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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 17, 2017 - 08:58pm PT
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The interesting point here is that I am not arguing that this simulation that I talk about is necessarily "consciousness"
Largo argued that Virtual Reality isn't, in fact, reality, which is true, yet people have reactions to what happens in Virtual Reality that are profound, as if those experience were "real." This will become a bigger and bigger problem in the future...
...but the point is, the simulation acts like it has consciousness at a level of detail that it "fools" us.
Turning this around, since we have no access to someone else's first person experience, we are left only to assume that they have them. We "test" them, if we can, and if they match our test they are considered "conscious." While this is more the norm in our modern world, it was not when there were far fewer of us, and our language and customs unknown to others. So while we recognize the wide diversity of human form, language, culture, it is a relatively modern circumstance.
Previously, we had no way to judge the "humanity" of some other humanoid... no way of establishing if they were conscious.
Finally, even a "normal" looking person may be "unconscious." It has happened to me in the past, when having suffered a concussion, that I appeared to the people around me as "conscious." I was interacting, etc... but little things, to them, made them aware that perhaps I wasn't "all there" like forgetting my locker combination. Off to the school nurse with you!
And then "waking up" some time later, with my mother coming in to take me home... probably a total of an hour with absolutely no memory of what happened, to me I was "unconscious" absolutely no first person experience, no awareness at all...
where did it go? Why didn't the other people know?
The "test" I failed was behavioral, it wasn't some "innate sense" of my loss of consciousness... I was acting abnormally for me...
The "conflation" here is to assign to that process of the brain our perceived sense of "mind" when that is not what is happening. We certainly cannot explain that sense of mind, because it is a model of what is happening, a very useful model, but one that doesn't have, nor need to have, a detailed "theory" of what is happening.
You will fail to produce a scientific theory for a phenomenon that is not real.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jan 17, 2017 - 10:18pm PT
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It has happened to me in the past, when having suffered a concussion, that I appeared to the people around me as "conscious."
A distinction noted sometime ago: being "aware" but not "conscious", although most consider the two states the same.
With this distinction a machine can easily be aware and react.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jan 18, 2017 - 08:19am PT
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Science . . . . Fiction. . . .
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jan 18, 2017 - 08:46am PT
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Science . . . . Fiction. . . .
Oddy and Id
Alfred Bester
1950
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 18, 2017 - 09:18am PT
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I'd call it speculation...
but in the sense of Rutherford, who hurled it as an accusation, effectively. I learned it as a pejorative from an old professor of mine, Sam Devons, who was a student of Rutherford's, when I attended graduate school at Columbia. I was a teaching assistant for him for a course he taught at Bernard College on the history of science.
This accusation was so potent that various British scientists took to defending themselves of it during notable lectures. Arthur Eddington, in a famous talk given before the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1920 wrote:
"I should not be surprised if it is whispered that this address has at times verged on being a little bit speculative; perhaps some outspoken friend may bluntly say that it has been highly speculative from beginning to end. I wonder what is the touchstone by which we may test the legitimate development of scientific theory and reject the idly speculative. We all know of theories which the scientific mind instinctively rejects as fruitless guesses; but it is difficult to specify their exact defect or to supply a rule which will show us when we ourselves do err...
If we are not content with the dull accumulations of experimental facts, if we make any deductions or generalizations, if we seek for any theory to guide us, some degree of speculation cannot be avoided."
He had just presented a model of stars, and included the highly speculative notion that "building' of Helium from four Hydrogens left a mass defect, that is, the mass of the Helium was less than the mass of 4 Hydrogens, and that if that process occurred in the Sun, it would generate sufficient energy to explain what had never been explained previously: the physical explanation of the Sun's generation of energy. I would not be surprised if the "outspoken friend" was a reference to Rutherford.
This was a spectacular "speculation" for a number of reasons, but one of the more spectacular implications was that it also explained how the age of the universe could be billions of years old. He states "There is sufficient in the Sun to maintain its output of heat for 15 billion years."
At this time Quantum Mechanics had not yet been invented, Bohr had just, a couple of years earlier, published his theory of atoms using the "old" quantum mechanics, the neutron was yet to be discovered.
F. W. Ashton had measured the atomic masses of Hydrogen and Helium (and a number of other elements) just the year before, it was these "experimental facts" and some thought on the topic of stars which had been kicking around for a bit, that got put together into this brilliant speculation.
Oliphant, in Rutherford's lab, experimentally observed light ion fusion and published in 1934, 14 years later...
By Hans Bethe's paper in 1939, most of the mechanism for stellar fusion cycles had been worked out, even as the much of the nuclear science had yet to be done. It is not too surprising that Eddington was wrong in the details, but correct in identifying nuclear fusion as the source of energy of stars.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jan 18, 2017 - 05:06pm PT
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Ed: I'd call it speculation...
:-) Indeed. I love them. The more careful you are, the more knowledgeable, the more experienced in the craft, the more fascinating they become.
Cheers. It’s most always good to read you, . . . er, . . . your writing.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jan 18, 2017 - 09:29pm PT
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You will fail to produce a scientific theory for a phenomenon that is not real
But one can try!
Luminiferous aether
I think the Wizard may be up to this.
Maybe not.
Who knows?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jan 19, 2017 - 06:47am PT
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Ed: You will fail to produce a scientific theory for a phenomenon that is not real
Er, . . . technically speaking, aren't all phenomenon "not real?" Aren't they all the result of mental fabrication? Isn't a phenomenon a description of a mental (subjective, non-material) event?
One can get stuck in the Big Muddy by employing the concept of "the real" in the same sentence with the word "phenomenon."
Subjectivity is real? In what sense would one want to defend that assertion?
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 19, 2017 - 06:56am PT
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Everything IS real in the material world although temporarily and fleeting.
The only thing permanent is the living entity itself.
What's wrong with you people?
You spend trillions and trillions of people's hard earned money mismanaging them and the world all while claiming you are doing good for them.
And then making sorry ass excuses "we are only human" ......
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jan 19, 2017 - 08:35am PT
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Subjectivity is real? In what sense would one want to defend that assertion?
Someone says, "I don't like science fiction."
Although that is a subjective statement, I take it to be a real opinion, not a mistake or lie.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 19, 2017 - 09:31am PT
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In what sense would one want to defend that assertion?
we're talking about it...
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 19, 2017 - 10:56am PT
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If you can be fooled into that recognition, can you really recognize it? How do you know it is what you believe it is, if you can be fooled into believing that it is what you think it is, when it's not?
This is just sophistry. What can't you be fooled into believing?
Turning this around, since we have no access to someone else's first person experience, we are left only to assume that they have them. We "test" them, if we can, and if they match our test they are considered "conscious." While this is more the norm in our modern world, it was not when there were far fewer of us, and our language and customs unknown to others. So while we recognize the wide diversity of human form, language, culture, it is a relatively modern circumstance.
But this just isn't true. We do have access to the consciousness of others through communication and intuition. After all, people make a living out of becoming familiar with the psyches of others. Our assumptions based on our own particular self knowledge of experience then recognized in others have validity. If they didn't human existence would be nothing but chaos. To say we are separated from the first person experience of others is to say each of us is absolutely different from the other and we cannot possibly communicate in any way. Any careful observer would conclude differently.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jan 19, 2017 - 05:08pm PT
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I start considering my interactions with my dog.
The dog I take on walks has needed help, lately. She raises one paw to let me know, and I carry her for a while. The first time she did that I found a small thorn or splinter in the paw but the recent trouble appears to be due to a strain or other consequence of an uphill burst of unusual length and speed.
I was explaining to another dog walker why I was carrying Homie, and learned that her own dog had got a thorn, raised the paw, and got it removed. Quite a while later the dog raised its paw for help it needed in a very different situation.
Dogs may be good at communication. At the same time, they may have a low opinion of our ability to understand. My own communication comes down to, "Good Homie," "Don't," or "Sit." The dog may be taking my obviously limited skills into account when she tries to tell me something.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jan 19, 2017 - 06:43pm PT
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Ed:
We are talking about it. We’re not getting anywhere. Perhaps because we think we are talking about it but we are not at all.
+`1 DMT.
MH2:
I have friends (and wives) who corroborate that animals have a sixth sense about a partner. Treat them dumbly, and they will return the favor. Get in tune with them, and a lot of things go back and forth. I can’t articulate it. Ich verstehe nicht?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 19, 2017 - 08:01pm PT
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We are talking about it. We’re not getting anywhere. Perhaps because we think we are talking about it but we are not at all.
doesn't mean it isn't real... doesn't mean it is...
and where is it we are off to, anyway?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 19, 2017 - 08:11pm PT
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We do have access to the consciousness of others through communication and intuition.
your two methods are dubious. The first, "communication" has already been criticized simply because our communication is "not the experience" it is a description of that experience. If you accept that, then there is no problem for machines "to fake you out" they do it with increasing regularity. A lot of text is written for newspapers, etc. by machine... this might be somewhat of a boon for those who like to read grammatically correct writing. But you read it and you don't even suspect that some machine wrote it... yet you would claim the machine was not "conscious."
The second, "intuition" has the problem that you can't explain what it is, "a feeling of rightness," but you are attributing that ability to the very thing we are discussing, "consciousness," and my argument is that the thing we perceive as "consciousness" is just that, a perception. Part of your innate/learned "theory of mind" is that other people have it... we know through their behavior. Saying it is "intuition" you might ask: what is intuition?
You could also ask: what makes "intuition" different from other forms of knowledge? how do we judge "good" intuition from "bad", etc, etc.
Intuition opens a can of worms which will bury you.
You may as well just state "I know what consciousness is, and I don't need to explain how I know that," which is basically playing the "intuition" card.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 19, 2017 - 09:08pm PT
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How do I know this? I can see it in her eyes. And she, mine.
Absolutely. You recognize the consciousness of your dog and you're damn sure that dog feels something in a very similar way to the way that you do and you don't need some test to make sure of that, and it's done through your intuitive understanding and recognition of the "other" in that animal. And the idea that experience of the other is invalid because it doesn't measure up to what science demands as a test is ridiculous, because you know it in your mind and heart.
your two methods are dubious. The first, "communication" has already been criticized simply because our communication is "not the experience" it is a description of that experience. If you accept that, then there is no problem for machines "to fake you out" they do it with increasing regularity. A lot of text is written for newspapers, etc. by machine... this might be somewhat of a boon for those who like to read grammatically correct writing. But you read it and you don't even suspect that some machine wrote it... yet you would claim the machine was not "conscious."
Communication may not "be" the experience, however, understanding doesn't require absolute experience, but simply an explanation of that experience as in any aspect of science. I don't need to actually experience any natural phenomena in order to understand it. Experience and understanding are separate.
Fakery can never become reality: a fake is a fake, and that's the whole point, the simulated mind simply proves the absolute reality and necessity of the real mind, nothing more or less.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 19, 2017 - 09:48pm PT
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Fakery can never become reality: a fake is a fake, and that's the whole point, the simulated mind simply proves the absolute reality and necessity of the real mind, nothing more or less.
then I'm afraid that you're in for a big disappointment...
you're eyes fake you out... your ears fake you out... nearly every perception you have is fake.
but I'm sure you will hold to your absolute ideals, nothing more, nothing less.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 19, 2017 - 10:18pm PT
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you're eyes fake you out... your ears fake you out... nearly every perception you have is fake.
If you mean that the forms of sensibility are only structures in the mind you have forgotten that those "illusory" forms are directly stimulated and affected as comprehensible reflections of reality in the truest sense. We suffer illusion but that illusion has its basis in fundamental fact as a kind of translation. Those perceptions aren't fake they are devices that allow us to navigate reality.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 19, 2017 - 10:30pm PT
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not reality, but an adequate approximation to it...
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