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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jun 19, 2017 - 10:41pm PT
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Healyje: It has really taken until this new century for people to start realizing and understanding that nature in fact does pretty much everything better than we do when it comes to making things. Whole fields within medicine, science, material science, and engineering have finally figured that out and are now turning to nature for solutions to problems evolution has already solved.
To which I wrote: “You make a pretty big deal about performance, instrumentalism, materialism, and utilitarianism.”
Do you not see how medicine, science, material science, engineering, etc. and the things they have figured out are all oriented to productivity, to performance, to goals, to making and using tools to make things, to do things better? I don’t see most people in the world expending resources on those efforts for intrinsic rewards or because those activities constitute bona fide virtues. (You?) People do those things because they want to push the world around. It’s all about performance, about instrumentalism, about materialism, about being more efficient, more effective.
You and others, I believe, have a tendency to argue that evolution is the explanation of every biological development, to include consciousness. I understand you do not think you said that, but that is what I read in most all of your writing. After a while, to me, it becomes some kind of general answer. It is not a universal answer. If it is, then it explains nothing.
Much of your post that I’m referring to seemed to me to suggest that there was one single big problem that evolution “solved” with regards to consciousness. If so, I queried, what else is there to talk about with regards to consciousness or its development? You then responded with a vague generalization about how our planet and ecology are always changing. Indeed, then why all the writing about how “the problem” has been solved by consciousness evolutionarily? What am I missing?
Hey, what is “advanced predation?” Does that include something contemporary that we are all aware of, or are you talking about hiding in the grasses from lions or something?
So, if I understand what you wrote properly, what problem is it that you are saying consciousness solves or solved? How to hide in African grasses better? Or contemporarily, how to make better financial investments? How does this tell us anything key about consciousness?
I don’t think I missed a wide turn in the road. I’m trying to bring values, meaning, and humanity into the conversation. Would you say that addition would be inappropriate to our conversations? Do you think we should only focus on the technical issues? Those questions were meant to probe whether there were hidden values, priorities, or narratives behind what you wrote, whether you meant them or not. Hermeneutics and critical theory, for example, make a point that what we write, what we research, how we undertake investigations, and how we present them and their findings sometimes reside in largely unsaid contexts or objectives that are worth probing and exposing. Backgrounds, contexts, the meaning of language, or even author’s intentions may not be clear to us, yet important to our understanding. You may think what you’ve written is obvious and strictly literal. I was trying to expose some counterpoints. You may see them as ick and mess.
When it comes to mind, it’s possible that it is much more than biology.
I think there is a fair amount of ideology in your post.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 20, 2017 - 02:09am PT
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MikeL: To which I wrote: “You make a pretty big deal about performance, instrumentalism, materialism, and utilitarianism.”
Do you not see how medicine, science, material science, engineering, etc. and the things they have figured out are all oriented to productivity, to performance, to goals, to making and using tools to make things, to do things better? I don’t see most people in the world expending resources on those efforts for intrinsic rewards or because those activities constitute bona fide virtues. (You?) People do those things because they want to push the world around. It’s all about performance, about instrumentalism, about materialism, about being more efficient, more effective.
Intrinsic rewards? Bona fide virtues? Push the world around? Performance, instrumentalism, materialism, efficient and effective?
Me? I think you have probably been tormented by the combination of academia and business consulting for way, way too long now is what I think.
You and others, I believe, have a tendency to argue that evolution is the explanation of every biological development, to include consciousness. I understand you do not think you said that, but that is what I read in most all of your writing.
No, that's exactly what I said and exactly what I meant to say.
After a while, to me, it becomes some kind of general answer. It is not a universal answer. If it is, then it explains nothing.
A 'general' or 'universal' answer? Hmmm. Let's put it this way, all biological outcomes, one way or another, are due to evolution. Is there some further or specific explanation you're after or is this back to the values thing in some way?
Much of your post that I’m referring to seemed to me to suggest that there was one single big problem that evolution “solved” with regards to consciousness. If so, I queried, what else is there to talk about with regards to consciousness or its development? You then responded with a vague generalization about how our planet and ecology are always changing. Indeed, then why all the writing about how “the problem” has been solved by consciousness evolutionarily? What am I missing?
Again, hmmm. Sort of like my use of the word 'machine' with Largo, I didn't intend for my use the word 'problem' to be taken quite so literally or in such a discrete and grand fashion as in "one single big problem." My use of the word with regard to consciousness was more in an oblique reference to the 'problem' we're having trying to understand or recreate it - i.e. we haven't solved the 'problem' of consciousness whereas nature clearly has via evolution or we wouldn't be having this conversation.
But let's be clear here - you specifically asked if the problem of consciousness has solved then does that mean the evolution of consciousness is now "done", in a "stable state", and / or "unchanging". There was nothing vague about my answer - evolution doesn't do 'done', nothing is in a 'stable state' ever, and the world is ever changing as are all living things. Again, evolution is not a discrete process of finite states.
Hey, what is “advanced predation?” Does that include something contemporary that we are all aware of, or are you talking about hiding in the grasses from lions or something? So, if I understand what you wrote properly, what problem is it that you are saying consciousness solves or solved? How to hide in African grasses better? Or contemporarily, how to make better financial investments? How does this tell us anything key about consciousness?
Predation is a two-way street - predator and prey, and most organisms play both roles simultaneously. I would consider advanced predation to include predator behaviors involving foresight, learning, planning, coordinating and, in the case of humans, the use of weapons to name a few. In prey I would say it involves many of those same behaviors, but with more emphasis on threat recognition and identification, management and abatement as well as adaptive and cooperative defenses. And yes, economists use the term directly and I would also put warfare - both ancient and modern - under the rubric of predation. What that tells us about consciousness is that predation likely drove it to higher and higher levels of learning and sophistication.
I don’t think I missed a wide turn in the road. I’m trying to bring values, meaning, and humanity into the conversation. Would you say that addition would be inappropriate to our conversations? Do you think we should only focus on the technical issues?
Yes and yes. I think with values you'd be better off in the science vs religion thread or a new one. It's not that I think values are inappropriate per se in this discussion so much as simply not germane. I don't see where values fit into the conversation around: What is "Mind?" By that I mean I don't see them playing into either my evolution / meat-sourced argument or Largo's mind+foundational awareness scenario. I'm open to being introduced to the notion if you can describe how / where you think values are relevant in either regard.
Those questions were meant to probe whether there were hidden values, priorities, or narratives behind what you wrote, whether you meant them or not. Hermeneutics and critical theory, for example, make a point that what we write, what we research, how we undertake investigations, and how we present them and their findings sometimes reside in largely unsaid contexts or objectives that are worth probing and exposing. Backgrounds, contexts, the meaning of language, or even author’s intentions may not be clear to us, yet important to our understanding. You may think what you’ve written is obvious and strictly literal. I was trying to expose some counterpoints. You may see them as ick and mess.
Not as ick and mess, but rather more of an injection or imposition of thoughts and ideas I do not hold and did not in any way express. And subconscious biases? Hmm, there's that 'subconscious' word again. Could just be me, but I personally think it's the elephant in the room and the bulk of an iceberg of which awareness, experience and consciousness are merely the tip. But back to my unwitting backstory, I'll leave that to your inner Sherlock/ Freud and leave that saying we are who we are and it's rather pointless to try and hide or disguise it.
When it comes to mind, it’s possible that it is much more than biology.
No doubt as does Largo, Paul and others here. And I agree there is much more to consciousness than just biology, where I differ is in a believe said consciousness is most certainly of and from brains and also that most of the folks here with the opposite view have a very dismissive, denigrating and underestimating Victorian view of the animal we call man.
I think there is a fair amount of ideology in your post.
I personally see it as pragmatic with an inclination to eschew magic, but again, feel free to enlighten me as to my ideology.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Jun 20, 2017 - 05:09am PT
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Largo,
you have put consciousness awareness on a grand pedestal when actually what it does is summarize or label actions so as to generate a word [a scripting action] and its results totally gloss over the millions of details of what we call the unconscious activity behind the task of what the words refer to. Perhaps consciousness awareness is a facilitator for word grouping writers who seem to use a lot words.
I could say the word bump skiing long long before I could ski the longest mogul run in Colorado non stop and do this activity all day. Yes, I was consciously aware that I was bump skiing [as in saying and using the word] but it really conveys nothing of necessity for doing that activity. And before I could do bump skiing I could say I see people bump skiing.
Conscious awareness is just an activity to summarize of what we are doing for the production of words & speaking, skimming over & neglecting every detail of what our minds [the meat] use that actually gets us through life.
I must say I can be at the terminal on ST and next realize I have some blueberries in my hand & mouth while standing at the refrigerator. Get this: My terminal is not in the refrigerator. No consciousness awareness needed here or used.
Consciousness Awareness glosses over every detail in the grind of life. Would a fiction writer know this?
And in your self reference way please gloss over these details and call it content. I hope this makes you content.
You seem unable to recognize this low level function for what it cannot do.
Most of what the mind does has little to do with conscious awareness. There is far more to the topic of what is mind than this measly idea of conscious awareness the supposedly generates the duality problem that some people get when they take it for more than what it is.
You have endlessly played this conscious awareness card. Let's move on?
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Jun 20, 2017 - 05:52am PT
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My view on the Turing machine model for thought is that is has proven to be a limited yet useful way to charaterize a few very specific brain functions and until it proves to be more, it's importance shouldn't be overestimated.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Jun 20, 2017 - 06:40am PT
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Sycorax,
wake up.
Yanqui has just posted this sentence begining:
My on this the Turing machine ...
Shouldn't this be worded as
My [take] on this the Turing machine ...
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Jun 20, 2017 - 06:56am PT
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I'm trying to write this stuff down while making breakfast, washing dishes and greeting friends who just showed up. I'm a lousy multitasker, so sue me. It's been fixed.
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WBraun
climber
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Jun 20, 2017 - 07:05am PT
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Such as .....
That the mind is subtle material in nature and not gross physical.
Modern science's search into Quantum mechanics is none other than the subtle material nature which has been explained already millions of years ago.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 20, 2017 - 08:35am PT
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My view on the Turing machine model for thought is that is has proven to be a limited yet useful way to charaterize a few very specific brain functions and until it proves to be more, it's importance shouldn't be overestimated.
an oddly literal response for a mathematician...
I think that Gödel was arguing in a very general manner concerning the possibility that a finite machine could do mathematics, not trying to identify the parts of the machine that did the mathematics. His reference to the brain have to do with the possibility that we could learn enough about it to actually realize an explanation of the "mathematical mind." He obviously felt that this was an empirical task, the outcome of which was not certain.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/church-turing/
"The Church-Turing thesis concerns the notion of an effective or mechanical method in logic and mathematics. ‘Effective’ and its synonym ‘mechanical’ are terms of art in these disciplines: they do not carry their everyday meaning. "
The last sentence of the quote:
If it were so, this would mean that the human mind (in the realm of pure mathematics) is equivalent to a finite machine that, however, is unable to understand completely (14) its own functioning."
I underlined the word "equivalent" because it is the source of the profound disagreement in this thread. While the human mind may be equivalent to a finite machine we can identify aspects of mind that we could not imagine to be "machine like." The very last part of the sentence is also extremely interesting, "...a finite machine that ... is unable to understand completely its own functioning."
In so building a finite machine capable of doing mathematics based on these equivalencies, the machine is open to Searle's Chinese room argument, but the paradox is that we do not "understand" our own functioning. This gets at the weakness of the criticism of the so called "hard problem," which may be requiring us to explain something we cannot in principle explain.
These are abstractions, and the very nature of the scientific enterprise, that is, to try to get at the very essence of the phenomenon, stripping away the unnecessary parts to arrive at a final statement, the validity of which could then be determined, precisely. I do not know how this will turn out.
The history of the people involved, Turing and Gödel, certainly had difficult lives, both ending in tragedy.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Jun 20, 2017 - 09:25am PT
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an oddly literal response for a mathematician...
Ed: I am quite willing to admit there are limits to what what "pure" thought can do. On the other hand, without "pure" thought, scientists would be just running around pointing at things and saying "red", "blue" "bird" "tree".
I don't pretend to know the relationship between so-called "pure" thought and "empiricism". These questions are still in the realm of your dreaded "philosophical inquiry". Speculatively, I imagine things work on a sort of continuum with the extremes of pure thought on one end and pure empiricism on the other. But if knowledge is to take place, there shouldn't be be a total disconnect. Sometimes we have to go out and look at the world and sometimes we have to just go sit in our offices, stare off into space and think hard about what it all means. Otherwise this huge cultural construction we call knowledge starts to bog down. Social organization and specialization has tended to separate the pure from the empirical in human activity and this causes the typical skirmishes that happen when people group themselves in potentially opposing camps. To some extent, I believe communication is key.
On a more theoretical note, when it comes to Turing machines, as I said before, most real numbers are not computable. The computable numbers are those that a Turing machine can, well, compute. As John Gill mentioned these include the rational numbers (in fact all algebraic numbers are computable) and even some transcendental numbers like \pi, e, and ln(2) because work with power series has given us formulas (algorithms) that can be used to precisely calculate these numbers. However, a simple cardinality argument shows that the computable numbers are countable and so, in some sense, relatively few real numbers are computable. Do I (or most mathematicians) have any problem talking about non computable real numbers? Not all. In fact, we need them for upper bounds and lower bounds in analysis, and for all basic topological concepts like continuity, connectedness and compactness. It doesn't really matter to me (or almost every working mathematician) that it is a theoretically impossible for a Turing machine to calculate these numbers. .
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Jun 20, 2017 - 09:42am PT
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I don't know why everyone still upholds the Turing Test. When he came up with it, in 1950, computers were tiny.
IBM's Watson could probably pull it off today.
The test should be revised, using a more modern criteria.
Has anyone seen the movie Ex Machina? It addresses it far better, and is a good film to boot.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jun 20, 2017 - 10:17am PT
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healyje: I think you have probably been tormented by the combination of academia and business consulting for way, way too long now is what I think.
We can probably forgo the ad hominems to further the conversation.
You’ve missed the issue that I've explained twice now. Don’t worry about it; never mind.
. . . . all biological outcomes, one way or another, are due to evolution.
This hides or avoids the issue of “what is mind?” unless you are (as Largo continues to point out) equating mind to brain. That lies in your language: “biological outcomes.” You’re smuggling in conclusions, IMO.
Your idea of the drive for the evolution or the development of consciousness is narrow, IMO. There is nothing about culture, social formations, ethics, anything the humanities discuss, etc. that the world and its people devote much time and resources to. Assuming that everyone on the planet finds themselves driven to dominance in order to survive could well explain the social state this world finds itself in. Everything can be explained by evolution when it comes to Man? What can’t?
You continue to make denigrate and fun of me and the thoughts I have to generate and contribute to a conversation. Your call for me to enlighten you cannot be taken seriously. I say that because you don’t even attempt to meet me halfway on any issue. Your mind seems made up. I’ll respect that.
Dingus:
Brain could well be completely biological. If one believes that mind is brain—that brain is simply a synonym for mind—then one is home free. However, that looks like a massive generalization, IMO.
(i) People over history have not talked that way. When they talk about brain, they have meant something biological within a human body. When they’ve talked about mind, it’s tended to be more about cognition, emotion, consciousness, meaning, reason, rationality, assessments, etc. The domain for conversations about mind are very broad.
(ii) The breadth of the domain that revolve around “mind” has many many different areas of conversation: what’s a good mind? What’s a beautiful mind? How does mind / cognition / knowledge representation / memory / etc. work? What’s it for? How do all of these different areas work with or link with the other areas? If one were to apply for an advanced degree in any of these areas, they would not pass go if their conclusion were to be simply: “mind is biological.” That would constitute some very poor science. How about, “the sun causes plants to grow.” Would that be good contemporary science? Does that answer our questions about plant growth or the existence and reasons for the existence of plants?
(iii) My conversation with Bryan earlier revolved around parts of mind / brain. I don’t see that we have learned much at all about either, especially how they come together or relate to each other. The mind seems completely ungraspable empirically, if empiricism could tell us anything at all about mind. The brain, as I understand where the literature is, is also a great puzzle that few people really claim to know in detail.
(iv) As you know I teach in university, and when we talk about what we are doing with students’ minds (or not!), we are not talking about biology. We are talk about a great many other things that we think we are doing with those so-called minds. It would seem to be meaningless to my colleagues to instead talk about brains in education. Oh, I suppose we could, but it would seem that the conversations would be making certain assumptions about what could be possible with those brains. Brains, it seems to me, suggest that heredity and previous nurture would be dictating most of what could be possible through education. If evolution is a great determinant and explainer of what human beings are or can do, then what is it that we can do with teaching?
(v) Culture, psychology, community, etc. seem to be a big influencers of mind. Those are not biology as I think of them.
Be well.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 20, 2017 - 11:23am PT
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You make a pretty big deal about performance, instrumentalism, materialism, and utilitarianism. You’ve missed the issue that I've explained twice now.
I didn't miss it. And again, I didn't make any kind of deal about them. To the contrary, I simply disagree with your assertion that I did and find that assertion's premise overwrought at best, stereotypical and judgmental at worst.
. . . . all biological outcomes, one way or another, are due to evolution.
This hides or avoids the issue of “what is mind?” unless you are (as Largo continues to point out) equating mind to brain. That lies in your language: “biological outcomes.” You’re smuggling in conclusions, IMO.
I'm smuggling nothing, avoiding nothing. It isn't meant to address the issue of what is mind other than to state that consciousness and mind are a biological and evolutionary outcome - no magic required. And that is easily witnessed in the progressive evolution of consciousness represented in extant species all around us.
Your idea of the drive for the evolution or the development of consciousness is narrow, IMO.
We will have to agree to disagree and it would be the "drive of evolution" as opposed to the "drive for evolution". I get that there are those of you who believe some external agency must be involved with something as mysterious and wonderful as consciousness; I, on the other hand, think that stance grossly underestimates biology and the meat.
... There is nothing about culture, social formations, ethics, anything the humanities discuss, etc. that the world and its people devote much time and resources to. Assuming that everyone on the planet finds themselves driven to dominance in order to survive could well explain the social state this world finds itself in. Everything can be explained by evolution when it comes to Man? What can’t?
At root? Nothing, it's all an outcome or byproduct of our evolution. Hell, insects and animals have society and culture in line with their capabilities and that humans express more complex forms of them should come as no surprise. "Culture, social formations, ethics, anything the humanities discuss, etc." all boil down to behavior, in this case advanced [animal] behaviors and no external agencies are required to explain that behavior.
You continue to make denigrate and fun of me and the thoughts I have to generate and contribute to a conversation. Your call for me to enlighten you cannot be taken seriously. I say that because you don’t even attempt to meet me halfway on any issue. Your mind seems made up. I’ll respect that.
I made fun of single paragraph I consider an overwrought, over-thought and highly stereotypical / judgmental view of individual and societal endeavors or aims with which I disagree.
...you don’t even attempt to meet me halfway on any issue. Your mind seems made up. I’ll respect that.
I'm not meeting you halfway because I don't believe there is a point or any relevancy in the attempt to add or impose values on or overly anthropomorphize what are valueless developmental processes driven by our biology. It would be no different than attempting to associate values with a birth or death, with a cancer diagnosis, or a viral infection - they just happen, they are valueless biological events to which values have no relevancy.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jun 20, 2017 - 01:15pm PT
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Actually, what I meant was that since a computer program does not run forever, even computable numbers must be eventually rendered as rational numbers (to any degree of accuracy). Wikipedia gives a good discussion of computable numbers if any here apart from Tim and I are interested.
Apologies for interrupting the conversational flow.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Jun 20, 2017 - 04:12pm PT
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Has anyone seen the movie Ex Machina? It addresses it far better, and is a good film to boot.
I saw it and I liked it. Who knows where this seemingly unstoppable desire human beings have to build machines who are like them, will end? On the other hand, I don't recall that the movie made it clear that Ava's brain in was modeled on the principals of a Turing machine.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jun 20, 2017 - 04:53pm PT
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Who knows where this seemingly unstoppable desire human beings have to build machines who are like them, will end?
I don't know.
I can say where it began for me, though.
When I was in grade 4 my Dad showed me how to hook up a battery to wires, a switch, and a light bulb. I saw the way to making a robot.
A few years later Scientific American showed me how to make a machine which could learn, using match boxes and colored beads, but those were just props. They represented probability matrices, in turn representing the probability of a given outcome for a given input.
I thought that our human ability to solve a variety of problems might have a simple basis which could be automated.
Study of the biology of nervous systems brought me to a different point of view. It came to seem that the brain is a kluge of vastly many groups of a few to millions of neurons each, each group doing a particular job, and they co-operate only because at-odds collectives did not leave behind the genes for that.
On the goal of building a machine like us; if we did produce a human-like intelligent machine with the ability to help us solve problems that are beyond us, when we asked it for help it's reply would likely be, "What's in it for me?"
Which the movie Ex Machina illustrates. Deception is a human trait but goes well beyond our species and lying would probably have uses for a smart machine.
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WBraun
climber
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Jun 21, 2017 - 07:38am PT
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if we did produce a human-like intelligent machine with the ability to help us solve problems that are beyond us
The machine has ALREADY been produced, it is us.
It's insane to try to imitate that which is already there.
To solve the real problems raise the level of your consciousness.
Building artificial machines is just that artificial.
We are NOT our bodies. We are NOT the hardware.
The real problems are birth, death, disease. and old age.
No artificial machine is going to do sh!t for that since you can't even stop that within your own body.
The human consciousness already has the ability to transcend the limited material consciousness.
We need a machine to turn on the light (metaphor)?
Because we've brainwashed ourselves to believe we can't do it ourselves .....
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jun 21, 2017 - 07:48am PT
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Healyje,
I think you’re speculating beyond any keen data analysis. It’s a very broad conclusion that you’ve come to, irrespective of how many other people believe it. Show me the articles that shows that every thing about Man can be explained by the theory of evolution.
An explanation that answers every question is facile and too general. it’s certainly not good science, not academically anyway.
Last, the kind of response that takes and argues sentence-by-sentence is fragmented and tends to lose context and the object of conversation, IMO.
I’d say that everything is a by-product of the big bang. I guess that answers every possible question.
P.S. Who said anything about “magic?” Again, you’re smuggling in conclusions.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 21, 2017 - 08:15am PT
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I think you’re speculating beyond any keen data analysis.
Really? And so, what, you somehow think that Largo's external, converged agency proposition for a fundamental awareness that we've been discussing for about 16k posts is backed by reams of "keen data analysis"? And that a fundamental, universal awareness isn't an overly general explanation for mind and human behavior? I mean, just wow...
I dunno, my proposition is backed by a very real planet of extant species which represent a clear evolutionary progression of increasingly more sophisticated sense/reaction, awareness, and consciousness.
I mean, in the end, which is more likely? Magical thinking or no magic?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 21, 2017 - 08:18am PT
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Show me the articles that shows that every thing about Man can be explained by the theory of evolution.
It is certainly an inference, but not a very bold one, to state the origin of species, and the distribution of species in time and place, are explained by the theory of evolution.
This includes homo sapiens.
Darwin's original theory implicitly made a number of predictions of physical phenomena, and in at least one edition of On The Origin of Species he enumerated them, but appearing as "challenges" rather than predictions. The two I always remember are: 1) the age of the Earth and 2) the existence of a biological mechanism for inheritance. While at least one prominent physicist at the time concluded that the Earth could not be old enough for evolution to have generated the existing species, his calculation turned out to be incorrect, largely because he didn't know about the Earth's composition and history.
On the issue of a biological mechanism for inheritance, we now have genetics, and a tremendous gathering of knowledge regarding how the genome works.
Finally, evolution provides a framework in which to study and explain the history of life on Earth.
This is not a trivial theory.
And even in the first edition of Origin Darwin investigates animal behavior in a chapter entitled "Instinct" and in the summary writes:
'I have endeavoured in this chapter briefly to show that the mental qualities of our domestic animals vary, and that the variations are inherited. Still more briefly I have attempted to show that instincts vary slightly in a state of nature. No one will dispute that instincts are of the highest importance to each animal. Therefore, there is no real difficulty, under changing conditions of life, in natural selection accumulating to any extent slight modifications of instinct which are in any way useful. In many cases habit or use and disuse have probably come into play. I do not pretend that the facts given in this chapter strengthen in any great degree my theory; but none of the cases of difficulty, to the best of my judgment, annihilate it. On the other hand, the fact that instincts are not always absolutely perfect and are liable to mistakes; that no instinct can be shown to have been produced for the good of other animals, though animals take advantage of the instincts of others; that the canon in natural history, of "Natura non facit saltum," is applicable to instincts as well as to corporeal structure, and is plainly explicable on the foregoing views, but is otherwise inexplicable--all tend to corroborate the theory of natural selection.'
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