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this thinking is along the lines of Gaylen raising the question of robots and machines and artificial intelligence becoming so advanced they will "become conscious."
that "logic" appears to see humans as simply a bundle of chemicals, flesh, sinew, bone, muscle, tissue.
purely physical. so (the mindset goes) it can be replicated by the right recipe of physical components.
in the most glaring sense it misses (avoids? denies? fails to recognize? does not understand? is utterly unhinged from boots on the ground reality?) what makes a human different than a machine.
so Harry, or anyone, what makes a human different from a machine?
there are some similarities and difference traz. as he pointed out. what we really are talking about is awareness. Can there be other forms of awareness equal to humans in the future?
the answer is probably yes. in fact, probably yes is more reasonable than probably no.
this thinking is along the lines of Gaylen raising the question of robots and machines and artificial intelligence becoming so advanced they will "become conscious."
...so Harry, or anyone, what makes a human different from a machine?
A quick answer:
(1) Machines are created by intelligent beings for a purpose.
(2) Humans spontaneously emerged (over eons) via the self-organizing principles that are implicit in the nature of physical stuff.
But nothing in this essential difference implies that machines can't be conscious. After all, according to your view, God created humans for a purpose, so right there is proof in the pudding that beings created by intelligence for a purpose can, in principle, be conscious. I suspect you will want to say that only God can create a conscious being, but that would be just a blatant assertion. The question would be "Why should we believe your claim?" and to answer that you will need to put some meat on those bone and explain a bit about why only God can create conscious beings. Exactly what does God do in the building process that humans could not possible do in the building of machines? One possibility is that God simply uses magic. Poofs! A miracle occurs! End of story. You are welcome to believe that, but I see no good reason to believe that, so long as there are, in principle, other plausible naturalistic explanations available.
In any case, I think the more carefully targeted question is not "What makes humans different than machines?" but, rather: "What are the key differences between sentient intelligent systems and those that are not?" Then the answer would probably be something along the lines of: "The right sort of complexity and/or dynamics." Of course there is the further question of what, exactly is the "right sort" of complexity/dynamics? Here we get into one of the central questions of AI, and we don't have a technologically sound answer at the moment. But the fact that we don't have the answer yet does not imply that we can't find an answer. Your assertions have given us no reason whatsoever to believe that science is incapable of eventually finding an answer.
Personally, I think the answer will be in the ball park of recursive self-organizing dynamics (i.e., complex information processing dynamics capable of self-reference) combined with a variation on physicalism that allows proto-qualitative properties to be identified in the fundamentals of physics. The self-referential dynamics will supply the "logic of subjectivity" and the paradigm-shift allowing qualitative information into physics will, hopefully, help supply the qualitative part of the qualitative subjective aspect of qualia.
I also suspect that sentient machines will probably result from a combination of bioengineering and mechanical engineering, rather than just straight-up mechanical engineering, just because I suspect that the typical "life" elements (especially carbon) might be the only elements that can realistically perform the right sorts of dynamics, and we will probably use living systems as models for how to make nano-engineered mechanisms. And, along these lines, there will probably be some sort of genetics involved - not so much for the inheritance aspect, but more for the "control mechanisms" aspect - again, because we will probably use living systems as our guide for how to do this. But I could be wrong about all that. Maybe GOFAI can get us there, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that.
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 06-10-2018 at 01:55 PM..
A quick answer:
(1) Machines are created by intelligent beings for a purpose.
(2) Humans spontaneously emerged (over eons) via the self-organizing principles that are implicit in the nature of physical stuff.
But nothing in this essential difference implies that machines can't be conscious. After all, according to your view, God created humans for a purpose, so right there is proof in the pudding that beings created by intelligence for a purpose can, in principle, be conscious. I suspect you will want to say that only God can create a conscious being, but that would be just a blatant assertion. The question would be "Why should we believe your claim?" and to answer that you will need to put some meat on those bone and explain a bit about why only God can create conscious beings. Exactly what does God do in the building process that humans could not possible do in the building of machines? One possibility is that God simply uses magic. Poofs! A miracle occurs! End of story. You are welcome to believe that, but I see no good reason to believe that, so long as there are, in principle, other plausible naturalistic explanations available.
In any case, I think the more carefully targeted question is not "What makes humans different than machines?" but, rather: "What are the key differences between sentient intelligent systems and those that are not?" Then the answer would probably be something along the lines of: "The right sort of complexity and/or dynamics." Of course there is the further question of what, exactly is the "right sort" of complexity/dynamics? Here we get into one of the central questions of AI, and we don't have a technologically sound answer at the moment. But the fact that we don't have the answer yet does not imply that we can't find an answer. Your assertions have given us no reason whatsoever to believe that science is incapable of eventually finding an answer.
Personally, I think the answer will be in the ball park of recursive self-organizing dynamics (i.e., complex information processing dynamics capable of self-reference) combined with a variation on physicalism that allows proto-qualitative properties to be identified in the fundamentals of physics. The self-referential dynamics will supply the "logic of subjectivity" and the paradigm-shift allowing qualitative information into physics will, hopefully, help supply the qualitative part of the qualitative subjective aspect[/i][/b] of qualia.
if you are saying that machines can be "alive"
then yes you are unhinged from boots on the ground practical reality
and no you do not know the basic difference between a machine and a human.
that is the point i am making
the only people who consistently use phrases like "poof magic occurs!" and "woo" are the people who label themselves as "intellectuals." Do you have any idea how ignorant a person sounds when they use phrases like "woo" and "magic" ?
1) Machines have not become advanced enough to be conscious.
2) Our brains process in parallel, a robot in series. So we process large amounts of information quicker.
3) While robots can be programmed to do some of the things we do, and other robots programmed to do yet other things, only we have the processing power to do all of those things together.
4) We have a chemical feedback system that has much to do with our emotions.
5) Many robots are programmed to do tasks correctly. We evolved to do many tasks incorrectly.
These and other differences are well understood; not missed, avoided, denied, unrecognized, misunderstand, or utterly unhinged.
thank you Harry you have at least come up with a list of how machines are different, which is more than others have provided. it includes one of the most obvious "emotions." some have said emotions are just chemicals so (they reason with generous hand waving) all it takes is the right recipe of chemicals and the robot will become alive.
Harry (or anyone) do you see machines ever becoming "alive" ?
right now you are saying technology is not advanced enough.
do you see technology ever becoming advanced enough?
that is the conversation i want to hear, around "no it will never happen because _______ " and "yes of course it will happen because ______ "
whether it is between you and Gaylen, or anyone else who cares to weigh in on either position and give their reasons, views, opinions
if you are saying that machines can be "alive"
then yes you are unhinged from boots on the ground practical reality
and no you do not know the basic difference between a machine and a human.
What you consistently do in these threads is make blatant assertions without ever offering any good reasons for thinking that your assertions are true. You give no reasons for anyone to believe you and thus, for the most part, we don't. If anyone in this thread is fully on board with Tza's claims, I'd really love to hear from you. And, hopefully, you can take her torch and run a bit more successfully with it. What are some reasons to believe that she is right? In this case: Why, as a matter of principle, can't machines possibly be conscious?
If no one is willing to step up to the task an help Tza along the way here, then I might be inclined to think that Tza's position basically boils down to this: "Everyone in this thread is unhinged from reality except Tza" - which would make Tza a very special person, indeed.
What you consistently do in these threads is make blatant assertions without ever offering any good reasons for thinking that your assertions are true. You give no reasons for anyone to believe you and thus, for the most part, we don't. If anyone in this thread is fully on board with Tza's claims, I'd really love to hear from you. And, hopefully, you can take her torch and run a bit more successfully with it. What are some reasons to believe that she is right? In this case: Why, as a matter of principle, can't machines possibly be conscious?
If no one is willing to step up to the task an help Tza along the way here, then I might be inclined to think that Tza's position basically boils down to this: "Everyone in this thread is unhinged from reality except Tza" - which would make Tza a very special person, indeed.
gaylen
i am still waiting for you to give a simple list of how a human is different from a machine
and why machines are not alive, no matter how advanced technology gets
because that gives the answer to what you are asking
about why machines are not alive and never will be alive.
What you consistently do in these threads is make blatant assertions without ever offering any good reasons for thinking that your assertions are true. You give no reasons for anyone to believe you and thus, for the most part, we don't. If anyone in this thread is fully on board with Tza's claims, I'd really love to hear from you. And, hopefully, you can take her torch and run a bit more successfully with it. What are some reasons to believe that she is right? In this case: Why, as a matter of principle, can't machines possibly be conscious?
If no one is willing to step up to the task an help Tza along the way here, then I might be inclined to think that Tza's position basically boils down to this: "Everyone in this thread is unhinged from reality except Tza" - which would make Tza a very special person, indeed.
most people can articulate why a machine is not alive. even young children in preschool can tackle this.
if a person can not articulate the difference between a human and a machine, then yes they are unhinged from practical reality.
The best I can do in discussing the music existing outside of the person playing it is in the sun. All the notes are probably there. As we increase the volume of what we are discussing, the chances of the notes existing increase. but that's not the same thing.
Then we have the music in the head of the musician. well, harry ol' boy, the music is there as surely as it is in my head as I am hearing it. Thats simple enough. I mean we can play games, but people who know music can hear it and play it in their head. Its real enough in there. Its probably more real than even in my head.
the music existing only at the instrument and in the air is short sighted and leads to huge gaps in understanding of what music is.
but the real question is "what is producing the music?"
Human's or the universe?
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