Can machines be conscious?

[Omphalos]

It got pretty disgusting during long depos. After an hour or so of speaking into that thing the condensed spit and sweat started to leak out past the seals.

We had to take breaks.

[Harq al Ada]

I find it funny that people try to disprove the historical accuracy of Genisis through examining specific parts. Why not just point out that there are TWO completely contradictory creation stories, one with man coming first, then animals, then woman, and one with animals being first and then man and women being created simultainiously?

Obviously both stories had been passed down verbally for hundreds of years in two ormore different groups of Hebrews, and when Ezra finally was the person to write down all/most the important Hebrew stories he simply could not figure out which was older, or which was more valid, so he wrote them both down and let people guess.

My guess would be that he was of the opinion that messages contained in the stories were more important than whether they were true or not, and by including both he was hinting at this opinion.

I like that one also. Never heard a xian mention that there are 2 versions though. You mostly hear about the man before woman one.

I read somewhere, that I can't remember now to refer back, that the Judeo-Christian creation myth borrowed heavily from first the Egyptian and later the Babylonian creation myths.

[TheDukester]

edit: unless you'd want to have a blind stenographer for some reason

Yeah, I think that's actually the idea, believe it or not. The captions says "allows a blind person to take dictation."

Totally bizarre. Was there some sort of epidemic of blind stenographers in the 1940s and '50s?

[SandChigger]

You mean you don't know about Naked Court: Raw & Exposed?

[Lundse]

I read somewhere, that I can't remember now to refer back, that the Judeo-Christian creation myth borrowed heavily from first the Egyptian and later the Babylonian creation myths.

My favourite is the Tower of Babel one. Originally, wiping out had nothing to do with being sinful, laying with angels, or anything of the sort. We had simply become too many, were making too much noise and the main honcho couldn't sleep - kill all humans!

[lotek]

You mean you don't know about Naked Court: Raw & Exposed?

nope...
neither does google amazingly

[Lundse]

You mean you don't know about Naked Court: Raw & Exposed?

nope...
neither does google amazingly

There is hope for humanity yet...

This had me worried: http://www.lolcatbible.com

[lotek]

You mean you don't know about Naked Court: Raw & Exposed?

nope...
neither does google amazingly

There is hope for humanity yet...

This had me worried: http://www.lolcatbible.com

well the concept of doing that is funny as such, but really going through the process of actually doing it is... well at best a waste of time(and don't us all net users know about wasting time? )

[reverendmotherQ.]

I took a seminar up at Vanderbilt while I was in middle school (it was free for doing well on a ridiculously low standardized test, a monkey could have passed it I swear) about Humanoids, Androids, and The Face of The Future. From what I recall the professor said that sophisticated AI is capable of acquiring and cognitively processing information in anaylsis so that it continuously grows in intelligence. The question is where is that point where it passes the machine face into a conscious self aware identity. Perhaps it is similar to the way we as humans grow in infancy while understanding the world around us.
I don't know if this is a hoax, but it's interesting none the less:

[SandRider]

I missed this thread during my hiatus last fall -
I've got some opinions, need to read thru the whole thing,
but right now it's 60 degrees and blindingly sunny outside,
I'm going to take the dogs and walk the fencelines on the
other side of the hill ...


{suck it, Dallas !!}

[SadisticCynic]

Defining intelligence simply as computation is not right to me. Godel's theorem says no.

[Leto Atreides II]

I don't believe it's possible for machines to be conscious. At least, not artificial machines. Perhaps if electronic life forms evolved without engineers to design them...

Consciousness, I would render as awareness, of having a 'soul' or point of perception, something seated in the life-form which simply perceives. The brain may store data and intelligence, it may compute and think, but I do not believe a brain generates awareness or consciousness.

The senses detect information - light (seen), heat (felt), motion (felt, seen, heard), friction (felt), molecules (smelled, tasted) - and the nerves feed this data to the brain, which analyzes the data. But all this data only has significance because it is perceived by the core of consciousness which I refer to as the soul.

A computer is similar to a human in many ways. Data can be input, via the keyboard, mouse, webcam, Internet connection. It can be stored in the hard drive; it can be computed and analyzed... and none of it has any significance unless it is observed. But the computer has no 'soul' or point of perception of its own, so it requires a human to sit there and do the observing for it. Thus, a computer and a human together are like two bodies driven by a single soul.

Which is not to say that man-made machines cannot be autonomous. If they are sufficiently sophisticated, they can make decisions based on problem-solving programs and prime directives; they can maintain themselves; they can reproduce themselves. They could become fully independent of human control or interaction. But that does not mean that they would ever be conscious.

This is the horror of the 'thinking machines', the machine made in the image of the human mind. They can do everything we can do; they can do more; they could even write plays and novels and stories if they were so programmed, or dance, or paint with oils on canvas.

And if they wiped out humanity and replaced us, they could do all of this in cold, black, unfeeling, consciouslessness/unawareness. With humanity gone and machines left to ape us as they swarmed the Universe wiping out all organic life forms, doing perhaps everything we did... it would be like a movie playing in an empty theatre, a CD playing in a stereo system without speakers, two inflatable love dolls making love to each other... it would be the triumph of oblivion.

[Mr. Teg]

The 1990's was the decade in neuroscience.
You can't separate emotions (body) from the mind and bad things start happening when you do which you can see clearly in certain cases of severe brain trauma.
In this respect Frank had it right in Destination Void.

[MrFlibble]

A computer is similar to a human in many ways. Data can be input, via the keyboard, mouse, webcam, Internet connection. It can be stored in the hard drive; it can be computed and analyzed... and none of it has any significance unless it is observed. But the computer has no 'soul' or point of perception of its own, so it requires a human to sit there and do the observing for it. Thus, a computer and a human together are like two bodies driven by a single soul.

The difference is that a biological organism "processes information" in order to adapt to the environment and survive. Computers, on the other hand, are just tools designed for a specific purpose. When you say that human mind "computes", or "acquires data", or "processes information" do not forget this is simply a metaphor. Cognition is a living experience, not a mechanical process.

The 1990's was the decade in neuroscience.
You can't separate emotions (body) from the mind and bad things start happening when you do which you can see clearly in certain cases of severe brain trauma.
In this respect Frank had it right in Destination Void.

Right, the non-Cartesian epistemology. BTW, in GEoD Frank also hinted that the machines that could wipe out humanity would not be conscious, just programmed to destroy organic life:

The lxians contemplated making a weapon-a type of hunter-seeker, self-propelled death with a machine mind. It was to be designed as a self improving thing which would seek out life and reduce that life to its inorganic matter."

"I have not heard of this thing, Lord."

"I know that. The lxians do not recognize that machine makers always run the risk of becoming totally machine. This is ultimate sterility. Machines always fail... given time. And when these machines failed there would be nothing left, no life at all."

[SandChigger]

The brain may store data and intelligence, it may compute and think, but I do not believe a brain generates awareness or consciousness.

[Leto Atreides II]

The brain may store data and intelligence, it may compute and think, but I do not believe a brain generates awareness or consciousness.

Sorry, have you delineated an alternative view of the consciousness principle? I must confess I have not read this thread in its entirety.

[Leto Atreides II]

A computer is similar to a human in many ways. Data can be input, via the keyboard, mouse, webcam, Internet connection. It can be stored in the hard drive; it can be computed and analyzed... and none of it has any significance unless it is observed. But the computer has no 'soul' or point of perception of its own, so it requires a human to sit there and do the observing for it. Thus, a computer and a human together are like two bodies driven by a single soul.

The difference is that a biological organism "processes information" in order to adapt to the environment and survive. Computers, on the other hand, are just tools designed for a specific purpose. When you say that human mind "computes", or "acquires data", or "processes information" do not forget this is simply a metaphor. Cognition is a living experience, not a mechanical process.

And yet life without awareness would be a mechanical (chemical) process. A carbon-based organism could easily go through a set of motions which preserved its physical integrity, without being aware of anything. The true border between man and machine is not flesh and blood on the one side and electronics and metal on the other; it is consciousness.

[SandRider]

machines can be self-aware or sentient in the same way they can "evolve" or learn - only within the parameters set by the programmers ...

I can build a three-armed robot for construction and install sensors that can tell it where it is in relation to its environment,
and program it to maneuver around obstacles and such - I can program it to "problem solve" by moving obstacles in its path,
I can teach it to "think" in a way by evaluating a situation - i.e., there is a crate in my way, my database shows the crate
should/should not be there, > move/don't move/circumvent &etc. I can "teach" it thru experiance by expanding the database,
but if I cut the code that says it has three arms, it will bounce into things, tear shit up and get stuck ...

programmers can simulate intelligence, consciousness, &etc, but it is a simulation only -
until somebody like Dan Graystone figures out how to implant a teenage girl in a robot, anyway ...

[Olympos]

I think the steady progress of computing power, memory storage, and neuroscience will ultimately let someone create a machine that is self-aware and sentient as we define those terms. An artificial intelligence.

But it will be an *alien* intelligence. It will not be rooted in millenia of evolution as we are. It will not suffer the anxiety of mortality, as we do. It will not exist with the internal conflict of animal instinct and free will, as we do. It seems quite possible that we will invent this thing and then have very little ability to understand it.

[MrFlibble]

A computer is similar to a human in many ways. Data can be input, via the keyboard, mouse, webcam, Internet connection. It can be stored in the hard drive; it can be computed and analyzed... and none of it has any significance unless it is observed. But the computer has no 'soul' or point of perception of its own, so it requires a human to sit there and do the observing for it. Thus, a computer and a human together are like two bodies driven by a single soul.

The difference is that a biological organism "processes information" in order to adapt to the environment and survive. Computers, on the other hand, are just tools designed for a specific purpose. When you say that human mind "computes", or "acquires data", or "processes information" do not forget this is simply a metaphor. Cognition is a living experience, not a mechanical process.

And yet life without awareness would be a mechanical (chemical) process. A carbon-based organism could easily go through a set of motions which preserved its physical integrity, without being aware of anything. The true border between man and machine is not flesh and blood on the one side and electronics and metal on the other; it is consciousness.

What's your definition of "consciousness", then?

I think the steady progress of computing power, memory storage, and neuroscience will ultimately let someone create a machine that is self-aware and sentient as we define those terms. An artificial intelligence.

I think it will require first to fully understand how our own "intelligence" works before we'd be able to replicate it. So far, we only have various models, analogies and metaphors of mind.

[SadisticCynic]

I would suggest a read of The Emperor's New Mind and Shadows of the Mind both by Roger Penrose before expecting computation alone to "generate" (or whatever the word is) consciousness.

[Leto Atreides II]

What's your definition of "consciousness", then?

Awareness. Not merely to see, but to be aware of seeing.

I can't parse awareness without broaching the concept of spirituality. I see consciousness as the most basic element, as something that permeates every empty quarter of space, and which engenders the physical world via the stresses of desire. The consciousness desired experience, so it created a Universe of solids and liquids and gases, of heat and cold, of gravity and light, electricity and magnetism, and populated this universe with sensory-organ laden entities that pursue their thirsts and hungers and lusts, experience pleasure when things go well and pain when things don't.

I believe that even when the physical body dies, and even when the Universe loses all material through entropy, consciousness persists in the void as the most fundamental element.

Of course that's just my take on things. Aldous Huxley might understand.

[Olympos]

I think it will require first to fully understand how our own "intelligence" works before we'd be able to replicate it. So far, we only have various models, analogies and metaphors of mind.

That is why I included neuroscience among the disciplines that must advance to create an artificial intelligence. But again, I think that a mere understanding of the structural components in our brains that give rise to self-awareness will not result in the creation of a self-aware machine that is like us, but a self-aware being that is very, very different, whatever its creators' intentions.

[MrFlibble]

What's your definition of "consciousness", then?

Awareness. Not merely to see, but to be aware of seeing.

So "awareness" = 'knowledge of oneself'? How do you define "knowledge"?

I would suggest a read of The Emperor's New Mind and Shadows of the Mind both by Roger Penrose before expecting computation alone to "generate" (or whatever the word is) consciousness.

There's also a nice article by John Searle related to the problem in question (there's a very similar chapter in his Minds, Brains and Science as well):
http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldA ... arle2.html

That is why I included neuroscience among the disciplines that must advance to create an artificial intelligence. But again, I think that a mere understanding of the structural components in our brains that give rise to self-awareness will not result in the creation of a self-aware machine that is like us, but a self-aware being that is very, very different, whatever its creators' intentions.

Taking into account that "consciousness"/"awareness" is a subjective experience, and even dealing with humans we have to rely on analogy to imagine the minds of others (or, rather, every person has to assume that the minds of other people have something in common/share a certain similarity with their own), it might very well turn out that even if an artificial intelligence as you describe it is ever created , we might never know how much it differs from human intelligence or if it is not just a sophisticated simulation after all.

[Olympos]

Taking into account that "consciousness"/"awareness" is a subjective experience, and even dealing with humans we have to rely on analogy to imagine the minds of others (or, rather, every person has to assume that the minds of other people have something in common/share a certain similarity with their own), it might very well turn out that even if an artificial intelligence as you describe it is ever created , we might never know how much it differs from human intelligence or if it is not just a sophisticated simulation after all.

Absolutely ... whatever its true nature, we'll inevitably anthropomorphize this intelligence and treat it as being more like us than it really is.