Re: Consciousness (was Re: From Atheism to Islam

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

This just my opinion, this, not being by necessity a permanent conclusion on my 
part, however, it seems to me that the conscious that we experience is 
basically, why the old philosophers called, material. Modern brain scientists 
would conclude in the type of brain cells, maybe Spindle Cells, their 
integration,and so forth that causes consciousness. There may be many other 
ways of developing or propagating consciousness. Simply, that it seems to me, 
that as it is currently known, its a biological thing. Yes, I am thinking it is 
not exclusively, bio, or what call, "carbon + water." I believe, unless there 
is a physical reason not to, that first "Weak AI," will be built, then, "Strong 
AI," which is like Marvin Minsky's 'guy in a box,' that we see interacting with 
people in all the sci fi stuff we see and read. Like Tony Stark's Jarvis, like 
HAL 9000 in 2001, aka as Minsky's 'guy in a box.' 


I am prejudiced in favor of much of the science fiction by astronomer, Alastair 
Reynolds, who does most of his stories limited by the absolute framework of 
relativity, and the sciences we know today.  So, without a reason to 
disbelieve, I am guessing that we will make AI of several flavors soon, and our 
great, great, great, great, grand kiddies will opt for a kind of mergence with 
these AI/machinery, for obvious reasons. One reason, would be that, as far as 
we know, it beats the heck out of dying early, especially if you like the idea 
of enlivening an apparently, dead milky way that is about us. I could be 
terribly, hugely wrong, spiritually, or psychologically, or cosmologically, 
but, its how I am rolling tonight. 


-Original Message-
From: Brent Meeker 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Sat, Feb 25, 2017 8:20 pm
Subject: Re: Consciousness (was Re: From Atheism to Islam





On 2/25/2017 11:06 AM, Telmo Menezes  wrote:


  


  
On Sat, 25 Feb 2017 at 18:17, John Clark 
wrote:
  
  

  
On Sat, Feb 25, 2017 at10:32 AM, Telmo Menezes 
wrote:




​>  ​
I always have a hard time seeing consciousness as   
 causal.



  


  

  
​Why, where is the  mystery? If external information didn't 
CAUSE your  consciousness to change you might as well be 
blind  and deaf, ​and if consciousness didn't CAUSE 
 external things to change you might as well be 
 paralyzed from the neck down . 
   
  

  
  

  
  
I meant and in the second sense. Take an artificialneural network 
driving a car. Like me, you suspect it mightbe conscious -- but we 
know the full mechanism. We know it'sa bunch of thresholds 
connected in a complex way, 

  


Of course if it's a big, deep neural network, even on simulated onvon 
Neumann architecture, that has been trained on a large range ofinstances 
(as it must be) we probably don't know how it's connectedand weighted and 
it would FAPP impossible to explain why it doeswhat it does in terms of its 
experience; and FAPP it would beimpossible to predict what it will do 
except by running it.  So itwill have "free" will. :-)

Brent
The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, 
they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct 
which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes 
observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is 
solely and precisely that it is expected to work.
--—John von Neumann


  

  
running on von neumann machine and so on. How isconsciousness 
causing behavior ?
  

  
  

  


  

  
​  John K Clark ​
  


  



  


  

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Re: From Atheism to Islam

[John Clark]

On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 1:57 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
>> ​>​
>> The difference is that the billions of theists on the round thing
>
>  we walk on still use "God" to be the Abrahamic superbeing.
>
>

​> ​
> Really? Interesting. Maybe they are right or close to right.


​T​
here is no "maybe" about it, when it comes to the meaning
of words
​
the majority is
*ALWAYS​ *right, a word know only to
you would be utterly useless.
​
If most people decide that the
word "circle" means a 3 sided polygon of 180 degrees
​then​
geometers are just going to have to change their
​
vocabulary.
Language always changes, that's why its hard to understand
Shakespeare's plays, and even harder to understand
Beowulf
​.​


 ​John K Clark​






> On 23 Feb 2017, at 21:45, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2/23/2017 6:29 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 22 Feb 2017, at 01:08, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2/21/2017 11:03 AM, John Mikes wrote:
>
> Brent:
> do you think we are that sure how to identify *intelligence and
> consciousness? *
>
> *Intelligence   (inter-lego)*
> *   I identify from the linguistic origin (Latin) as READING BETWEEN THE
> (properly) EXPRESSED FEATURES - *to detect additional sense (maybe hidden
> so far).
>
>
> Are you going to Bruno on me and adopt some meaning that a thousand years
> out of date.
>
>
> I can't let you say this Brent. I use always the most common terms used by
> everybody, except the dogmatic minority. I have hundreds of book on
> theology, written mostly by christians and muslims, on neoplatonism, and
> they all use the term "theology" and "god" in the greek sense. They don't
> even mention that they use the greek sense as it is compeletely natural in
> a non-dogmatic context. The restricted sense is the popular, non scientific
> sense used by believers in special tradition.
>
> It is rather incredible, but constant, that the strong-atheists insist so
> much on the dogmatic (and pseudo-religious) definitions. In science, all
> theories rename all the terms. We change the theories, not the terms, which
> would lead to confusion and would hide the progress. You could as well say
> that Earth does not exist, because it has meant for many centuries: a flat
> thing on which we walk.
>
>
> The difference is that the billions of theists on the round thing we walk
> on* still *use "God" to be the Abrahamic superbeing.
>
>
> Really? Interesting. Maybe they are right or close to right.
>
> Obviously, as scientist, we have to do the math, in our favorite theory to
> see if that matches, and of course, I have already point to some
> discrepancies with the "God" of the universal machine, much close to
> proclus theology (sic) or Plotinus, Moderatus of Gades.
>
> Nevertheless, note that each main branches of the Abrahamic belief has
> kept some sub-branches which basically match that theology (of the
> universal classical machine).
>
> In theology, only the con men could pretend that science has decided
> between Plato/Parmenides/Pythagoras and Aristotle. Mocking theology or
> philosophy of mind makes people confusing physics and metaphysics/theology.
>
> Better not lost the spirit of rigor in all domain. The assumption of a
> primary physical universe is cool, but might need to be tested with the
> (immaterialist) "theology" of the universal number (G, G* and the other
> "hypostases").
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Brent
>
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> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
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Re: Consciousness (was Re: From Atheism to Islam

[Brent Meeker]

On 2/25/2017 11:06 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:


On Sat, 25 Feb 2017 at 18:17, John Clark > wrote:


On Sat, Feb 25, 2017 at 10:32 AM, Telmo Menezes
> wrote:

​> ​
I always have a hard time seeing consciousness as causal.


​Why, where is the mystery? If external information didn't CAUSE
your consciousness to change you might as well be blind and deaf,
​and if consciousness didn't CAUSE external things to change you
might as well be paralyzed from the neck down .


I meant and in the second sense. Take an artificial neural network 
driving a car. Like me, you suspect it might be conscious -- but we 
know the full mechanism. We know it's a bunch of thresholds connected 
in a complex way,


Of course if it's a big, deep neural network, even on simulated on von 
Neumann architecture, that has been trained on a large range of 
instances (as it must be) we probably don't know how it's connected and 
weighted and it would FAPP impossible to explain why it does what it 
does in terms of its experience; and FAPP it would be impossible to 
predict what it will do except by running it.  So it will have "free" 
will. :-)


Brent
The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, 
they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct 
which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes 
observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct 
is solely and precisely that it is expected to work.

--—John von Neumann

running on von neumann machine and so on. How is consciousness causing 
behavior ?



​  John K Clark ​



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Re: Consciousness (was Re: From Atheism to Islam

[John Clark]

On Sat, Feb 25, 2017 Telmo Menezes  wrote:
​

> ​>> ​
>> ​Why, where is the mystery? If external information didn't CAUSE your
>> consciousness to change you might as well be blind and deaf, ​and if
>> consciousness didn't CAUSE external things to change you might as well be
>> paralyzed from the neck down .
>>
>>
>
> ​> ​
> I meant and in the second sense.
>

​I meant physical actions changing consciousness, what is the second
meaning? ​


> ​> ​
> Take an artificial neural network driving a car. Like me, you suspect it
> might be conscious
>

​Well... I suspect
a artificial neural network driving a car
​ is as
conscious as a typical human is ​who is driving over the same road he has
done a thousand times before, and that's not much. Can you remember one
specific event you were conscious of when you drove to work last Thursday?


> ​> ​
>  but we know the full mechanism. We know it's a bunch of thresholds
> connected in a complex way, running on von neumann machine and so on. How
> is consciousness causing behavior ?
>

​The problem is not unique to consciousness, how does anything "cause"
anything? When we say A causes Z we mean that whenever A happens Z happens.
But you could say that is mysterious because A is not Z, and indeed when we
look closer we discover that actually A causes B and then B causes Z, but B
is not Z either, and when we look even closer we find that B cause C and C
causes Z.  And so it goes. Either this chain of causality goes on forever,
in which case A doesn't cause Z at all and yet we know it does, or
eventually we come to a brute fact, Y causes Z and there is no "why" from
there.

But as I said this difficulty has nothing specifically to do with
consciousness, it's just in the nature of causality. If you are conscious
and if you are the product of random mutation and natural selection as
Darwin said them "intelligence causes consciousness" is a brute fact, but
eventually you'll always encounter a brute fact if you look at causal
chains close enough, not just ones involving consciousness.

John K Clark  ​










>
>
>> ​  John K Clark ​
>>
>>
>>
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Re: Consciousness (was Re: From Atheism to Islam

[Telmo Menezes]

On Sat, 25 Feb 2017 at 18:17, John Clark  wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 25, 2017 at 10:32 AM, Telmo Menezes 
> wrote:
>
> ​> ​
> I always have a hard time seeing consciousness as causal.
>
>
> ​Why, where is the mystery? If external information didn't CAUSE your
> consciousness to change you might as well be blind and deaf, ​and if
> consciousness didn't CAUSE external things to change you might as well be
> paralyzed from the neck down .
>
>

I meant and in the second sense. Take an artificial neural network driving
a car. Like me, you suspect it might be conscious -- but we know the full
mechanism. We know it's a bunch of thresholds connected in a complex way,
running on von neumann machine and so on. How is consciousness causing
behavior ?


> ​  John K Clark ​
>
>
>
> --
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Re: Consciousness (was Re: From Atheism to Islam

[John Clark]

On Sat, Feb 25, 2017 at 10:32 AM, Telmo Menezes 
wrote:

​> ​
> I always have a hard time seeing consciousness as causal.


​Why, where is the mystery? If external information didn't CAUSE your
consciousness to change you might as well be blind and deaf, ​and if
consciousness didn't CAUSE external things to change you might as well be
paralyzed from the neck down .


​  John K Clark ​

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Re: Consciousness (was Re: From Atheism to Islam

[Telmo Menezes]

Hi Bruno!

>> Evolution is a theory on the origins of biological complexity. We know
>> nothing about consciousness.
>
>
>
> Do you agree that consciousness is a form of knowledge? That is:
> consciousness requires some knowledge, and (genuine) knowledge requires some
> conscious person)?

I agree, but I feel it begs the question: knowledge is an awareness of
something, it implies consciousness by definition.

What is the situation with an artificial neural network? Does it know
something, or is it akin to a stone being kicked down a hill? Or is
the stone being kicked down a hill akin to our brains and requiring
consciousness already?

> Then do you agree with the S4 theory of rational knowledge, which is that
>
> (knowable x) implies x
> (knowable (x implies y)) implies ((knowable x) implies (knowable y))
> (knowable x) implies (knowable (knowable x))
>
> With the inference rules:
>
> If I prove x I can deduce (knowable x)
> + modus ponens

I'm ok with this.

> If you are OK with this, it is not difficult to explain why evolution, or
> anything actually, cannot NOT bring consciousness, and a first person
> knower, in the picture.

Here I don't follow. Aren't you making the hidden assumption:

(knowable x) => (known x) ?

Notice that I do tend to think what you say, that "anything actually,
cannot NOT bring consciousness" -- but I see this as part of my
"personal religion". I'm just not convinced that the above proves it.

> That is a consequence of incompleteness which make the machine aware of the
> difference between []p and []p & p. The machine can know that []p obeys to
> the modal logic G and that ([]p & p), the definition of "knowable" by
> Theaetetus, obeys to the modal logic S4 + Grz (with Grz the Gregorczyk
> formula).
>
> Now, consciousness is not exactly knowledge, but a knowledge of some
> "reality".

But "who" knows? Again, isn't this begging the question?

> It is based on an implicit automated belief in our consistency
> (which is equivalent with the existence of a "model" in the logician sense,
> which means some "reality" satisfying our belief. This makes consciousness
> close to inconsistency.

Interesting idea.

> Then it can be shown that consciousness, which is unavoidable, has still
> some important role in evolution, as it makes the machine self-speed-up-able
> and more and more autonomous relatively to the probable universal
> machine/number which supports them.

For me evolution has a very fractal-like quality to it, in the sense
that it generates machines that become very similar to the machine
where they come from. I am still not convinced that consciousness is
necessary to explain biological complexification. Can you expand?

> Similarly, we get the feeling and the qualia with the logic of []p a p, and
> []p & <>t & p, with p sigma_1. This add the symmetrical (p implies []p) in
> the picture, and leads to quantum sort of logics.

Here I don't follow. You alluded to this quantum-like logic a few
times but you never expanded (I think). I would be interested in a
more detailed explanation.

> It makes also consciousness into a bridge between the 3p arithmetical
> picture and the (many) 1p internal views, including the first person plural
> physics, making this theory testable (and confirmed up to now, both
> introspectively and quantitatively). cf NUMBER ==> CONSCIOUSNESS/DREAM ==>
> PHYSICAL-REALITY.

Do you believe you can make a prediction that could be experimentally
tested, ideally something that has not been observed yet?

> This explains notably why consciousness is what we know the best from the 1p
> view, and yet is completely NOT definable in any 3p sense (like the notion
> of Arithmetical Truth).

You mean because it does not exist in 3p?

> Intutively: consciousness brings the semantics, or the meaning of our
> beliefs, and that speed-up the possible actions of the machine, making the
> development of consciousness an advantage in the evolution, even if it
> brings some amount of self-delusion, like the many confusion between the
> reality that we infer with a reification of the reality that we observe ...
> until Pythagoras and Plato get back to the scientific doubt and skepticism.

I always have a hard time seeing consciousness as causal. What about
does experiments with MRI that show decision being made before the
person in aware of deciding?


T.

>>
 I don't quite understand why an omnipotent being

 would "want" anything, He should already have it.  Nevertheless the

 religious say God does want certain things and they know exactly
 precisely

 what they are and they insist on telling us about it; and they also
 insist

 God can't get what He wants on His own, we have to help the poor fellow

 achieve His aims.

>
 You are describing Abrahamic religions. I don't believe in them either.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't think the
>>> Hindu religion
>>> is significantly less stupid. There are some forms of