translating physical data (from the brain) to phenomological awareness...

[restless-nemesis]

when androids sleep, do they dream of electric sheep? - Phillip K Dick

 

[elemenohpee]

this won't be the case for long. computers can pass us by in terms of intelligence, decision planning/making, etc

I know, but the key here is that it hasn't yet. The thing that will allow for this will be humans programming a computer in a way that uses whatever principles of the brain create consciousness. It is not inherent in the way that computers function.

also, i fail to see how this relates to whether or not it can have a phenomological awareness or not

Because it is not wired to do so. as I said before, I have no doubt that sonner rather than later we will have the capability to create a conscious AI, just that it hasn't happened yet.

related reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating#A_self-reproducing_computer_program

Yes, but a self rep computer program could be likened to a self rep bacteria. Bacteria aren;t conscious are they?
now self ref on the other hand...

input travels from the various inputs (keyboard, mouse, camera, etc) to be processed. these are similar to our 'senses' (data is gathered in a physical manner, and is sent to the brain to be processed)

Take the example of the camera. The data comes in, and is displayed on the screen. This information is never used to try and orient the computer in space, recognize objects, understand the maning of said objects, etc. This is where the paralells between brain and computer break down.

first, having an accurate view of the 'outside world' is not a requisite to consciousness/phenomological awareness. an entity could be conscious and have a completely distorted view (eg, a human taking delerients)

Ok, I guess I agree with you on that, but its still beside the point.

second, i hope you are not implying that humans have a 'real good view of the outside world'

We have a half decent one. I can use mine to navigate the door, hallway and refrigerator to pour myself a glass of water. Humans have used what they have learned to create all kindsof things, from computers, to molecules that alter our conscious experience, to machinesthat manipulate our dna.

they will be able to in hte future. although i fail to see how this relates to whether or not it can have a phenomological awareness or not

exactly, they will in the future have all these things, but not now. So its not really accurate to say that brains and computers have much in common.

except for the fact that our brains and peripheral nervous systems are essentially computers according to the definition of the word. i dont mean a solid state, transistor computer. what i mean is, our brains take in, process mathematically, and output data

yes, but in completely different ways.

 

[yougene]

I disagree, I don;t think quantum mechanics holds the key to consciousness.This is looking at things on an extremely low level, while consciousness is clearly a high level emergent phenomenon.

Neither Quantum Mechanics or even Strings theory hold The Key to consciousness.

Human and animal consciousness is clearly a product of higher levels of organization. There is a definite correlation between brain complexity and consciousness. The problem we are faced with here is we are dealing with apples and oranges here. awareness belongs to the interior realm of reality, while matter is an exterior shell. The only way you can connect the two is if you get to the foundation upon which both are situated. Otherwise all you're really left with is "This pattern of neurons in this pattern of firing" produces this experience and "This pattern of neurons int his pattern of firing produces that experience."

 

[elemenohpee]

Neither Quantum Mechanics or even Strings theory hold The Key to consciousness.

Human and animal consciousness is clearly a product of higher levels of organization. There is a definite correlation between brain complexity and consciousness. The problem we are faced with here is we are dealing with apples and oranges here. awareness belongs to the interior realm of reality, while matter is an exterior shell. The only way you can connect the two is if you get to the foundation upon which both are situated. Otherwise all you're really left with is "This pattern of neurons in this pattern of firing" produces this experience and "This pattern of neurons int his pattern of firing produces that experience."

thank you for saying it better than i could. As brain imaging resolution, computer power etc continue to accelerate, I think we'll be seeing this happen by 2030 at the latest.

 

[yougene]

>>If there even is a "concrete" mechanism.>>

explain.

ebola

These lower levels and arguably the theoretical foundation level lack properties we associate with concrete mechanisms. Occupying multiple states simultanouesly, existing outside of time, lack of linearity etc...

thank you for saying it better than i could. As brain imaging resolution, computer power etc continue to accelerate, I think we'll be seeing this happen by 2030 at the latest.

The research really seems to be taking off in this area. Especially in the field of Neuromarketing(unfortunately).

 

[qwedsa]

Take the example of the camera. The data comes in, and is displayed on the screen. This information is never used to try and orient the computer in space, recognize objects, understand the maning of said objects, etc. This is where the paralells between brain and computer break down.

computers can recognize faces etc. they can build a sort of map of things, to look for meaning. i doubt they are conscious like us though. this is what im trying to get at. i dont know if information transfer by itself can make an entity conscious. so there is probably something more to the brain than computation. but emotions, love, beauty, perceptions, feelings, in addition to logic, are all due to the computer aspect of the brain

yes, but in completely different ways.

oh i never said they did it in the same way

Because it is not wired to do so

so you are suggesting that information shuffling, if done in a certain manner, will lead to consciousness?

 

[qwedsa]

I mean, you say the brain is a machine, but this is so dry in terms of the better aspects of humanity, like love, kindness, poetry, music etc ...all results of the 'input-process-output'?

here's the picture i'm trying to paint

i am distinguishing two parts of the mind. one is the phenomological awareness--it's 'you,' it's what is experiencing the senses. i 'feel' this existing, it's empirical i think

the other is the senses it experiences. these are both internal and external. and this part is entirely physical/computational/mechanical. side not, perhaps human awareness jumped so drastically once we first felt our selves feeling (included our phenomological awareness in our reality-map)?

love, kindness, poetry, music etc... yes, they are all chemical-mechanical. you can have a computer attach positive and negative aspects to it's 'memories,' have it try to avert the negative and seek the positive. but it isnt conscious like us because it's not actually experiencing the pain or pleasure

now obviously the mechanical part of the mind (that produces thoughts and feelings) is influenced by the fact that there is something observing them (so there's a feedback loop) otherwise i wouldn't be able to know that i'm experiencing myself. but yeah, love kindness etc are due to the mechanical nature of our brain. how could they not be?

according to you're rules it would have to be devoid of ALL human intervention, so it would have to create the program to do it itself

no, i'm saying that computers are able to see beauty etc. they just dont experience it (probably) like the human brain/computer does. whether a human programs it or a human's environment programs it, my point is still valid

How can a machine judge the aesthetic value or beauty of a thing?

the computer in my head does it all the time. and when i change the gears of the machine (by taking chemicals that interact with it) my aesthetic value changes drastically. beauty is due to chemical interaction, not due to any soul

you're argument is lacking in a real appreciation of human emotion.

just because emotions can be reduced to mechanical phenomenons and predicted, does not mean they are any less phenomologically important or valued.

 

[elemenohpee]

so you are suggesting that information shuffling, if done in a certain manner, will lead to consciousness?

yes

computers can recognize faces etc. they can build a sort of map of things, to look for meaning. i doubt they are conscious like us though. this is what im trying to get at. i dont know if information transfer by itself can make an entity conscious. so there is probably something more to the brain than computation. but emotions, love, beauty, perceptions, feelings, in addition to logic, are all due to the computer aspect of the brain

Information transfer can do all these things, just because computers don't do them right now does not mean they never will. Computers are not conscious, but this is not a limitation of the way they function, it is a limitation of our understadning of consciousness.

 

[qwedsa]

^it's certainly a valid hypothesis

i think the answer to the how data is sent/retrieved from phenomological awareness is nowhere near answerable right now. there's a lot about the universe we've yet to learn

i think it might happen in another 'layer' of reality we've yet to explore (layer meaning atomic, chemical, astronomical, etc etc, each layer having its own set of fundamental constituents and rules of behavior)

there might be layers yet to be explored that are A. smaller than we can detect B. larger C. other?

st because computers don't do them right now does not mean they never will

heh, they do do these things

 

[skyalf]

original poster has just had his first trip or something. This is the kind of topic that makes me want to never come back here again. Go read some books

 

[restless-nemesis]

its a shame theres no conclusive end to this debate...

senses are not consciousness, but consciousness uses the senses, to imagine etc.

brains are like computers but consciousness isn't like a computer

the mind is independent of the brain/body but the body/brain can act upon the mind... e.g. pain response, sexual desire etc.

our minds contain complex neural networks, the heart of which contains DNA, so evolution has a part in consciousness.

thoughts are from the mind, emotions are from the body... but thoughts can make emotions, and emotions can make thoughts...

computers could be or are sentient beings, but do not share the qualities of human consciousness... more the consciousness of very high IQ bacteria... self replicating, information based?

skyalf - have been reading philosophy of mind on Wickepedia... still have no real idea tho.. bit of a head fuk for sure

no one can really say why we are conscious and intelligent and emotive other than its because this helps us perform and master our environment lots better...

and an appreciation of beauty is basically an elaboration of the pleasure principle...

its all very reductionist tho what everyone on this board argues... all very sci or sci-fi...

i think i'm a physicalist and a dualist... the mind is a manifestation of the brain, the combined power of lots of cells... there is no 'me' seperate from the brain... but the mind is independent from the physicality of the brain, sort of, and from the environment, sort of.

just think, if we do create intelligent machines... we'll no doubt have them serve us... then they'll either revolt or people will be concerned about their robotic rights and protest that the enslavement of artifical beings or computers is 'inhumane'... is humanity trying to replicate its own intelligence?

I think the first place where a mode of new intelligence will arise will be far off into the future involving the internet, the networks of which will provide similar pathways to what we use. God knows how tho...

or...

 

[qwedsa]

a bit of a new direction..

just think, if we do create intelligent machines... we'll no doubt have them serve us... then they'll either revolt or people will be concerned about their robotic rights and protest that the enslavement of artifical beings or computers is 'inhumane'... is humanity trying to replicate its own intelligence?

i really dont like how everyone seems to get this idea that machines will want to revolt after they obtain more intelligence

we revolt and want to be free because it's in our biology. unless you make an artificial intelligence with its systems based strictly on the human brain (so it would operate with emotions etc), a computer isnt going to give a shit about freedom or 'free-time' or pride like we do

 

[elemenohpee]

Before we start building machines with more complex intelligence than our own, I think we're first going to model a human brain. This seems like a necessary step to understanding the underlying mechanisms of consciousness and intelligence. What I see happening is these electronic brains having some of the problems you discussed. As that AI designs even more complex and "enlightened" AI, I think most of those problems will go away. I mean, I, as a lowly human, want to use my intelligence to work for the greater good. I can't believe a superintelligence would not also be able to grasp that concept.

 

[complexPHILOSOPHY]

I am trying to understand why Strings are being tossed into this argument. Strings are a mathematical theoretical construct and have not been proven empirically as far as I know. I could be wrong though.

 

[complexPHILOSOPHY]

qwedsa - why are you so passionate about the potential or already existent forms of AI? whats so great about it, and how does it actually give an answer to the title thread, about human consciousness? clearly you admire machines, mathematics etc.

I mean, you say the brain is a machine, but this is so dry in terms of the better aspects of humanity, like love, kindness, poetry, music etc ...all results of the 'input-process-output'?

It is the 'process' part that steps outiside of the explainiable in terms of mechanistic and purely logical methods. What 'process' ius going on...

Perhaps emotions emerge consciously as a genetic mechanism. Perhaps genes program us with the necessary chemical and physical reactions which is then interpreted by our consciousness and transferred into emotions to ensure propagation of the genes themselves.

Animals that do not appear to possess self-awareness do not interpret these chemical reactions as emotions and instead, the organism is not aware of these processes. However, the chemical processes going on inside the organism still function as an engine for propagation.

I am rambling and my post has no real factual basis.