Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Lagayascienza]

Computers compute. Brains compute. No one seriously doubts these two statements.

The question is whether the computation that goes on in brains causes consciousness or not.

What we know is that when computation in brains ceases (as when under general anaesthesia when we can no longer think or perform arithmetic operations) consciousness also ceases. Therefore computation must play an important role in consciousness.

Brains and computers do things differently. But their processes are analogous and they both achieve similar outcomes. If intelligence is XYZ, then computers already exhibit X. If intelligence requires consciousness, then there is no reason to think that, once computers can achieve X,Y and Z they will not also acquire conscious.

The “impossibilists” and Mysterians dislike this idea. But that does make it untrue. It must be possible in principle to build computers with a complexity that matches human neuronal networks. If/when that happens, there is no reason to think that computers will not be conscious.

[Sy Borg]

Computers compute. Brains compute. No one seriously doubts these two statements.

The question is whether the computation that goes on in brains causes consciousness or not.

What we know is that when computation in brains ceases (as when under general anaesthesia when we can no longer think or perform arithmetic operations) consciousness also ceases. Therefore computation must play an important role in consciousness.

Brains and computers do things differently. But their processes are analogous and they both achieve similar outcomes. If intelligence is XYZ, then computers already exhibit X. If intelligence requires consciousness, then there is no reason to think that, once computers can achieve X,Y and Z they will not also acquire conscious.

The “impossibilists” and Mysterians dislike this idea. But that does make it untrue. It must be possible in principle to build computers with a complexity that matches human neuronal networks. If/when that happens, there is no reason to think that computers will not be conscious.

I think there will be a time when ostensible machines have a sense of internality, that it will feel like something to be whatever AI evolves into, once there are sufficient flexible interdependencies in their neural networks. It would be an alien way of being to us, though. Then again, the consciousness of annelids, crustaceans, insects and the like also seems alien.

[Lagayascienza]

Yes, that's how I see it. . There are different degrees of consciousness. And there can probably be types of consciousness. Why see human consciousness as the ultimate and only?

[Sy Borg]

Yes, that's how I see it. . There are different degrees of consciousness. And there can probably be types of consciousness. Why see human consciousness as the ultimate and only?

Human consciousness clearly shows considerable room for improvement. "Considerable" may be an understatement. There are evolutionary opportunities to more deeply explore the possibilities of intelligence that, at first, augmented humans will presumably occupy.

[Sculptor1]

It's more like saying that little johnny is not going to be a wizard capable of turning back a Balrog.

Not everyone has the skills to be a wizard. If Johnny is such a person, then wizardry is not really an option for him. The real world is like that...

No one has the skills to be a wizard is the point.

[Sculptor1]

No need to disagree. You are just wrong. In our example we have many examples of little Johnny growing up to be a doctor.
And no you cannot say that about an Egyptian. You just do not know. Given the right tuition.
And it is utterly irrelevant. It does not advance your argument.

Nope, you are obviously wrong (yet again), so certain without cause that AI will always be more or less like it is today. Ancient Egyptians obviously would be amazed and nonplussed by the Internet. People found the internet strange and uncanny in the 1990s, let alone 4k years ago.

Life and humans today are not a peak of nature that can never be surpassed. There is a possible future that involves progress, not just decay and destruction of current forms, reverting to simpler ones. Emergence is real, the story of the last 4.6 billion years. Just because something doesn't happen in one's lifetime does not mean it won't happen at all.

BY the same token that an Egyptian would not have predicted a computer or a car. You cannot predict the sort of "progress" that will occur in the matter of AI.
You are just shooting the breeze.
An Egyptian might have dreamed about travelling to the underworld or stepping in the sun to meet Ra. But we know that you can never land on the sun.
THere is no prospect that AI will be intelligent and it could be as likely as landing on the sun. You can have as much progress as you like but some things remain impossible.
You cannot breath a vaccum.

You don't seem to understand that AI does not need to turn into biology to be intelligent. It is already intelligent in certain applications. We can quibble about the definition of "intelligence" but, based on its interpretation before ChatGPT, AI today is absolutely intelligent. In its own limited way, it understands what is being asked, even when significant mistakes are made in typing the questions.

As for a further claim that it will be sentient, the only thing that can stop it from becoming sentient is the elimination of modern human civilisations before truly autonomous units are created. Truly autonomous units will certainly be created for space exploration - unless the world blows up.

Sentience appears to be useful. When different autonomous AIs have projects where conflicts of interests occur, conditions will emerge in favour of a new sentience evolving. It will take a long time (which evolution does) but, by your line of reasoning, based on life 3 billion years ago, human sentience could not possibly occur because it doesn't already exist.

You do not seem to understand that AI is not "intelligent". It's a bit like North Korea (The People's Democratic Republic) claiming to be democratic. IN fact its not really much of a Republic since their leadership is by birth right making it a monarchy.
AI is not "already" anything more than a langauge processor. Maybe if you spend more time you would see the limitiations?
You are bamboozled by the least of it capabilities. Answering questions depite bad spelling and grammar is the easiest thing to process. You have a completely naive POV on this issue if you think that is clever. It's almost like you have never seen a spelling checker or grammerly.

[Sy Borg]

Nope, you are obviously wrong (yet again), so certain without cause that AI will always be more or less like it is today. Ancient Egyptians obviously would be amazed and nonplussed by the Internet. People found the internet strange and uncanny in the 1990s, let alone 4k years ago.

Life and humans today are not a peak of nature that can never be surpassed. There is a possible future that involves progress, not just decay and destruction of current forms, reverting to simpler ones. Emergence is real, the story of the last 4.6 billion years. Just because something doesn't happen in one's lifetime does not mean it won't happen at all.

BY the same token that an Egyptian would not have predicted a computer or a car. You cannot predict the sort of "progress" that will occur in the matter of AI.
You are just shooting the breeze.
An Egyptian might have dreamed about travelling to the underworld or stepping in the sun to meet Ra. But we know that you can never land on the sun.
THere is no prospect that AI will be intelligent and it could be as likely as landing on the sun. You can have as much progress as you like but some things remain impossible.
You cannot breath a vaccum.

You don't seem to understand that AI does not need to turn into biology to be intelligent. It is already intelligent in certain applications. We can quibble about the definition of "intelligence" but, based on its interpretation before ChatGPT, AI today is absolutely intelligent. In its own limited way, it understands what is being asked, even when significant mistakes are made in typing the questions.

As for a further claim that it will be sentient, the only thing that can stop it from becoming sentient is the elimination of modern human civilisations before truly autonomous units are created. Truly autonomous units will certainly be created for space exploration - unless the world blows up.

Sentience appears to be useful. When different autonomous AIs have projects where conflicts of interests occur, conditions will emerge in favour of a new sentience evolving. It will take a long time (which evolution does) but, by your line of reasoning, based on life 3 billion years ago, human sentience could not possibly occur because it doesn't already exist.

You do not seem to understand that AI is not "intelligent". It's a bit like North Korea (The People's Democratic Republic) claiming to be democratic. IN fact its not really much of a Republic since their leadership is by birth right making it a monarchy.
AI is not "already" anything more than a langauge processor. Maybe if you spend more time you would see the limitiations?
You are bamboozled by the least of it capabilities. Answering questions depite bad spelling and grammar is the easiest thing to process. You have a completely naive POV on this issue if you think that is clever. It's almost like you have never seen a spelling checker or grammerly.

I find it better comprehends what is being said than many humans.

You seem to think that only being good at one thing (or a few things, really) means AI is not intelligent, as though intelligence must be broad. No, intelligence can be highly specialised. AI's is a narrow intelligence. So far.

[The Beast]

The “wizad” Johnny Dee son of “one of the thuatha De Danann” went to jail for the crime of “calculating”… we should pay attention to the paradiddle-diddle. Hey… Allan Poe considered “diddling as one of the exact sciences” It is Poe’s paradox for it was demanded of Plato since man is an animal that diddles and not a drunken singing: “ “Though I am old with wandering through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she has gone, and kiss her lips and take her hands” It is the impossible.

[Pattern-chaser]

You don't seem to understand that AI does not need to turn into biology to be intelligent. It is already intelligent in certain applications. We can quibble about the definition of "intelligence" but, based on its interpretation before ChatGPT, AI today is absolutely intelligent. In its own limited way, it understands what is being asked, even when significant mistakes are made in typing the questions.

I think that here, you overstate the case for AI. Wondering about the definition of "intelligence" is not "quibbling", it's central to the matter in hand. Given that we lack a *usable* definition, the implementation of Artificial Intelligence is impossible for human software designers. Even with such a definition, its implementation might not be as straightforward as we might hope.

Your reference to "understanding" is also questionable. Again, we lack a definition that would allow us to design-in understanding to our AI programs. But our vague and everyday understanding of understanding () is enough to show us that AI cannot do it, I think.

Current AI has been intentionally designed to *appear* intelligent, when it actually is not. The same applies to understanding, I think.

[Sy Borg]

You don't seem to understand that AI does not need to turn into biology to be intelligent. It is already intelligent in certain applications. We can quibble about the definition of "intelligence" but, based on its interpretation before ChatGPT, AI today is absolutely intelligent. In its own limited way, it understands what is being asked, even when significant mistakes are made in typing the questions.

I think that here, you overstate the case for AI. Wondering about the definition of "intelligence" is not "quibbling", it's central to the matter in hand. Given that we lack a *usable* definition, the implementation of Artificial Intelligence is impossible for human software designers. Even with such a definition, its implementation might not be as straightforward as we might hope.

Your reference to "understanding" is also questionable. Again, we lack a definition that would allow us to design-in understanding to our AI programs. But our vague and everyday understanding of understanding (😋) is enough to show us that AI cannot do it, I think.

Current AI has been intentionally designed to *appear* intelligent, when it actually is not. The same applies to understanding, I think.

Intelligence is a relative impression. It is not a magical quality imbued on the few by God.

So, you might say that a small lizard is not intelligent but, compared with a snail, it is highly intelligent. Likewise, you might say ChatGPT is not intelligent but, compared with older chatbots, it is extremely intelligent. AI can understand your words enough to respond appropriately. Intelligence does not need understanding - that's just shifting the boundaries to suit a pre-determined position.

After all, you are intelligent enough to respond to my posts while frequently not understanding what I mean.

[Count Lucanor]

Computers compute. Brains compute. No one seriously doubts these two statements.

The question is whether the computation that goes on in brains causes consciousness or not.

I understand that is hard de get detached from the paradigm of the computational theory of mind, but saying that no one can seriously doubt it, just because it's the mainstream view in the tech world, sounds like dogmatism.

Would someone like Rodney Brooks suffice as a serious person? He's "a robotics entrepreneur and is currently the CTO and co-founder of Robust AI. Before that he was Founder, Chairman and CTO of Rethink Robotics (it ran from September 1st, 2008, through October 3rd, 2018, and was originally called Heartland Robotics). He is also a Founder, former Board Member (1990 - 2011) and former CTO (1990 - 2008) of iRobot Corp (Nasdaq: IRBT). Dr. Brooks is the former Director (1997 - 2007) of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and then the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)."
In 2014, Brooks (who calls himself a materialist reductionist) contributed to a group of essays under the title "What Scientific Idea is Ready for Retirement?" Brooks contributed with the essay "The Computational Metaphor". There's also a conversation he had in the Edge website, where he gives some insights on the problems with that metaphor and how it doesn't align with findings in the natural world. It's called THE CUL-DE-SAC OF THE COMPUTATIONAL METAPHOR, you can look it up.

Just as Brooks, I could get you a dozen of "serious people" supporting the idea that the brain is not a computer.

[Lagayascienza]

Count Lucanor, just so I'm clear on this, which part of that do you disagree with? Do you disagree that brains compute?

[Count Lucanor]

[quote=Lagayascienza post_id=469503 time=1730771209 user_id=44983]
[color=#4000BF]Count Lucanor[/color], just so I'm clear on this, which part of that do you disagree with? Do you disagree that brains compute?
[/quote]
I disagree with the equivalence between the principle on which computers operate and how brains work. So, the brain is not a computer, nor computers emulate the way brains work. There’s the possibility that even though minds are not computers, they at least include some computation in its processes, but I find that questionable.

[Lagayascienza]

Count LucanorI've just read the Brooks talk on Edge. Fascinating! Thanks for pointing us to it.

Brooks does not disagree with the idea that computation is what goes on in brains. His beef is with the limited type of metaphor used in talking about it, with "digitality", and not with the basic idea that brains compute. And Chalmers in his comments during the talk also says that brains compute. What he wants is for us to "look for the right kind of computation. "

I do not disagree with Brooks and Chalmers in this regard.

It was a very interesting discussion. I'll have another, closer, read of it to see if I can glean any more from it.

[Lagayascienza]

The other thing I would say about the Edge piece is that, even if it is true that computers are digital and brains analogue, that is no reason to think that computers compute and brains don't. The digital metaphor has been useful even if it is no longer quite fit for purpose. A more useful metaphor will be found.

Science will continue to plumb intelligence and consciousness and in doing so, I cannot see why, in principle, it will not be possible to one day build intelligent and mindful machines with sensate "bodies" which can self-improve and self replicate. The first steps down this road have already been taken.

A lot of people don't like the idea of artificial intelligence and consciousness. But there was a time when people didn't like the heliocentric idea of the solar system either. This demonstrates that not liking something does not mean it cannot be true. Or that it will go away.