Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Brent Meeker]

There's very little we know for sure.  But most of us have confidence 
other people, dogs, birds, octopuses,... are conscious because they act 
certain ways.   And we even have some evidence about the level of 
consciousness based on behavior.  As AI is developed I expect we will 
further quantify and classify types and levels of consciousness.


Brent

On 5/12/2022 4:54 PM, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
Since consciousness is a subjective experience, how can one know for 
sure?


LC

On Friday, April 22, 2022 at 9:38:52 PM UTC-5 Jason wrote:

Artificial Life such as these organisms:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX
( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )

Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can
adapt to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish
between "food" and "poison" in their environment.

If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because
they have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial
life forms be conscious for the same reasons?

Why or why not?

Jason

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Alan Grayson]

This discussion is worse than establishing some propositions are 
undecidable. In those cases, at least we know what we're referring to. In 
this case NOT. If we're unable to define what we're talking about, we can't 
reach any conclusions. AG

On Thursday, May 12, 2022 at 5:54:46 PM UTC-6 Lawrence Crowell wrote:

> Since consciousness is a subjective experience, how can one know for sure?
>
> LC
>
> On Friday, April 22, 2022 at 9:38:52 PM UTC-5 Jason wrote:
>
>> Artificial Life such as these organisms:
>>
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX
>> ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )
>>
>> Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt to 
>> a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food" and 
>> "poison" in their environment.
>>
>> If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they 
>> have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be 
>> conscious for the same reasons?
>>
>> Why or why not?
>>
>> Jason
>>
>

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[John Clark]

On Thu, May 12, 2022 at 7:54 PM Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Friday, April 22, 2022 at 9:38:52 PM UTC-5 Jason wrote:
>


*>If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they
>> have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be
>> conscious for the same reasons?*
>>
>
> > Since consciousness is a subjective experience, how can one know for
> sure?


You can't know for sure just as you can't know for sure that solipsism is
untrue, but you know that consciousness by itself produces no evolutionary
advantage only behavior does, and you know you are conscious, so if you
believe in Darwin's theory you'd know that evolution managed to produce at
least one conscious thing and conclude that things that behave
intelligently are conscious. So to the extent that worms and artificial
life behave intelligently they are also conscious. Probably.

 John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

pne

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Lawrence Crowell]

Since consciousness is a subjective experience, how can one know for sure?

LC

On Friday, April 22, 2022 at 9:38:52 PM UTC-5 Jason wrote:

> Artificial Life such as these organisms:
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX
> ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )
>
> Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt to 
> a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food" and 
> "poison" in their environment.
>
> If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they 
> have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be 
> conscious for the same reasons?
>
> Why or why not?
>
> Jason
>

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

Thanks Jason. The ant or the fish or the ape will retain whatever as long as it 
produces survival, now, no longer just a biochemical thing. I once thought of 
creating a comic where a room temp QC chip could be attached to a sponge in a 
fishbowl. Developing consciousness, the chipped sponge decided he could do 
better than hanging about the lab. Thus, Mr. Sponge along with bowl absconds 
with a humanoid type, robot body, and a professors' English Fog trench coat to 
seek his fortune in the city. Falling on hard times, Mr Sponge engages in a 
life crime to sustain his interests, which is chiefly, the stock market, doing 
muggings of elderly women from alleyways. At this point I ceased my comic 
efforts because, I could either make Spongy a gang boss, or get him onward as 
commander of a Hedge Fund? Beh!
My point is that with as physicist Greg Benford wrote of decades ago, you 
Uplift something dumb into something smart and resourceful, you end of with the 
nearly same result. A conscious colony of algae, forming a very bright 
intelligence on Seti-Alpha 6 would eventually get to maths, metals, maybe 
morals (if we humans ever do?), and gaze starward. Different starting place, 
same eventual result. 
The physics of the cosmos I will leave to you. Right now the only thing humans 
can achieve currently is the nascent simulation entertainment industry. Yeah, 
astronomers are doing good withs with computational astronomy. GIGO as far as I 
am concerned. If the observations are accurate (and why not?) then their sims 
are wonderful.
Benford also wrote a book 2 years ago called Re-write, in which he was one of a 
few humans who were reborn into the same cosmos-worldline after they died, 
retained memory of their pasts, and sought to make a more justice oriented 
worldline. It's applied MWI, and was a nice story in the Heinlein sense of 
things. Heinlein is one of the characters that carries knowledge past each 
world.

I yak about MWI, but I'd rather have working solar power across the planet for 
survival's sake. 

-Original Message-
From: Jason Resch 
To: spudboy...@aol.com
Cc: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
Sent: Thu, May 5, 2022 2:46 pm
Subject: Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?



On Tue, May 3, 2022 at 6:50 PM  wrote:

Beyond my intellectual pay scale Jason. So far, nobody has developed a Turing 
passable machine that knocks us down with it's effectiveness to pass as a human 
"soul."  I would be happy to let humans be human and instead, & amp up our 
technological capabilities via machine intelligence.

It becomes a practical question then, how much can we augment human 
capabilities while retaining our humanity. If you gave an ant human-level 
intelligence, how much would remain of its ant-ness? 
Thus, making wonderful medicines, and anti-pollution systems, and keep the 
conversations from human to human. For neurobiology I suppose I know what I 
read. :-(   Beyond this, for me it's akin to postulating whether there is a 
multiverse and if it is initiated by Everett's MW, or Linde (and company) 
Eternal Inflation? 

I would say both are initiated by the same source: platonic equations. Eternal 
inflation is the result of certain satisfactions of GR/QM equations, while 
Everett's MW is a manifestation of observerhood within an infinite ensemble of 
indistinguishable situations (which again, I think share a common source in 
platonic objects, which exist necessarily as denying them leads to 
contradiction). 

So the other shoe needs to be dropped: Do we get a choice in this?  If we do, 
can we travel back and forth for trade missions to either clone earths, or 
entirely different inhabited worlds unrelated to being copies and variations? 

I don't think that QM will allow this, but simulation will allow us to explore 
other worlds, and also we might enable trade and interaction between such 
simulated worlds, when they are not entirely closed off. 
If we are conscious do we get a choice with this over that? imitating, via 
complex computer processes that imitate or emulate what spindle cells do might 
make machinery conscious, maybe? Should this, will this get a budget? 


The EU has given over a billion euros to the human brain project, which has the 
stated goal of simulating the human brain.
Jason 


-Original Message-
From: Jason Resch 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Mon, May 2, 2022 7:18 pm
Subject: Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?



On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 3:39 PM spudboy100 via Everything List 
 wrote:

I had read that spindle cells delineate consciousness, according to 
neurobiologists. Anyone see anything different?



Spindle neurons are very large cells, with their fibers stretching long enough 
to connect distant brain regions.
I would think then, an equally valid explanation of spindle neurons is they are 
a necessary adaptation in any creature with a sufficiently large brain.
Since we tend to associate consciousness with complex behaviors, and complex 
behav

Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Jason Resch]

On Tue, May 3, 2022 at 6:50 PM  wrote:

> Beyond my intellectual pay scale Jason. So far, nobody has developed a
> Turing passable machine that knocks us down with it's effectiveness to pass
> as a human "soul."  I would be happy to let humans be human and instead, &
> amp up our technological capabilities via machine intelligence.
>

It becomes a practical question then, how much can we augment human
capabilities while retaining our humanity. If you gave an ant human-level
intelligence, how much would remain of its ant-ness?


> Thus, making wonderful medicines, and anti-pollution systems, and keep the
> conversations from human to human. For neurobiology I suppose I know what I
> read. :-(   Beyond this, for me it's akin to postulating whether there is a
> multiverse and if it is initiated by Everett's MW, or Linde (and company)
> Eternal Inflation?
>

I would say both are initiated by the same source: platonic equations.
Eternal inflation is the result of certain satisfactions of GR/QM
equations, while Everett's MW is a manifestation of observerhood within an
infinite ensemble of indistinguishable situations (which again, I think
share a common source in platonic objects, which exist necessarily as
denying them leads to contradiction).


>
> So the other shoe needs to be dropped: Do we get a choice in this?  If we
> do, can we travel back and forth for trade missions to either clone earths,
> or entirely different inhabited worlds unrelated to being copies and
> variations?
>

I don't think that QM will allow this, but simulation will allow us to
explore other worlds, and also we might enable trade and interaction
between such simulated worlds, when they are not entirely closed off.


> If we are conscious do we get a choice with this over that? imitating, via
> complex computer processes that imitate or emulate what spindle cells do
> might make machinery conscious, maybe? Should this, will this get a budget?
>

The EU has given over a billion euros to the human brain project, which has
the stated goal of simulating the human brain.

Jason


>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Jason Resch 
> To: Everything List 
> Sent: Mon, May 2, 2022 7:18 pm
> Subject: Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 3:39 PM spudboy100 via Everything List <
> everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> I had read that spindle cells delineate consciousness, according to
> neurobiologists. Anyone see anything different?
>
>
> Spindle neurons are very large cells, with their fibers stretching long
> enough to connect distant brain regions.
>
> I would think then, an equally valid explanation of spindle neurons is
> they are a necessary adaptation in any creature with a sufficiently large
> brain.
>
> Since we tend to associate consciousness with complex behaviors, and
> complex behaviors are often associated with animals that have large brains,
> I think may account for the correlation between the presumed consciousness
> of other species and presence of spindle neurons in those species' brains.
>
> At least, I think this is a reasonable alternative explanation.
>
> Jason
>
> --
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> .
>

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

Beyond my intellectual pay scale Jason. So far, nobody has developed a Turing 
passable machine that knocks us down with it's effectiveness to pass as a human 
"soul."  I would be happy to let humans be human and instead, & amp up our 
technological capabilities via machine intelligence.Thus, making wonderful 
medicines, and anti-pollution systems, and keep the conversations from human to 
human. For neurobiology I suppose I know what I read. :-(   Beyond this, for me 
it's akin to postulating whether there is a multiverse and if it is initiated 
by Everett's MW, or Linde (and company) Eternal Inflation? 
So the other shoe needs to be dropped: Do we get a choice in this?  If we do, 
can we travel back and forth for trade missions to either clone earths, or 
entirely different inhabited worlds unrelated to being copies and variations? 
If we are conscious do we get a choice with this over that? imitating, via 
complex computer processes that imitate or emulate what spindle cells do might 
make machinery conscious, maybe? Should this, will this get a budget? 


-Original Message-
From: Jason Resch 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Mon, May 2, 2022 7:18 pm
Subject: Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?



On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 3:39 PM spudboy100 via Everything List 
 wrote:

I had read that spindle cells delineate consciousness, according to 
neurobiologists. Anyone see anything different?



Spindle neurons are very large cells, with their fibers stretching long enough 
to connect distant brain regions.
I would think then, an equally valid explanation of spindle neurons is they are 
a necessary adaptation in any creature with a sufficiently large brain.
Since we tend to associate consciousness with complex behaviors, and complex 
behaviors are often associated with animals that have large brains, I think may 
account for the correlation between the presumed consciousness of other species 
and presence of spindle neurons in those species' brains.
At least, I think this is a reasonable alternative explanation.
Jason -- 
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RE: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Philip Benjamin]

[Philip Benjamin]
 The question: "If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, 
(because they 
 have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be 
conscious for the same reasons? " is irrelevant. Simple creatures reproduce. 
Will robots reproduce? Baby robots? Do they have a desire for and grow on the 
pablum of metal powder and vaseline? Simple creatures trans-speciated from what 
? Worms evolve into worms? The oldest fossils found are algae and bacteria.  
Still the same type of bacteria and algae today!! 
Philip Benjamin
Nonconformist to Marxist-Socialist pagan globalism of the WAMP.  
-Original Message-
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com  On 
Behalf Of Russell Standish
Sent: Monday, May 2, 2022 4:30 AM
To: Everything List 
Subject: Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 09:38:40PM -0500, Jason Resch wrote:
> Artificial Life such as these organisms: 
> Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt 
> to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food" and 
> "poison"
> in their environment.
> 
> If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they 
> have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms 
> be conscious for the same reasons?
> 
> Why or why not?

Most insects can't be consious (see my paper "Ants are not conscious"). Most 
ALife forms created to date are simpler than insects, and probably even worms, 
so are unlikely to be consious either.


-- 


Dr Russell StandishPhone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
  
https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hpcoders.com.au%2F=05%7C01%7C%7C994979c7169d4376c94208da2c1e5fc1%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435%7C1%7C0%7C637870806212880403%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C=83WOv896FmcadjcAn%2BRPvGHnwrlUeOB6oOVPL8u9zXU%3D=0


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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[John Clark]

On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 7:06 PM Russell Standish 
wrote:


> *> Hi John, always a pleasure to cross swords with your brain :).*


Greetings Russell, and I feel the same way you do; or at least I'm pretty
sure I do, but there is always a bit of uncertainty when determining the
conscious state of another human being.

* > I know that I am conscious. Therefore I must be a member of the set of
> consious entities. It is true I don't know what else is in the set.*


Mathematical proofs demand absolute certainty, and If you demand absolute
certainty the possibility that the set of conscious entities contains only
one member cannot be excluded by any logical argument. But of course in our
everyday lives we never encounter absolute certainty nor do we need it,
except when we're taking a calculus examination.
>
>
* > I do assume that all humans are conscious*


I assume the same thing for 2 reasons:

1) The evidence is overwhelming that Charles Darwin was right, thus
Evolution produced me and I am conscious, but evolution can NOT directly
see consciousness anymore then we can directly see consciousness in others,
because consciousness alone, regardless of how much we may value it, can
confer no reproductive advantage, and that's all Evolution cares about.
However, Evolution most certainly CAN see intelligent behavior. The only
thing that is compatible with all this is that consciousness is the
inevitable byproduct of intelligence, so it must be a brute fact that
consciousness is the way data feels when it is being processed
intelligently.  A corollary of this would be that the Turing Test works
just as well for consciousness as it does for intelligence. It's far from
perfect but the Turing Test is the only tool we have to investigate
consciousness.

2) I simply could not function unless I assumed I was not the only
conscious being in the universe.

> *(at least at some point in their lives),*


Yes, neither of us believes that our fellow human beings are conscious when
they're sleeping, or under anesthesia, or dead, and for the same reason,
when they are in those states they just don't behave very intelligently.
And that's why I'm interested in AI and intelligence research, but I'm not
interested in consciousness research. And that's also why consciousness
research has not advanced an inch, or even a nanometer, in a 1000 years.

>
> *but if you assume the opposite, then the argument is even stronger.*


Assuming the opposite would be assuming that everything is always conscious
regardless of its behavior, so even rocks are conscious, even electrons.

*> No - it is a deduction. You're reading the abstract. It is usual to
> state the conclusion in the abstract so you know whether it is worth
> digging into the paper body to see the proof.*


It takes time to carefully read a scientific paper, and so the abstract was
invented to give a reader just enough information to decide if reading the
entire paper is worth their time. Your abstract makes clear that the
conclusion that insects are not conscious is based on "*finding oneself a
member of a particular reference class of conscious beings*" with the
implicit assumption the set contains more than one member. I concede that
if one makes that assumption then it might not be unreasonable to conclude
that insects are not conscious (although I see no reason to believe that
consciousness is an all or nothing matter) , but now you admit you "*don't
know what else is in the set"* of conscious beings. And determining what
else is in that set is exactly what this entire controversy is all about.

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

ifq

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Russell Standish]

On Mon, May 02, 2022 at 08:03:21AM -0400, Jason Resch wrote:
> Hi Russell,
> 
> Thanks for sharing. I had read this argument before, I believe in your book,
> and reread it again just now. It is compelling and a quite novel approach to
> the question.
> 
> However, I do not see it as bullet proof. For example:
> 
> The reasoning could be applied equally as an argument that we are living in a
> computer simulation where simulating minds of higher level organisms is more
> common than simulating simpler creatures, and so common as to outclass simpler
> minds.

Why would this be? The Solomonoff-Levin theorem would indicate simpler
programs would be exponentially more common than more complex ones, so
the same scaling would apply to minds.

> 
> It could be used as an argument for Unificationism (the idea that 
> instantiating
> same mind more than once does not ascribe more measure to the experience). 
> Then
> the power law would reflect unique possible conscious states across reality,
> and human and higher level minds would dominate in that there are more ways 
> for
> a human brain to create unique conscious states.
>

Interesting line of attack, but I think it fails due to the
expectation that you should be maximally complex (and probably
maximally old). There's no reason to think that human beings are the
most complex consciousnesses possible in the multiverse.

> It could also be that simple conscious states can jump or shift to equivalent
> conscious states until they stabilize on an experience that is less likely to
> stabilize. For instance, the question is sometimes asked "What is it like to 
> be
> a thermostat?" One answer could be that it is like a person waking up in the
> morning. (Where the conscious state of a waking person intersects the state of
> a thermostat, and a thermostat's mind is equivalent to a wide class of many
> minds, it is not really like anything to be a thermostat). I don't know that
> insect consciousness is simple enough for this argument to apply though.
> 
> Then there's the question of whether it is correct to divide minds, or whether
> something like universalism is true, which states there is only one mind, and
> all experiences belong to it. Then any experience is one I am 100% likely to
> experience.
> 
> I am not sure what to think, but "why are we not ants?" is indeed a mystery
> that calls for an explanation.
> 

Indeed. Of course, you are right that the argument is not bullet
proof. But as is typical of doomsday arguments, peoples reactions are
"WTF?", and there's no engagement. On Google Scholar, there is
precisely 1 citation to that paper, and admittedly I haven't read it,
but based on the abstract, I think the citation was just of similar
example of anthropic reasoning, rather than engaging with the argument itself.

Arguments against this argument have to date been unconvincing, just
like the ones against the DA.

Personally, I think it is interesting that we can provide some hard
numbers around the nature of the "hard question", contra John Clark's
assertion that nothing can be said about consciousness.

Cheers
-- 


Dr Russell StandishPhone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
  http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Jason Resch]

On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 3:39 PM spudboy100 via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> I had read that spindle cells delineate consciousness, according to
> neurobiologists. Anyone see anything different?
>
>
Spindle neurons are very large cells, with their fibers stretching long
enough to connect distant brain regions.

I would think then, an equally valid explanation of spindle neurons is they
are a necessary adaptation in any creature with a sufficiently large brain.

Since we tend to associate consciousness with complex behaviors, and
complex behaviors are often associated with animals that have large brains,
I think may account for the correlation between the presumed consciousness
of other species and presence of spindle neurons in those species' brains.

At least, I think this is a reasonable alternative explanation.

Jason

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Russell Standish]

Hi John, always a pleasure to cross swords with your brain :).

However, your quibbles below are easy to address - see below.

On Mon, May 02, 2022 at 06:03:47AM -0400, John Clark wrote:
> On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 5:30 AM Russell Standish  wrote:
> 
> 
> > Most insects can't be consious (see my paper "Ants are not conscious").
> 
>  
> I just read the abstract, and its very first sentence is: 
> 
> "Anthropic reasoning is a form of statistical reasoning based upon finding
> oneself a member of a particular reference class of conscious beings."
> 
> My question to you is, how do you know for a fact you are a member of a "class
> of conscious beings"? How do you even know that rocks aren't conscious?  I DO
> know for a fact that I'm conscious, but I don't know for a fact that you are.
> The second sentence is:
>

I know that I am conscious. Therefore I must be a member of the set of
consious entities. It is true I don't know what else is in the set.

I do assume that all humans are conscious (at least at some point
in their lives), but if you assume the opposite, then the argument is
even stronger.

>  "By considering empirical distribution functions defined over animal life on
> Earth, we can deduce that the vast bulk of animal life is unlikely to be
> conscious."
> 
> This is a classic example of assuming what you're trying to prove.  
>

No - it is a deduction. You're reading the abstract. It is usual to
state the conclusion in the abstract so you know whether it is worth
digging into the paper body to see to proof. 


-- 


Dr Russell StandishPhone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
  http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

I had read that spindle cells delineate consciousness, according to 
neurobiologists. Anyone see anything different?


-Original Message-
From: Russell Standish 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Mon, May 2, 2022 5:30 am
Subject: Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 09:38:40PM -0500, Jason Resch wrote:
> Artificial Life such as these organisms:
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX
> ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )
> 
> Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt to a
> changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food" and "poison"
> in their environment.
> 
> If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they have
> brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be conscious
> for the same reasons?
> 
> Why or why not?

Most insects can't be consious (see my paper "Ants are not
conscious"). Most ALife forms created to date are simpler than
insects, and probably even worms, so are unlikely to be consious either.


-- 


Dr Russell Standish                    Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders    hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
                      http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Jason Resch]

On Mon, May 2, 2022, 5:30 AM Russell Standish  wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 09:38:40PM -0500, Jason Resch wrote:
> > Artificial Life such as these organisms:
> > https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX
> > ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )
> >
> > Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt
> to a
> > changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food" and
> "poison"
> > in their environment.
> >
> > If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they
> have
> > brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be
> conscious
> > for the same reasons?
> >
> > Why or why not?
>
> Most insects can't be consious (see my paper "Ants are not
> conscious"). Most ALife forms created to date are simpler than
> insects, and probably even worms, so are unlikely to be consious either.
>

Hi Russell,

Thanks for sharing. I had read this argument before, I believe in your
book, and reread it again just now. It is compelling and a quite novel
approach to the question.

However, I do not see it as bullet proof. For example:

The reasoning could be applied equally as an argument that we are living in
a computer simulation where simulating minds of higher level organisms is
more common than simulating simpler creatures, and so common as to outclass
simpler minds.

It could be used as an argument for Unificationism (the idea that
instantiating same mind more than once does not ascribe more measure to the
experience). Then the power law would reflect unique possible conscious
states across reality, and human and higher level minds would dominate in
that there are more ways for a human brain to create unique conscious
states.

It could also be that simple conscious states can jump or shift to
equivalent conscious states until they stabilize on an experience that is
less likely to stabilize. For instance, the question is sometimes asked
"What is it like to be a thermostat?" One answer could be that it is like a
person waking up in the morning. (Where the conscious state of a waking
person intersects the state of a thermostat, and a thermostat's mind is
equivalent to a wide class of many minds, it is not really like anything to
be a thermostat). I don't know that insect consciousness is simple enough
for this argument to apply though.

Then there's the question of whether it is correct to divide minds, or
whether something like universalism is true, which states there is only one
mind, and all experiences belong to it. Then any experience is one I am
100% likely to experience.

I am not sure what to think, but "why are we not ants?" is indeed a mystery
that calls for an explanation.

Jason

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[John Clark]

On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 5:30 AM Russell Standish 
wrote:

* > Most insects can't be consious (see my paper "Ants are not conscious").*


*I just read the abstract, and its very first sentence is: *

"*Anthropic reasoning is a form of statistical reasoning based upon finding
oneself a member of a particular reference class of conscious beings*."

*My question to you is, how do you know for a fact you are a member of a
"class of conscious beings"? How do you even know that rocks aren't
conscious?  I DO know for a fact that I'm conscious, but I don't know for a
fact that you are. The second sentence is:*

 "*By considering empirical distribution functions defined over animal life
on Earth, we can deduce that the vast bulk of animal life is unlikely to be
conscious*."

*This is a classic example of assuming what you're trying to prove.  *

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

ovu


>

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Russell Standish]

On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 09:38:40PM -0500, Jason Resch wrote:
> Artificial Life such as these organisms:
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX
> ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )
> 
> Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt to a
> changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food" and "poison"
> in their environment.
> 
> If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they have
> brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be conscious
> for the same reasons?
> 
> Why or why not?

Most insects can't be consious (see my paper "Ants are not
conscious"). Most ALife forms created to date are simpler than
insects, and probably even worms, so are unlikely to be consious either.


-- 


Dr Russell StandishPhone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
  http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Brent Meeker]

On 4/23/2022 4:40 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


I think you missed an essential aspect of higher level
consciousness.  The subconscious is predictive and what is noticed
consciously are little (or sometimes big) corrections to what was
predicted.


I agree that is an important trait of human consciousness. If I were 
to speculate, I would say the lower level sub-conscious processes of 
our brains are conscious in their own right,


Again I think this points to different levels and degrees of 
awareness/consciousness that we need to develop a vocabulary to talk 
about.  I expect that AI research will eventually develop more explicit 
definitions of these kinds of thinking processes.


Brent

but when these sub processes fail, or disagree, or encounter something 
new or unexpected, they can kick it up to other areas of the brain and 
when this happens it is noticed by the parts of our brain that can 
remember and talk (and thereby convince others as well as oneself) 
that we consciously perceived that piece of information, when 
otherwise it might not have been promoted to that level of awareness 
and thus been forgotten.


Jason


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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Alan Grayson]

On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 5:31:03 PM UTC-6 Jason wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 4:39 PM Alan Grayson  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 9:57:54 AM UTC-6 Alan Grayson wrote:
>>
>>> On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 9:41:24 AM UTC-6 Jason wrote:
>>>


 On Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 11:27 AM Alan Grayson  
 wrote:

>
>
> On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 3:03:49 AM UTC-6 smi...@zonnet.nl 
> wrote:
>
>> On 23-04-2022 04:38, Jason Resch wrote: 
>> > Artificial Life such as these organisms: 
>> > 
>> > 
>> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX 
>> > 
>> > ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots ) 
>> > 
>> > Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can 
>> adapt 
>> > to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between 
>> "food" 
>> > and "poison" in their environment. 
>> > 
>> > If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because 
>> they 
>> > have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life 
>> forms 
>> > be conscious for the same reasons? 
>> > 
>> > Why or why not? 
>> > 
>>
>> Yes. If states of consciousness are identified with algorithms, then 
>> the 
>> world as viewed from the point of view of a particular worm is 
>> defined 
>> by that particular algorithm that the worm's brain is implementing. 
>> If 
>> you run that same algorithm also in a simulation, then that same 
>> consciousness exists both in the simulation as a simulated worm and 
>> in 
>> the real world as a real worm. The consciousness cannot locate itself 
>> in 
>> one or the other situation, as it is identical in both situations. 
>>
>> Saibal
>
>
> This, of course, is nonsense. The question you should ask yourself is, 
> How can anything know anything? AG 
>


 I disagree with your assessment that what Saibal said was nonsense, 
 however I agree with you that the real question of consciousness is:

  "What is a knower?"

 What properties must a system posses to know something? I don't have an 
 answer but I have some ideas. I'm interested to hear your or other's take 
 on these:

 *Consciousness is:*

- Awareness of Information
- A knowledge State
- An Infinite Class (infinite possible variations and permutations, 
configurations)
- A requirement for: Experience, Thought, Feeling, Knowing, Seeing, 
Noticing (can any of these things exist absent consciousness? E.g. some 
part of system that acts like it knows must really know.)
- An activity (not a passive state of 0s and 1s, 
operations/behavior/actions give meaning and context to information and 
 how 
it is processed and what it means)
- Is it a recursive relationship? A model of environment including 
self?
- Is it undefinable?
- Word origin: "con" (together/with/unified/united) "scious" 
(knowledge): unified knowledge
- It exists in the abstract informational state, not in the material
- A meaningful interpretation of information

 *Information is:*

- A difference that makes a difference
- A comparison, differentiation, distinction
- Specification / Indication
- Negative entropy
- A decrease in uncertainty
- A probability of being in different states
- Bits, digits, a number (representations of information)
- A subspace of a larger space
- A state of a finite state machine
- Requires an interpreter (A system to be informed) to be meaningful

 *A subject is:*

- A system to be informed
- A processor of information
- A knower (a believer)
- An inside viewer
- A first-person
- A possessor of knowledge
- An interpreter of information
- A modeler of environment or self (or both)

 *Knowledge is:*

- An apprehended truth
- A true belief (bet)
- Not always shareable (when self-referential)
- A relationship between two objects or object and itself


 Jason

>>>
>>> I've encounted "the Knower". If you grant it must be *awesome*, it 
>>> can't resemble, even remotely, any algorithm. You have to look elsewhere, 
>>> within. AG 
>>>
>>
>> Look at it this way. If you grant that the Duality of Knower and Known 
>> can't exist in a Unitary reality, the Knower you seek must be the dual of 
>> You that allows for the duality of self-referencing to *exist*. It's 
>> well hidden, extraordinarily subtle, but obviously not remotely any kind of 
>> algorithm. AG
>>
>>
>>
> An algorithm is just a very explicit description of a process. Would you 
> say that a knower is a process 

Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Jason Resch]

On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 6:16 PM Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 4/23/2022 8:41 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 11:27 AM Alan Grayson 
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 3:03:49 AM UTC-6 smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
>>
>>> On 23-04-2022 04:38, Jason Resch wrote:
>>> > Artificial Life such as these organisms:
>>> >
>>> >
>>> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX
>>> >
>>> > ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )
>>> >
>>> > Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt
>>> > to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food"
>>> > and "poison" in their environment.
>>> >
>>> > If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they
>>> > have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms
>>> > be conscious for the same reasons?
>>> >
>>> > Why or why not?
>>> >
>>>
>>> Yes. If states of consciousness are identified with algorithms, then the
>>> world as viewed from the point of view of a particular worm is defined
>>> by that particular algorithm that the worm's brain is implementing. If
>>> you run that same algorithm also in a simulation, then that same
>>> consciousness exists both in the simulation as a simulated worm and in
>>> the real world as a real worm. The consciousness cannot locate itself in
>>> one or the other situation, as it is identical in both situations.
>>>
>>> Saibal
>>
>>
>> This, of course, is nonsense. The question you should ask yourself is,
>> How can anything know anything? AG
>>
>
>
> I disagree with your assessment that what Saibal said was nonsense,
> however I agree with you that the real question of consciousness is:
>
>  "What is a knower?"
>
> What properties must a system posses to know something? I don't have an
> answer but I have some ideas. I'm interested to hear your or other's take
> on these:
>
> *Consciousness is:*
>
>- Awareness of Information
>- A knowledge State
>- An Infinite Class (infinite possible variations and permutations,
>configurations)
>
> I don't see how you can define it as an infinite anything, since all
> examples are finite.
>

Hi Brent,

I knew that one would throw people off and I should have stated it more
clearly. What that point is meant to mean is that the set or class of
consciousness, (i.e. the set of all ways there are to be conscious), is
infinite and infinitely varied, perhaps even as infinite and as varied as
the objects of mathematics. Though, there may only be a countable infinity
of unique conscious states, if conscious states are in any way equivalent
to computable states.


>
>- A requirement for: Experience, Thought, Feeling, Knowing, Seeing,
>Noticing (can any of these things exist absent consciousness? E.g. some
>part of system that acts like it knows must really know.)
>
> In most contexts "experience" implies memory, reflection, and learning.  A
> the level of awareness and reaction a bacterium or a jellyfish might be
> conscious but not have experience.An activity (not a passive state of 0s
> and 1s, operations/behavior/actions give meaning and context to information
> and how it is processed and what it means)
>

True, I would not say that Experience, Thought, Feeling, Knowing, Seeing,
Noticing are required for consciousness, but consciousness is required for
them. That is to say, you can't have an entity that experiences, thinks,
feels, knows, sees, or notices, unless that thing is in some sense
conscious.

To me, this precludes the logical possibilities of zombies, as in some
cases thinking, or knowing, etc. manifest as observable behaviors, and
therefore, if a purported zombie thinks, it's not a zombie as thinking
implies consciousness.


>
>- Is it a recursive relationship? A model of environment including
>self?
>
> I think that's step above bacteria; maybe planaria.  But the recursion is
> very limited.  And even humans can't do very deep recursion, they just pass
> it off to language.  My LISP can do a lot deeper recursions than I can.Is
> it undefinable?
>
>
>- Word origin: "con" (together/with/unified/united) "scious"
>(knowledge): unified knowledge
>- It exists in the abstract informational state, not in the material
>- A meaningful interpretation of information
>
>
> I think you missed an essential aspect of higher level consciousness.  The
> subconscious is predictive and what is noticed consciously are little (or
> sometimes big) corrections to what was predicted.
>

I agree that is an important trait of human consciousness. If I were to
speculate, I would say the lower level sub-conscious processes of our
brains are conscious in their own right, but when these sub processes fail,
or disagree, or encounter something new or unexpected, they can kick it up
to other areas of the brain and when this happens it is noticed by the
parts of our brain that can remember and talk (and thereby convince others
as well as 

Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Jason Resch]

On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 4:39 PM Alan Grayson  wrote:

>
>
> On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 9:57:54 AM UTC-6 Alan Grayson wrote:
>
>> On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 9:41:24 AM UTC-6 Jason wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 11:27 AM Alan Grayson  wrote:
>>>


 On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 3:03:49 AM UTC-6 smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:

> On 23-04-2022 04:38, Jason Resch wrote:
> > Artificial Life such as these organisms:
> >
> >
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX
> >
> > ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )
> >
> > Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can
> adapt
> > to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between
> "food"
> > and "poison" in their environment.
> >
> > If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because
> they
> > have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms
> > be conscious for the same reasons?
> >
> > Why or why not?
> >
>
> Yes. If states of consciousness are identified with algorithms, then
> the
> world as viewed from the point of view of a particular worm is defined
> by that particular algorithm that the worm's brain is implementing. If
> you run that same algorithm also in a simulation, then that same
> consciousness exists both in the simulation as a simulated worm and in
> the real world as a real worm. The consciousness cannot locate itself
> in
> one or the other situation, as it is identical in both situations.
>
> Saibal


 This, of course, is nonsense. The question you should ask yourself is,
 How can anything know anything? AG

>>>
>>>
>>> I disagree with your assessment that what Saibal said was nonsense,
>>> however I agree with you that the real question of consciousness is:
>>>
>>>  "What is a knower?"
>>>
>>> What properties must a system posses to know something? I don't have an
>>> answer but I have some ideas. I'm interested to hear your or other's take
>>> on these:
>>>
>>> *Consciousness is:*
>>>
>>>- Awareness of Information
>>>- A knowledge State
>>>- An Infinite Class (infinite possible variations and permutations,
>>>configurations)
>>>- A requirement for: Experience, Thought, Feeling, Knowing, Seeing,
>>>Noticing (can any of these things exist absent consciousness? E.g. some
>>>part of system that acts like it knows must really know.)
>>>- An activity (not a passive state of 0s and 1s,
>>>operations/behavior/actions give meaning and context to information and 
>>> how
>>>it is processed and what it means)
>>>- Is it a recursive relationship? A model of environment including
>>>self?
>>>- Is it undefinable?
>>>- Word origin: "con" (together/with/unified/united) "scious"
>>>(knowledge): unified knowledge
>>>- It exists in the abstract informational state, not in the material
>>>- A meaningful interpretation of information
>>>
>>> *Information is:*
>>>
>>>- A difference that makes a difference
>>>- A comparison, differentiation, distinction
>>>- Specification / Indication
>>>- Negative entropy
>>>- A decrease in uncertainty
>>>- A probability of being in different states
>>>- Bits, digits, a number (representations of information)
>>>- A subspace of a larger space
>>>- A state of a finite state machine
>>>- Requires an interpreter (A system to be informed) to be meaningful
>>>
>>> *A subject is:*
>>>
>>>- A system to be informed
>>>- A processor of information
>>>- A knower (a believer)
>>>- An inside viewer
>>>- A first-person
>>>- A possessor of knowledge
>>>- An interpreter of information
>>>- A modeler of environment or self (or both)
>>>
>>> *Knowledge is:*
>>>
>>>- An apprehended truth
>>>- A true belief (bet)
>>>- Not always shareable (when self-referential)
>>>- A relationship between two objects or object and itself
>>>
>>>
>>> Jason
>>>
>>
>> I've encounted "the Knower". If you grant it must be *awesome*, it can't
>> resemble, even remotely, any algorithm. You have to look elsewhere, within.
>> AG
>>
>
> Look at it this way. If you grant that the Duality of Knower and Known
> can't exist in a Unitary reality, the Knower you seek must be the dual of
> You that allows for the duality of self-referencing to *exist*. It's well
> hidden, extraordinarily subtle, but obviously not remotely any kind of
> algorithm. AG
>
>
>
An algorithm is just a very explicit description of a process. Would you
say that a knower is a process of some kind?

Jason

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Brent Meeker]

On 4/23/2022 8:41 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 11:27 AM Alan Grayson  
wrote:




On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 3:03:49 AM UTC-6 smi...@zonnet.nl
wrote:

On 23-04-2022 04:38, Jason Resch wrote:
> Artificial Life such as these organisms:
>
>
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX

>
> ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )
>
> Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection,
can adapt
> to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish
between "food"
> and "poison" in their environment.
>
> If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious,
(because they
> have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial
life forms
> be conscious for the same reasons?
>
> Why or why not?
>

Yes. If states of consciousness are identified with
algorithms, then the
world as viewed from the point of view of a particular worm is
defined
by that particular algorithm that the worm's brain is
implementing. If
you run that same algorithm also in a simulation, then that same
consciousness exists both in the simulation as a simulated
worm and in
the real world as a real worm. The consciousness cannot locate
itself in
one or the other situation, as it is identical in both
situations.

Saibal


This, of course, is nonsense. The question you should ask yourself
is, How can anything know anything? AG



I disagree with your assessment that what Saibal said was nonsense, 
however I agree with you that the real question of consciousness is:


 "What is a knower?"

What properties must a system posses to know something? I don't have 
an answer but I have some ideas. I'm interested to hear your or 
other's take on these:


*Consciousness is:*

  * Awareness of Information
  * A knowledge State
  * An Infinite Class (infinite possible variations and permutations,
configurations)

I don't see how you can define it as an infinite anything, since all 
examples are finite.


  * A requirement for: Experience, Thought, Feeling, Knowing, Seeing,
Noticing (can any of these things exist absent consciousness? E.g.
some part of system that acts like it knows must really know.)

In most contexts "experience" implies memory, reflection, and learning.  
A the level of awareness and reaction a bacterium or a jellyfish might 
be conscious but not have experience.An activity (not a passive state of 
0s and 1s, operations/behavior/actions give meaning and context to 
information and how it is processed and what it means)


  * Is it a recursive relationship? A model of environment including self?

I think that's step above bacteria; maybe planaria.  But the recursion 
is very limited.  And even humans can't do very deep recursion, they 
just pass it off to language.  My LISP can do a lot deeper recursions 
than I can.Is it undefinable?


  * Word origin: "con" (together/with/unified/united) "scious"
(knowledge): unified knowledge
  * It exists in the abstract informational state, not in the material
  * A meaningful interpretation of information



I think you missed an essential aspect of higher level consciousness.  
The subconscious is predictive and what is noticed consciously are 
little (or sometimes big) corrections to what was predicted.



Brent

*Information is:*

  * A difference that makes a difference
  * A comparison, differentiation, distinction
  * Specification / Indication
  * Negative entropy
  * A decrease in uncertainty
  * A probability of being in different states
  * Bits, digits, a number (representations of information)
  * A subspace of a larger space
  * A state of a finite state machine
  * Requires an interpreter (A system to be informed) to be meaningful

*A subject is:*

  * A system to be informed
  * A processor of information
  * A knower (a believer)
  * An inside viewer
  * A first-person
  * A possessor of knowledge
  * An interpreter of information
  * A modeler of environment or self (or both)

*Knowledge is:*

  * An apprehended truth
  * A true belief (bet)
  * Not always shareable (when self-referential)
  * A relationship between two objects or object and itself


Jason
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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Alan Grayson]

On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 9:57:54 AM UTC-6 Alan Grayson wrote:

> On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 9:41:24 AM UTC-6 Jason wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 11:27 AM Alan Grayson  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 3:03:49 AM UTC-6 smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
>>>
 On 23-04-2022 04:38, Jason Resch wrote: 
 > Artificial Life such as these organisms: 
 > 
 > 
 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX 
 > 
 > ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots ) 
 > 
 > Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can 
 adapt 
 > to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between 
 "food" 
 > and "poison" in their environment. 
 > 
 > If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because 
 they 
 > have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms 
 > be conscious for the same reasons? 
 > 
 > Why or why not? 
 > 

 Yes. If states of consciousness are identified with algorithms, then 
 the 
 world as viewed from the point of view of a particular worm is defined 
 by that particular algorithm that the worm's brain is implementing. If 
 you run that same algorithm also in a simulation, then that same 
 consciousness exists both in the simulation as a simulated worm and in 
 the real world as a real worm. The consciousness cannot locate itself 
 in 
 one or the other situation, as it is identical in both situations. 

 Saibal
>>>
>>>
>>> This, of course, is nonsense. The question you should ask yourself is, 
>>> How can anything know anything? AG 
>>>
>>
>>
>> I disagree with your assessment that what Saibal said was nonsense, 
>> however I agree with you that the real question of consciousness is:
>>
>>  "What is a knower?"
>>
>> What properties must a system posses to know something? I don't have an 
>> answer but I have some ideas. I'm interested to hear your or other's take 
>> on these:
>>
>> *Consciousness is:*
>>
>>- Awareness of Information
>>- A knowledge State
>>- An Infinite Class (infinite possible variations and permutations, 
>>configurations)
>>- A requirement for: Experience, Thought, Feeling, Knowing, Seeing, 
>>Noticing (can any of these things exist absent consciousness? E.g. some 
>>part of system that acts like it knows must really know.)
>>- An activity (not a passive state of 0s and 1s, 
>>operations/behavior/actions give meaning and context to information and 
>> how 
>>it is processed and what it means)
>>- Is it a recursive relationship? A model of environment including 
>>self?
>>- Is it undefinable?
>>- Word origin: "con" (together/with/unified/united) "scious" 
>>(knowledge): unified knowledge
>>- It exists in the abstract informational state, not in the material
>>- A meaningful interpretation of information
>>
>> *Information is:*
>>
>>- A difference that makes a difference
>>- A comparison, differentiation, distinction
>>- Specification / Indication
>>- Negative entropy
>>- A decrease in uncertainty
>>- A probability of being in different states
>>- Bits, digits, a number (representations of information)
>>- A subspace of a larger space
>>- A state of a finite state machine
>>- Requires an interpreter (A system to be informed) to be meaningful
>>
>> *A subject is:*
>>
>>- A system to be informed
>>- A processor of information
>>- A knower (a believer)
>>- An inside viewer
>>- A first-person
>>- A possessor of knowledge
>>- An interpreter of information
>>- A modeler of environment or self (or both)
>>
>> *Knowledge is:*
>>
>>- An apprehended truth
>>- A true belief (bet)
>>- Not always shareable (when self-referential)
>>- A relationship between two objects or object and itself
>>
>>
>> Jason
>>
>
> I've encounted "the Knower". If you grant it must be *awesome*, it can't 
> resemble, even remotely, any algorithm. You have to look elsewhere, within. 
> AG 
>

Look at it this way. If you grant that the Duality of Knower and Known 
can't exist in a Unitary reality, the Knower you seek must be the dual of 
You that allows for the duality of self-referencing to *exist*. It's well 
hidden, extraordinarily subtle, but obviously not remotely any kind of 
algorithm. AG

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Alan Grayson]

On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 9:41:24 AM UTC-6 Jason wrote:

>
>
> On Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 11:27 AM Alan Grayson  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 3:03:49 AM UTC-6 smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
>>
>>> On 23-04-2022 04:38, Jason Resch wrote: 
>>> > Artificial Life such as these organisms: 
>>> > 
>>> > 
>>> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX 
>>> > 
>>> > ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots ) 
>>> > 
>>> > Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt 
>>> > to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food" 
>>> > and "poison" in their environment. 
>>> > 
>>> > If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they 
>>> > have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms 
>>> > be conscious for the same reasons? 
>>> > 
>>> > Why or why not? 
>>> > 
>>>
>>> Yes. If states of consciousness are identified with algorithms, then the 
>>> world as viewed from the point of view of a particular worm is defined 
>>> by that particular algorithm that the worm's brain is implementing. If 
>>> you run that same algorithm also in a simulation, then that same 
>>> consciousness exists both in the simulation as a simulated worm and in 
>>> the real world as a real worm. The consciousness cannot locate itself in 
>>> one or the other situation, as it is identical in both situations. 
>>>
>>> Saibal
>>
>>
>> This, of course, is nonsense. The question you should ask yourself is, 
>> How can anything know anything? AG 
>>
>
>
> I disagree with your assessment that what Saibal said was nonsense, 
> however I agree with you that the real question of consciousness is:
>
>  "What is a knower?"
>
> What properties must a system posses to know something? I don't have an 
> answer but I have some ideas. I'm interested to hear your or other's take 
> on these:
>
> *Consciousness is:*
>
>- Awareness of Information
>- A knowledge State
>- An Infinite Class (infinite possible variations and permutations, 
>configurations)
>- A requirement for: Experience, Thought, Feeling, Knowing, Seeing, 
>Noticing (can any of these things exist absent consciousness? E.g. some 
>part of system that acts like it knows must really know.)
>- An activity (not a passive state of 0s and 1s, 
>operations/behavior/actions give meaning and context to information and 
> how 
>it is processed and what it means)
>- Is it a recursive relationship? A model of environment including 
>self?
>- Is it undefinable?
>- Word origin: "con" (together/with/unified/united) "scious" 
>(knowledge): unified knowledge
>- It exists in the abstract informational state, not in the material
>- A meaningful interpretation of information
>
> *Information is:*
>
>- A difference that makes a difference
>- A comparison, differentiation, distinction
>- Specification / Indication
>- Negative entropy
>- A decrease in uncertainty
>- A probability of being in different states
>- Bits, digits, a number (representations of information)
>- A subspace of a larger space
>- A state of a finite state machine
>- Requires an interpreter (A system to be informed) to be meaningful
>
> *A subject is:*
>
>- A system to be informed
>- A processor of information
>- A knower (a believer)
>- An inside viewer
>- A first-person
>- A possessor of knowledge
>- An interpreter of information
>- A modeler of environment or self (or both)
>
> *Knowledge is:*
>
>- An apprehended truth
>- A true belief (bet)
>- Not always shareable (when self-referential)
>- A relationship between two objects or object and itself
>
>
> Jason
>

I've encounted "the Knower". If you grant it must be *awesome*, it can't 
resemble, even remotely, any algorithm. You have to look elsewhere, within. 
AG 

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Jason Resch]

On Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 11:27 AM Alan Grayson  wrote:

>
>
> On Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 3:03:49 AM UTC-6 smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
>
>> On 23-04-2022 04:38, Jason Resch wrote:
>> > Artificial Life such as these organisms:
>> >
>> >
>> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX
>> >
>> > ( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )
>> >
>> > Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt
>> > to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food"
>> > and "poison" in their environment.
>> >
>> > If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they
>> > have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms
>> > be conscious for the same reasons?
>> >
>> > Why or why not?
>> >
>>
>> Yes. If states of consciousness are identified with algorithms, then the
>> world as viewed from the point of view of a particular worm is defined
>> by that particular algorithm that the worm's brain is implementing. If
>> you run that same algorithm also in a simulation, then that same
>> consciousness exists both in the simulation as a simulated worm and in
>> the real world as a real worm. The consciousness cannot locate itself in
>> one or the other situation, as it is identical in both situations.
>>
>> Saibal
>
>
> This, of course, is nonsense. The question you should ask yourself is, How
> can anything know anything? AG
>


I disagree with your assessment that what Saibal said was nonsense, however
I agree with you that the real question of consciousness is:

 "What is a knower?"

What properties must a system posses to know something? I don't have an
answer but I have some ideas. I'm interested to hear your or other's take
on these:

*Consciousness is:*

   - Awareness of Information
   - A knowledge State
   - An Infinite Class (infinite possible variations and permutations,
   configurations)
   - A requirement for: Experience, Thought, Feeling, Knowing, Seeing,
   Noticing (can any of these things exist absent consciousness? E.g. some
   part of system that acts like it knows must really know.)
   - An activity (not a passive state of 0s and 1s,
   operations/behavior/actions give meaning and context to information and how
   it is processed and what it means)
   - Is it a recursive relationship? A model of environment including self?
   - Is it undefinable?
   - Word origin: "con" (together/with/unified/united) "scious"
   (knowledge): unified knowledge
   - It exists in the abstract informational state, not in the material
   - A meaningful interpretation of information

*Information is:*

   - A difference that makes a difference
   - A comparison, differentiation, distinction
   - Specification / Indication
   - Negative entropy
   - A decrease in uncertainty
   - A probability of being in different states
   - Bits, digits, a number (representations of information)
   - A subspace of a larger space
   - A state of a finite state machine
   - Requires an interpreter (A system to be informed) to be meaningful

*A subject is:*

   - A system to be informed
   - A processor of information
   - A knower (a believer)
   - An inside viewer
   - A first-person
   - A possessor of knowledge
   - An interpreter of information
   - A modeler of environment or self (or both)

*Knowledge is:*

   - An apprehended truth
   - A true belief (bet)
   - Not always shareable (when self-referential)
   - A relationship between two objects or object and itself


Jason

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[John Clark]

Is *non*-artificial life, other than me of course, conscious?

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

o00

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Re: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[smitra]

On 23-04-2022 04:38, Jason Resch wrote:

Artificial Life such as these organisms:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX

( https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots )

Have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt
to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food"
and "poison" in their environment.

If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they
have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms
be conscious for the same reasons?

Why or why not?



Yes. If states of consciousness are identified with algorithms, then the 
world as viewed from the point of view of a particular worm is defined 
by that particular algorithm that the worm's brain is implementing. If 
you run that same algorithm also in a simulation, then that same 
consciousness exists both in the simulation as a simulated worm and in 
the real world as a real worm. The consciousness cannot locate itself in 
one or the other situation, as it is identical in both situations.


Saibal



Jason

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