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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jul 20, 2015 - 09:20am PT
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Jgill: 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.
All language is conceptually metaphorical. See Lakoff’s & Johnson’s work.
I don’t suppose you should quit using terms that you don’t know exactly what they mean?
For to continue doing so harkens back to the 1920s and the efforts of spiritualists to do the same to salvage ectoplasm.
This is your interpretation, and it is particular.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jul 20, 2015 - 11:24am PT
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Does anyone really think that a plant "knows" in the same way a human being does?
in exactly the same way? yes...
Here again the problem seems to be in the definition of knowing. Is knowledge simply and only the structure of our genetic code or does "knowing" take us beyond that.
One wonders where the plant version of Newton or Dante or Shakespeare is, or why plants aren't busy exploring the universe? I don't believe there is an equity of human thought and plant sentience... peacock feathers not withstanding.
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 20, 2015 - 11:52am PT
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I don't believe in nothing.
Yes you do.
It's in the dictionary and has a meaning toward reality.
Example ... A man asked what this fool over there has done lately?
Your reply "He's done nothing important lately"
Thus once again it proves the gross materialists have no real clue.
muahahahaha ......
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 20, 2015 - 02:34pm PT
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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.
MH@ said: 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?
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It is no surprise to me that this last statement makes perfect sense to a materialist. It has isolated the information and data out to where it seemingly stands alone, and we try and impute whether or not the source of that data (as we watch the info on a computer screen) came from a sentient being - or not.
Of course observing the computer screen is not observing behavior but objective functioning (see Chalmers to get clear on this). What is missing from the computer is a living human being who is sentient, and whose behavior will give us some clues to truthfully answer the Turing Test.
Every properly formed sentient human has software that helps us detect the subtle cues and body language and phenomenon betraying another conscious person. Our interface with others using this programing does not "prove" sentience, but remove that programing and you have a pathology called autism, or the milder version, Asperger syndrome.
Ed is arguing for us to conflate machine "experience" with human sentience, not understanding that the former is a stimulus response mechanism with no subjective life at all. True, we cannot physically "prove" the lack of a sentient, experiential quotient in the machine, because we cannot transmute sentience itself into an object - the Holy Grail for most all materialists. But this does not support the preposterous assumption that the "life" of a space ship is qualitatively no different than the experiential life of a living, sentient entity. Such a wonky idea is simply that much more qualia in Ed's brainpan.
JL
JL
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 20, 2015 - 05:18pm PT
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JL
JL
Ha
Ha
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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Jul 20, 2015 - 05:48pm PT
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But the problem here is an epistemological one: does this space craft even know what it is doing?
Like humans know what we're doing? What exactly is it that we're doing anyway? What mission did our creator give us?
We didn't seem to notice that what we were doing was changing earth's climate. But I'm sure we'll continue to have a belief about what it is that we're doing anyway, and believe that our belief is true.
Intellectually, we are superior to the Blacks. Let us accept that the Blackman is a symbol of poverty, mental inferiority, laziness and emotional incompetence. Isn't it plausible? Therefore that the Whiteman is created to rule the Blackman.
P.W. Botha 1985
Yea, like that, but about humans.
Yeah humans and our advantageously egotistical beliefs! :-)
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jul 20, 2015 - 06:24pm PT
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Like humans know what we're doing? What exactly is it that we're doing anyway? What mission did our creator give us?
Yes, humans know what they're doing and that's why they developed the term "knowledge" to express the fact that things can be known.
I'm not sure i understand how it's egotistical to know things.
It is interesting that both Christianity and science see humanity as the corrupting force in nature. In both cases man is responsible for what would be an otherwise state of perfection in the natural world... really fascinating. Perhaps this is what you imagine as egotistical. Ultimately humanity's affect on nature will likely be minimal and forgotten quickly in the grand scheme of things... if only we could stick around to see.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jul 20, 2015 - 06:30pm PT
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Rbord said "Like humans know what we're doing? What exactly is it that we're doing anyway?"
Excellent point RBord; Zen Master Seung Sahn used to say "human beings are number # 1 stupid animal because it didn't understand it's job" "all other animals understand their job but not humans". That always shocked or amused the great rational thinkers in the audience.
But why are we still stuck in all this tribal warfare constantly stealing and fighting with each other; creating false borders and imposing ourselves on the other life forms. Yes animals are constantly killing each other but usually for food and there seems to be a balance. But us crazy humans invent factory ships, shoot all the buffalo and kill the rivers with pollution and on and on. Maybe our evolutionary job is to poison the earth (temporarily)?
The other life forms just don't seem to have our great abilities! (go ahead tell me differently)
ZM SS used to ask the simple question of why do you eat? His answer was if you eat only for yourself you will cause alot of suffering and if you eat for all beings much less suffering.
And like a broken record it all comes back to who is eating ? what is this "I" rambling around?
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 20, 2015 - 06:33pm PT
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"human beings are number # 1 stupid animal
And they got upset because I always said "Americans are stooopid"
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 20, 2015 - 06:52pm PT
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To err is human.
We all pass that version of the Turing test.
To forgive, divine.
Alexander Pope in a poem on how to be a critic.
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 20, 2015 - 06:55pm PT
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To err is human.
Yes.
And the modern gross materialist want to remain that way and simultaneously remain stooopid too ....
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 20, 2015 - 07:35pm PT
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Ed is arguing for us to conflate machine "experience" with human sentience...
no, but you're so dialed into your POV you can't see what I'm getting at...
...which is that you can't tell the difference between what the machine "experiences" and what I, Ed Hartouni, is experiencing. By your own insistence of the primacy of the "first person point of view" which is subjective, and cannot be shared, i.e. objectified.
If you think I my "experience" is any different from the spacecraft's please tell me how you "know" that to be the case.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 20, 2015 - 07:56pm PT
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^^^ please tell us how you know horizon is having an "experience" or that that it is "aware" 9 hrs before NASA?
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Jul 20, 2015 - 08:00pm PT
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That's an interesting question (i.e. thread title)
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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Jul 20, 2015 - 08:15pm PT
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So Paul what is our knowledge of what it is that we're doing that separates us from the Blackmen I mean New Horizons? If New Horizons knew what it was doing, would it answer "exploring Pluto" or "whatever the humans say", or is there more to what it's doing than it understands? And what would we say - how do we in our intelligence and understanding of epistemology demonstrate our superiority to the Blackmen I mean New Horizons through our knowledge of exactly what it is that we're doing?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 20, 2015 - 08:30pm PT
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please tell us how you know horizon is having an "experience" or that that it is "aware" 9 hrs before NASA?
New Horizon senses it's surroundings and responds to those sensations, in real time, with no direct human intervention. The plan of the trip outlined the basic research program. However, that outline did not anticipate every detail of the trip, it could not possibly have done that. So the New Horizons had to be able to act autonomously on the "real time" flow of what it was sensing, and to adapt the details in response to those sensations.
So by Largo's description, New Horizons is having the experience, the people on the ground don't know what's happening for hours after it happens, and can offer little guidance "in real time."
Not only that, the people on the ground aren't there having the direct sensations that New Horizons is responding to... though New Horizons is a lot better at describing exactly what it is sensing than a human would be.
The program that New Horizons is executing is also "just theory," a map of the territory, not the territory, which is what New Horizons is experiencing directly.
So given that description of behavior, it sounds a lot like New Horizons is having an experience. Is it sentient? how would we know? As I said, you can't explain why you think I am sentient... except by the definition: "humans are sentient, Ed is a human, Ed is sentient."
That doesn't go very far in explaining sentience... and in particular, it puts your view of my sentience, and that of New Horizons on an equal footing, that is, you can't be sure that either of us has sentience, or not.
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 20, 2015 - 08:39pm PT
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If you think I my "experience" is any different from the spacecraft's please tell me how you "know" that to be the case.
Machine is not a living entity.
It has no soul.
Soul is the source of sentience and the life force itself.
The soul is completely spiritual in its true nature but due to the contamination of the material energies falls into bondage.
All living entities are soul covered by the material elements and energies.
The gross materialists always fail with their foolish guessing.
They have no real clue ......
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 20, 2015 - 08:46pm PT
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"Ed is alive, a living thing has a soul, the soul is the source of sentience, Ed has sentience"
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 20, 2015 - 09:11pm PT
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Ed is arguing for us to conflate machine "experience" with human sentience...
no, but you're so dialed into your POV you can't see what I'm getting at...
...which is that you can't tell the difference between what the machine "experiences" and what I, Ed Hartouni, is experiencing. By your own insistence of the primacy of the "first person point of view" which is subjective, and cannot be shared, i.e. objectified.
If you think I my "experience" is any different from the spacecraft's please tell me how you "know" that to be the case.
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From my perspective, Ed is totally turned around on this one.
For starters, the idea that Ed's "point" is lost on me is quite a stretch. Ed, as a confirmed materialist, lives by the mantra; "What isn't physical?" Ergo his investigation of any and all phenomenon will be to find the physical source or "cause" or that material/matter that occassions, say, sentience. When I repeatedly remind what my friends say - that all matter reduces to that which has no dimensionality, extent, and that matter itself is not the solid stuff and doesn't even have a universal definition, I am told how little I know, though I am merely echoing the words of scientists.
Anyhow, we can safely assume that since we know Ed's criteria for all knowing is physical substantiation, lacking same means lacking actual "proof" so in the case of sentience, since we cannot objectify it, sentience itself is not real (real = physical).
This begs the question: If Ed's "experience" can not be physically substantiated to be different from the spacecraft's, does it follow that their "experience" must be the same?
Fact is, a machine mechanically registers a stimulus and can respond per how it was programmed. This is what Chalmers calls "objective functioning." Sentience is an altogether different phenomenon which is an extension of the "being" in human being, contrasted with the doing (stimulus response) of the machine.
Another interesting question is: What if you COULD prove that machine registration is qualitatively different than sentience (being with our observing in real time)? What would that say?
Trying to prove we are simply and entirely machines was the starting point for my friends who tried to work up a strategy to write code for sentience, or raw awareness, as separate from qualia, or content - that which we are aware OF. This distinction throws many people who have not spent time abiding with their own awareness under controlled conditions. But unless this is viewed as a phenomenon not equal to content, then you will necessarily end up with machine sentience, which is a zombie in mechanical form.
And I never said that we cannot functionally objectify sentience, it's just that the symbols will not be sentience itself. As I have said many times, the first step in objectifying sentience will likely involve the triad of awareness, focus and attention. As Fruity pointed out long ago, we have not seen sentience addressed in these terms because people are not observing sentience, but objective functioning (data processing). So long as you cannot tell the difference between the two, a hunk of metal hurtling through space will seem like the same phenomenon as Ed reflecting on his experience of flashing Twilight Zone in his flip flops.
JL
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 20, 2015 - 09:21pm PT
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When I repeatedly remind what my friends say - that all matter reduces to that which has no dimensionality, extent, and that matter itself is not the solid stuff and doesn't even have a universal definition
you have this wrong, or they are being a bit too cute... (or perhaps just dumb)... the precise statement of this is we have no description of matter, beyond some point. It is not that there is no extent, that there is "nothing." Simply, we have no description.
These are not the same thing, though you fervently wish them to be.
Sentience is an altogether different phenomenon which is an extension of the "being" in human being, contrasted with the doing (stimulus response) of the machine.
you might as well take on Werner's definition... what you have here is a definition, not an explanation. And you totally miss what I am saying, which is that you can't say I have sentience, or that I have "being." You don't know... but you argue: 'Ed is a human being, human beings have "being", Ed has "being"'
You don't know any more than that... you don't know that New Horizons doesn't have "being" even when it acts as if it does... your refutation? "New Horizons is not a human being, only human beings have "being", New Horizons has no "being"'
This in spite of the fact that New Horizons exhibits behavior that implies it has being. And in fact, has been built to have it...
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