Re: Evolutionary question concerning God.

From: "someone2" <glenn.spigel2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
Eric Rowley wrote:
From: "someone2" <glenn.spigel2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>: >
<snip>

Sorry you'll have to explain your development cycle to
consciousness through in a bit more detail for me to make sense
of it.

Your going to program a robot to behave in a certain way,

Not really, I would set up a complex network, either a programed
simulation or, preferably, a bunch of artificial neurons in a box.

Then I would feed it input signals, see how it reacted and use
some form of artificial evolution to fine tune the number and
patterns of connections and hope that it got conscious.

Though I suspect that one would have to mimic evolution even
closer by gradually increasing the complexity whit a period of
fine tuning at every step.

then
through refinement get it to do what you actually want it to do,
and when it does behave how you eventually programmed it, you
declare it conscious
because it behaves the way you programmed it.

Is that a fair synopsis of your development cycle?

Nope, I would be trying to coax it to develop consciousness
by itself, that way if it started acting conscious without
having it explicitly programed in then I would consider it
reasonable to think it might actually be conscious.

(Plus I haven't the slightest idea how to program
consciousness anyway) ;-)

So what does it experience,

Who knows?

does it experience in a similar way to us,

Do you experience in a similar way to me?

or does it have computer graphics mingled in, or perhaps
it just experiences going up an down very quickly,

Huh?

Why up and down?

and if I am a customer wanting a conscious robot, how are you
going to assure me it was conscious,

You? I wouldn't bother trying to convince you, I think you're
predjuced against the idea of a conscious robot.

In general? I think the customer would have to run their own
tests and come to there own conclusions.

what was it you did that was different from
every other computer program?

For one thing it would be awfully complex, and for another it
would spend as much time studying itself as studying its inputs
and memory.

<snip>

I know what conscious experience is like. What I'm asking is how
does your viewpoint explain it.

I think I've answered that before,
I would say that it is the property of being aware that one
is aware.

For example supposing I have a set of neurons associated with the
eyes, and I have another set of neurons associated with the ears,
how is the state of both sets known, and the raw experience
differentiated into a visual and auditory experience. To put it
another way, if consciousness has a physical basis, what is the
physical that spans all the relevant neurons.

Other neurons!

I really don't understand your hangup with this question.

I think we know that neurons firing is obviously necessary, but
it only accounts for communication to adjacent neurons.

Which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
which communicate with other neurons,
that are way over on the other side of the
brain from the first neuron.

Yet we experience
information that must have come from a large set of neurons,
simultaneously.

What binds the states of these neurons,

Other neurons.
Though I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean by "bind"

must presumably be the
physical basis in your explanation, or have I misunderstood your
position, is it that consciousness experiences senses based on
the neural state, but that there is nothing binding the neurons
in the physical world?

Finally regarding your comment:
"What you fail to understand is that the neural connections
form loops so that while a naturalistic consciousness could
be, loosely, considered an output it is also an input for the
next iteration."

How does the consciousness effect the behaviour of the neural
connections, or doesn't it?

The question doesn't make sense, the way the neurons behave
doesn't change. Perhaps you mean changing the pattern of signals
in the neurons?
Since the neurons are interconnected in a network that loops
back on itself the pattern of signals, which includes the
consciousness, is quite capable of changing itself.

I was with you on neurons being interconnected, in a network that
loops back on itself and that the pattern of signals...

and there you lost me for the second time in that sentance.

The first time was the mention of consciousness as a signal.

That's not what I meant, the consciousness is part of the pattern
of signals.

What
type of signal is it? How does this pattern work, are you
suggesting it could go:

neuron => consciousness => neuron

or have I misunderstood you?

You still seem to be thinking that I must agree with your
view that consciousness is something separate from the brain
that, in my view, creates it.

The second time was about how the pattern could change itself. Do
you mean signals interfere with each other,

I would say interact, but that wasn't what I meant.

or do you mean that
given the same neural state twice, and no external stimulus, the
neural states of each could be different in the time it takes to
choose.

That too, I think, though that wasn't what I was talking about.

Is this because of quantum effects or something,

I know nothing about quantum anything, but I don't think
that would be necessary, I think there would be enough
sloppyness in the conections that the neurons wouldn't
react in exactly the same way.

is that
what your getting at, or are you suggesting that the pattern of
signals can actually change itself?

Well, the signals control the neurons which control the signals
and simce the signals loop back the current pattern is both part
of the output from last millisecond and part of the input for next
millisecond.

If so, then is it a joint
decision by the signals (begs the question of how they
communicate) or the pattern that decides? What is 'the pattern'?

I'm not talking about a specific pattern, like a plaid tartan
with purple polkadots, it's just another way of saying neural
state.

When the 'pattern' appears does it bring with it consciousness?

No, I think it's the interconnections and feedback loops that
cause the consciousness. "Consciousness is the property of being
aware that one is aware."

Face it, you're never going to get a detailed mechanism out of
me and I doubt you'll ever get an answer that you'll accept.
As I wrote in an earlier post when you asked for my more advanced
explanation:

"Me?!
I can no more exlain the mechanism of consciousness without
handwaving and waffling on about "emergant properties" and
"qualia" (whatever they are) than you could explain the soul
in terms that I would accept as meaningful. ;-)
(Feel free to try though.)"

I then went on to, perhaps somewhat incoherently, give my
take on how consciousness could have evolved, or rather the
steps involved in the development of consciousness.

"However my impression is that consciousness is simply (hah!)
the property of being aware that one is aware.
(Philosophy is based on the awareness of being aware that one
is aware.) ;-)

A simple organism (or robot but that would be pretty pointless)
might just sit there absorbing nutrients, nothing that we would
call behavior, a more complex, behaviorly, organism might have a
"preprogramed" (by evolution) behavior, say just keep moving so
as to remove itself from its waste products.

An added level of complexity could involve adjusting its
behavior (unconsciously) to its environment or internal
state, say moving towards (or away from) light or towards
light when it is low on energy and towards it when it isn't.

Quite complex behavior could be built up by adding more
functions to the "program" without adding more levels of
complexity in the way I mean, I hope my meaning is clear.

I imagine that the next steps in complexity levels might
involve the addition of a memory and adjusting the "program"
according to how sucessfull it had been in previous iterations.

Awareness of the environment and internal state (still external
to the brain however) pain, hunger etc as motivating factors
could lead to greater flexibility, rather than everything having
to be "preprogramed" the organism would be free to find its own
solutions to novel challenges through trial and error.

Some awareness of the internal state of the brain
(not in fine detail, it's an overview of some functions.)
could lead to further refinements of the internal "program"
factors like fear, lust, motherly love etc are powerful
motivators.

And we are aware of the processes of thought (not low-level
neural stuff but how one thought leads to another) which
allows us to plan ahead and predict the results of our actions
without having to act them out, learning from others mistakes
and from "virtual mistakes", "learning how to learn", science,
etc. And that's what I think consciousness is all about.

I haven't the foggiest idea how it all works but I don't see any
unexplainable conceptual chasms in an evolutionary progression
between the nervous system of flatworms and ours, just the
gradual addition of more interconnections and feedback loops
(and more layers of interconnections and feedback loops)."

Eric





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