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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 27, 2015 - 06:20pm PT
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"It is so cool that one tiny gene alone may suffice to affect the phenotype of the stem cells, which contributed the most to the expansion of the neocortex,"
Marta Florio, a doctoral candidate in molecular and cellular biology and genetics at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/big-brain-gene-allowed-for-evolutionary-expansion-of-our-neocortex/
"The neocortex is so interesting because that's the seat of cognitive abilities, which, in a way, make us human...
No neocortex, no human?
"Fascinating."
.....
"the team inserted and expressed (turned on) this DNA snippet in the brains of mice. Though mice normally have a tiny, smooth neocortex, the mice with the gene insertion grew what looked like larger neocortices; these amped-up brain regions contained loads of neurons and some even began forming the characteristic folds, or convolutions, found in the human brain, a geometry that packs a lot of dense brain tissue into a small amount of space. (The researchers did not check to see if the mice actually got smarter, though that is a potential avenue of future research"
Recombinant intelligence!
Doesn't this give new meaning to AI, artificial intelligence? and new direction?
What's next, talking rats?
And later, talking cats and dogs?
Cool! :)
"Then the LORD opened the donkey's mouth, and it said to Balaam, "What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?"
Then MAN opened the dog's mouth, and it said to MAN, "What have I done to you to make you turn me into this?"
lol
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 27, 2015 - 08:39pm PT
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Tvash: Regarding evolution . . . it produces living things. Evolution sets the stage for an individual's behavior . . . It's also the result of a new form of evolution - the evolution of memes, . . . .Evolution shuffles genetic information
Gobblygook.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Feb 27, 2015 - 08:44pm PT
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Do we need a complete theory of consciousness to create it artificially?
Nope.
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How about dropping the need for a theory, and go with a basic description about what, exactly, it is you are talking about per the word "consciousness." If at some time you are planning on "replicating" or "creating" or "generating" consciousness in a machine, you will have to first objectify what consciousness itself is above and beyond objective functioning.
That's one line of reasoning. Such reasoning will seem like it's posing trick questions- especially to those who hold onto the belief that consciousness, as we know and experience it subjectively, is the direct result of computational and cross-referencing (etc.) processes in the brain.
This theory holds that the interoperation of various parts of the brain, called the neural correlates of consciousness or NCC, "produces" consciousness. Or does it?
Recall that so-called phenomenal consciousness concerns those aspects of experience that seem to defy functional depiction. Awareness might be one of these. Most of us have some intuitive sense about what awareness is, and most of us would not consider it selfsame with crunching measurements.
Thing is, if we go with the neural correlates line of thought, we need not bother ourselves with phenomenal consciousness concerns. So long as we try and define all aspects of consciousness in terms of causal roles, "any system that can instantiate the same pattern of causal roles, regardless of physical constitution, will instantiate the same mental states, including consciousness itself."
One wonders how close this is to a core belief for AI dreamers banking on robot sentience. Pressed hard on this, I suspect that most AI wannabe Dr. Frankenstein's don't believe that the brain's fantastic capacity to network data streams creates consciousness, but rather, that networking is itself consciousness. That is, the objective is concurrently the subjective as well. Consciousness then (according to this belief) is the process of networking data streams in real time and in a specific global way or mode.
JL
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 27, 2015 - 09:51pm PT
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How many AI researchers that you know of are trying to create a conscious machine?
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 28, 2015 - 06:47am PT
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None???
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 28, 2015 - 07:10am PT
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Causality is problematical. The concept of causality is a thing that creates problems. Philosophy (may it rest in peace) noted the problems long ago. Making determinations of what causes what requires choices of WHICH cause one wants to claim gives rise to an effect. Is it the most recent cause (or correlation / association), is it the cause that most explains a variance, or would it be (somehow) a first cause? So much of a choice of cause seems arbitrary and reliant upon conventional consensus.
Why does object X appear to fall from the sky, or an acorn transform into an oak tree? Evolution, the Big Bang, God, because I planted the acorn, because the plane lost power, because X was at the wrong place at the right time, because . . . . it appears to be an infinite sequence of events. If we wanted to use metrics of full association, where explained variance is at the highest levels, then wouldn’t we chose the most distant, earliest cause we could find (imagine)?
Everything is like this. Analytically, every claim but one presents untold, infinite problems for Knowing. That’s why everything is a belief, which is fine. I like stories. (Don’t we all?)
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 28, 2015 - 10:35am PT
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For you hard-core wonks, here's an entertaining, thought-provoking exchange between Sam Harris and The Very Bad Wizards, part II more or less, just released.
Mostly regarding compatibilism, consequentialism v. deontology, blame and desert...
http://verybadwizards.com/episodes/63
Woohoo!
.....
Extra time, have you? check out Black Mirror at Netflix. Mind-blowing episodes. (They are alluded to by The Very Bad Wizards, above, in their morals and evils podcasts.) They will make you question your whole entire edifice regarding morals if not human nature. Those Brits can be far out wild!
.....
Are you a (hardcore) consequentialist?
There's a case in which nobody would ever find out about the torture, at all, ever, and you have the chance to save three lives by the torture of one individual. Do you torture him?
If an alien race (species 8472?) comes to earth and threatens to torture the entire race for a century unless you sacrifice a baby (one of their human studies experiments?), what do you do?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 28, 2015 - 12:08pm PT
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Could it be a baby with Down's Syndrome?
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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Feb 28, 2015 - 01:30pm PT
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Here's an interesting article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/science/why-we-all-sound-like-pollyannas.html
if we pay so much attention to negative events and feelings, why do we keep sounding like Pollyannas? There are various theories. One is that a lot more good things happen to us than bad things, so we naturally end up saying more positive things.
Sure, if we just use our confirmation and survivor biased perceptions of reality to objectively separate events into good events and bad events, then with a little math we can confirm our hypothesis!
Using our same style of thinking, we can believe that this is how our consciousness works or how our science works. Or the opposite, if we prefer.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Feb 28, 2015 - 04:36pm PT
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Idle thoughts about free will:
Experiments have shown that sometimes decisions are made at a subconscious level before we consciously "decide." For example, suppose I were asked to choose a color from a display of ten colors. I think about it for a quick moment, then pick purple. However, I am hooked up to a device that shows that the color choice was made non-consciously a second or so before I thought I exercised "free will." (I just hate putting that period inside the quotation marks!)
The workings of the brain seem to obey physical laws and the principle of causality, so is there any possibility that free will has been exercised at a non-conscious level (even though the concept appears to be associated with conscious behavior)?
Look for a moment at the cellular automaton displayed below:
I developed this mathematical structure by dividing the top row into cells, assigning these cells complex values, and creating a set of rules describing how two "parent" cells on a particular row can be combined to produce an "offspring" cell between them on the row below. Colors are assigned to the values of these cells and that is what you see.
Some of the resulting image seems to be highly predictable, while other parts seem chaotic and unpredictable, even though rigid rules of causality apply. Now, suppose the brain works a little like this (a real stretch, I know) and at a particular instant the color of that pixel is observed. In this case, purple. If the moment of "decision" is in the highly organized section of the image, then strong predictability is apparent, but in other areas there is little chance that is the case.
Does the brain, at subconscious level, have any measure of free will? Or is such a notion ridiculous? Is there a way to define free will at subconscious levels that has any merit at all?
What is more likely is that I have a warm memory of a purple object from childhood that is buried in the subconscious and the brain triggers my "decision" on that basis.
All of the above is speculative flapdoodle, but I offer it as a possible path away from interminable and inconsequential discussions about free will that are highly philosophical and have kept philosophers occupied for millennia with metaphysical conundrums and endless "classifications" differentiated by the slightest of variations of thought.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Feb 28, 2015 - 05:17pm PT
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If an alien race (species 8472?) comes to earth and threatens to torture the entire race for a century unless you sacrifice a baby (one of their human studies experiments?), what do you do?
Okay, but what if a meteorite hits the baby first would that satisfy the aliens or what if the aliens couldn't see and so you just tell them you sacrificed the baby or what if you substituted an AI robot and the aliens used the "Turing" test and couldn't tell if it was a human or not and then they were struck by a meteorite and then they'd be dead... I don't see a problem here.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 28, 2015 - 06:27pm PT
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Until experiments show that the decision to commit serious crimes occurs at a subconscious level, and that becomes a legal defense, I don't think we need to worry about free will.
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feralfae
Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
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Feb 28, 2015 - 07:19pm PT
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JGill: I developed this mathematical structure by dividing the top row into cells, assigning these cells complex values, and creating a set of rules describing how two "parent" cells on a particular row can be combined to produce an "offspring" cell between them on the row below. Colors are assigned to the values of these cells and that is what you see.
So, JGill, You are the structure builder. Your work is elegant, but as you know, You designed the structure for this, so there is no room for "free will" as near as I can see. Thou Art G*d to this structure. You would need to open the complex values to indeterminate input from external sources (such as culture, society, poetry, art, or even an unexpected attack by an armadillo) to begin to replicate the external input which is a part the language of symbol-using beings. There is no free will here, within this structure, that I can see. There are fixed rules in place which determine the outcomes.
Further, it is a predictive model you have made: anyone else, employing the identical structure, would achieve the same results. But perhaps this structure is not answering the underlying question concerning free will or no free will: who is responsible for the design of the human mind that (foretells and) determines the decisions to be made? It is delightful that we have been able to discover and measure this aspect of energetic shift. Yet, I must ask, "from whence does this design for structure arise?" Does the identity who types this question have any creative whimsey to toss into the mix, or is she merely as predestined as is your elegant mathematical structure, which has no consciousness? Is existence pure, fixed causality that is outside of human's creative ability to change, or is existence such that humans participate in 'cooperative determinism' with the structures we are given on our playground?
I am an artist: my creations seldom end up as they were envisioned when I began: myriad data jump into the flow and shift the vision. But I admit, I am also the person who was once quoted as saying that "If it cannot be measured, it is not a fact." (I hate that rule, too, and so I am going to abandon it and risk the grammar furies. Now someone will cite grammar's own orders of operation, and I will be further chagrined, no doubt.)
Did the structure of all life arise from some resonance of crystals? Did it arise through eternal laws of physics and metaphysics? What role, if any, do humans—and perhaps all sentient life—play in ongoing creation? What roles are possible for humans to play? Do humans have free will, or are we, like your mathematical structure, predestined by our designer and creator?
ibid. Does the brain, at subconscious level, have any measure of free will? Or is such a notion ridiculous? Is there a way to define free will at subconscious levels that has any merit at all?
I don't know if "free will" can be determined as existing or not at a subconscious level. I had not thought about that question. There may be cultural conditioning that might be called 'subconscious' deeply imbedded in our decision-making structures, manifesting as irrational reactions or prejudicial decision-making. I think if there is free will, it is the result of the mind manifesting from a reasoned perspective. Emotions are recognized and acknowledged, prejudices are considered, and cultural bias is examined. (And I know I would still be a very long way from a pure "free will" decision.) By responding more consciously, we might more closely approach a decision based on "free will," I would think.
Thank you
feralfae
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feralfae
Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
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Feb 28, 2015 - 07:28pm PT
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MikeL: Gobblygook
Yes, but it is spelled gobbledygook. :)
feralfae
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Feb 28, 2015 - 07:33pm PT
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Until experiments show that the decision to commit serious crimes occurs at a subconscious level,
well theres been tons of experimentation going on in murder, and thievery, etc.
some maybe spontaneous, "a crime of passion". but isn't it oblivious to the outsider hearing of these crimes that the Perpetrator had infact already made up his conscious mind to rob that bank? Persay.
A better question would be, at what point does conscious thought root itself into the sub-conscious and predict ones behavior?
A thief isn't one who steals a candybar out of the blue, then stops. Someone who continues to steal, organizes his life around it. Everything one takes to bed each night organizes into the subconscious. Doesn't even the mother of 8 know this?
BTW, once something enters the subconscious, doesn't it also become heart laden?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Feb 28, 2015 - 08:02pm PT
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Did the structure of all life arise from some resonance of crystals? Did it arise through eternal laws of physics and metaphysics? What role, if any, do humans—and perhaps all sentient life—play in ongoing creation? What roles are possible for humans to play? Do humans have free will, or are we, like your mathematical structure, predestined by our designer and creator?
boy-o-boy this is gett'n good!
i have my familiar biased opinion. God set forth the universe through cause-n-effect. WHen God noticed that Be'ings wanted to go their separate ways. He built the garden of eden. Then proposed "The Choice".
It's relative, really. Bible 101. Have you read it?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Feb 28, 2015 - 08:15pm PT
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Okay, but what if a meteorite hits the baby first would that satisfy the aliens or what if the aliens couldn't see and so you just tell them you sacrificed the baby or what if you substituted an AI robot and the aliens used the "Turing" test and couldn't tell if it was a human or not and then they were struck by a meteorite and then they'd be dead... I don't see a problem here.
Thanks Spoock!!
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Feb 28, 2015 - 08:24pm PT
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So i guess since consciousness, sub-consciousness IS but a theory.
without any proven mechanical proofs.
We're all talk'in;
MikeL: Gobblygook ,
it is spelled gobbledygook. :) ,
gossip.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Feb 28, 2015 - 08:48pm PT
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WiKi,
Gossip is idle talk or rumor, especially about personal or private affairs of others.[1]
Gossip has been researched in terms of its evolutionary psychology origins.[2] This has found gossip to be an important means by which people can monitor cooperative reputations and so maintain widespread indirect reciprocity.[3] Indirect reciprocity is defined here as "I help you and somebody else helps me." Gossip has also been identified by Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary biologist, as aiding social bonding in large groups.[4]
With the advent of the internet, gossip is now widespread on an instant basis, from one place in the world to another what used to take a long time to filter through is now instant.
The term is sometimes used to specifically refer to the spreading of dirt and misinformation, as (for example) through excited discussion of scandals. Some newspapers carry "gossip columns" which detail the social and personal lives of celebrities or of élite members of certain communities.
It is Environmental. So it should be Scientific?
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