What is "Mind?"

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jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Jul 19, 2015 - 06:11pm PT

For those confused by the Zeta function, here is an approximate vector field I just programmed valid for z=x+iy, where x>1. It arises from the simple series formulation of the function (principal log branch). One of my little zeno contours ends at the attractive fixed point, approximately 1.8127+0i.
When x=1, y=0 the harmonic series results (1+1/2+1/3+...). It diverges to infinity but at such a slow rate that the sum of the first 1,000,000,000 terms is less than 30.

ps: QITNL, how did you get the formula to print here on ST?

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Jul 19, 2015 - 06:17pm PT

What a tangled web you weave, JL. My question about the Riemann zeta function is a famous unresolved question. If your physics colleagues have the answer, we will be hearing about them through other channels than yourself.

I blame what could charitably be called my sense of humor.

If the offer to answer questions came from your friends, then I applaud that. I would ask them what their interests in physics are and what questions they would like to see answered in the near future.

If the offer was your idea only, then you should not be speaking for your friends.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jul 19, 2015 - 06:19pm PT

ah, here's an essay you might be interested...

The Physics of the Riemann Zeta function

Largo has no interest in such things because he has no clue that they are interesting.

LaTeX on the web?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Displaying_a_formula

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jul 19, 2015 - 06:31pm PT

MikeL

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

this is an example?
Consciousness is a trap you can't get out of, so there's no way to account for anything other than itself. What it is lies beyond that non-conceptualization. All real or true conversations about it can't be had. Talking about it, hoping for either, is whistling in a dream. You can say anything you want, and deny everything. Doesn't matter. Turing's Test is for an idiot.

what you've stated is unsupported...

Consciousness is a trap - a statement... unsupported

All real or true conversations about it can't be had - a statement... unsupported

Turing's Test is for an idiot. - a statement... unsupported

there are many other in that short passage. You make statements, which are unsupported.

"Argumentum ad lapidem (Latin: "to the stone") is a logical fallacy that consists in dismissing a statement as absurd without giving proof of its absurdity."

But as a matter of fact, I can't imagine you even care about logic, let alone the authority of declaring something a "logical fallacy."

Perhaps my interpretation of your point is incorrect.

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Jul 19, 2015 - 06:40pm PT

ah, here's an essay you might be interested...

Whoops, slipped up didn't I!

;>)

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Jul 19, 2015 - 06:46pm PT

We all slip up all of the time.

To paraphrase JL.

edit:

We're all wrong about stuff all the time.

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Jul 19, 2015 - 07:10pm PT

Largo has no interest in such things because he has no clue that they are interesting.

Accusing others of beign "clueless" is a reckless game before you ask any questions. Just like saying all science types are maladroit, pratfalling, socially awkward geeks. Ture, these old steriotypes don't die easily, but that doesn't make then any less ridiculous. Same coluld be said about the so-called spiritual types - with the Nehru coats, kissing some Indian Master's arse, naval gazing. BTW, Dingus never ventured a guess about what naval gazing is all about. It's interesting material - if you have a clue...

Anyhow, you'd think I just killed the sacred cow, instead of just fiddling around with a few equations, mere black marks on a page. The responses these evoke are telling.

The reason I am not interested in the technical aspects of math or physics is the basically same reason I don't play the tuba or live in New Zealand. Neither grabbed my attention because neither addressed the questions I was asking myself way back when. I'm sure what's going on at CERN, for example, is totally electrifying to those who actually work there on the big problems.

I harbor no distain for math or science, only in scientism, which can devolve into a fundamentalist kind of cult-think if not reality-checked.

Of course, as we commonly see in police forces and the military and the Catholic church, each unit feels no one "out there" is qualified to evaluate what is happeing within the hallowed rank and file, especially when you can "prove" the findings - and that, ladies and gentlemen, is cult-think by any definition. In the experiential adventures, this wonky belief has nearly tanked many outfits, including the LA Zen center, which nearly went under in a tsunami of alcoholism.

And MH2, the Turing Test has nothing to do with observing "behavior," but rather is an evaluation of a data stream provided on a computer monitor. The subjective factor is shorne out of the game altogether. But yet again, this (the data stream) is content, NOT sentience, which is the real-time experiential awareness of the data stream, the subject having that experience, and the rest of this polka we call life.

JL

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Jul 19, 2015 - 07:30pm PT

And MH2, the Turing Test has nothing to do with observing "behavior," but rather is an evaluation of a data stream provided on a computer monitor.

Isn't that what we are doing here? Am I not observing your behavior through evaluation of a data stream provided by a computer monitor?

MikeL

Social climber

Seattle, WA

Jul 19, 2015 - 07:51pm PT

Ed:

Of course all of it is unsupported. What isn’t? Would you like a metaphor or an allegory? What can possibly stay up when the foundations are shaky? Observe the consistent pattern everywhere. Where is the bottom? Where is the top?

I guess you didn’t see it. Argumentum ad lapidem referred to the idea that anyone who believes they have a physical experience is acutely aware of reality (eat the steak).

Do I care about logic? Well, it has it’s place, just like everything else, with nothing dominant or taken as a final authority. Everything is open, connected, unified, equanimous. The only people who don’t see that with a little bit of disciplined observation and thought are darned near idiots. What kind of scientist would one be who could not make unbiased direct observations? Who needs theories?

There is no final principle. It’s all data without interpretation. Unbelieveable indescribable uncorrelated data.

WBraun

climber

Jul 19, 2015 - 07:59pm PT

Who needs theories?

The clueless gross materialists, atheists and mental speculators need them.

It keeps them distracted from reality.

They are prisoners and slaves of their run away minds.

They have no control over their minds.

This thread reveals it perfectly.

They have no real focus .......

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Jul 19, 2015 - 08:37pm PT

This thread reveals it perfectly.

If we are going to be imperfect we may as well be perfectly imperfect.

jstan

climber

Jul 19, 2015 - 08:51pm PT

A bit ago Ed framed an interesting question. How is it that gods seem to be a part of homo sapiens' behavioral pattern? By framing it this way Ed peeled off one layer of the problem. Gods do, after all, flutter out of our skulls.

A question just as fundamental floated into view in a cartoon showing a buxom young lady in bed awaiting a male furiously typing on his computer, saying "Someone on the internet is wrong and I have to correct him.":

So I ask. How is it we respond to threads like this one? There is nothing happening here.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jul 19, 2015 - 09:01pm PT

"...sentience, which is the real-time experiential awareness of the data stream, the subject having that experience..."

which is what the spacecraft New Horizons is doing around Pluto... yet you would disclaim it as sentient... it was the one having the experience, and it was aware of the data stream, in real time.

Your primary objection to the claim it was "sentient" (using your definition above) is that you know, as precisely as you care to, how the spacecraft was able to have the "real-time experiential awareness." Something you can't do for humans (yet).

The human experience of "real-time experiential awareness" is probably a species specific experience, apes have a different one, as do other animals. Our spacecraft have different experiences.

You dismiss the Turing Test, but what about this "gedanken" situation:

In the distant future, New Horizon having slipped the bounds of the solar system and sailed out into the galaxy, is recovered by an intelligent civilization. Engineers of that civilization figure out that the 238Pu oxide residual was used as a power source. They re energize the spacecraft and it begins to perform its routine (which is pretty complex, and involves trying to "phone home").

Do they see it as intelligent? They don't know the details of how it was built, what do they surmise about its consciousness?

Isn't that the Turing Test?

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Jul 19, 2015 - 09:34pm PT

The reason I am not interested in the technical aspects of math or physics is the basically same reason I don't play the tuba or live in New Zealand (JL)

Therefore, this might be a good time for you to stop using the languages of math and physics in attempts to investigate your experiential adventures. For to continue doing so harkens back to the 1920s and the efforts of spiritualists to do the same to salvage ectoplasm.

Create a new syntax for your metaphysics. Have Sycorax with her knowledge of philosophy assist you.

Wearing a toga might help . . . ;>)

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Jul 19, 2015 - 09:38pm PT

which is what the spacecraft New Horizons is doing around Pluto... yet you would disclaim it as sentient... it was the one having the experience, and it was aware of the data stream, in real time.

But the problem here is an epistemological one: does this space vehicle "know" what it is doing? A plant follows the sun because chemical reactions and material contractions require it. Does the plant "know" what it's doing; is it sentient? Required before a definition of sentience is a definition of knowing.

Does anyone really think that a plant "knows" in the same way a human being does?

As before, defining terms is all important. The Turing test proves nothing as the terms of discussion, the very terms of the test, lack all definition.

How does anyone define artificial intelligence which sounds like an oxymoron to begin with?

And we have yet to define sentience or intelligence for that matter.

What is imitative requires something to imitate.

What is it that AI is imitating? Define/state that and we may have some answers.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jul 19, 2015 - 11:38pm PT

The Turing test proves nothing as the terms of discussion, the very terms of the test, lack all definition.

really? do you even know what the Turing Test is? or it's generalization?

You said, "you know when you see it" which is an interesting conceit of a sighted man... what if you can't see? would you still know it? what is "it" exactly?

You cannot say.

But we agree on a set of behavior, and as far as you know, really know, you have no idea what it is I experience, none whatsoever, and you cannot, not having had my experience, first person...

So you agree on some behavior, something you know when you see it... but you have no definition, no description, no real basis for your opinion. You have your species' prejudice, you are a bigot when it comes to consciousness, you will tolerate no other opinion but your own.

You cannot have anything more than that agreement of behavior, but then what if a "thing" exhibits that behavior. You would say it cannot, but you can't say why because you have no idea why someone has what you would point out as having "it."

The Turing Test basically says that if something exhibits a behavior you would normally agree was human, well, it has "passed the test." You saw it, and you knew it..

I doubt you read the baseball summaries in the paper, maybe you should... and report back here which are written by humans, and which by machines. Funny, because it is something you would see, but you won't be able to tell. And it's not just baseball that the machines are writing about.

That's Turing for you...

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Jul 20, 2015 - 07:26am PT

So I ask. How is it we respond to threads like this one? There is nothing happening here.

True. I hear that even Peter Croft rests, often by watching action movies.

If Bruce Lee is not your taste, here is a surprising reference to market turbulence.

Our daughter has a paper which, if she ever makes a few revisions, should appear on arXiv. It concerns decidability for sandpiles. It makes use of a different kind of Turing test: halting of an idealized machine. It also considers "lazy cellular automata."

At times, perhaps more for old than young, no-thing is not a bad thing.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jul 20, 2015 - 08:31am PT

Does anyone really think that a plant "knows" in the same way a human being does?

in exactly the same way? yes...

we share DNA - and that is the "instruction book" of life on Earth, written by evolution. That is not only how we "know" but the passage of that knowledge, handed down in our very essence, over billions and billions of years.

what you "think" is probably just peacock feathers, comparably.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Jul 20, 2015 - 08:36am PT

really? do you even know what the Turing Test is? or it's generalization?

You said, "you know when you see it" which is an interesting conceit of a sighted man... what if you can't see? would you still know it? what is "it" exactly?

You cannot say.

The "know it when I see it " quote was an admission of the great difficulty of defining with any real clarity what sentience is... It's a relatively famous quote a judge used with regard to a definition of pornography.

The problem here is definition. What is intelligence? What is knowing and these are deeply difficult questions. Again, if one is fooled into thinking a machine is intelligent the proof can't reside in the fooling as the fooling is untrue.

What is with the science crowd's notion of its own priestlike superiority? "Do you even know...?" Well, yes I do know.