Re: Is consciousness a process?


"Don Geddis" <don@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:873b2li00v.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Alpha" <OmegaZero2003@xxxxxxxxx> wrote on Fri, 27 Apr 2007:
"Don Geddis" <don@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:87slam786v.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
All you have is non-similarity, which you've adopted as an axiom with no
justification.

Sure there is justification in the empirical data. Complex liviing
things
behave more complexly

Well, "complex" things behave "more complexly". I don't know what you've
gained by adding the "living" adjective. That doesn't seem to add any
content.

I am willing to say that *behaviorially* the Roomba seems to have a
very
little bit of (trivial), simulated consciousness, but that is different
than a life-based (I mean here substrate-dependent) "real"
consciousness.

And I don't think there is any difference between "real" and "simulated"
consciousness,

Igor Aleksander - a real expert in AI/robotics, disagrees with you. He
couches it as the difference between simulated C and material C.

Dude, _I'm_ a "real expert in AI/robotics".

Not that I have witnessed. Vacuous argument. Not knowing how science
progresses. Unable to take of challlenges to falsify other's hypotheses
that you try to claim are "silly". Simply claiming various aspects of the
Strong AI position as though they were facts and exclude other possibilities
(e.g., mind is "merely" or "just" symbol processing etc.) And on and on.


Not that it matters. But don't
try some silly argument from authority here. That has no force at all.

Sorry but most people here use other's POV to bolster or make their points.
So don't try making the pont that it has no force; it does. Authorities
are those that have visited this ground before and have provided new
insights to that ground. That is also how science progresses; using others'
work to inform your own work.



If you have an argument to make, then make it. If you want to copy the
argument from someone else, then go ahead and give credit. But MAKE THE
ARGUMENT yourself.

Don't just say "you're wrong, because Fred, an Important Person, said that
you are wrong." For one thing, you're probably mis-summarizing Fred. For
another, even if Fred did say what you claim, an unsupported assertion
like
that deserves to be laughed off without comment.

So: I directly deny that there is any distinction at all between
"simulated"
consciousness, and "material" consciousness. It makes no more sense than
"simulated addition" of integers, vs. some kind of "real addition" of
integers. Both distinctions are equally as meaningless.

If you have evidence or even a strong argument in opposition (even if you
copy it from someone else), then I'm all ears.

But let's have none of this attempted argument from authority.

I reject your appeal and the attempted reasoning behind it.


Physics is not our *only* way of understanding the Universe, as every
schoolboy knows.

Everything in the universe must be implementable by physics, which is the
only substrate there is. There is nothing else, "outside" of physics.

You do not know what you are talking about. Reduction is lossy in most
cases. Emergence rules!


As D Hofstadter maintains, not everything is reducible to physics!

Not in practical terms, perhaps. But in theory, at least, it all must
come down to physics eventually.

Well you just blew up your own argument. Practicality is all we have.
Theoretical nonsense nothwithstanding. It doesn't withstand because *that*
theory - or practice - reduction - in practice - loses information as one
reduces a system to its component parts in many cases. Emergent phenomena
are nowhere to be found in the reduced "physics" - new operator creation
etc. (See Alwyn Scott's work) Where do you find the beauty of a sonet in
"physics"? Your POV is riddled with nonsense as D. Hofstadter for example,
has loads of similar examples (a practically unlimited number btw exists) of
aspects of existence that are not reducible to physics without loss of
information. Therefore, "physics" cannot be a *complete* view of existence.
It is not a sufficient explanation for much of what makes the Universe as
rich as it is.



But I'm really confused why you don't just say "my analogy doesn't hold,
so I don't know whether it has phenomenal experience or not". Why are
you
so confident that you _know_ it _doesn't_ have them?

Similar to Godel's "feelings" that something was not quite right with PM.

You're seriously going to compare your intuitions to Godel's? One of the
most insightful mathematicians in history?

They are similar in that they are both intuitions. I have my own reasons
for ascribing meaning to my intuitions. Just as anyone else does.


At least know this: Godel didn't publish strong criticisms of PM until he
actually had a _proof_ that the approach was necessarily flawed. He
wasn't
so arrogant as to mistake his intuitions for conclusions.

I merely made the comment that other human beings proceed by intuition - at
whatever stage it seems appropriate to them. A conclusion - forever cast in
stone, is not something I am arguing for. Facts will disabuse me of my
intuitions in these matters, but so far all you have offered are
speculations based on the dogma that is Strong AI.


-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/
don@xxxxxxxxxx
"Can you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here," asked Alice.
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the cat.



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