On Mon, 05 Jan 2004 02:45:29 GMT, "R. Steve Walz" wrote or quoted :
Anything that is capable of experiencing pain is aware of its existence. I think that is what defines awareness. Can something be hurt? Is there anything in there that truly cares what happens to it?
A mechanical frog might look as if it can experience pain, but it seems highly unlikely it really would, but I yet have no way to measure, so I remain officially uncertain.
-- Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming. See
---------------------------------- On the other hand, that supposed processing is exactly some of that non-existent representation I discussed. All of the real US is conscious, the rest is merely the explanation of it that emerges FROM our existence as a circular justification WITHIN this Life. The World as we "know" it from Thinking/Science is merely the Shop Manual. But WE-OURSELF as WE Experience Life are the Real Consumer-Device!!
--------------------- No, it's the only existence there can ever be for anything. Without it, there is no "You", and when there ain't no "You", there ain't no nuthin'!
--------------------- That's interpreation, not experience. That's the Shop Manual that gets written later, the explanation for what we Experience. Don't mistake the Shop Manual for the Device.
------------------------ "You" don't control anything. You are product, not producer. No Free Will.
------------------------------ People who are THAT ignorant didn't understand Relativity. Einstein said it was a valid view. It is also the only one. You experience from right here.
-------------------------------- There is no "brain", the thing you would see if you used local anaesthetic and a scalpel and skull saw and looked in the mirror is NOT "You", NOT your "Mind", it a representation of your presence in this Perceived-Only World. You do NOT see "neurons blinking". You see ideas. Ideas are the ONLY things you'll EVER see, and Ideas or Stories are the ONLY things which ACTUALLY exist. The brain is merely a story.
---------------------------------------- I've taken LSD 150 times, quite voluntarily. And I have no Lithium carbonate "deficiency" or mood disorders. Sure, LSD is God, but then so am I.
------------------------------------ No. If so then you will need to imagine that single celled organisms feel pain as you do. Nonsense.
------------------------------------- A purely produced act, to evoke your meaning, is not what I mean by mechanical. I'm not talking about an automaton programmed to emulate "writhing in pain". I'm talking about a full neurological reaction that is still non-conscious.
On Mon, 05 Jan 2004 08:51:45 GMT, "R. Steve Walz" wrote or quoted :
I can imagine a universe where it could work either way. Single celled organisms are just like little robots with nobody home, or like little animals with little miniature consciousnesses that do feel.
-- Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming. See
Sorry, I am correct in both contexts. I don't think you have even understood my statement. It applies to both intelligent robots and biological creatures.
To think of consciousness as an unnecessary add-on is an outdated philosophical view known as epiphenomenalism. According to this naive view, a robot could be as intelligent as a human being, yet wholly lack consciousness. (ie. like philosophical zombies of Chalmers)
It is neither the case that consciousness consists of "sensory hum" of input signals. Consciousness seems to be mediated by specific information processing in humans.
To believe that the study of robotics is somehow isolated from science of consciousness is another serious mistake. Furthermore, your definition of intelligence says nothing about intelligence except that it seems to be a mathematical function of some sort with sensory input and effector output.
I contend that consciousness is *universally* a necessary part of higher order intelligence as it is comprised of several fundamental cognitive operations (such as elevating the priority of a function approximation process, etc.) which we collectively label consciousness (ie. I believe that C is a suitcase word as Marvin Minsky defines)
I refer you to Edelman's distinction of 1st order consciousness from
2nd order consciousness and Minsky's distinction of reactive thinking from reflective thinking.
Take reflective thinking away from a human-level intelligent robot, and you remain with a dumb reflex agent.
It's neither "outdated" nor is it "naive", those are merely your own jealous opinions. There is NO proof that a robot cannot be constructed to react as a human would react in all cases, given enough processing and program, and yet NOT be conscious!! All that programming has to do is last its lifetime. Other more complicated programming than ours can do what consciousness as an invention is able to do with far less overhead. We are conscious simply by the evolutionary fact that the overhead to accomplishing our nature is more easily done with the very deep and narrow engine of Awareness, and its attendant products, than it would be with a much more broad but shallow; massive high cost PLD, which would have MUCH more weight, and slightly less adaptibility over speciel life but not individual life. But tven if it took more than 100 times our mass to host such a huge PLD-brain, Evolution would do that, if only it wasn't cheaper and better to do what we must do by being Aware.
--------------------- No, by an agency that OVERSEES that info processing!
--------------------------------- Oh, I do too, but just not that it is the only way to achieve the same complex behavior in a Non-Conscious robot.
--------------------------------------------- Yes, without a much more massively complex behavior governor.
On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 02:16:08 GMT, "R. Steve Walz" wrote or quoted :
It is pure supposition what feels. The only thing I have to go on is what wriggles or complains like me.
One way you might look at it is, "The only data point that I can measure, namely me, is conscious, so until I can prove otherwise, I should assume EVERYTHING else is too, even rocks, and trees." This is the mindview of many primitive peoples.
With the invention of anaesthesia, you discover that you can be unconscious. You can feel consciousness fading away. Then you have reason to assume things that don't react to stimuli are possibly not conscious.
-- Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming. See
---------------------- Nope, I can make a doll complain of pain or wriggle. I can further program a robot to complain appropriately when hurt, but both those are distinctly different from an entity which actually experiences it, a Consciousness.
--------------------------- Nonsense. Without cause. Animism is a defective superstition for good reasons.
----------------------------- You never "feel" unconscious.
-------------------------------- Yup. AND things that don't react like a Conscious entity does! Steve
On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 05:55:30 GMT, "R. Steve Walz" wrote or quoted :
It all comes down to this. I know I am conscious. I don't know anything else is. I will make a presumption based on how similar they are to me.
I could make a case that I, Roedy Green, am the only conscious being on earth. I can think of no experiment that could disprove that to me.
I could make a case that all awake humans are conscious, with a few exceptions like Britney Spears.
I could make a case that all cuddly animals are also conscious.
I could decide that all animals are conscious.
I could decide that all living things are conscious.
I could decide that all things describable by a Shrodinger wave equation are conscious.
Since we have no machine to measure consciousness, it comes down to a matter of taste, your bleeding heart quotient.
In the end, what difference does it make? It is an ethical thing. Do I try to avoid hurting mosquitos? Some Jains and Buddhist monks do. I suspect they may be conscious, and enjoy swatting them anyway. I want them to suffer for annoying me.
-- Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming. See
On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 07:41:27 GMT, Roedy Green wrote or quoted :
You can pile ridicule on someone who asserts one of these, but what experiment could you propose to disprove their assertion?
The Hare Krishna sect even believes that statues of the deity are conscious. I can't think of way to talk them out of it.
Keep in mind humans have reported that if the are given curare, they remain conscious, though totally paralysed. So reaction to stimuli is not a sure fire indicator of consciousness.
-- Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming. See
Folks, I was wonderring if any of you realised that this thread is cross-posted to comp.lang.java (as well as other groups irrelevant to whether a 'door knob is conscious')
While this thread has been long (..very long) and at times mildly amusing, could I ask y'all, ..nicely, to please delete comp.lang.java.programmer from the follow-ups.. Please.
I don't think I agree with you on this. If consciousness where merely a witness why does it exist at all? I think it is an essential part of the processing, not just a witness, but I don't know how you would define consciousness...
The no-memory-of bit is not enough of an argument. I once had an accident with a bike of which I cannot remember anything, but I was certainly consious then, since people told me I was very abusive towards them right after the fall.
He has a point here Eray. You did not prove your point. Maybe it is possible to create an artificial construction that yields pretty much the same results as a brain, but is constructed on a totally different design that has no need for (and therefore will not have) the higher order introspective processes our brains seem to have.
See, all kinds of overseers that oversee just their own little domains, but not a comprehensive integral overseers that would be the expression of the "I" (the selfconsiousness). Maybe that is possible, but then again maybe not. Any analogs in the real world? Businesses maybe? Can you say a business is a conscious organism? Any thoughts on this?
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