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Topic: Revenge of the Right Brain (Read 2692 times) |
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rmsgrey
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #50 on: Jan 30th, 2005, 1:30pm » |
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on Jan 30th, 2005, 12:50pm, JocK wrote:| Are you sure? Would the copy of Towr have Towr's consciousness? |
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If it didn't, then it wouldn't be a perfect copy, now would it?
Quote:| Suppose I scan Towr, put all information on a memory stick, and destroy Towr before constructing the copy. Where is Towr's consciousness. In my memory stick? |
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If I write a program in Java, then it's compiled to run on a virtual machine. While the PC I'm running the Java program on isn't running the JVM, where is the virtual machine? On the hard disk?
Or while I'm not playing Starcraft, where are all the Zerglings?
Or how come I can't live in a blueprint of my house?
If Towr's consciousness is a property of the interactions of his component particles (under the laws of phsyics) then his consciousness only exists while they're interacting. If you were to somehow simulate Towr for a while using the copied information, then you'd have an interesting question about where his consciousness was
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amichail
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #51 on: Jan 30th, 2005, 2:20pm » |
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on Jan 30th, 2005, 12:50pm, JocK wrote:
Are you sure? Would the copy of Towr have Towr's consciousness?
Suppose I scan Towr, put all information on a memory stick, and destroy Towr before constructing the copy. Where is Towr's consciousness. In my memory stick?
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Let's suppose that people have a consciousness -- that they are more than just a bunch of atoms.
How does this show that people should play a key role in constructing proofs rather than leaving them for computers?
Perhaps you might appeal to undecidability?
But even then, you need to consider the average performance of people vs computers.
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amichail
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #52 on: Jan 30th, 2005, 2:26pm » |
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on Jan 29th, 2005, 8:50pm, Icarus wrote:
There are so many similes that come to my mind for this that it is hard to choose one. But this one is closest to my own soul: Regularly I hear the argument that we should abandon manned space flights as too expensive and dangerous. We are told that every thing we could learn from manned exploration we can also learn from unmanned probes, but for much less money. I hold that this is a terribly short-sighted argument. What is the purpose of all this information about other places if we never intend to go there. Some may be satisfied with pictures and data. As for me, I want to walk on Mars.
So also others may be satisfied simply to know that every Robbins Algebra is Boolean. As for me, I want to know why.
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I like this analogy with manned space exploration.
Manned space exploration seems to appeal more to emotion than scientific necessity.
One reason for having mathematicians stay in the loop -- rather than deligate proofs to computers -- is because it is more rewarding for them.
Note this however: I can imagine a world where the majority of proofs are done by computers, yet mathematicians still stay in the loop in a small number of proofs to gain insight. In this way, mathematics would perhaps progress more rapidly as a search for truth, yet the field would remain rewarding for mathematicians.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 30th, 2005, 2:30pm by amichail » |
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Grimbal
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #53 on: Jan 30th, 2005, 4:41pm » |
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Why should musicians still play Beethoven's 9th symphony since we already have numerous records of it?
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rmsgrey
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #54 on: Jan 31st, 2005, 8:52am » |
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on Jan 30th, 2005, 4:41pm, Grimbal wrote:| Why should musicians still play Beethoven's 9th symphony since we already have numerous records of it? |
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1) There's a difference between doing and witnessing. Musicians playing the piece get something different from the experience than anyone just listening to it.
2) Unlike a recording, where (apart from gradual degradation) each performance is objectively identical, each live performance is subtly different, and has the potential for something completely new.
3) People are prepared to pay them to do it. And that's partly due to live performances being more expensive than recordings, so having more snob value...
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JocK
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #55 on: Jan 31st, 2005, 3:33pm » |
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on Jan 30th, 2005, 1:30pm, rmsgrey wrote:
If it didn't, then it wouldn't be a perfect copy, now would it? |
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Well, it would be a perfect copy without the 'magic'...
on Jan 30th, 2005, 1:30pm, rmsgrey wrote:
If Towr's consciousness is a property of the interactions of his component particles (under the laws of phsyics) then his consciousness only exists while they're interacting. If you were to somehow simulate Towr for a while using the copied information, then you'd have an interesting question about where his consciousness was |
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You start with a very big IF I think: perhaps you can simulate the dynamics of all atoms constituting Towr, but how would you simulate the 'magic' associated with that 'bunch of switches'? We simply have no clue how consciousness gets associated with certain 'bunches of switches'.
Yet, despite our absolute lack of understanding, we do have a whealth of empirical evidence that tells us that manmade 'bunches of switches' never manifest any signs of consciousness. And yes, I know there are folk (some of them who perhaps have seen too many Frankenstein movies?) who tell themselves that it's just a matter of scale ("If we keep adding switches, at some stage it will become alive and conscious!").
Reminds me a bit of those who waist their lives trying to construct perpetual motion machines violating no fundamental microscopical physical laws other than that somewhat strange statistical observation called the second law of thermodynamics.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 31st, 2005, 3:37pm by JocK » |
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solving abstract problems is like sex: it may occasionally have some practical use, but that is not why we do it.
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Icarus
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #56 on: Jan 31st, 2005, 5:56pm » |
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Calling it "consciousness" does not evade or any way change the religious aspect of it. What you are talking about is the "soul". The question is: do individuals have a "soul" with an existance beyond the material properties of the body. If not, then the copy will be a second towr, diverging from the original as he obtains different experiences. If so, then a second question arises as to whether the soul is copied, or a new soul is created, or the duplicate towr is souless.
The fact is, these questions cannot be answered scientifically at this time. You can extrapolate from testable results, but the extrapolation is still to far to be reliable. Until non-human sentience is available, or the ability to copy humans as described, experiments cannot be performs that would shed light on the question.
Therefore all the statements made in this regard should be understood as being opinion, and not based on hard evidence. I.e., you are not likely to convince each other of your point of view, and would be wise to simply agree to disagree.
on Jan 31st, 2005, 3:33pm, JocK wrote:| Yet, despite our absolute lack of understanding, we do have a whealth of empirical evidence that tells us that manmade 'bunches of switches' never manifest any signs of consciousness. And yes, I know there are folk (some of them who perhaps have seen too many Frankenstein movies?) who tell themselves that it's just a matter of scale ("If we keep adding switches, at some stage it will become alive and conscious!"). |
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Some of the older generation of science fiction writers (R. Heinlein in particular) suggested something like this for a while (see, for example, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"). But this was because they were writing about something they had no conception of. Anyone holding a similar view today also has no real conception of how computers work, and probably much less an idea of how the brain works than is currently available (great inroads into this problem have been made in the last 30 years or so). Likely, they have also been influenced by these old S.F. stories, without learning how outdated and ludicrous they were.
True A.I., if and when it comes, will come from solid programming, not from simply tossing more switches together. To expect that would be similar to expecting a cathedral to appear once you threw enough boards and rocks into a pile. And claiming that because no computer yet has shown sentience, it is strong evidence that A.I. is impossible, is also akin to claiming cathedrals are impossible because piles of rock and board do not turn into them all on their own.
I do not claim that true A.I. is possible. I also do not claim it is impossible. The evidence is just not there yet, either way.
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towr
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #57 on: Feb 1st, 2005, 12:59am » |
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on Jan 31st, 2005, 5:56pm, Icarus wrote:| True A.I., if and when it comes, will come from solid programming, not from simply tossing more switches together. |
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Certainly not the latter, but what to you mean by the former?
F.i. in how far are neural networks and evolutionary computing, 'solid programming'? Because in those cases you're obviously not programming the eventual overt behaviour.
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rmsgrey
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #58 on: Feb 1st, 2005, 8:23am » |
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[quote author=Icarus link=board=riddles_general;num=1106896655;start=50#56 date=01/31/05 at 17:56:53]Some of the older generation of science fiction writers (R. Heinlein in particular) suggested som ÿÿÿðE-ñw7Ç`
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€ ÿÿþ @ 7È 7Ç` € ÿÿÿÿÿÿ ÿÿÿÿÿÿ 6ø«Á ÿ ÿ \ ` T y of getting enough rock and board together you can't build a cathedral. Or if you can't get enough Uranium together, you can't build an atomic bomb.
There are some stories (I think Arthur C Clarke wrote a short about the global phone exchange waking up) where a merely complex system spontaneously wakes up, but I'm drawing a blank trying to think of any other examples of machines that spontaneously wake up rather than being designed as AI.
[quote]Calling it "consciousness" does not evade or any way change the religious aspect of it. What you are talking about is the "soul". The question is: do individuals have a "soul" with an existance beyond the material properties of the body. If not, then the copy will be a second towr, diverging from the original as he obtains different experiences. If so, then a second question arises as to whether the soul is copied, or a new soul is created, or the duplicate towr is souless.[/quote]
I don't know what a soul is, or even if I have one. I talk about consciousness because I know I have it - though I can't know whether anyone else actually is conscious. If you define a soul as being one's consciusness, then, yes, that's what I've been discussing. If you define a soul as "the immortal part of a mortal being" then I have no idea whether such a thing really exists. If you define it as "African American ethnic pride" then it's definitely not what I've been considering.
Yes, discussions about personal identity, consciousness and so on can move into religious issues. That's what I was trying to dodge by specifying a "perfect" copy. Since the mechanism of copying as described was already invoking some form of "magic" to get away with an apparent impossibility (knowing the complete state of every particle and duplicating it accurately) including a hypotheticl soul by an equally undisclosed mechanism seemed not too much of a stretch.
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ThudnBlunder
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #61 on: Feb 1st, 2005, 9:17am » |
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I agree with rmsgrey in that equating consciousness with 'soul' requires a quantum leap in both logic and belief.
While (in our case) consciousness => neurons, synapses, neurotransmitters, etc, the converse is not necessarily true.
Any copy of a human being must necessarily involve the mind, and 'soul', by definition, transcends the mind.
Therefore, the 'soul' cannot be copied by the mind.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 1st, 2005, 8:12pm by ThudnBlunder » |
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JocK
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #62 on: Feb 1st, 2005, 3:30pm » |
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on Jan 31st, 2005, 5:56pm, Icarus wrote:
True A.I., if and when it comes, will come from solid programming, not from simply tossing more switches together. To expect that would be similar to expecting a cathedral to appear once you threw enough boards and rocks into a pile. And claiming that because no computer yet has shown sentience, it is strong evidence that A.I. is impossible, is also akin to claiming cathedrals are impossible because piles of rock and board do not turn into them all on their own.
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Which implies that so far zero progress has been made towards "true A.I.".
If we all agree to that, the only thing we might disagree on is on how to extrapolate this fact. And yes, that is where gutfeel / judgement / intuition / beliefs etc. enter the picture, and where we can/should agree to disagree. 
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| « Last Edit: Feb 1st, 2005, 3:42pm by JocK » |
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solving abstract problems is like sex: it may occasionally have some practical use, but that is not why we do it.
xy - y = x5 - y4 - y3 = 20; x>0, y>0.
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Icarus
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #63 on: Feb 1st, 2005, 3:51pm » |
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I guess it has been too long (about 30 years) since I read that book. My apologies to Heinlein for misrepresenting his story. I know I have read books wherein the idea was that if you add enough computing power, the machine will develop sentience all on its own. I was mistaken in identifying which story, though. Thanks for pointing that out.
Also, rmsgrey, you may have been refering strictly to consciousness, but Jock was refering to something more. I felt that this should be brought out plainly. But then, how are you defining consciousness? How is your consciousness different from what computers experience today in their functions? One possible answer is "self-awareness", but this begs the question of what it means to be "aware". However you define it, you are still at least at the bounds of religion, and generally beyond the bounds of solid science.
towr - sorry to have been unclear. I did not mean anything in particular by "solid" programming. Perhaps you could interpret it as "setting up a neural network with the capacity to become sentient". All I meant is that the main requirement for true A.I. is software, not hardware. The hardware requirements are minimal - just any system capable of acting as a universal computer, and possessing enough memory to handle all the data. Of course, if you want an intelligence you can interact with, then a certain amount of speed is desirable as well.
T&B, the 'soul' does not necessarily extend beyond the mind. Since the soul is not a well-defined concept outside of particular religious views, and those views do not agree in their definition, one cannot be sure that a copy of body would not also copy the soul.
Again, these are questions that cannot be answered at this time. Perhaps with more advancement, the existance of anything beyond the mind can be tested. Then we can argue these things from evidence, rather than speculation.
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Grimbal
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #64 on: Feb 1st, 2005, 4:19pm » |
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Just a thought.
Whatever consciousness is, it is real. It is not something you get "on top" of reality, something that is not measurable by physical means. I can tell that because else, our consciousness would have no way to affect our actions and we wouldn't hear ourselves say "I am conscious because I know I am". That is why I think our consciousness is a result purely of our physical brain, and therefore could in theory be reproduced artificially. Maybe not in a digital computer, though. And maybe the technology wouldn't allow duplicating a consciousness.
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Icarus
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #65 on: Feb 1st, 2005, 4:28pm » |
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on Feb 1st, 2005, 3:30pm, JocK wrote:Which implies that so far zero progress has been made towards "true A.I.".
If we all agree to that... |
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Only if we also all agree that you make no progress at all towards a goal until you actually achieve it. I don't know about you, but when I go somewhere, I have to travel through all the places inbetween before I arrive. I personally count reaching these inbetween places as partial progress towards my goal.
No, we have not achieved true A.I., but to claim this means "zero progress" is ridiculous. Neural networks, and the proof-producing program amichail linked to both demonstrate significant progress, I would say.
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rmsgrey
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #66 on: Feb 1st, 2005, 4:32pm » |
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on Feb 1st, 2005, 3:51pm, Icarus wrote:| Also, rmsgrey, you may have been refering strictly to consciousness, but Jock was refering to something more. I felt that this should be brought out plainly. But then, how are you defining consciousness? How is your consciousness different from what computers experience today in their functions? One possible answer is "self-awareness", but this begs the question of what it means to be "aware". However you define it, you are still at least at the bounds of religion, and generally beyond the bounds of solid science. |
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I know I am conscious. I accept that others are conscious as a "least hypothesis" to explain their behaviour. I don't ascribe consciousness to computers largely because they don't interact in a way that would make consciousness a simpler explanation (in my opinion). I don't rule out the possibility that computers are conscious, but if they are, then they aren't telling.
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Icarus
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #67 on: Feb 1st, 2005, 4:41pm » |
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But what do you mean by "conscious"? It does not explain the behaviour of others or prove useful or not useful in explaining the behaviour of computers until it has some sort of working definition.
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rmsgrey
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #68 on: Feb 1st, 2005, 7:59pm » |
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on Feb 1st, 2005, 4:41pm, Icarus wrote:| But what do you mean by "conscious"? It does not explain the behaviour of others or prove useful or not useful in explaining the behaviour of computers until it has some sort of working definition. |
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I know exactly what I mean by "conscious" in this context (or, at least, I can tell whether any given proposed usage is appropriate) but I'm not sure I can define it properly.
A reasonable stab would be: "aware of oneself as a self-aware self." or "Being an 'I'"
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towr
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #69 on: Feb 2nd, 2005, 12:38am » |
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on Feb 1st, 2005, 7:59pm, rmsgrey wrote:| A reasonable stab would be: "aware of oneself as a self-aware self." |
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Isn't this similar to "conscious of oneself as a self-conscious self."?
Consciousness/awareness is a rather big philosophical question..
imo, at least part of it should be reflection on ones own thoughts/reasoning and actions. "What am I doing, and why?"
But it's hard to go beyond that without begging the question.
Of course even the 'why' is already asking something peculiar, it asks for motivation. Is there really anything we want, or is it just some physical aspect of us giving us the illusion we want something.
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JocK
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #70 on: Feb 2nd, 2005, 3:25pm » |
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on Feb 1st, 2005, 4:28pm, Icarus wrote:
Only if we also all agree that you make no progress at all towards a goal until you actually achieve it. I don't know about you, but when I go somewhere, I have to travel through all the places inbetween before I arrive. I personally count reaching these inbetween places as partial progress towards my goal. |
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Are you always drunk when you attempt to "go somewhere"?  What I mean is that indeed I don't classify a random walk (that is unlikely to lead you to "inbetween places") as partial progress.
You made the analogy between the current state of A.I. and 'progress' resulting from random activities: "claiming that because no computer yet has shown sentience, it is strong evidence that A.I. is impossible, is also akin to claiming cathedrals are impossible because piles of rock and board do not turn into them all on their own."
I liked your comparison between AI-research (as an attempt to reach "true A.I.") and random walks. (It now seems you didn't intend to make that comparison.) I truly haven't seen any AI-results so far that demonstrate even infinitesimal progress towards the distant goal of "true A.I.".
Perhaps we have different opinions about what is meant by "true-A.I."? (Your mentioning of neural networks and proof producing programs as examples seems to suggest so.)
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| « Last Edit: Feb 2nd, 2005, 3:30pm by JocK » |
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solving abstract problems is like sex: it may occasionally have some practical use, but that is not why we do it.
xy - y = x5 - y4 - y3 = 20; x>0, y>0.
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Icarus
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #71 on: Feb 2nd, 2005, 4:27pm » |
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on Feb 1st, 2005, 7:59pm, rmsgrey wrote:| I know exactly what I mean by "conscious" in this context (or, at least, I can tell whether any given proposed usage is appropriate) but I'm not sure I can define it properly. |
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If you can't define it, then I have to question just how "exactly" you know the meaning.
Quote:| A reasonable stab would be: "aware of oneself as a self-aware self." or "Being an 'I'" |
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Which brings up the question of what "aware" means. One can make strong arguments that most robots demonstrate some self-awareness in their actions. They act in ways that indicate a knowledge of their position in relation to their environment. Of course, this is the result of "simple" programming that fall far from what we think of as consciousness. But how does our own ego differ from this?
Jock - "all the places inbetween" is all the places along the path taken from one point to another. This does not require any randomness in the choice of path. To claim that neural networks, learning systems, proof-generating routines, etc. represent infinitesimal progress requires some reliable estimate on how far we have to go, and that this estimate is vastly beyond these systems. But the best research to date on intelligence seems to indicate the opposite: Intelligence is made up of interactions between very primative subsystems. We are reaching the point where we can simulate the primative subsystems. That is a huge step towards A.I.
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Noke Lieu
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #72 on: Feb 2nd, 2005, 4:50pm » |
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on Feb 2nd, 2005, 4:27pm, Icarus wrote:
If you can't define it, then I have to question just how "exactly" you know the meaning.
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Love? Okay... dictionary.com goes for
n. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude (erm, shouldn't hat be solace?) toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
actually, not bad as it goes. Was hoping to with an argument along the lines of "you don't need to know what it is to feel it." I will let you all make that argument for me in your own heads.
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rmsgrey
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Re: Revenge of the Right Brain
« Reply #73 on: Feb 2nd, 2005, 8:01pm » |
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on Feb 2nd, 2005, 4:27pm, Icarus wrote:
If you can't define it, then I have to question just how "exactly" you know the meaning. |
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I have an implicit definition that (I believe) enables me to differentiate between things to which the word applies, and things to which it doesn't. There may well be a grey area, but the same would be true of any explicit definition (arising from ambiguities on the words used for the definition). After all, most of our vocabulary is derived from an inductive process rather than by having dictionary definitions read to us, but few people would quibble if I claimed to know exactly what the word "apple" means.
Quote:| Which brings up the question of what "aware" means. One can make strong arguments that most robots demonstrate some self-awareness in their actions. They act in ways that indicate a knowledge of their position in relation to their environment. Of course, this is the result of "simple" programming that fall far from what we think of as consciousness. But how does our own ego differ from this? |
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The major difference is that the robots are not (so far as we know) aware of their awareness. That introspective quality is vital (and the main reason my first "definition" is phrased as it is).
Quote:Jock - "all the places inbetween" is all the places along the path taken from one point to another. This does not require any randomness in the choice of path. To claim that neural networks, learning systems, proof-generating routines, etc. represent infinitesimal progress requires some reliable estimate on how far we have to go, and that this estimate is vastly beyond these systems. But the best research to date on intelligence seems to indicate the opposite: Intelligence is made up of interactions between very primative subsystems. We are reaching the point where we can simulate the primative subsystems. That is a huge step towards A.I.
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A better metaphor for AI research than random walks is probably that of a maze - you know how to recognise the goal, and know roughly which direction it's in, but have no idea which routes lead you there, which lead to dead ends, and which lead to somewhere entirely unexpected, but the closer you are to the goal, the more useful even the dead ends are because they form the spaces around the path(s) to the goal. And it's very hard to judge progress without the benefit of hindsight since the path-distance to the goal is often very different from the straight-line distance...
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