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WBraun
climber
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Apr 25, 2017 - 09:53am PT
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DMT -- "There is absolutely intelligence in machines; human intelligence."
Sorry ... that is machine intelligence only.
A conscious living entity can transcend any machine intelligence.
Machine intelligence originally comes from the superior intelligence of the living entity itself.
Go ahead and become a robot.
You have my blessings ...... :-)
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Apr 25, 2017 - 10:17am PT
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A Turing machine’s operations are said to be “syntactical”, meaning they only recognize symbols and not the meaning of those symbols—i.e., their semantics
Yes but that assertion is highly dependent on what kind of language or operation under exemplary discussion. If our symbols are mathematical or broadly scientific, or said to be strictly symbolic, then the Turing machine does not need to furnish purely human experience to provide the necessary non-syntactical bona fides.
If on the other hand the machine says:
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Since the machine lacks authentic credentials of subjective human life and consciousness then such a statement is mere reportage.
But then again, who among us expects such a machine to have once been a child, nurturing such experiences as maturation ; or the deeper meaning of life strictly derived from years of organic disequilibrium ?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 25, 2017 - 11:31am PT
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^^^ Interesting link, HFCS. Thanks.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Apr 25, 2017 - 12:11pm PT
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MH2 said "Can you say what zen is? I am not asking in the odd sense that MikeL asked, "Can you say what the taste of sugar is?""
Oh' the big question. Um , the correct answer would be different for what ever audience is asking. Usually if someone is really wanting to KNOW they ask me where can they go to learn/practice.
For you (this is sounding like hogwarts and the hat thing!) Zen uses meditation as a tool to perceive your true self (which is mind not attached to concepts); then use this wide open mind to help all beings.
MikeL's question get's right to the crux of mind before concept. What is the taste of sugar before concept? Just do it.
It has been fun participating on ST the past few days; I got the opportunity because I have been sick with the bad cold. I blocked ST at work due to no discipline. I a getting well so have to go back.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 25, 2017 - 12:52pm PT
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Zen uses meditation as a tool to perceive your true self
Right on target, IMO. I only become critical if a practitioner says it is a tool to perceive true reality.
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cintune
climber
The Model Home
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Apr 25, 2017 - 01:02pm PT
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"No computer has ever been designed that is ever aware of what it's doing; but most of the time, we aren't either." - Marvin Minsky
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 25, 2017 - 02:21pm PT
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Which poses the question: Does a nation have a collective Mind? If it does, where does its Awareness arise? How would you define Consciousness?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 25, 2017 - 04:37pm PT
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Cintune,
Good one!
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 25, 2017 - 06:12pm PT
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Dingus, perhaps the best way to cover some ground on the "intelligent machine" is to first realize that a machine can be thought of to make intelligent decisions in reference to tasking, or creating an optimal output or action in regards to an input. But no one would claim that the machine has an experience of understanding what it is doing. To MH2, aparently, it is all inputs and outputs in his own experience. "He," by the sound of it, is entirely absent from the process. Hard to imagine but that's what he is proposing.
Most of the issues in this are covered in this wiki link in Searle's Chinese Room argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
And John, the Zen take on "ultimate reality" is that there is no fixed reality, nothing stand alone with a separate existence or permanent essence. It's all flux, all impermanent. And the fundamental nature of your mind is that is is empty.
As the man said, if you want to probe emptiness, go to a retreat. In the study of emptiness, it has been my experience that people often want something for nothing, which is like expecting to flash the Thimble having never done that groundwork. Unlikely...
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 25, 2017 - 06:21pm PT
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“He,” by the sound of it, is entirely absent from the process.
"He" is part of the process.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 25, 2017 - 06:23pm PT
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Good answer, PSP also PP. Thank you.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 25, 2017 - 09:09pm PT
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It's all flux, all impermanent
I'll be the first to admit there will always be change in our world. Without it there could be no passage of time.
Speaking of time, there have been no comments on the excellent post on the subject by Ed. It was fascinating reading. I wonder if Borel or Lebesgue had any idea their concepts of measure would ultimately be used as a pregeometric notion of the universe - wherein the physics began with a measurable space?
Lebesgue decided to flip the Riemann integral on its side so to speak and partition the y-axis instead of the x-axis for a positive function y=f(x). The approximate area under the curve then comes from adding up pieces of horizontal rectangles given by where the larger horizontal rectangles lie below the function curve. The end points of these rectangles on the x-axis then defined intervals on the x-axis, some of which were very odd. Thus arises Lebesgue measure. Yes, I know - boooring.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Apr 26, 2017 - 02:23am PT
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Zen does not do science
Science does Zen
Searle's Chinese room is a circular argument -- you have to think that the mind [and computers] works the way he thinks it [they] works to stay in the loop -- He has no formal studies to substantiate his view of how the mind/brain works -- yet alone reasonable. It is declarative nonsense. Stay trapped you oddballs.
Simply, life evolved to respond to the environment -- sensors and actuators using representations of what is going on elsewhere that is threatening to its life boundary.
I was one of the earliest to get a digital camera and laughed at -- how could pixels make a good picture? Representations can be made for feelings out of 0's and 1's also and pixel dense if you wish. Just keep reverbing your denial of what is going on in this finite automata and you will experience pixel dense denial -- sort of a feeling?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 26, 2017 - 08:56am PT
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Largo: . . . the Zen take on "ultimate reality" is that there is no fixed reality, nothing stand alone with a separate existence or permanent essence. It's all flux, all impermanent. And the fundamental nature of your mind is that is is empty.
There you go. Well articulated—although not to be taken literally. (I mean, that’s the deal.) :-)
DMT: You're utterly wrong to say a computer doesn't understand human symbols . . . .
“Understand?” I don’t understand “understand” there. What do you mean? What is understanding? Help.
Dingus: Simply, life evolved to respond to the environment -- sensors and actuators using representations of what is going on elsewhere that is threatening to its life boundary.
I’d say you’re simplifying / glossing over the immensely complicated problem trying to model “mind.”
For my money, one crux lies in grounding symbols whether one is using purely symbolic systems or connection systems (see Lakoff and Johnson and their followers).
When I quit reading in the area, there appeared to be three problems of note. One was the functional problem (what are things, and how do they relate to each other) of dictionaries / taxonomies / classifications / categories; two, how are symbols grounded in the referents we call “things” in the world (these first two give rise to Searle’s Chinese Room argument, where Searle partially relies upon “consciousness” to solve); and three, “intentionality” (desires, aversions, etc. and “feelings”) that Damasio says is linked in and facilitated through somatic markers and homeostasis. (Without intentionality, we—as computational machines—are simply zombies that {who?} could pass any Turing Test.)
It’s the the body (and other tools and accoutrements) that grounds / connects the brain to the world and gives rise to some kind of functional efficiency. However, it’s the intentionality (the “feelings” we have) that make us human (creativity, what we call our “humanity”, aesthetics and morals, and deep psychology that is difficult to locate but which is immensely influential on the “quality” of our lives—often called “the shadow” that lies outside of surface consciousness).
Meditation and spiritual practices have perhaps flourished because people have intuited that there is far more than rationality that makes them what they are. What they are seems impossible to say even though every one of us is in the middle of it 24x7. Meditation can begin a process to tease out these different facets of one’s life, not so much to say what they are but simply to get a view of them, and perhaps then to see What This Is—what this is all about.
A decent (and incomplete) primer on the problem of “grounding cognition” can be found at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding_problem
You can see how much is being disputed or questioned from all of the calls for expansion in the page. That’s the sign of speculation. (But, at least it lays out some significant pastures for dialogues.)
Be well.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 26, 2017 - 09:14am PT
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simply zombies
Again zombies don't get respect. Why is that? Do you know what it is like to be a zombie?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 26, 2017 - 01:09pm PT
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That is funny, Andy.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 26, 2017 - 01:32pm PT
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I fired up Siri and said; "Siri, you're full ah sh!t!"
There was no answer ..... :-)
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Apr 26, 2017 - 03:07pm PT
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MikeL,
thanks for the link to the ground problem. From it I found the researcher whose mind model I suggest but over time forgot the name: Antonio Damasio The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, Harcourt, 1999. I got that book hot off the press.
You rightly say:
I’d say you’re simplifying / glossing over the immensely complicated problem trying to model “mind.”
But also simplification is the essence of understanding.
I did say, "...what is going on elsewhere that is threatening to its life boundary." It is by having a boundary that lies the essence of what we make from the Suchness to the Thisness and the Thatness as in grounding.
In 1974 I put up the route Suchness at Devils Tower. I have been thinking about these ideas for some time.
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