Re: Qualia Question

"1Z" <peterdjones@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Curt Welch wrote:
>
> > Right, we don't know if everything about human behavior can be
> > explained mechanically.
> >
> > But there's plenty of reason to insist that everything MUST be
> > explained mechanically in order to do the thing that many of us are
> > here do - understand the possibilities of AI.
> >
> > And currently, there's no proof that everything that creates human
> > behavior can't be explained mechanically.
>
> > Those of us that want to create AI, are therefore going to make the
> > assumption that allows our goal to be reached. It's pointless to make
> > any other assumption - it would just be negative thinking to discourage
> > us from a goal which might be possible.
> >
> > So instead, we assume there is a mechanical answer to everything, and
> > look at what that answer must be if it's there.
> >
> > To solve AI, we insist on finding the mechanical answer to all human
> > behavior, and all human experience, because to not find it, is to fail
> > to reach the goal.
>
> OK, but don't confuse working hypotheses with facts.

Ok, but don't confuse facts with truth.

Truth is a property of language and is absolute. Scientific facts are just
predictions about future events and are never absolute. They always carry
with them some possibility of being wrong. So the line between working
hypotheses and facts can be a thin one at times.

Most of what I say here is an obvious fact to me. It's as obvious to me as
the fact that sun rises every day. I also know that what I say will become
generally accepted facts in the society over time as well. Not because I'm
saying them, but just because they are facts and in the end, more people
will figure that out and believe it.

So, right or wrong, I normally talk about this stuff as if it were a fact
to everyone because it is a fact already to me.

Now, if I were trying to publish a scientific paper on this subject, I
would not write the same I write in a Usenet newsgroup. These "facts" of
mine are not scientific facts yet because we don't have enough clear and
simple evidence to allow everyone to see them as facts yet.

> > Mechanical to me just means physical matter interacting with other
> > physical matter.
>
> why don't you say 'physical' or 'material' then ?

I do. How many times have I written "everything is physical" in these
threads already?

You brought up the idea of "mechanical" when you wrote:

"There is no reason to insist that everything has to
be explained mechanically."

I only used the word in response to your comment.

> But the devil's in
> the
> detail; the actual properties and causal powers involved.

Right. But the point is that I believe the actual properties and causal
powers of matter define us, instead of us defining it.

Our ability to understand the causal powers of matter is limited by the
nature of our brain. We are a computing machine built from this very
matter with limited powers of computation and perception. So our ability
to talk about, and understand, the properties of matter is limited by our
nature - by how we work as machines.

> > I've never been able to understand what Lester uses the word
> > "mechanical" for even though I've seem him talk about hundreds of
> > times.
> >
> > I believe all human behavior and our subjective experience is all a
> > simple result of the mechanical properties of our body. We are just a
> > mechanical device. If we build a device with the similar functions, it
> > too will have human behavior, as well as its own subjective experience
> > of things like aches and pains.
>
> So the functions matter but the physico-chemical properties that
> underpin them don't ? Is that a fact ? Is it 'mechanism' -- as opposed
> to ,errr, functionalism ?

The words "physico-chemical" and "functionalism" mean almost nothing to me.

I'm an engineer. I've never studied philosophy. Not even a single intro
class, or a single book on the subject. Most my exposure to philosophy
comes from people in this newsgroup bringing up issues of philosophy which
causes me to go read a few web pages to try and understand what on earth
they are talking about.

And once again, I just read a few web pages on functionalism to try and
understand what point you are trying to make in your question. So I'll try
to explain my position and where I think it might fall in the domain of
philosophy. But not knowing much about philosophy, what I write could be
misleading....

Yes, I think only the function matters. I believe the human body is just
another machine, and as such, it has the same typical properties of all the
machines we build. That is, for a machine, not everything about it's
nature is important to us. If you build a second machine, which duplicates
all the important functions, then you are free to change the implementation
details in the second machine, and still end up with a machine which is
functionally the same as the first.

It will be a different machine, but the difference will not be important to
the function we care about, so we call it "functionally identical".

No two humans are the same. They have many obvious differences. Yet, we
have no problem calling them all (well most at least :)) "intelligent". So
it's clear, when we talk about human intelligence, we are talking about
limited human functionality. We known for a fact that different hunks of
matter which make up human bodies, are still functionally the same in terms
of being intelligent.

For example, one human speaks English, and another French, so clearly,
their brains are physically very different - as different as a PC is from a
Mac for example.

So there's just no doubt that when we talk about intelligent human
behavior, we are comparing only a limited subset of the entire functional
description of the body.

To go deeper into this idea of functionalism, let me talk about a car.
Lets say we have the ability to take it apart, all the way down to the
atomic level, atom by atom. And as we do this, we build an atomic
blue-print of the car - detailing the location and configuration of every
atom in the car. We then use that to build a second copy of the car, with
the exact same number of atoms, located in the exact same structure. Or at
least we try.

When we are done, we will still not have two identical cars. That's
because the atomic structure of the first car is not fixed. It's
constantly changing. The oxygen in the air is interacting with oil on the
surface and causing it to change. Oil is slowly dripping down the side of
the engine block. Dust is collecting on the car - it the dust part of the
car or not? etc.

So, it's generally impossible to ever build the same structure twice and
get it exactly the same. You probably can't even build to H2O molecules
and get them exactly the same because they are made up of dynamically
moving parts that never stay still (the electrons). When you build two H2O
molecules, all you end up with is functional equivalence. They both share
a set of properties that are common to all water molecules even though they
are all different.

When we say two things are the "same" we are always talking about some type
of functional equivalence because no two things are ever the same at least
above the atomic level (and below the atomic level, we probably just have
no way of knowing their differences).

So, I believe that human intelligence, and human consciousness, is just a
function which is duplicated already in billions of different humans
bodies, all different in many ways. I believe that it's a type of function
that we will be able to duplicate with very non-biological machines as
well.

Now, on to your physico-chemical comment. I really don't know what you are
thinking when you right that. Chemistry is mechanics at the atomic level.
We don't normally build machines at the atomic level only because our hands
are too big to grab and manipulate atoms. But we are developing tools to
allow us to build a few things at near atomic levels. Chemistry is just
mechanical construction using bulk tools. (i.e., a gar of H2O molecules is
not very different than a box full of screws - it's just a container full
of parts).

All humans and all machines are built from these same building blocks, and
the nature of what we can build is of course directly controlled by the
nature of the building blocks we build with. So of course the nature of
the building block is the foundation of all the functions a machine build
from these things can have in our universe. In the end, the "function" is
defined in terms of these same building blocks - so you can't separate the
function from the building blocks.

For example, a "machine which spits out H2O molecules" is a functional
description. But the function is defined in terms of the actions of these
building blocks.

If you take a device like a network router on the internet, it's easy to
see how they are functionally equivalent. It makes no difference what
brand, or design, router, might be located in the network between my
computer and Google's computers, because I can access the web site either
way. They are functionally the same.

When we describe the function of a router, we talk in odd abstract (and
mental) terms like what protocols they support.

But, if you look at what that really means in order for the router to
actually work, it means the device must have a physical network connection
- like an RJ45 style Ethernet jack, which will receive a physical stream of
electrons flowing in on one connections, and send out a physical stream of
electrons flowing out the other connection. The way those electrons come
and go over time, is the functional description of what that router must do
in order to have the "correct function". All the functional descriptions
we specify for a router in fact add up to be one physical interconnect
specification.

So, the point to all this, is that the functional description of a network
router is actually a description of a mechanical interface. It is just as
mechanical as a water hose connection. So, a "functional description" is
ALWAYS grounded in terms of atoms and then behavior.

So you ask:

> So the functions matter but the physico-chemical properties that
> underpin them don't ? Is that a fact ?

It's impossible to create a functional description which is not based on
the physico-chemical properties of the universe. When I say only the
"function" is important, what I'm really saying is that only a subset of
the total properties of some configuration of matter is important.
Function is always defined in terms of, and is grounded to, the properties
of matter in this universe. It's impossible for us to create a functional
description which is not grounded in the physical universe.

So when I say only the function of a human is important, I'm not saying
anything we don't already know as a fact. We already know humans don't
have to be identical clones just to be intelligent. So we now that only a
subset of the behavior of the description of the matter we are made from is
important to make us "act intelligent".

The only thing in question here is whether our physical make-up alone is
enough to explain human behavior, and human subjective experience. I
believe it is, and I think it's an obvious "fact" that it is, but I don't
have the simple evidence to make everyone else believe it yet. If we can
create robots that act human-like in all ways, including talking about how
things "feel" to them, including being confused about why it feels like it
does to them, then I think it will become obvious that humans are just
"machines" as well, and we will at that point know how to describe what
type of machine we are as well.

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@xxxxxxxx http://NewsReader.Com/
.

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