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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Feb 14, 2017 - 08:05am PT
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MH2:
Way long ago upstream you requested some references to research on computational models of consciousness. I’m not going to get into the current dialogue.
Perhaps most importantly, any research model of cognition (a necessary subset of consciousness, it seems) must be tested in academia. Sooner or later, a theory must be put into the fire empirically. That will no doubt entail constructs, metrics, and some statistics to establish the extent to which a model is predictive. So, by the nature of scientific investigation (especially in this era), computation shows up as part of any model on cognition. It makes every model, even outside of cognition, computational. Right? Few people will openly accept surveys of what people believe, even if they are “experts.”
The computer metaphor of cognition is inherently computational, even if you are using a very high-level symbolic language like LISP (which AI and cognitive science embraced).
There are 3 lines of research rise to mind that are computational and central to modeling cognition. (1) In order for models of cognition to work, they must find some successful ways to represent knowledge. That’s been problematical: there is exemplar theory, prototype theory, family resemblances, and categorization theory. If people cannot represent knowledge, and connect those representations to some kind of operational engine, then what cognition is and how it works is unknown. (I’ll hold “grounded cognition” or “embodied cognition out of the consideration.) (2) There is neural net theories, and they are very computational and dynamic: each neuron must reach an excitation threshold statistically in conjunction with other neurons to fire a net. You know about this. (3) There have been some good work using computational models (see, Sowa’s 2000 book; here’s a good review http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/089120101750300544 ).
In sum, I’d be more interested to find out what testable models of consciousness *are not* computational. Heck, what testable models of anything in science (I suppose we should not bring in any of the humanities) are not ultimately computational?
For valentine’s day, we got up really early and drove for 90 minutes to a remote dry lake bed where sandhill cranes have amassed. At dawn (even when cloudy), a few hundred thousand of them form flights that head out looking for food. They make the most wonderful gurgling sound as they fly by. The waves of flights last about 20 minutes. They return by about 10:30 am. Short work day, huh?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Be well.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 14, 2017 - 08:41am PT
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One thing I have learned about our senses is that they can be trained and altered. In good ways and not so good ways. They become more acute with use and dulled from neglect. And then there is discernment and a higher degree of integration of the senses with awareness and motor function.
Yes. Our collective knowledge helps us but I think we tend to undervalue other things. If you dropped me and a standard house cat into a tract of wilderness, the cat would probably soon be doing better than me.
Also, some people are capable of going well beyond what they have been taught. I am not. I am not even capable of comprehending the powerfully predictive and explanatory theory that is General Relativity.
But we more-or-less normal types like to share our opinions, anyway.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 14, 2017 - 08:52am PT
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I don't want to live forever
CBC Radio had a segment yesterday on Yuval Harari. He considers the possibility of greatly extending the human life span. He makes the interesting point that the question people will actually be faced with is not whether they want to live forever, but rather whether they would like to live another ten years, say, in good health. When that ten years is up, they face the same question again, and may need to pay for another treatment if the answer is, "Yes."
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 14, 2017 - 09:42am PT
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If you dropped me and a standard house cat into a tract of wilderness, the cat would probably soon be doing better than me.
Now that sounds like a great idea for a new survival show on the Discovery channel. Then you and the cat could build a custom car. "i was looking for the impact driver, but I grabbed the ...."
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 14, 2017 - 10:35am PT
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But we more-or-less normal types like to share our opinions, anyway.
Yes we do and your point is not lost. There is a tone of intellectual elitism and a plethora of effete responses here. No problem. There is something metaphysical about stepping in a warm cowflop with your bare feet.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 14, 2017 - 10:37am PT
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Yes we do and your point is not lost. There is a tone of intellectual elitism and a plethora of effete responses here. No problem.
Oh brother!
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 14, 2017 - 10:39am PT
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You don't see it? What do you see?
I'm not saying I'm not guilty of it myself to some degree. I think it is one of those less desirable aspects of "human nature" that the internet seems to enhance. One of those crazy feedback loops we get caught up in from time to time.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 14, 2017 - 02:57pm PT
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There is something metaphysical about stepping in a warm cowflop with your bare feet.
I might have said something familiar and called it a cowpat. I spent formative years in the hamlet of Springville, NY, a dairy farming community of 4,000 people.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 14, 2017 - 03:47pm PT
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I hate to be the one to say it but I think the OP is a "trick question", unanswerable on so many levels.
I would not say "trick question."
I would say, rhetorical question, or less-than-honest question, if a true question is one you are looking for an answer to.
Largo has shown no interest in any kind of answer outside the ones he already claims to know.
Take for an analogy the question: What is the Atlantic Ocean?
If you weren't sure and wanted some help, various answers would be of interest to you. By analogy to the Mind question here, someone might say that the Atlantic Ocean is water because if you remove the water there is no more Atlantic Ocean.
But in a broader sense, it is not so easy to say truly, finally, and completely (thanks, MikeL) what the Atlantic Ocean IS.
It is much more productive to ask, "What can we say about the Atlantic Ocean that most of us can agree is true?"
In a broad sense, the Atlantic Ocean includes cetacean and cephalopod minds which we would be hard put to describe to someone sufficiently that if they met one they could communicate with it.
When we are asked, "What is Mind?" there are many answers.
It is not true that we cannot see into the mind of another human or other creature. Neurophysiologists and ordinary people have been doing this, in the first case for decades and in the second for millennia.
There are many good partial answers to the question, "What is Mind?" unless, as in the now OP, you choose to exclude material evidence.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 14, 2017 - 04:00pm PT
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The saddest aspect of the thread is we've 14k posts of Largo saying everything that mind isn't and next to NOTHING about what it is or might be. Plain language, say what you really mean - it's not that tough.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 14, 2017 - 04:03pm PT
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Wayno, I mean no harm. It's just that this thread has been going on for years now -- sheesh almost 14,000 posts. It just seems a little flippant to me to describe it as you did. There are a lot of different personalities and views. In all of those years, it doesn't seem to me that even one participant has changed their views to any significant degree. That's the take-home point for me, not that some people are intellectual snobs.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 14, 2017 - 04:26pm PT
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But the bald men! And the comb!!
Well, he got that part right...
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 14, 2017 - 04:55pm PT
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eeyonkee, we haven't changed our views because ours are in accordance with the evidence and the science. That's our justification.
Only the woo, which obviously Wayno doesn't recognize (lack of science?), keeps this thread in circles.
It does contain a number of fine links and quotes though (posted up by one or two here).
If the science were to change tomorrow then I'm sure our views would change commensurately. As we value beliefs (holdings) subject to modern quality control and based on evidence, reason, good argument.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 14, 2017 - 04:59pm PT
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Flippant. I had to look it up. Yes, perhaps that does fit the way I have characterized my observations. Except for the disrespectful part. I don't disrespect anyone here. I do sometimes disrespect their actions. I agree with your observation, though and I will in the future try to keep my flippant remarks to a minimum and in a more respectful tone. I may only partially succeed.
Only the woo, which obviously Wayno doesn't recognize (lack of science?), keeps this thread in circles.
Come on fruity, is that really necessary? I could try to refute your observation but I realize you are only going by what I post here perhaps and that is a very incomplete picture of who I am and how much science I have. As far as woo goes, I have read a lot of woo and and even know some woo-woo masters. I read a lot of science too and know some amazing scientists. Philosophy, Science,Religion, Woo, Linguistics, Anthropology, Archeology and others are all subjects that I have interest in and have read and talked about. Do you really think that it is woo and only woo that keeps this circular?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 14, 2017 - 05:03pm PT
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Only the woo, which obviously Wayno doesn't recognize (lack of science?), keeps this thread in circles.
Okay, perhaps better...
Only the woo, which PERHAPS Wayno doesn't recognize, keeps this thread in circles.
PS
MikeL would hardly qualify as any kind of a thread moderator here - he's a post-modernist for chrisakes. Sheesh.
By some measures a post-modernist is less grounded in facts (the facts of an objective reality) than an Abrahamic Creationist.
Go ahead, get clear... Ask him Mikel if he accepts the claim that the Earth moon has a basis in objective reality whether or not apes are around to experience it (say 60Mya).
How can anyone have a meaningful conversation after that?
...
Artificial Intelligence Is Not a Threat—Yet
Michael Shermer
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/artificial-intelligence-is-not-a-threat-mdash-yet/
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Feb 14, 2017 - 05:09pm PT
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MH2: If you dropped me and a standard house cat into a tract of wilderness, the cat would probably soon be doing better than me.
Depends where you were dropped. Cats down here are lunch. However, there are (believe it or not) feral colonies in the desert. Every thing down here wants to stick you, poison you, eat you, and kill you. Pleasant place. I never thought I’d be wearing long sleeves, gloves, long pants and boots working in the yard . . . in the middle of the summer down here.
DMT:
Ya vol, mein fuhrer.
Unfortunately, not much of that got academic notice in business. Those folk had a tendency to believe . . . like this crowd . . . that it’s fuzzy, folk lore in need of some pointy head generated metrics. Can’t model it? Don’t study it.
I was a salesman in a number of different industries before I went back to finish my undergraduate. One salesman I was awed by told me many things, but the most important thing that stayed with me was: “sales is nothing more than the transference of conviction.”
In coaching, one is supposed to pay a lot of attention to body language. It can also be useful for a salesman to know and use the same things. Then you can make buyers’ lives better! :-)
There is a tone of intellectual elitism and a plethora of effete responses here.
Speak plainly.
What is the object of conversation in this thread? What do you have to say?
Some of my work projects for the day.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Feb 14, 2017 - 05:09pm PT
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Yeah, if somebody's trying to explain something to me and I don't understand they're obviously an effette intellectual snob.
Honestly, I don't get why people have to pop in with the "this thread is ridiculous" mantra. Don't like the thread there's actually a way you can avoid it. I think the discussion here is pretty fascinating and of course it's endless because the subject is incredibly difficult... and I've noticed minds shift during this long process; I know mine has. Where else can you toss out an idea and have so many people looking at it so intensly and so earnestly trying to refute it? Love it because it forces you to put your ideas together very carefully.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 14, 2017 - 05:33pm PT
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You guys are right, perhaps this is not a thread for me. I said what I said because I'm not as smart as a lot of you guys and I don't know how to argue my point. Have it your way. I can't smarten up as fast as some of you could dumb it down. Have Mercy.;)
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 14, 2017 - 05:42pm PT
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Way to say it Paul! That's exactly right. That's what makes us come back. To say what I just said about not changing positions is true, but boring. What's not boring is when you write a paragraph that succinctly describes your position. Or when you read something by somebody else that challenges your position and makes you refine it.
And then nobody appreciates it like you do... (sound familiar anyone?)
Btw, I agree with you, of course, HFCS. Of course mind is a product of evolution, and the science-minded would converge on the evolutionary solutions. I would have to be in the throes of Alzheimer's to believe differently.
Btw2, I like both of those pictures, MikeL!
Btw3. We're all punters, Wayno.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 14, 2017 - 06:12pm PT
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I've alluded to this before, but I believe that there will be a whole other life to this thread around mining it for sociological and psychological information (hold out for more $$, Chris). I can imagine writing a program that mines this thread and builds up individual response profiles for anybody who has responded say, over 50 times. I can imagine that this program could predict the responses of those more prolific posters to some (any) hypothetical question related to the, um, subject. It would be a vindication of sorts, for the idea that we have no free will. Just a thought...
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