{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4345", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 4345, "subject": "urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "messages": 13, "voices": 6, "first": "2005-01-27T18:16:34+00:00", "last": "2005-01-31T04:50:20+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<20050128021632.7C65F395A@sitemail.everyone.net>", "from": { "name": "turin", "address": "turin at hell.com" }, "date": "2005-01-27T18:16:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "turing called it the imitation game.\n\nit is not enough for a machine to produce the same outputs as a person, it must arrive at its outputs in the same fashion, that is whatever the functional apparatus, it must have the same cognition and intentional and phenomenal states as a person. the machine would obviously have to have a certain degree of self recursion or sentience, and something which resembles linear consciousness, it is debatable whether there is any other kind. the imitation game taken literally is the same kind of reductionism as behaviorism. and turing was really just talking about how we identity other people, especially under certain circumstances. the test itself was just the \"chinese room\", but i wont explain that here. om short, turing is just the jumping off point for cognitive science. for a mahine to be a person it has to have, and in the 40s and 50s this was a taboo subject in psychology, a mind. the rigidity of your criteria for cognition and and whether phenomenal states or emotions are even meccesary are something else entirely. \"creativity\" is just a way to describe solving complex problems when there is incomplete information, indefinite goals, or both. most \"real world\" problems are like this. what we really mean is that the machine will have to be flexible and proficient in a wide variety of tasks. it also means that the machine will have to be self correcting, possess learning algorithms, and that it will be able to reset its own goals, though its programming would not have to be completely transparent or malleable to itself. ours arent. i'd love ot be able to reset some of my goals. EOT;" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f76173705012813136be35e88@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-01-28T13:13:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "in_reply_to": "<20050128021632.7C65F395A@sitemail.everyone.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 18:16:28 -0800 (PST), turin wrote:\nit is not enough for a machine to produce the same outputs as a person,\nit must arrive at its outputs in the same fashion, that is whatever the\nfunctional apparatus, it must have the same cognition and intentional\nand phenomenal states as a person. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "How would you be able to demonstrate that it had these \"states\"? How\ncan you define them in humans? To the best of my knowledge neither \nof these questions has any empirically testable answer to date." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "the imitation game taken literally is the same kind of reductionism\nas behaviorism. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The imitation game stands as the only empirical test thus far \nproposed for identifying a machine intelligence, if one should \narise. It has several flaws: I find most significant among these\nits failure to account for the probability that the experiential life \nof a machine intelligence would differ in important ways from that\nof a human; thus, it would tend to eliminate a (hypothetical as of\ntoday) class of genuinely sentient mechines which were not good\nat imagining and empathizing with the experiential life of humans." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "the test itself was just the \"chinese room\", " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You betray your prejudices by even mentioning Searle's quibble." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "for a mahine to be a person it has to have, and in the 40s and\n50s this was a taboo subject in psychology, a mind. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This grotesquely misrepresents the psychological institutions of\nthe period: this was the heyday of behaviorism, but behaviorism\nwas never the sole dominant school of psychology.\n\n--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"We're going to sit on Scorsese's head\"\n -- The Goodfeathers" } ] }, { "message_id": "<01cf01c50586$98ac6a80$4c1e4b0a@vcorp.ad.vrsn.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "thewynns at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2005-01-28T14:13:31+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "in_reply_to": "<1f76173705012813136be35e88@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "the imitation game taken literally is the same kind of reductionism\nas behaviorism." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The imitation game stands as the only empirical test thus far\nproposed for identifying a machine intelligence, if one should\narise." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But the very term \"the imitation game\" suggests that in tFHoC maybe...just\nmaybe...long before the Long Sun and the Short Sun...Wolfe was considering\nthe Turing's postulates in terms of the validity of apparent consciousness\nvs real consciousness.\n\n~ Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2005-01-28T14:30:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "in_reply_to": "<1f76173705012813136be35e88@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l said:\nTurin said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "the imitation game taken literally is the same kind of reductionism\nas behaviorism." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The imitation game stands as the only empirical test thus far\nproposed for identifying a machine intelligence, if one should\narise. It has several flaws: I find most significant among these\nits failure to account for the probability that the experiential life\nof a machine intelligence would differ in important ways from that\nof a human; thus, it would tend to eliminate a (hypothetical as of\ntoday) class of genuinely sentient mechines which were not good\nat imagining and empathizing with the experiential life of humans." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think it's possible to accept the test without engaging in full-blown \nreductionism, although yes, it does smack of behaviorism regardless. \nBasically by endorsing the test you are making an ought-claim (possibly of \nthe ethical variety, although the ethical isn't the only type of \"ought\"): \nthat, regardless of the truth behind the currently impenetrable curtain, we \n*should* make our judgments concerning intelligence based on evidence of \nbehavior. It is, granted, a short step from there to saying that the \nevidence of behavior *is* the only truth of the matter there is, that \nthere's nothing to see behind the curtain - but this additional step isn't \nreally necessary to accept the test for what it is.\n\nI have often thought about the particular flaw that Dan'l identifies. It \nseems to me that the class of sentient machines that you're saying would be \nexcluded would really be comparable, all in all, to madmen. A madman might \nhave trouble passing as \"sentient\" by rigid standards, and yet they are - at \nleast to some extent - somehow identifiable as intelligent, but insane. \nLabeling a machine as \"insane\" might be quite unfair, but pragmatically \nwould have to be done. A machine intelligence with perceptions and \nmotivations sufficiently different from our admittedly arbitrary norm would \nbe far more dangerous than any homicidal madman." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "the test itself was just the \"chinese room\"," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "You betray your prejudices by even mentioning Searle's quibble." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I really don't follow what you mean by this. He may have been mentioning \n\"Searle's quibble\" because I brought it up earlier, and I don't think that I \nhave a bias on the matter, nor do I think simply mentioning him in this \ncontext is irrelevant or biased.\n\n-- Civet" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"You must not be soft, but cover yourself up; for you must discover an \nintellection abstractional and fraudulent.\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f7617370501281519fba9a0c@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-01-28T15:19:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My apologies to both Turin and Civet: I had mossed the latter's\nearlier mention of Searle's \"Chinese Room.\"\n\nI do think that the \"Chinese Room\" is a quibble, and a bad one \nat that: it involves a particular kind of essentialism that I don't \nhave any use for, and I perceive it as a desperate attempt to \ndefend the epistemologically unique status of the human \"mind,\" \nin advance of any serious assault made on that status by (for \nexample) a machine capable of winning the Imitation Game\nwith any regularity." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Basically by endorsing the test you are making an ought-claim \n(possibly of the ethical variety, although the ethical isn't the only\ntype of \"ought\"): that, regardless of the truth behind the currently \nimpenetrable curtain, we *should* make our judgments concerning\nintelligence based on evidence of behavior. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think it's an ethical but an epistemological \"ought,\" but I \nagree with your interpretation here. But then, what evidence - \nother than _some_ kind of behavior - is avaialable for or against \nthe existence of _any_ intelligence, machine, animal,human, \nor alien?\n\nI don't think I'm \"endorsing\" the test, though: I'm simply \nchallenging those who think it's invalid to come up with something \nbetter, ideally something that doesn't rely upon intuition. (The\nTuring test relies on a statistical summation of multiple people's\nintuitions over many runs; the Searle-Penrose axis rely totally on\ntheir intuition that intelligence is \"something more\" than massively\nparallel information processing.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It is, granted, a short step from there to saying that the\nevidence of behavior *is* the only truth of the matter there is, " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It is in fact a huge leap: one, I gather, that some behaviorists\nhave made, but very few. I certainly have never encountered \na behaviorist who would deny his or her own consciousness." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I have often thought about the particular flaw that Dan'l identifies. \nIt seems to me that the class of sentient machines that you're saying \nwould be excluded would really be comparable, all in all, to \nmadmen." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmm. No. I'm suggesting that its experiential world might be far \nmore different from thine and mine than that of, say, a sociopath,\nor even a catatonic: at least as different as the experiential world\nof one of the \"higher\" animals. As far as I can tell, a sentient \nmachine would operate from, at least some, entirely different \n_kinds_ of sensory input from humans, for example; nor would it\nlikely be bashed about by hormonally-induced \"moods.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Labeling a machine as \"insane\" might be quite unfair, but pragmatically\nwould have to be done. A machine intelligence with perceptions and\nmotivations sufficiently different from our admittedly arbitrary norm would\nbe far more dangerous than any homicidal madman." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Only if it also had the ability to act upon its motivations. I see no reason\nwhy such a machine should be granted, for example, arms or any other\nmanipulating appendage." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"We're going to sit on Scorsese's head\"\n -- The Goodfeathers" } ] }, { "message_id": "<41FACA4D.5000901@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "maru", "address": "marudubshinki at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-01-28T15:27:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "in_reply_to": "<1f7617370501281519fba9a0c@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's not nearly certain: Some think that emotions have a dual use: first,\nto provide some a priori biases in the decision-making process, to speed \nthings up\n(this view derives from certain psychological disorders where emotions \nare largely stripped\nout. The sufferers experienced great indecision, and often made very \nsub-optimal choices.)\nand as a 'super-rational' evolutionarily developed strategy. Ie, if \neveryone 'knows'\nthat you do not make rational choices, and are entirely willing to \nescalate, they will treat you\nwith deference. Sorta like the Russian or N. Korean nuclear strategies :)\n\n~Maru" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\n\nH'mmm. No. I'm suggesting that its experiential world might be far \nmore different from thine and mine than that of, say, a sociopath,\nor even a catatonic: at least as different as the experiential world\nof one of the \"higher\" animals. As far as I can tell, a sentient \nmachine would operate from, at least some, entirely different \n_kinds_ of sensory input from humans, for example; nor would it\nlikely be bashed about by hormonally-induced \"moods.\"\n\n\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Labeling a machine as \"insane\" might be quite unfair, but pragmatically\nwould have to be done. A machine intelligence with perceptions and\nmotivations sufficiently different from our admittedly arbitrary norm would\nbe far more dangerous than any homicidal madman.\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Only if it also had the ability to act upon its motivations. I see no reason\nwhy such a machine should be granted, for example, arms or any other\nmanipulating appendage.\n\n--Blattid\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2005-01-28T16:30:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "in_reply_to": "<1f7617370501281519fba9a0c@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I do think that the \"Chinese Room\" is a quibble, and a bad one\nat that: it involves a particular kind of essentialism that I don't\nhave any use for, and I perceive it as a desperate attempt to\ndefend the epistemologically unique status of the human \"mind,\"\nin advance of any serious assault made on that status by (for\nexample) a machine capable of winning the Imitation Game\nwith any regularity." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't entirely disagree, although I think, to be fair to Searle, he didn't \nintend it to be quite the desperation-position it seems to be. In answer to \na rhetorical question you ask later on, \"what other evidence is available?\" \nWell, there's empirical evidence about the processes that we presume produce \nour consciousness, which interestingly *would* catch some subset of possible \n\"weird\" intelligences that would never be picked up by a Turing test, so you \ncould say there is a return to Searle's angle there. The very obvious \nproblem with this is that it is difficult/impossible to quantify which \n*aspects* of these processes are the ones that make them essential to \nintelligence. And nobody's seriously going to fall back on Searle's apparent \npresumption that, for lack of knowing any better, basically *all* of them \nare essential." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Basically by endorsing the test you are making an ought-claim\n(possibly of the ethical variety, although the ethical isn't the only\ntype of \"ought\"): that, regardless of the truth behind the currently\nimpenetrable curtain, we *should* make our judgments concerning\nintelligence based on evidence of behavior." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't think it's an ethical but an epistemological \"ought,\" but I\nagree with your interpretation here. But then, what evidence -\nother than _some_ kind of behavior - is avaialable for or against\nthe existence of _any_ intelligence, machine, animal,human,\nor alien?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not really certain it's either of the above, which is why I'm pretty \nwishy-washy here. I think the \"ought\" can be framed any number of ways, \nwhich pretty much determines how you'll then choose to characterize it. I \njust have a vague suspicion that if you tried to get down to one essential \nformulation that sums up all the rest, you'd end up with either an aesthetic \nor ethical claim." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "It is, granted, a short step from there to saying that the\nevidence of behavior *is* the only truth of the matter there is," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It is in fact a huge leap: one, I gather, that some behaviorists\nhave made, but very few. I certainly have never encountered\na behaviorist who would deny his or her own consciousness." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Point taken, although I still think it is a relatively easy step to take \n(not that I find it desirable). The way has been prepared ahead of time by \nother epistemological arguments." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "H'mmm. No. I'm suggesting that its experiential world might be far\nmore different from thine and mine than that of, say, a sociopath,\nor even a catatonic: at least as different as the experiential world\nof one of the \"higher\" animals. As far as I can tell, a sentient\nmachine would operate from, at least some, entirely different\n_kinds_ of sensory input from humans, for example; nor would it\nlikely be bashed about by hormonally-induced \"moods.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I was using, or was trying to use, \"mad\" in a sort of abstract sense. \n\"Madness\" as that which lies outside the realm of intelligibility; incapable \nof being reduced or expressed logically in human terms. So your \ngarden-variety crazyperson is only a little mad in this sense. A machine \ncould do it much better." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Labeling a machine as \"insane\" might be quite unfair, but pragmatically\nwould have to be done. A machine intelligence with perceptions and\nmotivations sufficiently different from our admittedly arbitrary norm \nwould\nbe far more dangerous than any homicidal madman." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Only if it also had the ability to act upon its motivations. I see no \nreason\nwhy such a machine should be granted, for example, arms or any other\nmanipulating appendage." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The problem is in knowing just how many limitations would be enough to \nrender such a machine harmless. It is, potentially, much much much smarter \nthan any human meatbag." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f761737050130135499dee68@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-01-30T13:54:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Turin wrote..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't entirely disagree, although I think, to be fair to Searle, he didn't\nintend it to be quite the desperation-position it seems to be. In answer to\na rhetorical question you ask later on, \"what other evidence is available?\"\nWell, there's empirical evidence about the processes that we presume produce\nour consciousness, which interestingly *would* catch some subset of possible\n\"weird\" intelligences that would never be picked up by a Turing test, so you\ncould say there is a return to Searle's angle there. The very obvious\nproblem with this is that it is difficult/impossible to quantify which\n*aspects* of these processes are the ones that make them essential to\nintelligence." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "First of all, to say this involves a set of a priori assumptions, not least of\nwhich is that there are some \"aspects of the processes\" that make them\n\"essential (note this key word) to intelligence.\" This in turn involves an \ninteresting (to me, at any rate) set of as-of-not unverified (and to my \nthinking unlikely ever to be verified) assumptions about the _nature_ of \n\"the processes that we presume produce our consciousness\": specifically, \nthat there exists some empirically-unique set of processes that etc. But\nas of now (30 Jan 05 @1.30PM PST) I know of no evidence that supports\nthis hypothesis and, in fact, conclude from evidence available-to-me at \nthis time, the (empirically observable) \"processes that produce our \nconsciousness\" occur in many contexts that do _not_ produce consciousness,\nat least that we can tell. Rather, consciousness appears to occur as an\nemergent phenomenon, and there is no a priori reason to assume that\nother physical processes cannot produce similar emergent phenomena.\nThe only \"reason\" I can see to make such an assumption is the desire\nto protect the ontologically privileged status of the human nervous system\nor \"soul.\"\n\n(Incidentally, I brainfarted in my previous post and repeatedly used \n\"epistemological\" where I meant \"ontological.\" Sorry for any confusion \nthis may have caused.)\n\nThis (in brief) is why I regard the \"Chinese room\" thoughtexperiment \nas a desperation move taken by essentialilsts." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " And nobody's seriously going to fall back on Searle's apparent\npresumption that, for lack of knowing any better, basically *all* of them\nare essential." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Searle does. And, for all I can tell, so does Penrose. Both seem to me\nto be engaged in a holding battle for the ontologically unique essence\nof \"human mind.\" (In fact, I am inclined to agree with their position, but\non purely \"emotional\" grounds: I see not one bit of empirical evidence\nto justify the position, and so believe it has no proper place in any\nscientific debate.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I don't think it's an ethical but an epistemological \"ought,\" but I" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, this should have been \"ontological.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "agree with your interpretation here. But then, what evidence -\nother than _some_ kind of behavior - is avaialable for or against\nthe existence of _any_ intelligence, machine, animal,human,\nor alien?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm not really certain it's either of the above, which is why I'm pretty\nwishy-washy here. I think the \"ought\" can be framed any number of ways,\nwhich pretty much determines how you'll then choose to characterize it. I\njust have a vague suspicion that if you tried to get down to one essential\nformulation that sums up all the rest, you'd end up with either an aesthetic\nor ethical claim." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmmm. An interesting point. I definitely do agree that the ontological\n\"ought\" here results in ethical issues - i.e., if we are compelled to \nconclude based on empirical evidence that this artificial system is\nsentient-sapient-intelligent-conscious (pick your favorite magick word),\nwe have to consider our ethical stance toward it differently than if it\nis \"just\" an artifact: we have to consider what ethically might allow or \noblige us to regard something other than a human as a \"person\"\nin resolving ethical questions. (Which in turn is one of the great\nvalues of SF for us today: it doesn't resolve the questions, but it\nat least gives us a sandbox in which to play with them until a real\nsituation arises, and so be better prepared to deal with them.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I was using, or was trying to use, \"mad\" in a sort of abstract sense.\n\"Madness\" as that which lies outside the realm of intelligibility; incapable\nof being reduced or expressed logically in human terms. So your\ngarden-variety crazyperson is only a little mad in this sense. A machine\ncould do it much better." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Point taken and accepted." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Only if it also had the ability to act upon its motivations. I see no\nreason\nwhy such a machine should be granted, for example, arms or any other\nmanipulating appendage." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The problem is in knowing just how many limitations would be enough to\nrender such a machine harmless. It is, potentially, much much much smarter\nthan any human meatbag." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That seems to me another presupposition. I don't assume that it _couldn't_\nbe, but, as long as we don't know how consciousness and intelligence \nactually arise in physical systems like brains, we don't know whether any\n_c_-like limit to what a consciousness can do exists. There is a reasonable\n(but not empirically testable at this time) argument to the effect\nthat a single\nconsciousness cannot handle more than some (undetermined) amount of \n\"stuff\" at a time without splitting into multiple consciousnesses.\n\n--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"We're going to sit on Scorsese's head\"\n -- The Goodfeathers" } ] }, { "message_id": "<41FD5AD1.2000506@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "maru", "address": "marudubshinki at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-01-30T14:08:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "in_reply_to": "<1f761737050130135499dee68@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm afraid I'll have to disagree here: there are good reasons to think \nthat our current counsciousness\nis fairly low on the intelligence possibilty-totem pole. (I'm not \ntalking about any 'c' -ish limit\non intelligence here: as long as current physics hold, intelligences are \nlimited by the Berkenstein bound\nand the Hubble volume. O' course, the caveat is assuming that physics \nas we know it has no loopholes.\nBut then we're getting into deep anarchism, and I'd rather not go there. \nToo many transfinites.)\nConsider: human brains are massively parallel. They have to be, since \nneurons are limited to 200 hz.\nYou could very easily bring that up several megs or gigahertz. Without \nany splitting of counsciousness or anything-\nsubjectively the mind simply has more time. You can vastly increase the \namount of \"stuff\" (amount/time is whats relevant) and it makes no \ndifference.\nCaffeine speeds up the brain slightly, and that shows on IQ tests. \nHaving been 'wired' a few time, I can say my counsciousness\nfelt as unitary as ever (Unless that's what each split section *wants* \nme to think!). The only way I see greater intelligence\ncausing a split is if either the communications lag\nis so great that each segment thinks enough on its own to be considered \nanother counsciousness; or if there is so much\ncomputing horsepower that it becomes feasible enough to literally devote \na mind to each problem/task." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\n\nThat seems to me another presupposition. I don't assume that it _couldn't_\nbe, but, as long as we don't know how consciousness and intelligence \nactually arise in physical systems like brains, we don't know whether any\n_c_-like limit to what a consciousness can do exists. There is a reasonable\n(but not empirically testable at this time) argument to the effect\nthat a single\nconsciousness cannot handle more than some (undetermined) amount of \n\"stuff\" at a time without splitting into multiple consciousnesses.\n\n--Dan'l\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<41FD643A.7040304@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "maru", "address": "marudubshinki at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-01-30T14:48:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "in_reply_to": "<20050128021632.7C65F395A@sitemail.everyone.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Why must it be in the same way? If over the range of all realistic \noutputs, it returns the same output, (which is feasible: Weiner spent \nconsiderable\ntime in his 'Cybernetics' and 'God & Golem' working out how functions \ncan be generalized from a set of input. Curiously, this leads to the \ncorollary\nthat machines can reproduce- but that is a tangent.) then it doesn't \nmatter. If the algorithm followed was even more powerful then the human \nequivalent, would you disqualify it because it was deviating from the \nGod-given human example?\n\n~Maru" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "turin wrote:\nturing called it the imitation game.\n\nit is not enough for a machine to produce the same outputs as a person, it must arrive at its outputs in the same fashion, that is whatever the functional apparatus, it must have the same cognition and intentional and phenomenal states as a person. the machine would obviously have to have a certain degree of self recursion or sentience, and something which resembles linear consciousness, it is debatable whether there is any other kind. the imitation game taken literally is the same kind of reductionism as behaviorism. and turing was really just talking about how we identity other people, especially under certain circumstances. the test itself was just the \"chinese room\", but i wont explain that here. om short, turing is just the jumping off point for cognitive science. for a mahine to be a person it has to have, and in the 40s and 50s this was a taboo subject in psychology, a mind. the rigidity of your criteria for cognition and and whether phenomenal states or emotions are even meccesary are something else entirely. \"creativity\" is just a way to describe solving complex problems when there is incomplete information, indefinite goals, or both. most \"real world\" problems are like this. what we really mean is that the machine will have to be flexible and proficient in a wide variety of tasks. it also means that the machine will have to be self correcting, possess learning algorithms, and that it will be able to reset its own goals, though its programming would not have to be completely transparent or malleable to itself. ours arent. i'd love ot be able to reset some of my goals. EOT;\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<41FD64E1.6040803@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "maru", "address": "marudubshinki at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-01-30T14:51:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "in_reply_to": "<01cf01c50586$98ac6a80$4c1e4b0a@vcorp.ad.vrsn.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And there's the crux of the issue: we can never get into the subjective \nexperience of the counsciousness,\nand asking does not suffice. Any decent fake would of course protest \nthat it felt counscious.\nWe can only see the seeming of the thing, never the 'ding an sich', the \nthing in itself.\n\n~Maru" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\nBut the very term \"the imitation game\" suggests that in tFHoC maybe...just\n\nmaybe...long before the Long Sun and the Short Sun...Wolfe was considering\nthe Turing's postulates in terms of the validity of apparent consciousness\nvs real consciousness.\n\n~ Crush\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2005-01-30T22:08:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "in_reply_to": "<1f761737050130135499dee68@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Whoa whoa hold up. I am definitely not Turin. Civet or Chris will do." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Turin wrote..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I don't entirely disagree, although I think, to be fair to Searle, he \ndidn't\nintend it to be quite the desperation-position it seems to be. In answer \nto\na rhetorical question you ask later on, \"what other evidence is \navailable?\"\nWell, there's empirical evidence about the processes that we presume \nproduce\nour consciousness, which interestingly *would* catch some subset of \npossible\n\"weird\" intelligences that would never be picked up by a Turing test, so \nyou\ncould say there is a return to Searle's angle there. The very obvious\nproblem with this is that it is difficult/impossible to quantify which\n*aspects* of these processes are the ones that make them essential to\nintelligence." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "First of all, to say this involves a set of a priori assumptions, not least \nof\nwhich is that there are some \"aspects of the processes\" that make them\n\"essential (note this key word) to intelligence.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'll grant that there are a priori assumptions, although these need not be \nas extensive as you suggest. In the end not much is required other than the \nsame general assumptions necessary for any causal inquiry. For example, we \nknow that certain creatures (humans) seem to behave as if conscious, but if \ncertain processes centered around the brain stop functioning they cease to \nbehave as if conscious. This doesn't mean that there's no other way to be \nconscious, but it does suggest that the functions of those processes \ncontribute toward human consciousness, and allows the suggestion that \n\"relevantly similar\" processes might also fulfill the same role.\n\nThis line of reasoning can lead to hasty generalization depending on the \ndepth of your knowledge of what's really going on with consciousness. Which \nin our case is pitifully small. But my point was that this avenue could \nconceivably open up, and there's every reason to believe it will, at least \nto some extent." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This in turn involves an\ninteresting (to me, at any rate) set of as-of-not unverified (and to my\nthinking unlikely ever to be verified) assumptions about the _nature_ of\n\"the processes that we presume produce our consciousness\": specifically,\nthat there exists some empirically-unique set of processes that etc. But\nas of now (30 Jan 05 @1.30PM PST) I know of no evidence that supports\nthis hypothesis" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There is actually a great deal of empirical evidence surrounding you every \nday: how often do you see something that you believe is conscious without a \nbrain on the average day? Of course, it takes little imagination to reason \nhypothetically that the weight of this empirical evidence is systematically \nskewed by whatever you want to call it - the evolutionary path of this \nplanet, etc. The possibility, or even likelihood, of this logical \npossibility is what would lead you to disbelieve the hypothesis as you are \nthinking of it.\n\nBut really the a priori assumption here isn't so grandiose. The \"aspects of \nprocesses\" and such are functional descriptions rather than physical, and \nfixed more or less by definition (although, again, we have a very poor \ndefinition of consciousness, but we may get a better one later). As a loose \nexample, to describe something as a \"car\" you need not specify the exact \nworkings of its engine, but you do need something that *functions* as an \n\"engine\" that makes it go." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The only \"reason\" I can see to make such an assumption is the desire\nto protect the ontologically privileged status of the human nervous system\nor \"soul.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I guess the best way to sum up here is that I wasn't talking about this, I \nwas simply suggesting that advances in cognitive science could make it \npossible to identify other possible physical processes capable of producing \nconsciousness, and that this might help identify consciousnesses that \nwouldn't necessarily be picked up by a test of intelligent behaviour. \nNothing logically precludes it, not that any test based on such a method \nwould ever be any more certain of its results than the Turing test would." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Incidentally, I brainfarted in my previous post and repeatedly used\n\"epistemological\" where I meant \"ontological.\" Sorry for any confusion\nthis may have caused.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It sort of hung together as \"epistemological\", it didn't seem unreasonable. \nI don't know about \"ontological\", though. An ontological claim is a claim \nabout what \"is\", and \"is\" claims are distinguished from \"ought\" claims \nessentially by definition. I don't think that there can actually *be* such a \nthing as an ontological \"ought\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Searle does. And, for all I can tell, so does Penrose. Both seem to me\nto be engaged in a holding battle for the ontologically unique essence\nof \"human mind.\" (In fact, I am inclined to agree with their position, but\non purely \"emotional\" grounds: I see not one bit of empirical evidence\nto justify the position, and so believe it has no proper place in any\nscientific debate.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am not familiar with Penrose. Searle is not quite so bald about it. \nThere's this whole aspect of the Chinese Room thought experiment that we \ngenerally strip out (and thank god we do, because thinking about it makes me \nwant to scream) where supposedly the Chinese Room is a purely syntactical \ncalculator *with no semantics*, and if you accept this supposition then to \nmake a long story short it gives Searle some ground to stand on. But there \nare 100 pretty good reasons not to accept this, and if you reject it then \nSearle will appear to be standing in the rain shouting \"Intelligence is made \nby brains!\" for no particular reason.\n\nBut yeah, he was probably motivated by the same emotional reasons you \nsuggest. He's just not *quite* as sloppy a thinker as all that, or at least \nnot sloppy in quite the same way." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The problem is in knowing just how many limitations would be enough to\nrender such a machine harmless. It is, potentially, much much much \nsmarter\nthan any human meatbag." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That seems to me another presupposition. I don't assume that it _couldn't_\nbe, but, as long as we don't know how consciousness and intelligence\nactually arise in physical systems like brains, we don't know whether any\n_c_-like limit to what a consciousness can do exists. There is a reasonable\n(but not empirically testable at this time) argument to the effect\nthat a single\nconsciousness cannot handle more than some (undetermined) amount of\n\"stuff\" at a time without splitting into multiple consciousnesses.\n\n--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm willing to accept this as a hypothesis, but I wouldn't be willing to \nwager on it.\n\nIn any event here we are nicely back in the realm of sci-fi. I am thinking \nof cautionary tales along the lines of the beginning of Vinge's \"Fire Upon \nthe Deep\". There's probably a better example, and I know I've read multiple \nstories that picked up on the idea, but that's the only one I can think of.\n\nChris" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Iorwerth Thomas", "address": "iorweththomas at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2005-01-31T04:50:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 41", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Civet wrote..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I am not familiar with Penrose. Searle is not quite so bald about it. \nThere's this whole aspect of the Chinese Room thought experiment that we \ngenerally strip out (and thank god we do, because thinking about it makes \nme want to scream) where supposedly the Chinese Room is a purely \nsyntactical calculator *with no semantics*, and if you accept this \nsupposition then to make a long story short it gives Searle some ground to \nstand on. But there are 100 pretty good reasons not to accept this, and if \nyou reject it then Searle will appear to be standing in the rain shouting \n\"Intelligence is made by brains!\" for no particular reason.\n\nBut yeah, he was probably motivated by the same emotional reasons you \nsuggest. He's just not *quite* as sloppy a thinker as all that, or at least \nnot sloppy in quite the same way." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ok, forgive the ignorance of a physicist... I was under the impression that \nSearle's argument was intended to attack strong AI, in particular the idea \nthat algorithms alone are sufficient to simulate consciousness without \nactually enquiring into the nature of the brain, and would therefore only be \nable to attack a Turing test based on the assumptions of strong AI. I was \nalso under the impression that AI research had moved on from that postion \ntowards things like neural networks, which sound more likely to work \n(largely because they imitate the only conscious things we know of), IMO.\n\nI'm probably wrong, though.\n\nIorwerth" } ] } ] }