To: K-list
Recieved: 1999/09/30 01:55
Subject: Re: [K-list] Nature
From: Martin Thompson
On 1999/09/30 01:55, Martin Thompson posted thus to the K-list:
13:44:03 Tue, 28 Sep 1999
Ville Vainio at Ville Vainio <vvainioATnospamtp.spt.fi> writes:
>On Tue, 28 Sep 1999, Martin Thompson wrote:
>
>
>> It is *not* an experience, in the same way that a recipe is not a
>> meal. The link between the matter and the experience of it is missing
>> from current theories. If I write a complex computer program to mimic
>> neuronal activity, there is still nothing to show whether the computer
>> is conscious or not.
>
>If there was a god that "wrote" us, how would he know that we are
>sentient? Just because we say we are? Your computer program could do that
>too. There is nothing to show us if we are conscious or not. Even the
>complex computer program could have an idea that states that "I am
>sentient, since I feel like that". And who are we to argue it?
>
This is exactly the problem: from outside, we can't tell. This shows
that a critical piece of knowledge about the nature of consciousness is
missing: how can we tell from the configuration of matter and energy
whether something is conscious or not? At present, we can't tell whether
something is conscious, or just claims to be.
A God would know, as Gods are supposed to know that sort of thing
(everything).
>
>> It doesn't matter whether consciousness is "special." The question is,
>
>In this context it does, as seeing consciousness as a thing that reaches
>beyond CNS-activity really makes it "special".
>
Well, mysterious perhaps. Hmm... well, potentially special too, I
suppose, depending on what we discover about its nature.
>> how does it work? Pointing at molecules or complex programs, as
>> scientists and AI experts are prone to do, and saying "that's how"
>> doesn't actually explain anything. It is a logical error of types or
>> categories (recipe .NE. meal; electrical activity .NE. experience;
>> objective .NE. subjective).
>
>It is not a logical error if we are not trying to force it into the
>stray-jacket of logic of terminology (which is a language, which is - at
>least on this list - often agreed to be insufficient). Just as there is
>nothing to suggest that god (in the xian sense) exists, there is nothing
>to suggest that experience would come from outside the human skull. It is
>possible to experience "infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in
>an hour", but this also happens in our brain. And brain is not that
>shallow a place, after all. Crafting various obscure pseudo-scientific and
>New Age-explanations for consciousness is going to lead us astray, cause
>harmful attachment, and we will end up in the "right" result through a
>much longer route.
>
Yes. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that consciousness arises in
the brain, and is presumably generated there somehow. But, so far, no
explanations that I've heard or read seem to solve the problem of how.
Artificial intelligence answers generally bypass this question of
experience - Dennett, for example ("Consciousness Explained"), just says
that that is what it feels like to be a brain. Well, yes, but *how*? The
interface from matter to experience may be simply a fundamental property
of the Universe, as Dennett appears to imply, but that seems like an
unsatisfactory explanation to me: "it just is." I don't get an "Aha!"
experience from that.
So we'll have to wait and see, I suppose.
>> It is easy to imagine a complex robot that can behave much as humans do,
>> but it is not clear how such a machine would have any experiences
>> because we have no idea at all how to give it that capacity.
>
>How do you know *you* have any experiences the robot doesn't have? Is it
>the ego working its magic?
>
All I know is that I have experiences. I can't tell whether the robot,
or you, have any. As you are presumably constructed much like the way I
seem to be, I can accept a working assumption that you have experiences
like I do, but it is only an assumption. Similarly, I would probably
treat a smart robot as a person, but I would not *know* whether either
of these assumptions is correct.
To have solved the problem of consciousness, it must be necessary to be
able to show unambiguously whether any given entity is conscious or not.
--
Martin Thompson martinATnospamtucana.demon.co.uk
London, UK
Home Page: http://www.tucana.demon.co.uk
Free Regular Income: http://www.virtualis.com/vr/mthomps4/vrp.html
"Everything I do and say with anyone makes a difference." Gita Bellin
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