From: bogus@mail.com
On Wed, 07 Jul 2004 20:52:10 GMT, Kevin Calder
wrote:
>
>Ghost, you do not experience conscious states merely because you exhibit
>the behavioural characteristics of something that experiences conscious
>states, you are conscious because you have an organ in your skull which
>is producing your conscious states.
Or so Searl [and you {?}] assume.
Some questions to ask:
What is a conscious state? Define it.
How do you know it's conscious?
How do you measure it and prove what you are measuring is what you
think it is?
What makes a "Searl brain" a conscious brain?
How is that different from a large pile of neural scraps made of
n-dimensional q-dots?
Why? Quantify it.
How do you know we are "real" and not as Galyoule we are actually
simulations in some marketing department computer somewhere [See
_Simulacron-3_]or Ramsey Dukes proposed that given the power to create
a simulation of the universe that such a simulation would be made,
then give the number of possible universes that can be created the
possibility that this is the real one is exceedingly [vanishingly?]
small. [See _WORDS MADE FLESH_]
Wait! by the definition you presented, *we* all could be simulations
[I can think of a number of public figures that obviously have no
brains :)] because "brains can be simulated. We'd never be able to
prove one way or the other if we or the "simulated brain" were
conscious. Just because it has a brain does not make it conscious.
Does making a movie make the reality of the movie real?
What Searl seems to be saying is "you can't, because I say you can't".
Which is a kind of philosophical endless do loop. Can't be done until
it is done and then the nay sayer looks like a fool..
Nothing in his arguments seem to be backed by any kind of *actual*
proof. Just "thought experiments" which may be based on faulty
thoughts. Not very scientific. Even Einstein got caught up in one of
those about "spooky physics". Unfortunately for him we actually do
live in a "spooky physics" world.
You said above that consciousness is "caused by brains"... what says
it isn't caused the other way around? Consciousness causes brains. Or
the universe anthropomorphic rules cause consciousness. or the phase
of the moon causes them? or Cosmic Rays? or other of a zillion
possible random factors? No proof offered in any shape of form-- just
talk-talk.
What behavioral characteristics does "consciousness" display? Who are
*you* [or Searl for that matter] to determine what is and is not
conscious? Proof, my dear Watson! Proof is required!
I seem to recall the Catholic church seems to have the same kind of
thinking as Searl-- animals are not "conscious" because they do not
have "souls"...
yet I seem to recall that over the last several years a number of
different animal behavioral studies concluded that indeed animals do
have "consciousness" and "self awareness"-- not on the same scale as
"humans" [they don't generally go down to the WalMart... on the other
hand [if you live where i do] maybe they do! ] but they are on the
evolutionary path to our kind of "consciousness [if we leave them a
livable planet and don't kill them off].
The idea that "consciousness is a function of having a brain" is
almost as silly as "consciousness is a function of having a soul". No
proof, no experimental work, not theory to take to the lab and test--
you just "gotta believe". The viewer of the PTL Club got taken to the
cleaners because of that kind of thing.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like one, maybe it is one-- or if
it thinks like one-- it is one.
Do you have a soul? Do you require one? Do you "require"
consciousness? or is what we mistake for consciousness just the flow
of chemical bonds acting and reacting in random flux?
For you to make a case that "only brains do it" first you have to make
a case for what brains do.
Searl has not done anything but ejaculate his *belief* with no
laboratory proof that "it cannot be done" [remember Clarke's Third
Law].
I'm not saying the Strong or Weak AI camps are doing any better. They
are having the problem of trying to "meta-think" about thinking. Maybe
we'll never create an AI... not because it is not feasible, but
because we are not equipped to objectively think about how to design a
thinking machine.
No one has come up with a experimentally provable scheme to test any
of the "theories of consciousness" or even a road map to get to where
there is a testable theory. The kinds of "arguments" [including this
one] are the kind of "mental masturbation" that while it gets the
juices flowing don't lead anywhere [but as Lazarus Long said "... at
least you don't have to go home in the cold."
As long as this field of endeavor remains in the hallowed halls of
philosophy and not in the physics lab it probably won't go anywhere at
all.
Consciousness is the "illusion" of "I"-ness that rides in an imagined
bubble of stateless time from the past into future maintaining a sense
of self reference to the "flow of experience" yet there is no "here"
nor "now" nor "past" nor "future". We grab at an illusion of reality
and say "this is so". Why?
I believe that I read in _The Emperor's New Mind_ {i might be
mistaken -- I read way too much and it's been a while since I read
that book] Penrose pointed out that if one were to hold a match to
one's finger the actual electrical propagation time from the finger to
the brain center that reacts to pain is longer than the actual
measured time it takes you [or anyone] to actually react to that kind
of stimulation. In other words it appears you react to stimulation
before the stimulation actually occurs.
Think about that one for a minute [if I recalled the source
correctly]. That really is spooky physics. Penrose's explanation is
that our brains are "quantum" processors that allow us to act out
reality before it happens and "choose" the state the "wave collapses
into".
If the Brain is, as Penrose proposed, nothing more than a quantum
processor then there is indeed a chanced for AI to work [though not in
the near future] due to the current limits of Quantum Computing. It
would certainly explain why "only brains do it".
Assuming that Carl Sagan's beloved "mediocrity principle" [Man and his
environment is 'nothing special' in the universe] is a "universal
rule" [that's a big assumption-- but not yet disproved] then there is
nothing to impede the "creation" of an "artificial" consciousness
which cannot be distinguished from the real thing.
Because an artificial diamond is manufactured does it make it any less
of a diamond? Here seems to be the crux of Searl's problem which is
just another form of what the Church felt about the "Copernican
revolution"... it denies man a "special place" in the universe.
Get over it. We're not special.
the ded goat
"all your brain are belong to us"
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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