Chip with simple program for Toy

[Daryl McCullough]

Kevin Aylward says...

Daryl McCullough wrote:

A scientist
would never say something like.
"if someone actually wants to debate whether of a
wind up watch has "experience". to wit, consciousness,
there will need to do it without me.

would never say something like.
That isn't a scientific attitude, at all.

Have you actually tried getting a General Relativity expert to engage
conversation in the 1000s of loons all going "Einstein was wrong about
relativity". Not a chance, they just roll their eyes...

For one thing, you're wrong. Top-notch physicists such as Steve Carlip
and John Baez have spent enormous amounts of their own time explaining
how General Relativity works to laymen.

For the second thing, General Relativity is (relatively speaking, ha ha)
a mature topic. Many aspects of it are well understood. It has a rigorous
mathematical basis that allows such things as proofs and derivations.
In contrast, your "scientific theory of consciousness" is not anywhere
near mature. The distinction between "crackpot" and "non-crackpot" is
not nearly so clear. As a matter of fact, in the field of the philosophy
of AI, half the people in the field consider the other half crackpots.
I've spent many years reading and discussing the philosophy of AI. There
is *no* agreement about any of the basic questions. Take three of the big
names in the philosophy of AI: Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers, John Searle.
I would venture to suggest that each of these people considers some of
the ideas on the topic held by the other two to be nonsense.

In such an environment, it is way too premature to label some
questions as "beyond the pale" or "crackpot". It's the height
of arrogance.

You introduce a supposedly
scientific property of matter, and then without any experiment or
argument, you rule out a possibility and declare it beyond the pale
to argue for that possibility. What a thoroughly unscientific
attitude!

Out of millions on possible valid debating ideas, I have already concluded
that a watch is consciousness is not one of them.

That's fine. I'm asking the *basis* for concluding that. If you
can't give a coherent answer in the simplest cases, how do you
hope to give an answer in the more complex cases.

A good scientist need to know what is worth investigating and what is not.

I would agree, and it would seem on that basis that you are not a very
good scientist.

This is the real world. Many ideas are simple worthless.
That's just the way it is. If you want to starve yourself
because you believe carrots feel pain, go ahead, but don't
expect many to take that idea seriously either.

You're being a jerk. I didn't make a claim one way or the
other. I'm asking *you* what your basis for making your
claims. I have my own reasons for ascribing mentality to
humans and not carrots, but I want to know what *your*
basis is.

concepts that are much murkier, more ill-defined than those physicists
typically deal with, you are *more* unshakably certain in your
beliefs? The hallmark of science if *falsifiabilty*. It is the
possibility of changing your mind based on evidence. You don't seem
to allow for such a possibility, so what you're doing isn't science.

There is no chance that anyone can make a reasonable person belive that a
watch is conscious.

I didn't claim otherwise. I asked what YOUR reasons are for saying
that. I'm asking about your methodology, what to you counts as evidence
one way or the other. You were the one who brought up watches. I only
asked how you know that "machines don't have experience". If you don't
like watches, try a human-like robot that is capable of carrying out
sophisticated conversations, is capable of using reasoning to solve
problems put to it, acts to avoid getting destroyed, seeks out the
company of others, works to protect small children from harm, etc.
Are you trying to tell me that no reasonable person would believe
that such a machine is conscious? I think you're wrong. I would bet
that the vast majority of people who actually interacted with such
a robot would believe it to be conscious. Yet, your statement "machines
don't have experience" says otherwise. Why should anyone believe you?
What is your basis for saying that? Bringing up watches is just
being dishonest and being a jerk.

--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Curt Welch wrote:

"Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylward@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Curt Welch wrote:

I've argued these points for years so don't tell me I've not thought
about them.

Clearly with no success.

That's true! Everyone that understands my points understood them
before I tried to argue them and everyone that fails to understand
them still fails to understand them as far as I know.


So how can you judge if brain activity in a person is conscious
brain activity or not? If they "wake up" later, and you ask them
if they have a memory of what was happening and they say they have
no memory, were they conscious? There's no way to tell.

You have a valid point, in principle, however, they are unconscious
by definition. The result is indistinguishable. Occums razor is good
enough for me on this one.

So you use Occam's razor here but yet you fail to use it where it's
most important - in the belief that you have a property in you that is
extra-physical which doesn't exist in these other things.

Nope.

You simply misunderstand the subtlety of my beliefs and the reasoning.

There is indeed a property, that is entirely produced by the physics of
mass-energy, yet is not derivable from existing physics. This property, is
caused Consciousness. A kick in the balls is usually adequate to demonstrate
to any man, what that property is, and that it actually exists.

However, Consciousness cannot do anything. Consciousness is simply an
observer, a VDU, because, in itself it is not physical entity, or a non
physical entity for that matter. It is something new. It is something that
cannot be reduced to any prior knowledge.

Kurt Godels proof of Undecidability shows that we can have relations that
are true, but not derivable from existing axioms.

e.g http://www.exploratorium.edu/complexity/CompLexicon/godel.html.

That is, we can have say, a formulary that is true, constructed completely
out of existing terms, yet, is not derivable from those existing terms.

Consciousness is on the same lines. It is something that don't exist in some
ways, yet exist in other ways. It cant be explained, i.e. derived form
existing terms. It is new information, just as the constant speed of light,
or shrodingers equation was.

Godel tells us that if we want a complete description, then we will always
have to have axioms that are not explainable. We have to ad these new
discovered axioms to our set and proceed from there. Consciousness is one
such new axiom.

You have a
basic belief that you are more than just a pile of matter moving
about as piles of matter tend to do in reaction to the prime forces
of physics.

Nope. We are a pile of matter that needs an additional axiom to explain a
new property of mass-energy. This property, is not the invariance of the
speed of light, it is not conservation of energy, it is that a kick in the
balls hurts.

There is no evidence to suggest that you have this extra property,

Would you like me to come over to your house and give you a kick in he balls
to ahmmm...suggest what this extra property is?

so
using Occam's razor, the correct approach is to not add it when
there's no need for it. But yet you do it anyway. You add the
assumption that there is a special extra property in you which is
hard to explain (your own conscious awareness).

See above, hint its to do with nuts.

Now, don't get confused here, because most people like you do get
lost at this point. I'm not trying to argue that your internal
mental events don't exist. I know for a fact they do exist. I'm
simply trying to argue that the correct assumption to make, is that
the internal events are simply the physical actions of our brain and
body and nothing more.

You have been told at leas twice that this is not in dispute.

The assumption you have to make to support
all the stuff you write, is that there is "something more". The hard
problem is trying to define what that "something more" is, and why it
is in us, and not in a watch.

That something more, is a kick in the balls.

It's in us, and not in the watch, only
because you decided to pick that belief as a starting assumption, as
an axiom of your belief system, not because there was any evidence to
support that belief.

Well, if you want to believe electrons feel pain, feel free to do so.

I also argue that rocks are conscious.

Oh dear...says he as he rolls his eyes.

Not because I believe a single
electron is equal to a human or that a rock can equal a human, but
simply because I believe there is nothing "extra" in us that needs to
be explained.

And this belief of yours is because you are clearly unacquainted with what
Godel teaches us. To wit, it tells us that we can have a new property
constructed from rocks which is not derivable from aforementioned rocks.

You simply believe, erroneously, that there can be no new information
contained in a bunch of rocks. This idea is proven to be false by Godel.

All we are, is a large complex machine made out of
normal physical matter. Our conscious experience is nothing more
than the operation of a large signal processing machine.

Of course its more, a kick in the balls hurts.

There's
nothing special about what it is doing. It's the same type of stuff
our computers and other signal processing machines (analog and
digital) are already doing. If you want to say we have this special
property of being "conscious" they you have to say they are conscious
as well.

{ snip more of the same}

Your fundamental problem is that you believe that everything has to be
explainable, i.e. derivable by what you leant as a kid. Godel tells us
otherwise. That there are properties of systems that exist, yet are not
derivable from that existing system.

Why do you believe that consciousness should be derivable from existing
knowledge? Do you not accept, as Godel has proven, that we must keep
intoducing new axioms if we want to explain everthing? What is so special
about consciousness that iy should be explainable by prior knowledge?
Existing ideas failed with Special Relativity, and Quantum mechanics, we had
to introduce new ideas in those cases, why not for consciousness.

--
Kevin Aylward
ka@anasoftEXTRACT.co.uk
www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice

 

[Bob Myers]

"Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylward@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
newsFcOh.19062$_v3.17893@newsfe1-gui.ntli.net...

I dont have time to detailed debate with someone that wants to prove to
me that watches have consciousness.

Hold on a second, Kevin - no one has even come CLOSE to
"wanting to prove to you that watches have consciousness."
That's not the point here at all.

Let's take this a step at a time.

1. We know that such a thing as consciousness exists, if for
no other reason than the fact that we all experience it directly.

2. We also have a pretty firm belief that not everything in this
world is conscious. Watches, for example, almost certainly
are NOT conscious.

3. From the above, there must be a line to be drawn between
"conscious" and "not conscious."

So the case of the watch isn't one of someone trying to show
that it IS conscious, but rather trying to precisely determine and
communicate the reasons for saying that it is NOT, and thus helping
to draw that line.

Got it?

Bob M.

 

[Daryl McCullough]

Kevin Aylward says...

I am not really giving at this point any specifics in identifying non
conscious, just that for example, it would take a lot to convince anyone
that a wind up watch is conscious. Its a given that absolute proof cannot
exist on this matter, so one makes a best go at beyond reasonable doubt.
after all, thats enough to hang someone, somewhere.

I think you're misunderstanding the situation. Yes, most people
would assume that a rock is not conscious, and it's a perfectly
sensible thing to do because a rock doesn't *behave* in the way
that typical conscious beings behave. That's typically what people
want to know when they ask "Is that thing conscious?": they want
to know is it paying attention to what's happening, is it noticing
who and what is nearby, will it respond to things being done to it?
Saying "Is it conscious" is *usually* a short-hand for asking such
purely behavioral questions.

That's all we need if we're only asking practical questions. We just
need to know how (and if) an object behaves in response to changing
environment.

However, if you are doing a *philosophical* investigation into
the nature of consciousness, it seems to me that either you want
to say that consciousness is *identical* to behavioral properties
(it's just a name for complex behaviors), or you allow for the
possibility, in principle, of behavior and consciousness not
coinciding. That is, you allow for the possibility of something
behaving as if conscious when it's not, or failing to behave as
if conscious when it actually is. But if you're allowing for this
disconnect between behavior and mentality, then what *is* your
basis for saying that something is or is not conscious?

I think that you really haven't thought enough about these matters.

--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Bob Myers wrote:

"Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylward@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
newsFcOh.19062$_v3.17893@newsfe1-gui.ntli.net...
I dont have time to detailed debate with someone that wants to
prove to me that watches have consciousness.

Hold on a second, Kevin - no one has even come CLOSE to
"wanting to prove to you that watches have consciousness."
That's not the point here at all.

Let's take this a step at a time.

1. We know that such a thing as consciousness exists, if for
no other reason than the fact that we all experience it directly.

2. We also have a pretty firm belief that not everything in this
world is conscious. Watches, for example, almost certainly
are NOT conscious.

3. From the above, there must be a line to be drawn between
"conscious" and "not conscious."

So the case of the watch isn't one of someone trying to show
that it IS conscious, but rather trying to precisely determine and
communicate the reasons for saying that it is NOT, and thus helping
to draw that line.

Got it?

For me, the line is more usefully addressed at sometime like a fly. There
is not much point in dwelling on the trivial cases. It like, if you do
graduate E&M, Maxwell's equations are just a given. There is little brownie
points gained for deriving them. There is more important work to get done.

--
Kevin Aylward
ka@anasoftEXTRACT.co.uk
www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Daryl McCullough wrote:

Kevin Aylward says...

Daryl McCullough wrote:

A scientist
would never say something like.
"if someone actually wants to debate whether of a
wind up watch has "experience". to wit, consciousness,
there will need to do it without me.

would never say something like.
That isn't a scientific attitude, at all.

Have you actually tried getting a General Relativity expert to engage
conversation in the 1000s of loons all going "Einstein was wrong
about relativity". Not a chance, they just roll their eyes...

For one thing, you're wrong.

Dont be daft. Of course I am right on this.

Top-notch physicists such as Steve Carlip
and John Baez have spent enormous amounts of their own time explaining
how General Relativity works to laymen.

Sure, there are a handful of folks that do. Do you know what a statistical
distribution is?

For the second thing, General Relativity is (relatively speaking, ha
ha) a mature topic. Many aspects of it are well understood. It has a
rigorous mathematical basis that allows such things as proofs and
derivations. In contrast, your "scientific theory of consciousness"
is not anywhere near mature. The distinction between "crackpot" and
"non-crackpot" is not nearly so clear. As a matter of fact, in the
field of the philosophy of AI, half the people in the field consider
the other half crackpots. I've spent many years reading and
discussing the philosophy of AI. There is *no* agreement about any of
the basic questions. Take three of the big names in the philosophy of
AI: Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers, John Searle. I would venture to
suggest that each of these people considers some of the ideas on the
topic held by the other two to be nonsense.

Sure, but I bet you none of them will argue seiously that a watch is
conscious.

In such an environment, it is way too premature to label some
questions as "beyond the pale" or "crackpot". It's the height
of arrogance.

Oh...?

My twin brother is a Schizophrenic. He once believed that the sun was
conscious and controlling things. He currently believes that, other than
himself, no one is conscious at all. We are all robots made by aliens to
deliberately annoy him.

If someone seriously believes that watches are conscious, a very good bet is
that they are Schizophrenic. It matter of simple statistics. 10, 000s of
Schizophrenics, believe all sorts of inanimate objects are conscious, how
many sane people do you really think believe that watches are conscious?
Seriously, how many sane believe in conscious watches?

If presenting facts is "arrogance", I am guilty.

You introduce a supposedly
scientific property of matter, and then without any experiment or
argument, you rule out a possibility and declare it beyond the pale
to argue for that possibility. What a thoroughly unscientific
attitude!

Out of millions on possible valid debating ideas, I have already
concluded that a watch is consciousness is not one of them.

That's fine. I'm asking the *basis* for concluding that. If you
can't give a coherent answer in the simplest cases, how do you
hope to give an answer in the more complex cases.

1 No magic
2 Known consciousness is the result of Darwinian evolution
3 Consciousness of a watch supplies zero replication value for the watch.

Therefore the possibility of a watch being conscious is exceedingly remote.

A good scientist need to know what is worth investigating and what
is not.

Because I have actual experience of people that believe in conscious suns, I
am unable to deduce what is a rational line of inquiry?

This is the real world. Many ideas are simple worthless.
That's just the way it is. If you want to starve yourself
because you believe carrots feel pain, go ahead, but don't
expect many to take that idea seriously either.

You're being a jerk. I didn't make a claim one way or the
other.

Oh dear...It should be trivially obvious that "you" in this case, is not a
personal "you".

There is no chance that anyone can make a reasonable person belive
that a watch is conscious.

I didn't claim otherwise. I asked what YOUR reasons are for saying
that. I'm asking about your methodology, what to you counts as
evidence one way or the other. You were the one who brought up
watches. I only asked how you know that "machines don't have
experience". If you don't like watches, try a human-like robot that
is capable of carrying out sophisticated conversations, is capable of
using reasoning to solve problems put to it, acts to avoid getting
destroyed, seeks out the company of others, works to protect small
children from harm, etc. Are you trying to tell me that no reasonable
person would believe that such a machine is conscious?

No such entities exist.

I think you're
wrong. I would bet that the vast majority of people who actually
interacted with such a robot would believe it to be conscious.

I have already given my view that very good replicaters of consciousness,
would automaticlly be conscious. I do not believe Zombies are possible.

I will have to put out all the reasons later. This is taking far to much
time already.

Yet,
your statement "machines don't have experience" says otherwise. Why
should anyone believe you?

They dont have to. They can read pretty much any consciousness researcher
from any university and I am as convinced as I can be, that few, if any,
believes that any machine to date, is even remotely heading for
consciousness.

What is your basis for saying that?

I think most may be imagining that most of what I say, is my own. Other
than, my claim that I have a proof that the hard problem is intrinsically
unsolvable, most of what I say, is pretty much standard plagiarism. Sure,
there are some researchers that think Zombies are possible, but overall,
hardly anything that I have said is controversial or novel in the slightest.

If you can find any academic referances by your average academic that says
machines have experiance, I will stand corrected.

--
Kevin Aylward
ka@anasoftEXTRACT.co.uk
www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice

 

[RichD]

On Mar 26, Lawson English <Laws...@nowhere.none> wrote:

Separate non-physical minds that cause matter to
"swerve" don't come into it.
Even if they COULD do that, would that prove free will?

Yes. That's the instrumental test.

How so? "Free will" means there is no way to predict
which way the thing will swerve because the free willed
might "decide" arbitrarily to send it some other way.
The fact that the non-physical mind can send things
one way or the other doesn't say ANYTHING about how
predictable this non-corporeal entity is.

You equate 'free will' to 'unpredictablity'? Then
you are laboring under a different understanding
than the conventional. Free will, as commonly
defined (actually, people are fuzzy on the concept),
is something which transgresses the laws of nature.

We are composed of cells, which obey the rules
of chemistry, through enzymatic reactions. Now,
let's say there's a reaction which occurs in the lab,
explained by known chemistry. But, in your brain,
that same reaction proceeds otherwise,
inexplicably, via some incorporeal method. That
would constitute 'free will'. Then you could say:
"I am not a robot, following the program of
thermodynamics! I do as I please!"

There is no such (known) reaction. Ergo, free
will is an illusion, you are a robot.

Why should incorporeal minds prove or disprove free will?

Because that's the usual understanding, as I
outlined above - something 'incorporeal', which
is not bound, robotically, by the laws of nature.
Of course it would be unpredictable - that's a
tautology, from definition.

However, unpredictablitiy, per se... we know of
chaotic and quantum processes which defy our
efforts to predict. Does a photon's random choice,
to reflect or transmit through glass, constitute
'free will'?

--
Rich

 

[RichD]

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

The universe and everything in it however isn't circular -

It indeed is.This is in fact very well known and understood.

yeah the speed of light is an invariant in an inertial frame,
well how do we know what is an inertial frame or not?
Look mate these issues are pretty fundamental and unresolved.

An inertial frame is a collection of objects
which are not accelerating with respect to one another.

What's the problem?

--
Rich

 

[Daryl McCullough]

Kevin Aylward says...

Daryl McCullough wrote:
Kevin Aylward says...

Daryl McCullough wrote:

A scientist
would never say something like.
"if someone actually wants to debate whether of a
wind up watch has "experience". to wit, consciousness,
there will need to do it without me.

would never say something like.
That isn't a scientific attitude, at all.

Have you actually tried getting a General Relativity expert to engage
conversation in the 1000s of loons all going "Einstein was wrong
about relativity". Not a chance, they just roll their eyes...

For one thing, you're wrong.

Dont be daft. Of course I am right on this.

Top-notch physicists such as Steve Carlip
and John Baez have spent enormous amounts of their own time explaining
how General Relativity works to laymen.

Sure, there are a handful of folks that do. Do you know what a statistical
distribution is?


For the second thing, General Relativity is (relatively speaking, ha
ha) a mature topic. Many aspects of it are well understood. It has a
rigorous mathematical basis that allows such things as proofs and
derivations. In contrast, your "scientific theory of consciousness"
is not anywhere near mature. The distinction between "crackpot" and
"non-crackpot" is not nearly so clear. As a matter of fact, in the
field of the philosophy of AI, half the people in the field consider
the other half crackpots. I've spent many years reading and
discussing the philosophy of AI. There is *no* agreement about any of
the basic questions. Take three of the big names in the philosophy of
AI: Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers, John Searle. I would venture to
suggest that each of these people considers some of the ideas on the
topic held by the other two to be nonsense.

Sure, but I bet you none of them will argue seiously that a watch is
conscious.


In such an environment, it is way too premature to label some
questions as "beyond the pale" or "crackpot". It's the height
of arrogance.

Oh...?

My twin brother is a Schizophrenic. He once believed that the sun was
conscious and controlling things. He currently believes that, other than
himself, no one is conscious at all. We are all robots made by aliens to
deliberately annoy him.

If someone seriously believes that watches are conscious, a very good bet is
that they are Schizophrenic. It matter of simple statistics. 10, 000s of
Schizophrenics, believe all sorts of inanimate objects are conscious, how
many sane people do you really think believe that watches are conscious?
Seriously, how many sane believe in conscious watches?

If presenting facts is "arrogance", I am guilty.


You introduce a supposedly
scientific property of matter, and then without any experiment or
argument, you rule out a possibility and declare it beyond the pale
to argue for that possibility. What a thoroughly unscientific
attitude!

Out of millions on possible valid debating ideas, I have already
concluded that a watch is consciousness is not one of them.

That's fine. I'm asking the *basis* for concluding that. If you
can't give a coherent answer in the simplest cases, how do you
hope to give an answer in the more complex cases.

1 No magic
2 Known consciousness is the result of Darwinian evolution
3 Consciousness of a watch supplies zero replication value for the watch.

Therefore the possibility of a watch being conscious is exceedingly remote.


A good scientist need to know what is worth investigating and what
is not.


Because I have actual experience of people that believe in conscious suns, I
am unable to deduce what is a rational line of inquiry?


This is the real world. Many ideas are simple worthless.
That's just the way it is. If you want to starve yourself
because you believe carrots feel pain, go ahead, but don't
expect many to take that idea seriously either.

You're being a jerk. I didn't make a claim one way or the
other.

Oh dear...It should be trivially obvious that "you" in this case, is not a
personal "you".



There is no chance that anyone can make a reasonable person belive
that a watch is conscious.

I didn't claim otherwise. I asked what YOUR reasons are for saying
that. I'm asking about your methodology, what to you counts as
evidence one way or the other. You were the one who brought up
watches. I only asked how you know that "machines don't have
experience". If you don't like watches, try a human-like robot that
is capable of carrying out sophisticated conversations, is capable of
using reasoning to solve problems put to it, acts to avoid getting
destroyed, seeks out the company of others, works to protect small
children from harm, etc. Are you trying to tell me that no reasonable
person would believe that such a machine is conscious?

No such entities exist.

I think you're
wrong. I would bet that the vast majority of people who actually
interacted with such a robot would believe it to be conscious.

I have already given my view that very good replicaters of consciousness,
would automaticlly be conscious. I do not believe Zombies are possible.

I will have to put out all the reasons later. This is taking far to much
time already.


Yet,
your statement "machines don't have experience" says otherwise. Why
should anyone believe you?

They dont have to. They can read pretty much any consciousness researcher
from any university and I am as convinced as I can be, that few, if any,
believes that any machine to date, is even remotely heading for
consciousness.

What is your basis for saying that?

I think most may be imagining that most of what I say, is my own. Other
than, my claim that I have a proof that the hard problem is intrinsically
unsolvable, most of what I say, is pretty much standard plagiarism. Sure,
there are some researchers that think Zombies are possible, but overall,
hardly anything that I have said is controversial or novel in the slightest.

If you can find any academic referances by your average academic that says
machines have experiance, I will stand corrected.

 

[Daryl McCullough]

Kevin Aylward says...

If someone seriously believes that watches are conscious,
a very good bet is that they are Schizophrenic.

That's probably true, but that wasn't the question. The question
is what basis do YOU have for saying that any particular thing
is not conscious? (Watches, or whatever other example you want
to choose).

Once again, I remind you that *you* were the one who
brought up watches. Nobody else has suggested that
watches are conscious.

If presenting facts is "arrogance", I am guilty.

You haven't presented any facts. Do you mean facts about
schizophrenia? The thread is not about schizophrenia, it
is about consciousness. What facts have you presented about
consciousness?

That's fine. I'm asking the *basis* for concluding that. If you
can't give a coherent answer in the simplest cases, how do you
hope to give an answer in the more complex cases.

1 No magic
2 Known consciousness is the result of Darwinian evolution
3 Consciousness of a watch supplies zero replication value for the watch.

Therefore the possibility of a watch being conscious is exceedingly
remote.

That's an exceedingly dopey argument. The first point is a non-sequiter.
What does "magic" have to do with "consciousness"? You haven't
defined either term.

The second point is begging the question. How do you know which objects
are conscious and which are not? You can't use statistical reasoning
until you are able to compile *examples* of conscious things and
not-conscious things. The third point is irrelevant, since it has
not been established that consciousness has anything to do with
having a "replication value".

Are you using *introspection* as the basis for deciding that
something is conscious? In that case, you've only got one positive
example of conscious entities (yourself) and *no* negative examples.
How does it make any sense to generalize from one example to
"Consciousness is the result of Darwinian evolution"?

What I would say is that evolution selects for behaviors in
which living creatures react to changes in the environment in
order to improve their reproductive chances. But what does
that have to do with *consciousness*? Are you saying that
that kind of behavior *is* consciousness? Are you saying that
that kind of behavior is *evidence* of consciousness? On
what basis are you saying that?

--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY

 

[Lawson English]

Bob Myers wrote:

"RichD" <r_delaney2001@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1175026135.231486.150770@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...

An inertial frame is a collection of objects
which are not accelerating with respect to one another.

For example, U.S. 101 through Santa Clara at 5:00 PM
on any weekday, the cars on that highway at that time, and
the highway's immediate surroundings would thus have to
be considered as constituting an "inertial frame."

Bob M.

Allowing for different acceleration due to rotation of the Earth and the
curvature of the Earth in that region, among other things.

 

[Lawson English]

RichD wrote:

On Mar 26, Lawson English <Laws...@nowhere.none> wrote:
Separate non-physical minds that cause matter to
"swerve" don't come into it.
Even if they COULD do that, would that prove free will?
Yes. That's the instrumental test.
How so? "Free will" means there is no way to predict
which way the thing will swerve because the free willed
might "decide" arbitrarily to send it some other way.
The fact that the non-physical mind can send things
one way or the other doesn't say ANYTHING about how
predictable this non-corporeal entity is.

You equate 'free will' to 'unpredictablity'? Then
you are laboring under a different understanding
than the conventional. Free will, as commonly
defined (actually, people are fuzzy on the concept),
is something which transgresses the laws of nature.

We are composed of cells, which obey the rules
of chemistry, through enzymatic reactions. Now,
let's say there's a reaction which occurs in the lab,
explained by known chemistry. But, in your brain,
that same reaction proceeds otherwise,
inexplicably, via some incorporeal method. That
would constitute 'free will'. Then you could say:
"I am not a robot, following the program of
thermodynamics! I do as I please!"

There is no such (known) reaction. Ergo, free
will is an illusion, you are a robot.

Why should incorporeal minds prove or disprove free will?

Because that's the usual understanding, as I
outlined above - something 'incorporeal', which
is not bound, robotically, by the laws of nature.
Of course it would be unpredictable - that's a
tautology, from definition.

However, unpredictablitiy, per se... we know of
chaotic and quantum processes which defy our
efforts to predict. Does a photon's random choice,
to reflect or transmit through glass, constitute
'free will'?

--
Rich

Probably not, but does the hypothetical poltergeist, able to influence
matter via non-physical agencies, exhibit free will?

 

[Bob Myers]

"Daryl McCullough" <stevendaryl3016@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:eubntf011n9@drn.newsguy.com...

Have you actually tried getting a General Relativity expert to engage
conversation in the 1000s of loons all going "Einstein was wrong about
relativity". Not a chance, they just roll their eyes...

For one thing, you're wrong. Top-notch physicists such as Steve Carlip
and John Baez have spent enormous amounts of their own time explaining
how General Relativity works to laymen.

I think the point here was that the loons in question
represent a special class of audience. Stephen Jay
Gould didn't spend much of his time arguing with
creationists, either. The formal version of this is given
in the Heinlein Principle: "Never wrassle with a pig;
you'll just get dirty, and the pig enjoys it."

Bob M.

 

[Bob Myers]

"Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylward@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
newsfeOh.26874$267.22314@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...

My twin brother is a Schizophrenic. He once believed that the sun was
conscious and controlling things. He currently believes that, other than
himself, no one is conscious at all. We are all robots made by aliens to
deliberately annoy him.

I take a somewhat different view. I don't care whether
the rest of you are conscious or not, but a completely
unreasonable number clearly exist SOLELY for the
purpose of annoying me....;-)

Bob M.

 

[Bob Myers]

"Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylward@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:KUdOh.19574$7l1.16786@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net...

For me, the line is more usefully addressed at sometime like a fly. There
is not much point in dwelling on the trivial cases. It like, if you do
graduate E&M, Maxwell's equations are just a given. There is little
brownie points gained for deriving them. There is more important work to
get done.

But we're hardly at that point yet. No line ANYWHERE
has been cleanly drawn, so asking "why isn't it here? Why
isn't it THERE?" helps to draw the line even when some of
those might be "trivial" cases.

And while the grad students might think they're above
deriving Maxwell, etc., I think it should also be recognized
that a lot of really good work in theoretical physics - I am
tempted to say "most if not all" - has come from someone
looking for the threads hanging out from "well-established"
models, and pulling on them to see what starts to unravel.
That's pretty much working at the "derivation" level.

Bob M.

 

[Bob Myers]

"RichD" <r_delaney2001@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1175026135.231486.150770@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...

An inertial frame is a collection of objects
which are not accelerating with respect to one another.

For example, U.S. 101 through Santa Clara at 5:00 PM
on any weekday, the cars on that highway at that time, and
the highway's immediate surroundings would thus have to
be considered as constituting an "inertial frame."

Bob M.

 

[Curt Welch]

"Kevin Aylward" <kevin_aylward@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Daryl McCullough wrote:

If the debate is about experience, then how in the world is it
pointless to ask how you know that something doesn't have experience?

I dont have time to detailed debate with someone that wants to prove to
me that watches have consciousness.

But, the point here is how can you hope to prove it doesn't since you are
unable to define it in a way that would allow us to test the watch to see
if it were conscious?

I'm not arguing that a wind up watch has experience, I'm asking you
on what basis are you saying one way or the other? What counts as
evidence on such a question?

Out of any even vague ideas of how to define consciousness, a watch is
conscious is simple a non-starter. Those that dont understand this point
for a watch need to do 101 first.

Again, you have failed to answer the question. We can't have an
intelligent debate about this artifact you call consciousness if you can't
define it.

On the other hand, if one is attempting some arguments as to whether a
fly is conscious, that deserves much more attention.

For reference, I am strongly influenced by the Darwinian evolution
algorithm (http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/replicators/index.html). Known,
consciousness, is a direct result of properties that have evolved to
maximise replication numbers of replicates. What good is it for a watch
to be conscious? It cant walk, it cant talk. Consciousness is no
advantage to it, so it doesn't make sense evolutionary wise, so I reject
it. If something is not consistent, with evolution, its wrong. Period.

The watch exists because it was created by evolution. How is a watch not
consistent with evolution? It survives because it has survival powers.
They exist in a symbiotic relationship with humans. The fact that it's not
self replicating has nothing to do with evolution. Life wasn't self
replicating when it was first created by evolution but that doesn't mean
that some other force than evolution created life.

To quote someone else from this thread: "Its clear that you just
haven't thought this thing through at all."

I have, ....

It's clear you have put a lot of thought into it. But you choose to ignore
some of the most important questions in the debate - such as how can you
tell if a watch is conscious. Or how can you prove it's not? If you can't
prove it's not conscious, we have to assume it might be conscious.

There's no question that a watch doesn't have the same capacity to create
complex behavior that a human has. It's no where near to a human (duh).
But it does have behavior. It's got internal and external behavior. It
reacts to it's environment. It produces it's own behavior (hands spin
around and then stop at some point).

If this type of complex behavior is not conscious, how many more parts do
you have to add before it becomes conscious? What is that one magic part
you must add before you call some hunk of matter conscious?

If you can't answer these questions, you don't have anything to debate
other than personal opinion. You have no facts, no evidence, no real
knowledge, no proof of anything - just a shit load of personal opinion
about a word that no one has defined well enough to debate what it is.

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

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Daryl McCullough wrote:

Kevin Aylward says...

I am not really giving at this point any specifics in identifying non
conscious, just that for example, it would take a lot to convince
anyone that a wind up watch is conscious. Its a given that absolute
proof cannot exist on this matter, so one makes a best go at beyond
reasonable doubt. after all, thats enough to hang someone, somewhere.

I think you're misunderstanding the situation. Yes, most people
would assume that a rock is not conscious, and it's a perfectly
sensible thing to do because a rock doesn't *behave* in the way
that typical conscious beings behave. That's typically what people
want to know when they ask "Is that thing conscious?": they want
to know is it paying attention to what's happening, is it noticing
who and what is nearby, will it respond to things being done to it?
Saying "Is it conscious" is *usually* a short-hand for asking such
purely behavioral questions.

That's all we need if we're only asking practical questions. We just
need to know how (and if) an object behaves in response to changing
environment.

However, if you are doing a *philosophical* investigation into
the nature of consciousness, it seems to me that either you want
to say that consciousness is *identical* to behavioral properties
(it's just a name for complex behaviors), or you allow for the
possibility, in principle, of behavior and consciousness not
coinciding. That is, you allow for the possibility of something
behaving as if conscious when it's not, or failing to behave as
if conscious when it actually is. But if you're allowing for this
disconnect between behavior and mentality, then what *is* your
basis for saying that something is or is not conscious?

I think that you really haven't thought enough about these matters.

Ahhhmmmm.....

What can I say other than, not at all. I have looked at this a fair bit.e.g.
http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/replicators/consciousness.html

A disconect between consciousness and behavior [ossible seems to be at odds
with the "no cloning theorem" of quantum mechanics,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_cloning_theorem

I don't see that from a physics point of view, identical behaviour is
possible from non-identical physical construction. Sure, this don't totally
rule out Zombies, but it makes it less likely in my view.

--
Kevin Aylward
ka@anasoftEXTRACT.co.uk
www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Daryl McCullough wrote:

Kevin Aylward says...

If someone seriously believes that watches are conscious,
a very good bet is that they are Schizophrenic.

That's probably true, but that wasn't the question. The question
is what basis do YOU have for saying that any particular thing
is not conscious? (Watches, or whatever other example you want
to choose).

Once again, I remind you that *you* were the one who
brought up watches. Nobody else has suggested that
watches are conscious.

If presenting facts is "arrogance", I am guilty.

You haven't presented any facts. Do you mean facts about
schizophrenia? The thread is not about schizophrenia, it
is about consciousness. What facts have you presented about
consciousness?

That's fine. I'm asking the *basis* for concluding that. If you
can't give a coherent answer in the simplest cases, how do you
hope to give an answer in the more complex cases.

1 No magic
2 Known consciousness is the result of Darwinian evolution
3 Consciousness of a watch supplies zero replication value for the
watch.

Therefore the possibility of a watch being conscious is exceedingly
remote.

That's an exceedingly dopey argument. The first point is a
non-sequiter. What does "magic" have to do with "consciousness"? You
haven't defined either term.

I have. It was in another post. This is why I dont have time for all of
this. I cant go into the details over and over again for each person.

http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/replicators/magic.html

The second point is begging the question. How do you know which
objects are conscious and which are not? You can't use statistical
reasoning until you are able to compile *examples* of conscious
things and not-conscious things.

We can make a good start, beyond reasonable doubt. That's just what we do in
physics. I drop a penny and measure how long it takes to get to the ground.
I don't drop all pennies, or watch for ever.

cats, dogs, seals, humans are conscious
computers, watches, carrots, tv sets are not conscious.

Do you want to put a serious objection to the lists above?

The third point is irrelevant, since
it has not been established that consciousness has anything to do with
having a "replication value".

The converse, that the brain evolved consciousness to have no replication
(survival) value is much harder to justify. Thats one big side effect.

http://www.kevinaylward.co.uk/replicators/consciousness.html

Are you using *introspection* as the basis for deciding that
something is conscious? In that case, you've only got one positive
example of conscious entities (yourself) and *no* negative examples.
How does it make any sense to generalize from one example to
"Consciousness is the result of Darwinian evolution"?

It has to be. There is no alternative. Consciousness is due to the brain,
and only the brain. The brain is a replicater complex that has evolved by
Darwinian evolution., well not unless you believe in Intelligent Design.

The only question is that, is consciousness a side effect of evolutionary
problem solving. Does consciousness actually mater, not that it was or not
selected for, either directly or indirectly. It was selected for. This is
not debatable if you accept evolution.

What I would say is that evolution selects for behaviors in
which living creatures react to changes in the environment in
order to improve their reproductive chances. But what does
that have to do with *consciousness*? Are you saying that
that kind of behavior *is* consciousness? Are you saying that
that kind of behavior is *evidence* of consciousness? On
what basis are you saying that?

I dont understand what you are saying.

--
Kevin Aylward
ka@anasoftEXTRACT.co.uk
www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice

 

[Daniel Mandic]

Kevin Aylward wrote:

consciousness

Hi Kevin Aylward!


You write Good English, when I may say this...



By the way, I have found 'anticipatory consciousness'. Is this not
'Intelligence' (being aware about the axiom and its chaotic results)?

'Luck' is an other one, that there is more than consciousness.
(....made a mistake turn in the first [std. thinking like], but it
finally eclosed to an satisfying outlet.)



Kind regards,

Daniel Mandic