy another fetus now We don't like children anyhow I've seen the future, baby It is murder. Things are going to slide When they said repent repent -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Mon, May 18, 2015 8:01 pm Subject: Re: Physicists Are Philosophers, Too I feel a strange desire to quote Roger Waters. What God wants God gets God help us all What God wants God gets (repeated) The kid in the corner looked at the priest And fingered his pale blue Japanese guitar The priest said: God wants goodness God wants light God wants mayhem God wants a clean fight What God wants God gets Don't look so surprised It's only dogma The alien prophet cried The beetle and the springbok Took the Bible from its hook The monkey in the corner Wrote the lesson in his book What God wants God gets God help us all God wants peace God wants war God wants famine God wants chain stores What God wants God gets God wants sedition God wants sex God wants freedom God wants semtex What God wants God gets Don't ok so surprised I'm only joking The alien comic lied The jackass and hyena Took the feather from its hook The monkey in the corner Wrote the joke down in his book What God wants God gets God wants borders God wants crack God wants rainfall God wants wetbacks What God wants God gets God wants voodoo God wants shrines God wants law God wants organised crime God wants crusade God wants jihad God wants good God wants bad What God wants God Gets -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On 5/19/2015 11:47 AM, Terren Suydam wrote: While I applaud IIT because it seems to be the first theory of consciousness that takes information architecture seriously (and thus situating theoretical considerations in a holistic rather than reductionist context) and to make predictions based on that, I agree with Aaronson's criticisms of it - namely, that IIT predicts that certain classes of computational systems that we intuitively would fail to see as conscious get measures of consciousness potentially higher than for human brains. One key feature of consciousness as we know it is /ongoing subjective experience//. /So a question I keep coming back to in my own thinking is, what kind of information architecture lends itself to a flow of data, such that if we assume that consciousness is how data feels as it's processed, we might imagine it could correspond to ongoing subjective experience? It seems to me that such an architecture would have, at a bare minimum, its current state recursively fed back into itself to be processed in the next iteration. This happens in a trivial way in any processor chip (or lookup table AI for that matter). As such, there may be a very trivial sort of consciousness associated with a processor or lookup table, but this does not get us anywhere near understanding the richness of human consciousness. I think you need to consider what would be the benefit of this recursion. How could it be naturally selected. Jeff Hawkins idea is that the brain continually tries to anticipate, at the perceptual level and even in lower layers of the cerebral cortex. Then signals that don't match the prediction get broadcast more widely at the next higher level where they may have been anticipated by other neurons. At the highest level (he says there are six in the cortext as I recall) signals spread to language and visual modules and one becomes aware of them or they spring to mind. This would have the advantage of directing computational resources to that which is novel, while leaving familiar things to learned responses. To this I would add that the novel/conscious experience is given some value, e.g. emotional weight, which makes it more or less strongly remembered. And of course it isn't remembered like recording; it's synopsized in terms of it's connection to other remembered events. This memory is needed for learning from experience. Brent An architecture that supports that richness - the subjective experience, IOW, of an embodied sensing agent - would involve that recursion but at a holistic level. The entire system, potentially, including the system's informational representations of sensory data (whatever form that took) would be involved in that feedback loop. So the phi of IIT has a role here, as the processor/lookup table architecture has a low phi. What is missing from phi is a measure of recursion - how the modules of a system feedback in such a way as to create a systemic, recursive processing loop. My hunch is that this would address Aaronson's objections, as brains would score high on this measure but the systems that Aaronson complains about, such as systems that do nothing but apply a low-density parity-check code, or other simple transformations of their input data would score low due to lack of recursion. Terren On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:23 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 5/19/2015 6:47 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:54 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 5/18/2015 9:45 PM, Jason Resch wrote: 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? What is there is there in a neural network? A computational state containing significant information content. A lookup table has significant information content. Integrated Information Theory makes some strides in explains this I think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799 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
Re: Reconciling Random Neuron Firings and Fading Qualia
On 5/19/2015 6:47 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:54 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 5/18/2015 9:45 PM, Jason Resch wrote: 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? What is there is there in a neural network? A computational state containing significant information content. A lookup table has significant information content. Integrated Information Theory makes some strides in explains this I think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
