RE: COMP refutation paper - finally out
-Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com on behalf of Bruno Marchal Sent: Sat 7/9/2011 10:14 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out On 09 Jul 2011, at 07:07, Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: Down the bottom if you dare there be dragons... :-) -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com on behalf of Jason Resch Sent: Sat 7/9/2011 1:23 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: COMP refutation paper - finally out On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 1:56 AM, Colin Geoffrey Hales cgha...@unimelb.edu.au wrote: Hi, You have missed the point. When you feel pain in your hand your are feeling it because the physics of specific specialized small regions of the cranial central nervous system are doing things. This includes (1) action potentials mutually resonating with (2) a gigantic EM field system in extremely complex ways. *Exactly how and why this specific arrangement of atoms and behaviour delivers it is irrelevant. It is enough to know that it does*. More than that it is the ONLY example of natural cognition we have. The whole point of this argument is that unlike any other time in the history of science, we are expecting the particular physics (that we know delivers cognition) can be totally replaced (by the physics of a computer or even worse, a non-existent Turing machine) , yet still result in cognition. It's not the totally that is the problem. Bruno asks if you can replace a part of a brain with something that does the same computation (at some level) and have no effect on the conscious (or unconscious) life of that person. This certainly seems plausible. But it relies on the remaining world to continue interacting with that person. So in his idea of replacing physics with computation he has to suppose replacing all of the brain plus everything that interacts with the brain. In other words a simulation of the person(s) and the universe. Then within the simulation EM fields are computed and supply computed illumination to computed eyes and brains. He invites us to consider all this computation done by a universal dovetailer, a computer which also computes all possible computable universes as it goes. But to me it seems a great leap from computing what a piece (or even all) of a brain does to computing a whole (quantum) universe. I'm not at all sure that the universe is computable; and it's certainly a different question than whether I would say yes to the doctor. *This entire scenario has nothing to do with what I am talking about. Bruno is talking about the universe AS abstract computation. Ontology. I am talking about a completely different area: the computation of descriptions of a universe; descriptions compiled by observers within it called 'laws of nature'. *** ** ** *This is the main problem. We are speaking at cross purposes. Computation by computers made of bits of our universe is not the same is describing of a universe of ontological primitives interacting. I find the latter really interesting, but completely irrelevant to the task at hand, which is to create artificial cognition using the real world of humans and the stuff they are made of. * If you believe that computed physics equations is indistinguishable from physics, to the point that a computed model of the physics of cognition is cognition, then why don't you expect a computed model of combustion physics to burst into flames and replace your cooker? Why can't you go to work in a computed model of a car that spontaneously springs into your life? Why don't you expect to be able to light your room with a computed model of the physics of a lightbulb? Why can't you compute Maxwell's equations and create a power station? You can within a simulation. ** ** *At last, someone takes the magical step. This is the problem writ- large. What you are saying, in effect, is that computation about X is only some kind of simulation of X. My whole point is that I do not want a simulation of X. I want an X. Like artificial fire is still fire. Like artificial light is light. Like artificial lightning is lightning. Like artificial cognition is cognition. Like an artificial round rollything (wheel) is a wheel. like a million other artificial versions of a natural phenomenon created by humans for millennia.* * * *In using a computer, all the original physics is gone. Yet the 100% expectation is (apart from yourself, apparently... or.not... we have found the inconsistency at last) that computers will lead to AGI is the state of the game. Yet it involves entirely disposing of the
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On 09 Jul 2011, at 18:58, Craig Weinberg wrote: Sure, it would be great to have improved synthetic bodies, but I have no reason to believe that depth and quality of consciousness is independent from substance. If I have an artificial heart, that artificiality may not affect me as much as having an artificial leg, however, an artificial brain means an artificial me, and that's a completely different story. It's like writing a computer program to replace computer users. You might find out that digital circuits are unconscious by definition. You might find out that molecules in brain are unconscious too. What in the brain would be not Turing emulable? You need to speculate on a new physics, or on the fact that a brain would be a very special analogical infinite machine. Why not? You might still appreciate my point. I don't think that today someone shown that comp leads to a contradiction, but comp leads to a reappraisal of the relation between first person and 3 person, or, at some other level, of consciousness and matter, and this in a testable way. But there is no problem with what you say. If you believe in physicalism, then indeed mechanism is no more an option. In my opinion, mechanism is more plausible than physicalism, and also more satisfactory in explaining where the illusion of matter come from. Actually I don't know of any other explanation. Bruno On Jul 9, 12:14 am, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: Indeed, why? Any talk of 'artificial circuits' might risk the patient saying 'No' to the doctor. I want real, digital circuits. Meat circuits are fine, though there might be something better. I mean, if something better than 'skin' comes along, I'll swap my skin for that. Probably need the brain upgrade anyway to read the new skin. You could even make me believe I had a new skin via the firmware in the brain upgrade. No need to change skin at all. I could even sell you a brain upgrade that looked like it was composed of meat when in fact it was a bunch of something else. You only have to believe what your brain presents you. Kim Jones On 09/07/2011, at 12:44 PM, meekerdb wrote: Replacing parts of the brain depends what the artificial circuits are made of. For them to be experienced as something like human consciousness then I think they would have to be made of biological tissue. Why? Biological tissue is made out of protons, neutrons, and electrons just like computer chips. Why should anything other than their input/output function matter? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
You might find out that molecules in brain are unconscious too. The fact that consciousness changes predictably when different molecules are introduced to the brain, and that we are able to produce different molecules by changing the content of our consciousness subjectively suggests to me that it makes sense to give molecules the benefit of the doubt. What in the brain would be not Turing emulable Let's take the color yellow for example. If you build a brain out of ideal ping pong balls, or digital molecular emulations, does it perceive yellow from 580nm oscillations of electromagnetism automatically, or does it see yellow when it's own emulated units are vibrating on the functionally proportionate scale to itself? Does the ping pong ball brain see it's own patterns of collisions as yellow or does yellow = electromagnetic ~580nm and nothing else. At what point does the yellow come in? Where did it come from? Were there other options? Can there ever be new colors? From where? What is the minimum mechanical arrangement required to experience yellow? You need to speculate on a new physics, Yes, I do speculate on a new physics. I think that what we can possibly see outside of ourselves is half of what exists. What we experience is only a small part of the other half. Physics wouldn't change, but it would be seen as the exterior half of a universal topology. I did a post this morning that might help: http://s33light.org/post/7453105138 I do appreciate your point, and I think there is great value in studying cognitive mechanics and pursuing AGI regardless of it's premature assumption to lead to synthetic consciousness. I think that physicalism and mechanism are both useful in their appropriate contexts - the brain does have physical organization which determines how consciousness develops, just as a cell phone or desktop determines how the internet is presented. It's a bidirectional flow of influence. We unknowingly affect the brain and the brain unknowingly affects us. They are two intertwined but mutually ignorant topologies of the same ontological coin. Craig On Jul 9, 2:35 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 09 Jul 2011, at 18:58, Craig Weinberg wrote: Sure, it would be great to have improved synthetic bodies, but I have no reason to believe that depth and quality of consciousness is independent from substance. If I have an artificial heart, that artificiality may not affect me as much as having an artificial leg, however, an artificial brain means an artificial me, and that's a completely different story. It's like writing a computer program to replace computer users. You might find out that digital circuits are unconscious by definition. You might find out that molecules in brain are unconscious too. What in the brain would be not Turing emulable? You need to speculate on a new physics, or on the fact that a brain would be a very special analogical infinite machine. Why not? You might still appreciate my point. I don't think that today someone shown that comp leads to a contradiction, but comp leads to a reappraisal of the relation between first person and 3 person, or, at some other level, of consciousness and matter, and this in a testable way. But there is no problem with what you say. If you believe in physicalism, then indeed mechanism is no more an option. In my opinion, mechanism is more plausible than physicalism, and also more satisfactory in explaining where the illusion of matter come from. Actually I don't know of any other explanation. Bruno On Jul 9, 12:14 am, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: Indeed, why? Any talk of 'artificial circuits' might risk the patient saying 'No' to the doctor. I want real, digital circuits. Meat circuits are fine, though there might be something better. I mean, if something better than 'skin' comes along, I'll swap my skin for that. Probably need the brain upgrade anyway to read the new skin. You could even make me believe I had a new skin via the firmware in the brain upgrade. No need to change skin at all. I could even sell you a brain upgrade that looked like it was composed of meat when in fact it was a bunch of something else. You only have to believe what your brain presents you. Kim Jones On 09/07/2011, at 12:44 PM, meekerdb wrote: Replacing parts of the brain depends what the artificial circuits are made of. For them to be experienced as something like human consciousness then I think they would have to be made of biological tissue. Why? Biological tissue is made out of protons, neutrons, and electrons just like computer chips. Why should anything other than their input/output function matter? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from
Re: COMP refutation GAME OVER
On 10 Jul 2011, at 09:37, Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: Hi Bruno et.al. Once again we have come to grief on the old conflation. (A) You speak of a universe _AS_ computation (described _as if_ on some abstract mega-turing machine) You confuse perhaps with Schmidhuber's position, or some digital physicist (DP). But as I have explained many times here that this position does not work. Computationalism or digital mechanism (DM) is the idea that I am a machine, and by the first person indeterminacy, and the way the laws of physics have to emerge from computations, the physical universe (nor the fundamental reality) cannot be described entirely by a computation. On the contrary it is a sum on an infinity of computations. If the universe is a computation, then I am computable, but then it cannot be a computation (by what I say above, it is not obvious). So with comp, or without comp, the physical universe is not a computation. With comp, the laws of nature are not computable, or have strong non computable components. DM - ~DP DP - DM, So DP - ~DP, so ~DP. Bruno (B) I speak of computation _OF_ laws of nature, by a computer made of natural material, where the laws of nature are those describing how it appears to an observer within. Descriptions of (A) are not the same as (B). Only if you conflate (A) and (B) can you be confused about this. Until you can see the difference you will continually find my position difficult. My proof relates to the real world of computing (B). Your position (A) can be 100% right, very interesting and 100% irrelevant to the task at hand. Whatever difficulties you and others have with this, they can be sorted out by understanding the difference between (A) and (B). Laws of nature in (A) are laws of structure. Laws in (B) are laws of appearances (to an observer). Like F = MA. This issue I have proved is EMPIRICALLY PROVEN in domain (B). The argument is OVER. You can't have it both ways. Either (1) (B)-style computing of laws of appearances of the cognition is LITERALLY cognitionIn which case (B)-style computing of laws of appearance of combustion must also be LITERALLY combustion. OR (2) B)-style computing of laws of appearances of the ANYTHING is NOT LITERALLY ANYTHING, ANYWHERE and NEVER WAS. This is because computing combustion doesn't produce flames. I could encode representation in flames. SO WHAT! It's the same bunch of atoms dancing about... (table of elements). They don't know what representing is going on! What magic changes things merely because representing happens? At the same time, I would also say that the kind of computing referred to by (A) _IS_ flame. But that's not a model of flame. It's the flame. You can 'act as if' the flame is running some kind of non existent computer, but that does NOT become (B). Expectation (1) is the universal position of all AGI workers. Now that presupposition is FALSE. When neuroscience finds this out (I have a paper in already), the entire AGI community is going to be told they are not investing in AGI. They are only doing complex AI with predictable limits. Real AGI will be done by replicating the physics of cognition. I give it a year or so. Colin -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . winmail.dat http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On 10 Jul 2011, at 15:20, Craig Weinberg wrote: You might find out that molecules in brain are unconscious too. The fact that consciousness changes predictably when different molecules are introduced to the brain, and that we are able to produce different molecules by changing the content of our consciousness subjectively suggests to me that it makes sense to give molecules the benefit of the doubt. All right, but then honesty should force you to do the same with computer ships. Unless you presuppose the molecules not being Turing emulable. What in the brain would be not Turing emulable Let's take the color yellow for example. If you build a brain out of ideal ping pong balls, or digital molecular emulations, does it perceive yellow from 580nm oscillations of electromagnetism automatically, or does it see yellow when it's own emulated units are vibrating on the functionally proportionate scale to itself? Does the ping pong ball brain see it's own patterns of collisions as yellow or does yellow = electromagnetic ~580nm and nothing else. At what point does the yellow come in? Where did it come from? Were there other options? Can there ever be new colors? From where? What is the minimum mechanical arrangement required to experience yellow? Any mechanical arrangement defining a self-referentially correct machine automatically leads the mechanical arrangement to distinguish third person point of view and first person points of view. The machine already have a theory of qualia, with an explanation of why qualia and quanta seems different. You need to speculate on a new physics, Yes, I do speculate on a new physics. I think that what we can possibly see outside of ourselves is half of what exists. I agree. But this is a consequence of comp, and it leads to a derivation of physics from computer science/machine's theology. No need to introduce any physics (old or new). What we experience is only a small part of the other half. Physics wouldn't change, but it would be seen as the exterior half of a universal topology. I did a post this morning that might help: http://s33light.org/post/7453105138 That's certainly *looks* like the arithmetical plotinian physics. Again, you can extract it (or have to extract it for getting the correct quanta/qualia) from computer science (actually from just addition and multiplication and a small amount of logic). I do appreciate your point, and I think there is great value in studying cognitive mechanics and pursuing AGI regardless of it's premature assumption to lead to synthetic consciousness. I don't really do that. I don't think that consciousness can be created or be synthetic. It is not the product of any machine, natural or artificial. Such machines only filter consciousness and select relative partial realities. My main point is that this is testable. It already explains non locality, indeterminacy, non-cloning of matter, and some formal aspect of quantum mechanics. I think that physicalism and mechanism are both useful in their appropriate contexts - Mechanism and physicalism are incompatible. the brain does have physical organization which determines how consciousness develops, I do agree with this. just as a cell phone or desktop determines how the internet is presented. It's a bidirectional flow of influence. We unknowingly affect the brain and the brain unknowingly affects us. They are two intertwined but mutually ignorant topologies of the same ontological coin. That is too vague. It can make sense in the computationalist theory. yet the brain itself is a construct of the mind. Not the human mind but the relative experience of the many universal numbers/ computational histories. This follows from the digital mechanist hypothesis. Bruno Craig On Jul 9, 2:35 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 09 Jul 2011, at 18:58, Craig Weinberg wrote: Sure, it would be great to have improved synthetic bodies, but I have no reason to believe that depth and quality of consciousness is independent from substance. If I have an artificial heart, that artificiality may not affect me as much as having an artificial leg, however, an artificial brain means an artificial me, and that's a completely different story. It's like writing a computer program to replace computer users. You might find out that digital circuits are unconscious by definition. You might find out that molecules in brain are unconscious too. What in the brain would be not Turing emulable? You need to speculate on a new physics, or on the fact that a brain would be a very special analogical infinite machine. Why not? You might still appreciate my point. I don't think that today someone shown that comp leads to a contradiction, but comp leads to a reappraisal of the relation between first person and 3 person, or, at some other level, of consciousness and matter, and this in a testable way. But there is
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On 7/9/2011 9:44 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: Why? Biological tissue is made out of protons, neutrons, and electrons just like computer chips. Why should anything other than their input/output function matter? A cadaver is made out of the same thing too. You could pump food into it and fit it with an artificial gut, even give it a synthesized voice to make pre-recorded announcements and string it up like a marionette. That doesn't mean it's a person. Life does not occur on the atomic level, it occurs on the molecular level. Exactly. So it doesn't depend on the components. Then what does it depend on? It depends on their arrangement and interaction. The components at some low level, in this case atoms, are *not* alive. How can cognition be any different? There may be a way of making inorganic molecules reproduce themselves, but there's no reason to believe that their sensation or cognition would be any more similar than petroleum is to plutonium. The i/o function is only half of the story. So what's the other half? Do brains have to be made of special conscious atoms? Just assertions. The question is whether something other than you can have them? Why couldn't it? As you say, I am made of the same protons, neutrons, and electrons as everything else. You can't have it both ways. Either consciousness is a natural potential of all material phenomena or it's a unique special case. In the former you have to explain why more things aren't conscious, and the latter you have to explain why consciousness could exist. My alternative is to see that everything has a private side, which behaves in a sensorimotor way rather than electromagnetic, so that our experience is a massive sensorimotor aggregate of nested organic patterns. What does it mean sensorimotor way mean. It sounds like the cognitive analog of elan vital. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On 7/9/2011 9:58 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: Sure, it would be great to have improved synthetic bodies, but I have no reason to believe that depth and quality of consciousness is independent from substance. If I have an artificial heart, that artificiality may not affect me as much as having an artificial leg, however, an artificial brain means an artificial me, and that's a completely different story. It's like writing a computer program to replace computer users. You might find out that digital circuits are unconscious by definition. But analog ones are? It is generally thought that any analog circuit can be reproduced at any give level of precision by a digital circuit. Bruno's idea depends on this being true. It is questionable though because it may be the case that spacetime is truly a continuum: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128204.200-distant-light-hints-at-size-of-spacetime-grains.html It's hard to believe though that the continuous nature of spacetime would effect the function of brains. However, it would prevent the digital simulation of large regions. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
On 7/9/2011 5:42 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: A living cell is more than the sum of it's parts. A dead cell is made of the same materials with the same organization as a living cell, That's not true. It's dead precisely because it doesn't have the same organization. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
RE: COMP refutation GAME OVER
-Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Monday, 11 July 2011 1:16 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: COMP refutation GAME OVER On 10 Jul 2011, at 09:37, Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: Hi Bruno et.al. Once again we have come to grief on the old conflation. (A) You speak of a universe _AS_ computation (described _as if_ on some abstract mega-turing machine) You confuse perhaps with Schmidhuber's position, or some digital physicist (DP). But as I have explained many times here that this position does not work. Computationalism or digital mechanism (DM) is the idea that I am a machine, and by the first person indeterminacy, and the way the laws of physics have to emerge from computations, the physical universe (nor the fundamental reality) cannot be described entirely by a computation. On the contrary it is a sum on an infinity of computations. If the universe is a computation, then I am computable, but then it cannot be a computation (by what I say above, it is not obvious). So with comp, or without comp, the physical universe is not a computation. With comp, the laws of nature are not computable, or have strong non computable components. DM - ~DP DP - DM, So DP - ~DP, so ~DP. Bruno == I'm sorry Bruno, but you are so intractably mired in your own presuppositions that you'll never get this. Clearly you have never been roughly and uncompromisingly educated by the natural world, as I have as an engineer. Consider the statement I am machine. This is totally loaded with presupposition. Like agreeing on the meaning of the word machine has any bearing on the problem at hand. No amount of playing about with any words like 'machine' or 'computation' has any relevance to the problem. I choose to have nothing to do with any of it. I choose to presuppose nothing. This is an empirical matter. In the entire history of technology development, the artificial instantiation of a natural phenomenon, the actual natural phenomenon was retained. FIRE, WHEEL/TERRESTRIAL TRANSPORT, FLIGHT etc etc etc Except once ...In the artificial instantiation of COGNITION, the 100% chosen technique is to throw the physics away...replacing it with the physics (atoms) of a computer, yet the natural phenomenon is still expected. No amount of discussion about abstract meanings of words like machine and the logical conclusions reached in unproven, irrelevant presupposed domains of abstractions of physics changes that. Where it once may have been plausible that 'information' manipulation might be a useful abstraction in AGI, this is now gone. Empirically. This is because the EM fields are no longer epiphenomenal. They have an active role. Eliminate/replace them with noise like a computer and you eliminate cognition like computed flame is not flame. Anastassiou, C. A., Perin, R., Markram, H., Koch, C. (2011). Ephaptic coupling of cortical neurons. Nature Neuroscience, 14(2), 217-223. Frohlich, F., McCormick, D. A. (2010). Endogenous Electric Fields May Guide Neocortical Network Activity. NEURON, 67(1), 129-143. The physics of cognition itself is a little less obvious than the physics of flames and flight. This does not entail that it is any more negligible in artificial cognition than flight physics was to artificial flying. This new reality does not mean that an AGI cannot be computational! What it means is that you will never prove what can be replaced by computation without artificially building the physics of cognition and then seeing what can be computed without eliminating/degrading the cognition. A theory of combustion resulted from playing with combustion. Not the other way around. A theory of flight resulted from flying. Not the other way around. A theory of cognition and general intelligence will result from building artificial general intelligence, not the other way around. We now know what is going on in a brain to the point of being able to replicate it. Semiconductor chip feature sizes approach those of the brain's feature sizes (insofar as they are cognition-relevant). The game has changed because of empirical outcomes. The relative importance of the contributors to cognition have changed. In the last year. Such changes happen from time to time. I for one am really enthused. Colin -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
I don't think we can say what is or what wouldn't be possible with a machine of these complexity; all machines we have built to date are primitive and simplistic by comparison. The machines we deal with day to day don't usually do novel things, exhibit creativity, surprise us, etc. but I think a machine as complex as the human brain could do these things regularly. I do think that we can say, with the same certainty that we cannot create a square circle, that it would not be possible at any level of complexity. It's not that they can't create novelty or surprise, it's that they can't feel or care about their own survival. I'm saying that the potential for awareness must be built in to matter at the lowest level or not at all. Complexity alone cannot cause awareness in inanimate objects, let alone the kind of rich, ididopathic phenomena we think of as qualia. The waking state of consciousness requires no more biochemical complexity to initiate than does unconsciousness. In this debate, the idea of complexity is a red herring which, together with probability acts as a veil of what I consider to be the religious faith of promissory materialism. If one day humans succeeded in reverse engineering a brain, and executed it on a super computer, and it told you it was conscious and alive, and did not want to be turned off, would this convince you or would you believe it was only being mimicking something that could feel something? If not, it seems there would be no possible evidence that could convince you. Is that true? The only thing that would come close to convincing me that a virtualized brain was successful in producing human consciousness would be if a person could live with half of their brain emulated for a while, then switch to the other half emulated for a while and report as to whether their memories and experiences of being emulated were faithful. I certainly would not exchange my own brain for a computer program based on the computer program's assessment of it's own consciousness. I believe this is what computers allow us to do: explore alternate universes by defining new sets of logical rules. Sure, but they can also blind us to the aspects of our own universe which cannot ever be defined by any set of logical rules (such as the experiential nature of qualia). Neural prostheses will be common some day, Thomas Berger has spent the past decade reverse engineering the hippocampus:http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2007-04/memory-hacker Prostheses are great but you can't assume that you can replace the parts of the brain which host the conscious self without replacing the self. If you lose an arm or a leg, fine, but if you lose a head and a body, you're out of luck. To save the arm and replace the head with a cybernetic one is not the same thing. Even if you get a brain grown from your own stem cells, it's not going to be you. One identical twin is not a valid replacement for the other. If only one possible substrate is possible in any given universe, why do you think it just so happens to line up with the same materials which serve a biological function? Do you subscribe to anthropic reasoning? I don't know that only one substrate is possible, and I don't necessarily think that consciousness is unique to biology, I just think that human consciousness in particular is an elaboration of hominid perception, animal sense, and organic molecular detection. The more you vary from that escalation, the more you should expect the interiority to diverge from our own. It's not that we cannot build a brain based on plastic and semiconductors, it's that we should not assume that such a machine would be aware at all, just as a plastic flower is not a plant. It looks enough like a plant to fool our casual visual inspection, but for every other animal, plant, or insect, the plastic flower is nothing like a plant at all. A plastic brain is the same thing. It may make for a decent android to serve our needs, but it's not going to be an actual person. Primary colors aren't physical properties, they are purely mental constructions. There are shrimp which can see something like 16 different primary colors. It is a factor of the dimensionality of the inputs the brain has to work with when generating the environment you believe yourself to be in. They are phenomena present in the cosmos, just as a quark or galaxy is. Labeling them mental constructions is just a way of disqualifying them by appealing to metaphysical speculation. Mentally constructed where? From what? How? Why can't we mentally construct new colors ourselves? Even if you had seen red and blue, you could not in your wildest imaginings or most rigorous quantitative expression conceive of what it is to see yellow if you had never seen it. Yellow is not just a bluer version of red, even though electromagnetically that is exactly what it should be, it's different from either blue or red and different in a self-explanatory,
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
All right, but then honesty should force you to do the same with computer ships. Unless you presuppose the molecules not being Turing emulable. Computer chips don't behave in the same way though. Your computer can't become an ammoniaholic or commit suicide.The problem with emulating molecules is that we are only emulating the side of the coin we can see. The other side is blank and that's the side that interiority and awareness is made of. We can add chips to our brain though, or build a computer out of cells. Any mechanical arrangement defining a self-referentially correct machine automatically leads the mechanical arrangement to distinguish third person point of view and first person points of view. The machine already have a theory of qualia, with an explanation of why qualia and quanta seems different. If you are saying that the machine may already have it's own qualia, then sure, I agree, I just don't think it will be our qualia. I think that our experience of yellow, for example, probably comes through cellular experiences with photosynthesis and probably has not evolved much since the Pre-Cambrian. Of course that's a guess. It could be a mammalian thing or a hominid thing that arises out of the experience of elaborations throughout the cortex. In order for a silicon chip to generate that experience of yellow, I think it would have to learn to speak chlorophyll and hemoglobin. I agree. But this is a consequence of comp, and it leads to a derivation of physics from computer science/machine's theology. No need to introduce any physics (old or new). It could be that, but the transparency of comp to physical realities and semantic consistencies are pretty convincing to me. I would rather think that I am feeling what my fingers are feeling then imagining that feeling is just a mathematical illusion. Mathematics seem abstract and yellow seems concrete. That's certainly *looks* like the arithmetical plotinian physics. Again, you can extract it (or have to extract it for getting the correct quanta/qualia) from computer science (actually from just addition and multiplication and a small amount of logic). I don't really do that. I don't think that consciousness can be created or be synthetic. It is not the product of any machine, natural or artificial. Such machines only filter consciousness and select relative partial realities. My main point is that this is testable. It already explains non locality, indeterminacy, non-cloning of matter, and some formal aspect of quantum mechanics. Sorry, not sure what you mean. Probably over my head. What is it that explains non-cloning of matter? comp? Give me some details and I'll try to understand. That is too vague. It can make sense in the computationalist theory. yet the brain itself is a construct of the mind. Not the human mind but the relative experience of the many universal numbers/ computational histories. This follows from the digital mechanist hypothesis. Again, I'm not familiar enough with the theories. It sounds like you're saying that the brain is made of numbers. Maybe? Not sure it makes a difference? Craig On Jul 10, 11:32 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 10 Jul 2011, at 15:20, Craig Weinberg wrote: You might find out that molecules in brain are unconscious too. The fact that consciousness changes predictably when different molecules are introduced to the brain, and that we are able to produce different molecules by changing the content of our consciousness subjectively suggests to me that it makes sense to give molecules the benefit of the doubt. All right, but then honesty should force you to do the same with computer ships. Unless you presuppose the molecules not being Turing emulable. What in the brain would be not Turing emulable Let's take the color yellow for example. If you build a brain out of ideal ping pong balls, or digital molecular emulations, does it perceive yellow from 580nm oscillations of electromagnetism automatically, or does it see yellow when it's own emulated units are vibrating on the functionally proportionate scale to itself? Does the ping pong ball brain see it's own patterns of collisions as yellow or does yellow = electromagnetic ~580nm and nothing else. At what point does the yellow come in? Where did it come from? Were there other options? Can there ever be new colors? From where? What is the minimum mechanical arrangement required to experience yellow? Any mechanical arrangement defining a self-referentially correct machine automatically leads the mechanical arrangement to distinguish third person point of view and first person points of view. The machine already have a theory of qualia, with an explanation of why qualia and quanta seems different. You need to speculate on a new physics, Yes, I do speculate on a new physics. I think that what we can possibly see outside of ourselves is half of what exists. I agree. But
Re: Bruno's blasphemy.
Exactly. So it doesn't depend on the components. Then what does it depend on? It depends on their arrangement and interaction. Yes, but my point is that arrangement and interaction alone don't matter if the components don't have the capability to support the desired higher level phenomena. If you had the blueprint of a watermelon seed and recreated it precisely out of light bulbs instead of atoms, you could make a gigantic sculpture of a watermelon seed, but nothing is going to happen if you plant it in the ground and water it. You could make a computer program to grow such a blueprint seed into a watermelon, but it's never going to taste like anything to anyone. It's just a digital sculpture. So what's the other half? Do brains have to be made of special conscious atoms? The other half is the aggregate sensorimotive experience of all matter over all time. The consciousness of a brain doesn't derive from special atoms, it's that we are the sensorimotive experience of a human brain, so the consciousness of human like phenomena seems special to us, and in our view of the universe, it is special to us. What does it mean sensorimotor way mean. It sounds like the cognitive analog of elan vital. It extends beyond cognitive. Sensorimotor is just experiential input (detection, sensation, perception, etc) and output (determinism, instinct, volition). The three terms in each case are in ascending order, so that an atom might experience detection and deterministic force compelling reaction and those two functions may be simultaneous, whereas the larger aggregates of cells and organs share a collective experience which is perceptually rich and which spreads out the gap between sense and motive, or slows it down so that a feeling of choice and can develop. But analog ones are? No, I'm saying that it's not the circuits which are making the brain conscious, it's the brain itself which is conscious, and the circulation of electromagnetic correspondences within the tissue of the brain are just the shadow of that. You can't build a brain by superimposing those shadows onto a digital semiconductor array and expect it to feel like a brain feels. Craig The components at some low level, in this case atoms, are *not* alive. How can cognition be any different? On Jul 10, 11:53 am, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/9/2011 9:44 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: Why? Biological tissue is made out of protons, neutrons, and electrons just like computer chips. Why should anything other than their input/output function matter? A cadaver is made out of the same thing too. You could pump food into it and fit it with an artificial gut, even give it a synthesized voice to make pre-recorded announcements and string it up like a marionette. That doesn't mean it's a person. Life does not occur on the atomic level, it occurs on the molecular level. Exactly. So it doesn't depend on the components. Then what does it depend on? It depends on their arrangement and interaction. The components at some low level, in this case atoms, are *not* alive. How can cognition be any different? There may be a way of making inorganic molecules reproduce themselves, but there's no reason to believe that their sensation or cognition would be any more similar than petroleum is to plutonium. The i/o function is only half of the story. So what's the other half? Do brains have to be made of special conscious atoms? Just assertions. The question is whether something other than you can have them? Why couldn't it? As you say, I am made of the same protons, neutrons, and electrons as everything else. You can't have it both ways. Either consciousness is a natural potential of all material phenomena or it's a unique special case. In the former you have to explain why more things aren't conscious, and the latter you have to explain why consciousness could exist. My alternative is to see that everything has a private side, which behaves in a sensorimotor way rather than electromagnetic, so that our experience is a massive sensorimotor aggregate of nested organic patterns. What does it mean sensorimotor way mean. It sounds like the cognitive analog of elan vital. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.