conciousness,

[EmptyForceOfChi]

not speaking philosophical here just wanted to point that out,

ok, so as humans are supposidly just machines to western science, this means human conciousness and awareness in all its glory, can actually be created artificially, its just a matter of advances in technology to get us there in the future? is this correct?.

in theory, how would you go about creating actual awareness and conciousness,


peace.

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

theoreically yes. You could create a machine that is conscious. However, since people know exactly how it works, they would say that it's a machine and nothing else. No more than a calculator.

I'm not a neuroscientist or anything, but I'm sure it would involve making the machine able to learn by allowing it to be able to modify it's hardware (like... make new "neural" connections), etc.
Since we're not exactly sure what conciousness even IS, it's pretty hard to answer that question.

 

[Billy T]

...in theory, how would you go about creating actual awareness and conciousness,...

one thing you surely need is sensors. One problem you surely have is how to know that it is conscious. (You can not be sure that anyone, other than yourself, is conscious.)

 

[glaucon]

All that is required is the ability to self-refer, and to recognize uniquity.

 

[Dinosaur]

If an artificial device is ever built and has consciousness, I expect it to be so complicated that it cannot be understood by the humans who created it.

I expect true AI to be the result of some device which learns after it is built.

I also expect that computer systems which are capable of controlling a national economy might do it without anyone understanding how it is done.

For example, imagine a vast system capable of collecting detailed data about the economy every few hours. If given the ability to tinker with interest rates, withholding rates, and other controllable variables, it might be able to acheive desired goals by trial and error like processes. Tinker some varialbe, note the effect and tinker it accordingly until the desired result is al least approximated. Such a system might not be describable in algoritmic form.

I think that there are process control computers used in the chemical and petroleum industries which function in this manner rather than having detailed algorithms govering their activities.

 

[valich]

Chemical reactions triggered the development of life through metabolic pathways and specialized organs. Then came the evolution of sensory receptors and reaction pathways to monitor both the internal and external environment of the organism to regulate the evolving metabolism.

Sensory receptors, that make up sensory perception, are specialized cells that respond to internal inputs and codes and translate outside environmental impulses into electrical nerve impulses that are transmitted through the central nervous system to your brain. This network of synapses in the central nervous system in the brain and the input from sensory perception led to thought, awareness, and consciousness in humans.

We already have sensory receptors in robots and artificial intelligence in computers. What's to prevent us from creating a central nervous system network via AR similar to humans in a robot? I don't see any limitations to it.

 

[EmptyForceOfChi]

well if an AI machine every is constructed with conciousness, it would mean that we understand what "conciousness" is as a whole and fully understand it,


you guys made it seem kind of easy to show how one would create such a robot, but i think its more complex than just giving it sensory systems, and the ability to tinker with its own programming,


if people of this generation believe they know how its done this would mean they have a full understanding of the human conciousness,
i personally dont believe it is possible for us to create true conciousness, and awareness,


but regardless of what i just stated in this post, your replies were interesting nonetheless,



peace,

 

[RoyLennigan]

well if an AI machine every is constructed with conciousness, it would mean that we understand what "conciousness" is as a whole and fully understand it,


you guys made it seem kind of easy to show how one would create such a robot, but i think its more complex than just giving it sensory systems, and the ability to tinker with its own programming,


if people of this generation believe they know how its done this would mean they have a full understanding of the human conciousness,
i personally dont believe it is possible for us to create true conciousness, and awareness,


but regardless of what i just stated in this post, your replies were interesting nonetheless,



peace,

i think it would be possible for people to create a program or robot that is intelligent, or has a consciousness, without actually knowing what consciousness is or how it comes to be.

 

[valich]

Chi: No we do not yet have a full understanding of what consciousness is. Some think that humans are the only animals capable of "self-awareness" - but this is debatable. In any case, we have developed the sensory receptors and electrical neural pathways that conceivably could lead to consciousness in AI robots. I see no limits on why we would not be able to do so in the future.

 

[Billy T]

As it is short and still un addressed, I re-post:

One problem you surely have is how to know that it is conscious. (You can not be sure that anyone, other than yourself, is conscious.)

TheAlphaWolf is correct when stating:
No one will ever call a machine completely designed by man “conscious.”
Dinosaur is also correct when stating:
“I expect true AI to be the result of some device which learns after it is built.” but cautious as he does not directly assert that an AI device which learns may become “conscious.”
His observations (or speculations?) that some trial and error learning control systems may develop non -algorithmic knowledge /”understanding“? of complex processes that exceed that of any man’s is also correct. I think that the paper production industry and several others, which are more art than science, already do use “neural network” control systems that routinely decide / manage the production process.
Even Valich’s, atypical for him, posts of 58 &45 minutes after the hour are thoughtful (instead of his typical cut and past from Google) and basically correct. There is no known reason, in principle, why a machine with sensors and the ability to learn the results of its interactions with the environment can not become “conscious.” A reasonable view of man is that he is a biological machine that did so, but I again ask the fundamental question of my post above - How would we know the machine was conscious? I also note that one should not read his post of 45 minutes after the hour as equating “self-awareness” with “consciousness.” They are definitely not the same. Many machines, for example, a computer controlled milling machine, have better self awareness than any man in that they can know where their cutting tool is to an accuracy of 0.0001 inch - much better than you know where your hand is. (Some interesting experiments with delayed display on CRT of your hand position and direct vision prevented by a curtain can cause you to think your hand is where it is not by about half a foot error!)
Also I agree with all EmptyForceofChi said in her post, especially as she did not state that consciousness would require Qi energy to achieve it in a machine. (But I bet this is just an oversight in her post and that she really thinks conscious would not be possible without it.)
RoyLennigan has it correct also, if one does not read his post as claiming “intelligence” = “consciousness” (Note that the neural networks controlling paper plants etc. have more “intelligence” in a limited area than any man, but few would try to argue they are conscious.)

I find myself unable to find significant fault with any of the above - Clear proof that I am not now conscious, but how would you know that I ever am? Again what is a test for “consciousness”? The “Turning test” is for “human status” not “consciousness.” I can assert that no one but me is conscious, and you the same, but perhaps I am not conscious, but only a biological machine erroneously with the illusion it is.

For my “crackpot view" as to what consciousness is and how it is achieved in a biological machine, See my postof 6 Oct05 in the “About Determinism” thread of this forum, but you may need to set the thread display length to 75 days to get back that far.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

I hate it when people start a topic on something they can't even spell right.

 

[fadingCaptain]

We have a ways to go before we can create consciousness. The problems is the act of experience. Being able to reflect upon data gathered.

When we are able to create something that can experience and even reflect upon that experience (is self-aware), it will probably be unrecognizable to us. The rate of processing and scale will put it in another league relative to time.

Some think it is impossible to create consciousness. I think they are holding onto the hope that we are something more than a complex biological computer. Wrong.

 

[valich]

Billy T: Read Tristan, the administrator's posts, about people just throwing out worthless opinions without citing there sources. I post the facts, and you? I quote a scientific study from a journal article and cite my sources. This ios called being scientific.

You state, "TheAlphaWolf is correct when stating:
No one will ever call a machine completely designed by man “conscious.”

Explain. How does a human design a machine without being conscious of what she/he is designing? Or, as you are stating - I guess? - why do you think humans cannot design a machine that has a consciousness? Aren't you limiting your understanding of the future?

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

How does a human design a machine without being conscious of what she/he is designing?

exactly, that's the point. Humans know EXACTLY how that machine works as they created it. If there was some superintelligent machine out there with consciousness, people would just say "oh that's not consciousness, it is just rebuilding it's neural connections according to new experiences" or would dismiss it some other way.

I guess? - why do you think humans cannot design a machine that has a consciousness?

no... what I said is that humans cannot design a machine that THEY acknowledge has consciousness... for the reasons above.

Aren't you limiting your understanding of the future?

nah, I'm just saying that's what I think will happen. I'm not claiming to have ESP. When the future comes I will (try to anyway) understand it then.

 

[Physics Monkey]

Isn't it possible that humans actually won't always know exactly how something they build works? What I'm thinking of here is simulated annealing. This process, which is completely analogous to the real process in metallurgy, etc., has enabled a number of interesting problems to be solved. For example, it has been used to optimize the design of integrated circuits. We give the computer our fitness scheme for circuit design and let some sort of Monte Carlo scheme run for a while and voila: out pops a highly efficient circuit design. Now, we know the basic fitness scheme i.e. high density of components is good, lots of wire crossings is bad, etc., but we certainly do not understand how these local laws interact to produce the global structure. I'm not saying we can't eventually understand, but the point is that at the time we didn't yet we built the circuits all the same. Thoughts?

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

Well... I'm not very technologically literate so I'm not sure what you're talking about (lol)... but I guess if we let the machines "evolve", they would be a mystery to us, and then people would say that they're conscious... and then some people would begin saying they're too complex to have evolved from the originals, and that it's all a big conspiracy of the machines trying to fool us into thinking they were created by humans, but of course humans are too stupid... I mean... humans can't design something smarter than themselves... and a whole religion would be founded about the machines...
some would worship them, others would be scared of them and think they're a work by the devil, etc.
you know, I should write a sci fi book about it... lol... I can just picture it now *makes a square with his hands, holds it out, and looks through it*

 

[RoyLennigan]

RoyLennigan has it correct also, if one does not read his post as claiming “intelligence” = “consciousness” (Note that the neural networks controlling paper plants etc. have more “intelligence” in a limited area than any man, but few would try to argue they are conscious.)

merely the fallacy of language, not a misunderstanding of the meaning. or perhaps it is a little of both. they need to start making up new words to describe things, we're beginning to reuse the old ones for different purposes. intelligence and consciousness are very different things indeed.

 

[EmptyForceOfChi]

there is a way to know if the robot is conscious, if it was programmed with speach, then it can express itself?. so it can be asked questions, and if the machine is actually conscious it will be able to question its own bieng, wouldent consciousness be described as something that can ask itself questions? and give answers to itself, and understand what its asking and answering on all levels of awareness,

if the machine actualy started saying things like this "why was i created" "what is that" "why am i aware of myself"

"why"

if a machine could talk to me on the same level as a human can then i would be convinced it was conscious. otherwise i shouldent believe anyone is conscious apart from me.


peace.

 

[Dinosaur]

Deep Blue is neither intelligent nor conscious, but it exhibited intelligent behavior when it beat Kasparov, the reigning human chess master. To me, this suggests the following.

• Maybe intelligence is not as wonderful as we think it is. A person who did not understand the program, would consider Deep Blue to be intelligent. Kasparov commented a few times that its moves seemed insightful and unexpected of a computer. Maybe if we understood how our minds functioned, we might say something like “All our minds do is crunch numbers, recognize patterns, apply some rules of logic, and understand when a randomly generated thought is significant.”
  
  
• Deep Blue demonstrates that intelligent behavior does not require consciousness, suggesting that intelligence might not require it either. Consciousness seems necessary for (or perhaps the cause of) ambitions, desires, pleasure seeking, et cetera, but it does not seem to be a requirement for intelligence.

I wonder if consciousness is merely an accidental by product of complexity.

BTW: I think that all mammals have some level of consciousness, with primates having more than other branches of the tree. I do not have an opinion about reptiles, but think that neither fish nor insects have enough of whatever it is to be considered conscious. This is strictly an opinion that I am not interested in defending. It would be readily be abandoned in the face of some evidence or cogent arguments.

 

[chenjen]

For example, imagine a vast system capable of collecting detailed data about the economy every few hours. If given the ability to tinker with interest rates, withholding rates, and other controllable variables, it might be able to acheive desired goals by trial and error like processes. Tinker some varialbe, note the effect and tinker it accordingly until the desired result is al least approximated. Such a system might not be describable in algoritmic form.

IMHO that's *exactly* what Economists/Politicians are currently doing. I bet they have no inkling of what's going on -