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Mystic, it is not a double standard to argue as we have done that the basic material of what becomes alive is the same as what is not alive and thus in principle there is no reason why life and consciousness should not be duplicated in a sort of AI way. It may be wrong, but there seems no logical reason in principle why it couldn't be done. That is nothing to do with double standards, and I can hardly believe that someone with expertise in philosophy should have said so. But then i know that you logic seems skewed even at base, simply by your faith -based refusal to accept some premises that conflict with it.
Your flat claim that the claim that there is nothing fundamentally different between life and non-life working is 'ludicrous' smacks of blinkered dismissal of some idea you don't like, though you must have seen the reasoning.
If the feasibility of a theory of life emerging from non -life is accepted, then the emergence of consciousness and in due course sentience should also be accepted as feasible. Thus in principle our being able to do it in time should not be considered unfeasible.
Are we doing the consciousness in a robot argument all over again?
You did not address the bold! It is the "missing ingredient" that you critics of my "article of faith" just ignore and allow to inhabit only the penumbra of your argumentation . . .
Honestly, I skipped it because it was such a weak argument, I thought it was a throwaway dig. But since you want it addressed...
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
Let's face it . . . we have no clue why a perfectly functional body would cease to live. There are many such cases. If it is only the undamaged material that is there that provides life . . . why would it not continue to live????
Firstly, you are absolutely right. We have no clue why a perfectly healthy body you ecase to live. If we have no clue, we cannot then come to the conclusion that it is becasue it has ceased to resonante with the consciousness field, ot that the soul has fled.
Secondly, your statement assumes that we have perfect knowledge of the body. You are assuming that there can be no naturalistic ( meaning nonsubstance dualism based) explanation the we might misdiagnose or not understand. It is funny that to prove a materialistic, scientific worldview wrong, you relay on a materialistic, scientific explanation being utterly perfect and complete...
So you are simply pleading a double argument from ignorance, if we don't know why some one died, it can't have been natural, and since we know of no other explanation it must have been your particular brand of dualism behind it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
The only double standard here is held by those who actually think there is nothing FUNDAMENTALLY different between living and non-living functioning. It is a ludicrous claim that underlies this entire discussion. Yes . . . I take it as a brute fact that mimicking the living is NOT being alive. Being alive is a necessary state for sentience.
I am not sure I have ever said there is no fundamental difference between life and non-life. Clearly in a great many ways a rock is different than a plant or a bacteria, or a cat. However the critical part of your assertion here, that sentience is contingent on biological life, is just thrown out there as a given, while you spend a great deal of effort picking at things that were not said.
So to be clear, I am willing to stipulate that there are fundamental differences between things that are alive and things that are not. They are however, related in that they share the same fundamental building blocks. What I am not willing to postulate is that sentience is contingent on biological life. Nowhere have you given a good explanation for why you believe that, you simply assert it as an article of faith. On the other side of the argument we have those who postulate that consciousness, sentience, is related to the structure, and thus the algorithmic nature of the brain. This side has a great deal of evidence that the brain structure itself is responsible for a great deal of how we think, including self referential thought. Analyzing the structure of the brain has given us neural networks, it has given us fuzzy logic, and it has progressed to the point where we may be able to build a model of a nematode "brain" and compare the resulting behaviour of the simulated "brain" to that of a real nematode. We see actual progress, actual work being done. To simply dismiss that as a point of doctrine, seems a bit wrongheaded...
Honestly, I skipped it because it was such a weak argument, I thought it was a throwaway dig. But since you want it addressed...
Firstly, you are absolutely right. We have no clue why a perfectly healthy body you ecase to live. If we have no clue, we cannot then come to the conclusion that it is becasue it has ceased to resonante with the consciousness field, ot that the soul has fled.
Secondly, your statement assumes that we have perfect knowledge of the body. You are assuming that there can be no naturalistic ( meaning nonsubstance dualism based) explanation the we might misdiagnose or not understand. It is funny that to prove a materialistic, scientific worldview wrong, you relay on a materialistic, scientific explanation being utterly perfect and complete...
So you are simply pleading a double argument from ignorance, if we don't know why some one died, it can't have been natural, and since we know of no other explanation it must have been your particular brand of dualism behind it.
I am not sure I have ever said there is no fundamental difference between life and non-life. Clearly in a great many ways a rock is different than a plant or a bacteria, or a cat. However the critical part of your assertion here, that sentience is contingent on biological life, is just thrown out there as a given, while you spend a great deal of effort picking at things that were not said.
So to be clear, I am willing to stipulate that there are fundamental differences between things that are alive and things that are not. They are however, related in that they share the same fundamental building blocks. What I am not willing to postulate is that sentience is contingent on biological life. Nowhere have you given a good explanation for why you believe that, you simply assert it as an article of faith. On the other side of the argument we have those who postulate that consciousness, sentience, is related to the structure, and thus the algorithmic nature of the brain. This side has a great deal of evidence that the brain structure itself is responsible for a great deal of how we think, including self referential thought. Analyzing the structure of the brain has given us neural networks, it has given us fuzzy logic, and it has progressed to the point where we may be able to build a model of a nematode "brain" and compare the resulting behaviour of the simulated "brain" to that of a real nematode. We see actual progress, actual work being done. To simply dismiss that as a point of doctrine, seems a bit wrongheaded...
-NoCapo
To be clear ?
In marketing its learnt early on, the salesman needs to have something in order to sell something.
The body is full of bacteria. The bacteria has needs. Iow bacteria doesn't just behav in ways 'just because'
The immune system is real and intimately connected with need in many ways, iow the nature of bacteria is in keeping with need, the brain needs blood, the human body has needs and those needs have to do with survival in -this world. Consciousness like everything else is relative to something and that something is need, including food and blood which is real . ( clearly .
what are you going to feed the machine in order to continue even considering this topic. A hypothesis needs to warrant further research , therefore as it is , the hypothesis is on the entertainment shelf until there is something which can address these known realities. Iow the word real has a meaning. Imagining something has nothing to do with whether its real or not, sound familiar or is the atheist position in jeopardy. you guys deserve it after this week's glory grab that's for sure.
Last edited by Sophronius; 01-31-2015 at 12:26 PM..
The body is full of bacteria. The bacteria has needs. Iow the bacteria doesn't just behav in the ways 'just because'
The immune system is real and intimately connected with need in many ways, iow the nature of bacteria is in keeping with need, the brain needs blood, the human body has needs and those needs have to do with survival in -this world. Consciousness like everything else is relative to something and that something is need, food in other words,
what are you going to feed the machine in order to continue even considering this topic. A hypothesis needs to warrant further research , therefore as it is , the hypothsis is on the shelf until there is something which can address these known realities. Iow the word real has a meaning. Imagining something has nothing to do with whether its real or not, sound familiar or is the atheist position in jeopardy. Machine man even though I don't think most theist could care less is basically enthusiastic for some reason to the non-believer which is a tad bit unusual to the big complaints seen with flying spgetty monster , etc etc. So different set of rules I see , hmmm. Just gotta imagine something huh.
To be honest, I am not sure what it the world you are saying... It appears as though you believe bacteria is responsible for the mind? That seems... odd, to say the least.
My point is that if self-awareness, consciousness comes from the arrangement of biology, the structure of a brain or nervous system, then theoretically a simulation of this biology would behave the same way as the actual organism. If this were to be demonstrated, it would go a long way to demonstrating that the mind, the self, consciousness is rooted in our material bodies, and not some field phenomenon, or spirit that inhabits our bodies like wearing a meat suit.
If on the other hand consciousness somehow transcends the body, then we should be unable to duplicate the behavior of a mind by duplicating its structure.
I am not sure I have ever said there is no fundamental difference between life and non-life. Clearly in a great many ways a rock is different than a plant or a bacteria, or a cat. However the critical part of your assertion here, that sentience is contingent on biological life, is just thrown out there as a given, while you spend a great deal of effort picking at things that were not said.
The kindest thing that can be said, I think, is that Mystic takes that sentience is contingent on biological life, to be axiomatically self-evident, when it is not.
It may be that it is contingent on biological life. I am agnostic on that point, actually, though I think it rather more likely that it is NOT contingent for various reasons and that folks like Mystic are simply exhibiting confirmation bias when they insist that it IS contingent. One has to ask, WHY is this so unthinkable? I think that it offends human vanity and hubris (to use Mystic's terminology) by denying humanity some fundamental, atomic specialness that it's used to assuming it has simply because encountering non-human sentience at the level of language-using, tool-inventing, and philosophizing is at present outside human experience. It happens that only one species evolved on this particular world that unambiguously has those characteristics. It happens that we don't understand, yet, how to build something substantially equivalent mechanically or digitally. So it remains "unthinkable" in the same way that space travel, antibiotics, steam engines traveling at a mile a minute or television were once unthinkable and ridiculed as axiomatically impractical or impossible.
All that is lacking is for someone to demonstrate that it is doable, even crudely, and such thought-habits will crumble. That may or may not happen in the field of AI -- particularly within my lifetime -- but Mystic in my view has no more basis to say it's inherently impossible than I do to say it's inherently possible (which, BTW, is not what I'm saying).
To be honest, I am not sure what it the world you are saying... It appears as though you believe bacteria is responsible for the mind? That seems... odd, to say the least.
My point is that if self-awareness, consciousness comes from the arrangement of biology, the structure of a brain or nervous system, then theoretically a simulation of this biology would behave the same way as the actual organism. If this were to be demonstrated, it would go a long way to demonstrating that the mind, the self, consciousness is rooted in our material bodies, and not some field phenomenon, or spirit that inhabits our bodies like wearing a meat suit.
If on the other hand consciousness somehow transcends the body, then we should be unable to duplicate the behavior of a mind by duplicating its structure.
-NoCapo
Well then whats going to consequence a kind of consciousness ?
Last edited by Sophronius; 01-31-2015 at 01:48 PM..
Well then whats going to consequence a kind of consciousness ? What have you got besides nothing?
I don't believe you have a clue as to what you are talking about. What is your description of consciousness and its purpose or role etc ? Go ahead don't be shy , your trying to teach and I say the view is totally confused. What is the product your trying to explain and sell, exactly , whats in the briefcase.
Actually I have come to the conclusion it's you that has no idea what you are talking about -- in no small measure because you're unable to clearly articulate what you are talking about.
And here you are simply assuming the same gambit that theists use all the time ... okay, if evolution is true, prove it. If there is no god, prove it. Ignoring that evolution IS proven, god is unprovable, and the extraordinary claim carries the burden of proof.
It seems to me that the burden of proof lies with you if you are taking essentially Mystic's position here. If consciousness is axiomatically impossible in non-living entities, prove it. If you have no evidence, then at least prove that it is more likely than other possible explanations. Show that you are not making sentience more complex or contingent or elaborate than it needs to be. Show that your explanation is the more economical.
I can't speak for others, but I am simply taking the position that we don't know for sure that machine consciousness substantially equivalent to human consciousness is possible, but there's no reason in principle why not -- other than that we're used to thinking of it as inseparable from life. Just as 500 years ago people weren't used to thinking of motion as inseparable from life, so that serious philosophers were assuming that heavenly bodies had souls, since they moved.
I can't speak for others, but I am simply taking the position that we don't know for sure that machine consciousness substantially equivalent to human consciousness is possible, but there's no reason in principle why not -- other than that we're used to thinking of it as inseparable from life. Just as 500 years ago people weren't used to thinking of motion as inseparable from life, so that serious philosophers were assuming that heavenly bodies had souls, since they moved.
And I agree, but I'll go a tiny bit further and say that I think the evidence is currently pointing to the mind as an algorithmic sort of product of the structure of the brain. I base this on the correlation between increased "consciousness" ( language, self awareness, etc...) and complexity of neural structures, as well as the fact that we have been able to take brain structures, and translate them into useful algorithmic tools like neural nets and fuzzy logic. It is certainly not conclusive, but it is suggestive.
As far as what it all means, I have no idea! It is something that science fiction authors have been pondering for a long time. Issac Asimov, Phillip K. Dick, Anne McCaffrey, and countless others have tried to think through what it would mean for us, for morality, laws, and ethics if machines were able to be sentient, but how it would change humanity in reality, I have no idea. It certainly would shake us up, though!
Not arbitrarily . . . experientially. Everything in my experiences informs my belief. The only difference between experimentally and experientially . . . is second person validation. Let's face it . . . we have no clue why a perfectly functional body would cease to live. There are many such cases. If it is only the undamaged material that is there that provides life . . . why would it not continue to live????
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
You did not address the bold! It is the "missing ingredient" that you critics of my "article of faith" just ignore and allow to inhabit only the penumbra of your argumentation . . . not the substance. It is why it should not surprise you at all that I said . . . IF Gaylen were to succeed in his quixotic philosophical quest . . . he would solve the abiogenesis problem as well.
The only double standard here is held by those who actually think there is nothing FUNDAMENTALLY different between living and non-living functioning. It is a ludicrous claim that underlies this entire discussion. Yes . . . I take it as a brute fact that mimicking the living is NOT being alive. Being alive is a necessary state for sentience.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NoCapo
Firstly, you are absolutely right. We have no clue why a perfectly healthy body you ecase to live. If we have no clue, we cannot then come to the conclusion that it is because it has ceased to resonate with the consciousness field, or that the soul has fled.
But it HAS failed to do something and something HAS fled. You may not like my versions of WHAT . . . but pretending that there was nothing but the material present is a non-starter.
Quote:
Secondly, your statement assumes that we have perfect knowledge of the body. You are assuming that there can be no naturalistic ( meaning nonsubstance dualism based) explanation the we might misdiagnose or not understand. It is funny that to prove a materialistic, scientific worldview wrong, you relay on a materialistic, scientific explanation being utterly perfect and complete...
Preposterous. You know I make no such claim. Perfection is not attainable (except by happenstance) by us fallible humans. It would certainly never be a requirement.
Quote:
So you are simply pleading a double argument from ignorance, if we don't know why some one died, it can't have been natural, and since we know of no other explanation it must have been your particular brand of dualism behind it.
As I said above . . . it is NOT my "particular brand of dualism behind it." But to pretend that there is not SOME brand behind it is just materialist bigotry . . . given the failure of the material present to continue to "live."
Quote:
So to be clear, I am willing to stipulate that there are fundamental differences between things that are alive and things that are not. They are however, related in that they share the same fundamental building blocks. What I am not willing to postulate is that sentience is contingent on biological life. Nowhere have you given a good explanation for why you believe that, you simply assert it as an article of faith. On the other side of the argument we have those who postulate that consciousness, sentience, is related to the structure, and thus the algorithmic nature of the brain. This side has a great deal of evidence that the brain structure itself is responsible for a great deal of how we think, including self referential thought. Analyzing the structure of the brain has given us neural networks, it has given us fuzzy logic, and it has progressed to the point where we may be able to build a model of a nematode "brain" and compare the resulting behaviour of the simulated "brain" to that of a real nematode. We see actual progress, actual work being done. To simply dismiss that as a point of doctrine, seems a bit wrongheaded...
-NoCapo
I spent the better part of 30 years attempting to model human decision-making quantitatively and algorithmically. At NO TIME did I ever think that what the mathematics or algorithms were doing in ANY WAY was what humans were doing. We could simulate the OUTCOMES of human decision-making . . . but at no time did we think we mapped what humans were actually doing to get the outcomes. This is why I am adamant that whatever OUTCOMES we can simulate with mathematical algorithms will NEVER BE what we humans experience as consciousness and sentience.
But it HAS failed to do something and something HAS fled.
Ok, but without assuming that we have full and complete knowledge of the material human being, you cannot rule out a material cause. Just because we don't know what it is does not imply that the answer must be something transcendent, or non material.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
You may not like my versions of WHAT . . . but pretending that there was nothing but the material present is a non-starter.
Why? That is the assumption you are making. I am not making that assumption. There could be something dualistic, something that is "us" that is not the body nor tied to it, but again this is just assertion, you have not explained why this must be so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
As I said above . . . it is NOT my "particular brand of dualism behind it." But to pretend that there is not SOME brand behind it is just materialist bigotry . . . given the failure of the material present to continue to "live."
Again, this is just an assertion, with a little ad hominim thrown on top of it. As far as I can tell you are pulling out the old Creationist canard, "If you can't prove me wrong, then I am right." The correct answer is simply that we don't know, unless you can demonstrate otherwise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
I spent the better part of 30 years attempting to model human decision-making quantitatively and algorithmically. At NO TIME did I ever think that what the mathematics or algorithms were doing in ANY WAY was what humans were doing. We could simulate the OUTCOMES of human decision-making . . . but at no time did we think we mapped what humans were actually doing to get the outcomes. This is why I am adamant that whatever OUTCOMES we can simulate with mathematical algorithms will NEVER BE what we humans experience as consciousness and sentience.
Believe it or not, I agree with you! But here is the huge caveat, you were modelling behaviours. The OpenWorm project is not trying to model the behaviour of a nematode, it is trying to model the structure of the nematode. The idea is that if underlying structure and process of the nematode is reproduced, then maybe the behaviour will naturally emerge from the structure.
This is where I think much of our AI research has been lacking, we have been trying to model the outcomes of our thought process, and I agree that we are unlikely to replicate the underlying mind that way. Even though IBM can build computers that win at chess and Jeopardy, they are not thinking, at least not in the way we do. This is why I find the structural approach so intriguing. If we can model the structure of the mind, and the behaviour emerges, that gets us much farther down the road to understanding our own minds than simple mimicry of behaviour or outcomes.
-NoCapo
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