What is "Mind?"

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MH2

climber

Jul 10, 2014 - 09:45pm PT

There's this go-kart that goes from 0 to 100 in under 1 second.

Stops in about a second, too.

Okay, the presumably non-made-up dope from Wikipedia:

The superkarts can go from 0 to 60 mph (or 100 kph) in less than 3 seconds. What gets me, though; "A Superkart is capable of braking from 100 mph (160 km/h) to standstill in around 2 seconds."

There are YouTube videos of people driving these on the roads.

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Jul 10, 2014 - 10:01pm PT

^^^Yea Right! Could you image driving that on the L.A. freeway

They could get the Prius to do that if they talked to each other.

What connection are we making when we do this? What connection are we making when we write a restaurant review in Yelp, rate a book on the Amazon site, or write a comment following an article in a major news site?

Leav'in a Legacy?

MH2

climber

Jul 10, 2014 - 11:08pm PT

When I have had a hard day out and there's still a long way to go, I connect with this:

[Click to View YouTube Video]

Oh well,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VQoSfEDzB0

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Jul 11, 2014 - 03:54am PT

eeyonkee: Sure, AI is a bigger umbrella than sentience, but, c'mon, one of the ultimate goals of AI is to mimic, as closely as possible, human agency. Think Turing machine. Must be thousands of science fictions books with this as a theme.

Yes, and scifi is what sentient machines is going to remain.

Tvash: 2060 or so, by latest back-of-the-envelope analysis.

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure the front of that same envelope says we'll have a cure for cancer about the same time.

Human consciousness emerges from a dynamic, analog system with a trillion connections. That'll take a few decades to synthesize in toto, but the basic processes of optimization, memory, association, mapping, imaging - we use all of these basic processes every time we google something today.

In only the most crude, brute-force way and 'synthesizing' isn't how we go about any of it.

That consciousness is some uncrackable mystery is BS proffered primarily by people who remain unfamiliar with the workings of the technologies they themselves use to proffer that very argument. Not much different than Christians arguing against evolution via Twitter, really.

Except I'm not unfamiliar with the 'workings' of the technologies and I would counter the underestimation of the inherent complexities involved - and the number of raw 'synthesizing' iteration cycles associated with evolutionary emergence of consciousness - is positively Victorian in it's dismissiveness and hubris. In fact, as arrogance goes, I'd put it right up there with the 1969 declaration by the then Surgeon General that we could "close the book on infectious disease."

MH2

climber

Jul 11, 2014 - 07:33am PT

Ha ha to consciousness, sentience, and other peculiarly human conceptions. The recent news of the claustrum sounds like the work of Monty Python. Down below the shining city full of beautiful vapid knights, ladies, princes, kings and queens, there is a stubby cigar-smoking grime-coated working man:

"Yep. I'm the claustrum. Those fancy folk have high opinions of themselves, but I'm the one gets the job done."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569501/

Tvash

climber

Seattle

Jul 11, 2014 - 08:25am PT

We're pretty much a fancier version of a self parking car - available now at a dealer near you.

All the poor car wants to do is park correctly - it acts accordingly.

All we want to do is to...

We're basically self-parking cars in Nth dimensional dynamic space - where N can be a pretty large number.

That's not a denigration of what we are - it's testament to the incredible outcomes a few simple Legos arranged by evolution over 4 billion years can achieve. That such beauty and complexity can emerge from simplicity is, itself, beautiful.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jul 11, 2014 - 08:49am PT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_choice

but then again, food choice may not be entirely a "free will" exercise...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3791857/

The microbiota-gut-brain axis: neurobehavioral correlates, health and sociality

Augusto J. Montiel-Castro, Rina M. González-Cervantes, Gabriela Bravo-Ruiseco, and Gustavo Pacheco-López

Abstract
Recent data suggest that the human body is not such a neatly self-sufficient island after all. It is more like a super-complex ecosystem containing trillions of bacteria and other microorganisms that inhabit all our surfaces; skin, mouth, sexual organs, and specially intestines. It has recently become evident that such microbiota, specifically within the gut, can greatly influence many physiological parameters, including cognitive functions, such as learning, memory and decision making processes. Human microbiota is a diverse and dynamic ecosystem, which has evolved in a mutualistic relationship with its host. Ontogenetically, it is vertically inoculated from the mother during birth, established during the first year of life and during lifespan, horizontally transferred among relatives, mates or close community members. This micro-ecosystem serves the host by protecting it against pathogens, metabolizing complex lipids and polysaccharides that otherwise would be inaccessible nutrients, neutralizing drugs and carcinogens, modulating intestinal motility, and making visceral perception possible. It is now evident that the bidirectional signaling between the gastrointestinal tract and the brain, mainly through the vagus nerve, the so called “microbiota–gut–vagus–brain axis,” is vital for maintaining homeostasis and it may be also involved in the etiology of several metabolic and mental dysfunctions/disorders. Here we review evidence on the ability of the gut microbiota to communicate with the brain and thus modulate behavior, and also elaborate on the ethological and cultural strategies of human and non-human primates to select, transfer and eliminate microorganisms for selecting the commensal profile.

this certainly must modify some hypotheses regarding "mind" (probably all).

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Jul 11, 2014 - 10:21am PT

Tvash: That such beauty and complexity can emerge from simplicity is, itself, beautiful.

On that we agree.

MH2

climber

Jul 11, 2014 - 10:49am PT

the vagus nerve, the so called “microbiota–gut–vagus–brain axis,” is vital for maintaining homeostasis

How do people survive after vagotomy if the vagus is vital?

If I remember, healyje some time ago brought up the microbiota as a fundamental though poorly understood partner in larger organisms, including how nervous systems might work.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jul 11, 2014 - 12:19pm PT

who's larger?

I think the external microbiota may sum to many more cells than the host organism... in fact, when considered an ecosystem, is it even reasonable to make the distinction between the host organism and the microbiota?

jgill

Boulder climber

Colorado

Jul 11, 2014 - 12:29pm PT

but then again, food choice may not be entirely a "free will" exercise... (Ed)

Pregnant woman craves pickles & strawberries?

Parched man craves water?

Craving of fat an artifact of evolution?

Craving for candy when blood sugar low?

etc.

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Jul 11, 2014 - 12:35pm PT

All the poor car wants to do is park correctly - it acts accordingly.

All we want to do is to...

That's not a denigration of what we are - it's testament to the incredible outcomes a few simple Legos arranged by evolution over 4 billion years can achieve. That such beauty and complexity can emerge from simplicity is, itself, beautiful.

Key word "Want". In your testament for simplicity, when does "want" show up?
i assume ur lego's had none! They(matter) were "arranged"(forced to move) by chemical reactions and the Laws of Nature, "Causation" over time.
Am i understanding you correctly? CAn you guesstimate when you think "want" entered the picture? Do plants Want? Do animals? Do animals Want to procreate, do they want to eat, do they even want to live?
Or are they just a program of cause and effect?

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jul 11, 2014 - 07:04pm PT

what is it, in your body, that makes you "want"?

jgill

Boulder climber

Colorado

Jul 11, 2014 - 08:16pm PT

what is it, in your body, that makes you "want"? (Ed)

No-thingness?

No, that's not it - it's not of the body

"I"

No, that doesn't exist so that can't be it.

Your "inner child"?

No, I think I outgrew that.

I give up.

;>(