Chip with simple program for Toy

[Daryl McCullough]

Bob Myers says...

"Daryl McCullough" <stevendaryl3016@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:eu5q6v0c0k@drn.newsguy.com...
...I would again point out
that we have no way of directly demonstrating "experience"
or "feelings" in ANYONE but ourselves - therefore, I am not
certain that they exist in anyone else. The rest of you may be
all zombies for all I know (which would raise troubling questions
about where you all came from, and why I'M here, but at
least it IS a possibility!).

I don't see how such a possibility has any meaning.
What would it *mean* for someone else to lack "feelings"
or "experience"?

I don't know, but why does it NECESSARILY have to
mean anything? There are any number of things which I
can show exist (through direct experience), but of which I
cannot claim any understanding of their "meaning."

I'm talking about the meaning of the words "Joe appears
to be conscious, but he doesn't really have any experiences."

What do those words mean? You may say that you have, through
introspection, direct knowledge of your own consciousness.
Fine. But what does it mean for *Joe* to have, or not have
that? He can't have *your* consciousness. The best he can
have is something *analogous* to your consciousness. But
you haven't specified which analogies count and which don't.

The further question is, why should anyone *care*
about the difference between "real" and "as if"
mentality?

Clearly at this point it's just a mental exercise, with little if
any practical value. But as I noted earlier in this thread, I
expect at some point that we will be faced with non-human
entities which exhibit the characteristics of "intelligence,"
"self-awareness," AND "consciousness." At that point, we
face serious moral, ethical, and legal questions as to whether or
not these entities should be granted "personhood."

Yes, I agree. But in my opinion, the correct response is to
reformulate morality, and ethics so that it doesn't rely on
the existence of some intrinsic, though undetectable and
indefinable "essence". It's much better, in my opinion, to
formulate the question of how we morally treat systems that
exhibit "as if" consciousness.

Some will no doubt claim that these cannot be "persons," cannot be
conscious entities worthy of moral consideration, simply because
they are NOT human - they're of some other kind, and so are
at best a clever simulation of conscious persons. The most
likely place I see this coming up in the short term at least is in
the area of artificial intelligences, where it will be claimed that
these are "obviously" just assembleges of non-conscious
components mixed in with a little programming. At what point
was the "consciousness" added. We could claim that it IS in
fact an "emergent" property and so is "real" in these systems, but
there is precious little evidence on which to base this claim.

I think that there *can't* be any evidence in favor or opposed,
because the concept of "real consciousness" doesn't have a determinate
meaning. You're trying to define a concept by generalization from
one example. There are infinitely many ways to generalize from one
example, and there are *no* criteria for preferring one way over
another way.

--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY

 

[Bob Myers]

"Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylward@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:03qNh.22655$267.6241@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...

Not the "real" probability, no - but on the other hand, "probability"
is ALWAYS an expression of our ignorance about a given set of
circumstances.

Actually, its not, and that is what motivated my statement above.

I certainly understand the QM exceptions to the above, but let's
at least agree that when people are speaking of probabilities in
the course of a typical discussion, they're talking about that subject
as it applies to everyday, normal-physical-world experience, which
is what I intended here. The world of QM is certainly not "everyday,"
and while it may definitely have significance when we're speaking
of "consciousness," we should probably only consider that level of
things after explicitly bringing it into the discussion. It's just too
different, and too likely to bring in confusion with "normal"
experience.

And in everyday practice, so do I - I don't worry about whether
or not the next person I meet is "really" conscious. However, the
A.I. possibilities that keep coming up in these discussions are the
main reason I can't claim quite as high a degree of confidence as
you seem to re "zombies" (broadly defined to include non-human
entities) being impossible.

Again, its imagining a morph of a system getting more and more interactive
to causes and giving responses such that consciousness just emerges. It
just seems that as one tries to develop a Zombie, it will just
automatically become conscious.

But that's working under the assumption that consciousness IS an
emergent property of a sufficiently complex "intelligent" system. While
that may be the case, it has not been demonstrated and is just a
suspicion at this point. (Some people have made fairly sophisticated
arguments AGAINST it being quite that simple - I probably should
go a dig some of those out.) The major limitation on our knowledge at
this point is that we only have one example of a demonstrated "conscious,
complex system" to examine - the human brain (or mind, if you're a dualist).
As we've already covered, once an artificial system is demonstrated which
at least simulates the behavior of consciousness, we've got a problem on
our hands - because this upsets the applecart of those who would
maintain that consciousness is the special quality that "can" only arise
in biological systems. But we'll still be faced with the problem of
showing that this system, no matter how clever its responses, actually
IS conscious as opposed to just being a clever collection of
programming. (Yes, you can certainly make the claim that WE are
no more than a "clever collection of programming" - but those on the
other side will say no, there is "something more" that we have yet to
find. Until and unless we can come up with at least ONE more example
of a conscious entity which is completely different in its nature, I see no
way to clearly resolve this.)

Bob M.

 

[Bob Myers]

"Daryl McCullough" <stevendaryl3016@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:eu5q6v0c0k@drn.newsguy.com...

...I would again point out
that we have no way of directly demonstrating "experience"
or "feelings" in ANYONE but ourselves - therefore, I am not
certain that they exist in anyone else. The rest of you may be
all zombies for all I know (which would raise troubling questions
about where you all came from, and why I'M here, but at
least it IS a possibility!).

I don't see how such a possibility has any meaning.
What would it *mean* for someone else to lack "feelings"
or "experience"?

I don't know, but why does it NECESSARILY have to
mean anything? There are any number of things which I
can show exist (through direct experience), but of which I
cannot claim any understanding of their "meaning." In other
words, the lack of understanding of "meaning" on my part
by no means rules out the possibility of a given thing
existing.

The further question is, why should anyone *care*
about the difference between "real" and "as if"
mentality?

Clearly at this point it's just a mental exercise, with little if
any practical value. But as I noted earlier in this thread, I
expect at some point that we will be faced with non-human
entities which exhibit the characteristics of "intelligence,"
"self-awareness," AND "consciousness." At that point, we
face serious moral, ethical, and legal questions as to whether or
not these entities should be granted "personhood." Some will
no doubt claim that these cannot be "persons," cannot be
conscious entities worthy of moral consideration, simply because
they are NOT human - they're of some other kind, and so are
at best a clever simulation of conscious persons. The most
likely place I see this coming up in the short term at least is in
the area of artificial intelligences, where it will be claimed that
these are "obviously" just assembleges of non-conscious
components mixed in with a little programming. At what point
was the "consciousness" added. We could claim that it IS in
fact an "emergent" property and so is "real" in these systems, but
there is precious little evidence on which to base this claim.

Bob M.

 

[Daniel Mandic]

Bob Myers wrote:

"conscious, complex system" to examine - the human brain (or mind, if
you're a dualist). As we've already covered, once an artificial

Hi Bob!


What has this to do with a dualist.


A dualist is a person, who thinks twice before taking an action. So
that any outlet (response) of the taken action leads to a satysfying
result. Not easy and time consuming, as you have to keep your real
purposes, in any case .
We call them here 'win-win' typos.

Formerly and still known as the three-fold Nature. God, Son (we) and
the fifth element (world soul).
But as the dual-thinker don't care about world and its precious, he/she
places him/herself into the third, and God is he/she (dualist) so and
so (at least he/she thinks so).
Son?... well, that's a fact. Everyone is a daughter or son.
(Allthough, I think such ppl are not capable of thinking three-folded
and let one or the other away. Mainly the World-sould, also called holy
ghost is left away, IMHO)

You can also say it natural science like. Will of the Life, the outcome
of that and the World which makes it possible. Goddess, daughter and
Mother Earth ;-.)



Best regards,

Daniel Mandic

 

[feedbackdroid]

On Mar 24, 5:17 pm, "RichD" <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Mar 23, "feedbackdroid" <feedbackdr...@yahoo.com> wrote:

As you said yourself, consciousness seems to
arise from a sufficiently complex neural network.
But there are degrees... a snail has a neural net,
with brain activity, should we call it conscious?
That doesn't appear too useful.

Maybe more useful that you surmise. The alternative
is that consciousness isn't simply a yes-no issue,
but has graded degrees, and so a snail does have
a certain degree of consciousness, albeit much
much less than chimps and humans.

Perhaps... but then you need a way to define, and
measure, this 'degree of consciousness'. Which
could be done, in terms of synaptic activity.

My point is, to define conscousness in a manner
to include snails, seems counter-productive; it
doesn't capture what we experience as humans.

--
Rich

Hardly counter-productive.

And which is why people like Dan Dennett and Gerald Edelman discuss
the matter in terms of primary sensory consciousness, which is
possessed at least by all mammals [although some of us believe it
likely extends much "lower" in the animal kingdom], and so-called
higher-order consciousness, which is possessed only by humans, plus to
a somewhat lesser degree by apes and other higher-primates, and which
involves ability for language, reflection, reasoning, planning, and
manipulation of symbols.

In fact, it makes little to no sense whatsoever to only discuss HOC,
but rather to view PSC to HOC as a continuum of evolutionary
development. There are no absolutes. HOC didn't spring fully-formed
from nothing.

"Nothing in biology makes any sense except in the light of evolution"
- T.Dobzhansky.

 

[The_Man]

On Mar 23, 12:59 am, "RichD" <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Mar 21, "Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylw...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Clearly, my "no magic axiom", means that consciousness
is indeed a part of physics in the sense that, whatever it
is, it is strictly the result of the physical structure in
the brain. However, it is a new axiom of physics.

By derivable, it is meant, that it logically follows from
known laws of physics.

There's another consideration... in quantum
mechanics, the observer occupies a special
place - the wave function cannot collapse
(to a particular event)without one. But
'observer' is vague... presumably, it means
consciousness.

Presumably, it doesn't. The wave function collapses during
measurement, as best that it is understood, because it interacts with
a classical system. "Conciousness" doesn't have anything to do with it
at all. The measuring device is an inherently classical (i.e., quantum
state with very high quantum number, so that it appreoaches the
predictions of classical mechanics, the so-called "correspondence
principle".)

Hence, consciousness has
some attribute whch interacts with nature.

--
Rich

 

[Michael Black]

I'm limiting this to the newsgroup where it belongs.

"temp@temp.com" (not@not.com) writes:

Varying a pen laser voltage with audio signal how?

Greetings All


I'm trying to vary the voltage of a pen laser by using audio frequencies
(homemade analog switch /potentiometer I guess). I've created a laser
that will transmit audio
http://www.scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/light/light.html#laser_communicato
r
but I'm not sure how to fine tune it. I would like to have the audio
control how much power the laser gets.

Example: if the audio doesn't play the laser doesn't get any power. The
thing is I'm not trying to use the audio signale as a digital switch
on/off. I'm trying to use the audio signal to vary the power the laser
gets or at least use the audio signal like a potentiometer / analog
switch. Is this possible?

Tia SAL2

Why do you find the need to actually amplitude the laser? Is it because
you actually have a need for this, or because you think it will make
it simple, or because you don't know better?

There is good reason to not amplitude modulate it. At the very least,
when you amplitude modulate it the receiver will be open to extraneous
noise (ie varying amplitude light from the sun and artificial lights), and
may also suffer the further away the receiver is.

Frequency modulation ensures that the signal at the receiver will always
be as strong as it can be. And, because the amplitude of the laser is
constant, the receiver can put a limiter after the photodetector, so
that sunlight and artificial light can't cause problems.

Going to frequency modulation of some sort also means that the linearity
of the laser diode does not come into play. I don't have a clue, but it
may not work well at low voltage levels compared to the regular voltage.
That may get in the way of amplitude modulation.

IN the end, good design means knowing what you are trying to do. We
don't know that, so a solution is really impossible. (Trying to
amplitude modulate a laser is not what you are trying to do; you
are doing that for some other reason, but you've not given
us that reason.)

Michael

 

[Curt Welch]

"Daniel Mandic" <daniel_mandic@aon.at> wrote:

Curt Welch wrote:

But what I know for a fact is true, is that you don't have any proof
to back up you belief that electrons don't experience pain because
you have no way to define what pain is. I do. Read my 1000 posts in
c.a.p. if you want the answer.

Hi Curt!

O.K. but I do not understand why you mention God and religion so often?

Because most human belief in consciousness exactly parallels it. People
believe in consciousness as something special for the exact same reasons
they believe in God as something special.

If you have never perceived God, it's your problem, not mine. I can see.

I perceive and understand God completely. I'm missing nothing. My God
just doesn't happen to be the God that most religious people worship. The
Universe is my God.

Hens for example forget the past in about 5sec. You can watch that.
Throw a corn-piece farer away from the Hen, if it runs there to pick it
up for over ~5sec., it stops and turns aways for new findings (food).

Human can hold longer memories, but with all that repetetive bad
happenings on the World, I believe the most are more like hens than
humans ;-) (sheeps?)

Yeah, the world is filled with bad shit.

A better understand of the brain I believe will actually help reduce the
bad stuff in the universe. Most people have no clue why they do the things
they do (like go to war). They do it just because they feel it needs to be
done. If they understood their own brain better, I don't believe there
would be nearly as much war and pain in the world.

Best regards,

Daniel Mandic

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@kcwc.com http://NewsReader.Com/

 

[Curt Welch]

stevendaryl3016@yahoo.com (Daryl McCullough) wrote:

Let me try an analogy. Suppose we're talking about
socks. Some philosopher has a theory that there are true
socks and there are pseudo-socks. This philosopher
doesn't yet have any physical test to distinguish
true socks from pseudo-socks, and he *also* doesn't
have any explanation for why anyone would care whether
they are wearing true socks or pseudo-socks. But he
insists that there is a property of "intrinsic sockness"
that is not reducible to the physical facts. Why would
such a theory of socks make any sense? Why is the
possibility of zombies any different from the possibility
of pseudo-socks?]

Or more interesting, why are so many people hung up on this idea of
pseudo-humans vs real humans but yet there is never any long draw out
debates about pseudo-socks? It's the exact same debate in both cases.
It's illogical to believe in one and not the other.

Why do people have long drawn out debates about God, but never about the
Flying Spaghetti Monster? Again, the exact same debate in both cases. And
again, it's illogical to believe in one and not the other - there is an
equal amount of proof about both.

It's because they were conditioned to believe in one by the environment
they grew up in but not the other. People are told by other people who
they trust and respect that humans are conscious - that we all share this
"magic" about us which doesn't exist elsewhere in the universe. We all are
able to sense the activity of our own brain, and so we assigned the word
"consciousness" to this internal brain activity. But we are also told that
this internal brain activity was not physical. And it made sense because
everything else that is physical we can touch, and play with. But brain
activity is not something most of us every get to touch - so it sounded
reasonable to believe brain activity was not physical.

So now, all these people waste endless hours trying to figure out the hard
problem. They are trying to figure out how something non physical can rise
up out of the physical.

The solution is trivial. It was a LIE! What your mentors told you was
wrong. Brain activity is physical. Those thoughts and images and sounds
and qualia you sense in your head is just the physical behavior of your
brain. There's nothing non-physical there to be explained.

The hard problem isn't hard at all. Stop believing what the idiots from
the past told you and think for yourself. There's no evidence to suggest
that mental activity is non-physical. It's just what they told you. And
they were wrong. The fact that this false belief creates an unsolvable
paradox (the hard problem) is the only proof you should need to see it's
wrong.

No one has any problem understanding how stupid the idea that pseudo-socks
is or how stupid the flying spaghetti monster is, but yet, they can't seem
to grasp that their beliefs, and confusions, about consciousness is the
same stupidity. I only wish more people were actually able to think for
themselves. If they were, there wouldn't be such huge confusion in society
over what consciousness is. It persists only because most people learn to
think like their mentors instead of learning to think for themselves.

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@kcwc.com http://NewsReader.Com/

 

[John Fields]

On 25 Mar 2007 18:17:08 GMT, et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Michael
Black) wrote:

I'm limiting this to the newsgroup where it belongs.

"temp@temp.com" (not@not.com) writes:
Varying a pen laser voltage with audio signal how?

Greetings All


I'm trying to vary the voltage of a pen laser by using audio frequencies
(homemade analog switch /potentiometer I guess). I've created a laser
that will transmit audio
http://www.scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/light/light.html#laser_communicato
r
but I'm not sure how to fine tune it. I would like to have the audio
control how much power the laser gets.

Example: if the audio doesn't play the laser doesn't get any power. The
thing is I'm not trying to use the audio signale as a digital switch
on/off. I'm trying to use the audio signal to vary the power the laser
gets or at least use the audio signal like a potentiometer / analog
switch. Is this possible?

Tia SAL2

Why do you find the need to actually amplitude the laser? Is it because
you actually have a need for this, or because you think it will make
it simple, or because you don't know better?

There is good reason to not amplitude modulate it. At the very least,
when you amplitude modulate it the receiver will be open to extraneous
noise (ie varying amplitude light from the sun and artificial lights), and
may also suffer the further away the receiver is.

Frequency modulation ensures that the signal at the receiver will always
be as strong as it can be. And, because the amplitude of the laser is
constant, the receiver can put a limiter after the photodetector, so
that sunlight and artificial light can't cause problems.

Going to frequency modulation of some sort also means that the linearity
of the laser diode does not come into play. I don't have a clue, but it
may not work well at low voltage levels compared to the regular voltage.
That may get in the way of amplitude modulation.

IN the end, good design means knowing what you are trying to do. We
don't know that, so a solution is really impossible. (Trying to
amplitude modulate a laser is not what you are trying to do; you
are doing that for some other reason, but you've not given
us that reason.)

---
Quite a nasty little post from someone who obviously doesn't know
what he's talking about.

Other than physically moving the laser back and forth (toward and
away from the receiver) at an audio rate, just how would you propose
going about frequency modulating the laser?


--
JF

 

[Curt Welch]

"Daniel Mandic" <daniel_mandic@aon.at> wrote:

Bob Myers wrote:

"conscious, complex system" to examine - the human brain (or mind, if
you're a dualist). As we've already covered, once an artificial

Hi Bob!

What has this to do with a dualist.

A dualist is a person, who thinks twice before taking an action.

That's not the type of dualist Bob was making reference to. Try reading
this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind)

It's the belief that there is something other than physical mater in this
universe which mostly comes from the belief that human mental activity is
somehow non-physical - or has some non-physical element to it.

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@kcwc.com http://NewsReader.Com/

 

[Daniel Mandic]

Curt Welch wrote:

Because most human belief in consciousness exactly parallels it.
People believe in consciousness as something special for the exact
same reasons they believe in God as something special.

There is nothing special about. Just look the ppl and the many moves
(gestures) they make, when they do something, so called, conscious.
They are totally unconscious and motivated by higher spirits.
More conscious conversation is always achievable, of course.

Other.... try to conversate with a Girl. I am sure she can make holes
in your memory . (you wouldn't remember parts of the conversation.
Maybe when you are prepared that it is a Test. Well then...)

I perceive and understand God completely. I'm missing nothing. My
God just doesn't happen to be the God that most religious people
worship. The Universe is my God.

Universe is o.k. Cosmos is more perceivable for me.

The Universe is a source the Human will never understand, except she
will transform (generate) in Millions years to a much higher conscious
species. And even then it is questionable, if it will carry out the
separation of its dualism. A presupposition for understanding the
UNIverse, IMHO. We are not defined so... we are out of Earth, Sun and
Moon that influenced our generation-process.

Yeah, the world is filled with bad shit.

That's secondary and well known. (My favourite, though)

A better understand of the brain I believe will actually help reduce
the bad stuff in the universe. Most people have no clue why they do
the things they do (like go to war). They do it just because they
feel it needs to be done. If they understood their own brain better,
I don't believe there would be nearly as much war and pain in the
world.

I cannot understand in the slightest why you would like to find
inhumanity in a Brain.

Fact is, that more stupid ppl tend to be lesser dangerous than
intelligent. Allthough, the opposite is the case with many
job-soldiers, also stupid but brain-washed. As it is the case with
intelligent ppl, they are not so easy convinced by bad-idea minded ppl.

You see, it is going Ping Pong. How would you describe my
stupid-intelligent/dangerous-harmless argument with your Brain
methodology (Theory).



C'mon that's a four thing. Your speciality.... (awaiting your
breakdown!)




Best regards,

Daniel Mandic

 

[Curt Welch]

"Daniel Mandic" <daniel_mandic@aon.at> wrote:

Curt Welch wrote:

But what I know for a fact is true, is that you don't have any proof
to back up you belief that electrons don't experience pain because
you have no way to define what pain is. I do. Read my 1000 posts in
c.a.p. if you want the answer.

Hi Curt!

O.K. but I do not understand why you mention God and religion so often?

Because most human belief in consciousness exactly parallels it. People
believe in consciousness as something special for the exact same reasons
they believe in God as something special.

If you have never perceived God, it's your problem, not mine. I can see.

I perceive and understand God completely. I'm missing nothing. My God
just doesn't happen to be the God that most religious people worship. The
Universe is my God.

Hens for example forget the past in about 5sec. You can watch that.
Throw a corn-piece farer away from the Hen, if it runs there to pick it
up for over ~5sec., it stops and turns aways for new findings (food).

Human can hold longer memories, but with all that repetetive bad
happenings on the World, I believe the most are more like hens than
humans ;-) (sheeps?)

Yeah, the world is filled with bad shit.

A better understand of the brain I believe will actually help reduce the
bad stuff in the universe. Most people have no clue why they do the things
they do (like go to war). They do it just because they feel it needs to be
done. If they understood their own brain better, I don't believe there
would be nearly as much war and pain in the world.

Best regards,

Daniel Mandic

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@kcwc.com http://NewsReader.Com/

 

[colin]

"Anthony Fremont" <spam-not@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:130cviec6hi2idc@news.supernews.com...

And finally we reach the root of the problem. I should have asked what
device to use to start with. I knew it was hopeless to try and use any of
the comparators in my junk box. Nice part, no DIP package though. :-(
Can you recommed something in a DIP 8 that will switch a 10MHz signal?

I would reckon the best thing to do would be to use a simple digital
oscillator
say a pierce oscillator built around a single cmos logic inverter,
and buffered with a second one. any cmos inverter would do at 10mhz.

The sinewave can more easily be extracted from the squarewave than the other
way round,
as all it requires is a low pass filter.

There will actually be a fairly good sinewave at the input to the first gate
anyway,
an inductor and/or resistor from this point to a low input capacitance
linear amplifier buffer,
say a simple single jfet amp.

to reduce the coupling of the buffer the pick off point could be taken from
a capacitive divider wich takes the place of the tuning capacitor at the
input to the inverter.

Colin =^.^=

 

[Daniel Mandic]

Curt Welch wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind)

hmmm.

Dualism is a fact. There are only ppl out, living both sides (ten) and
the other letting half the way for fellow men (fifty fifty).

Elves are an exception. They give you one and keep ten. Probably from
the Nature.... nothing for dual-thinker ;-) (Nature prob, they have)



Best regards,

Daniel Mandic

 

[John Fields]

On 25 Mar 2007 20:02:17 GMT, "Daniel Mandic" <daniel_mandic@aon.at>
wrote:

Curt Welch wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind)

hmmm.

Dualism is a fact. There are only ppl out, living both sides (ten) and
the other letting half the way for fellow men (fifty fifty).

---
If only ten are living both sides, then aren't the halves five-five?
---

Elves are an exception. They give you one and keep ten. Probably from
the Nature.... nothing for dual-thinker ;-) (Nature prob, they have)

---
Thinking prob_lem, you have.

Can you control elves?


--
JF

 

[RichD]

On Mar 25, "The_Man" <me_so_hornee...@yahoo.com> wrote:

There's another consideration... in quantum
mechanics, the observer occupies a special
place - the wave function cannot collapse
(to a particular event) without one. But
'observer' is vague... presumably, it means
consciousness.

Presumably, it doesn't. The wave function collapses during
measurement, as best that it is understood, because it
interacts with a classical system. "Conciousness"
doesn't have anything to do with it at all.
The measuring device is an inherently classical (i.e., quantum
state with very high quantum number, so that it appreoaches the
predictions of classical mechanics, the so-called "correspondence
principle".)

No, that view - "the classical measuring device
interacts with the quantum sytstem" - is too
simplistic, it's introductory level, it doesn't capture
the essential weirdness.

There are experiments where no such classical
interaction exists, yet we still see the dualistic
quantum behavior; the only 'interaction' is
observation, which apparently occurs only in
the perception/consciousness of the (human) observer.

Hence, consciousness has
some attribute whch interacts with nature.

--
Rich

 

[RichD]

Fot Kevin's benefit, since we know he welcomes lively
debate and constructive criticism:

From: Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org>
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 16:03:38 -0700
Subject: Re: consciousness, was Re: etc.

"Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylw...@ntlworld.com> wrote on Fri, 23 Mar 2007:

Have you actually read my paper?
http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/replicators/thehardproblem.html

Fascinatingly naive.

For example, in the overview you simply state
A computer does not "feel" pain, you do. Why?

A simple answer to most of your "puzzles" is: your assumptions are wrong.

What if a computer already does (or could) feel pain? Your whole approach
falls apart.

I love the way you throw in Godel too. Every anti-AI guy seems to like
tossing him in the mix, whether or not it's at all relevant.

Yet more sentences you write that look like logic ... but aren't:

It has been proven that that conscious awareness can not be
derived from knowledge of its system parts. If it had been the case that
conscious awareness could have been derivable from its system parts,
then consciousness would than have been proved to be unable to
achieve anything fundamentally new, and as such, consciousness
might simply be an observer of inanimate functions performing
mechanical procedures.

The weather is derivable from the behavior of gasses, but it
doesn't follow that there is "nothing new" in the subject of weather.
You still can investigate new abstract things like hurricanes, how
many of them there are in a year, That is not
at all inconsistent with weather being perfectly determinable from its
constituent parts.

In the same way, consciousness is a function of the brain's hardware, but
it still has some interesting properties at its own level of abstraction.

Oh...now explain how that physical measurement of electrical signals
transpires to us as qualia? That is in something we *experience*.

It's not the measurement that is qualia; it's the brain's electrical
signals themselves. Those are qualia. Qualia is the interpretation of a
conscious mind on various incoming sensory data.

 

[RichD]

On Mar 24, "Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylw...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Look, mate, suppose I kick you in the balls. Now explain to me
how inanimate electrons and protons give you that experience
that you attribute as pain.
What is experience. The electrical impulses co-incident with
that kick in the balls simply does not explain the fact that you
don't like it. That it *hurts*.

wow
And I do mean wow.
This is the stupidest thing you've said yet,

Those "inanimate electrons and protons", and electric
impulses, via neuro-chemistry, DO explain what
you feel! That's all there is!

The incredible thing is, you have already stated
you accept the purely materialist view, that cellular
chemistry is the only reality; mental states = brain
states, no free will. Then you claim there's 'something
else'... leprechauns, perhaps?

--
Rich

 

[Daniel Mandic]

John Fields wrote:

---
If only ten are living both sides, then aren't the halves five-five?
---

When they are twenty altogether, yes. (I knew you like Indianer )

Can you control elves?

I don't wish to do so. I am a Human. Elves are part of the World...



Best regards,

Daniel Mandic