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WBraun
climber
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Jul 14, 2016 - 12:36pm PT
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Intelligence has devolved in this age.
This age is the iron age of hypocrisy and quarrel ......
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jul 14, 2016 - 01:55pm PT
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Ed: . . . certainly a different perspective, . . . .
Ed, I suspect you’re saying that because you can’t imagine there not being a perspective. Non dualism is not something that can be thought about because it entails a thinker. Non dualism cannot be conceptualized.
How we got here (with a dualistic point of view) is a likely concern of an evolutionist. Here, that doesn’t matter. Evolution only presents an explanation; it prevents seeing.
Imagination cannot show the non-dual because there is still an imagineer.
I would think that the next thing I’m going to hear is why dualism was necessary for human evolution. I suppose one can come up with that interpretation. One could argue dualism would appear to be the most rational thing for a species to develop for the bloodline. The argument is an indication of desperation. (When in doubt, say evolution says it must be so, otherwise it couldn’t exist. Petitio principii.)
The explanans is not the explanandum. Teleology is not ontology.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 14, 2016 - 07:23pm PT
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You have no argument that demonstrates that machines could posses sentience or mind or introspection or any of that.... and that's your job.
no, the job is in the doing... and following where the research takes you... not to prove that it is possible to get to some point.
You have a rather strange view of science... but that has been evident from the start of your participation in this thread.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jul 14, 2016 - 07:49pm PT
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Thanks for the Buddha perspective, MikeL. Round and round goes the thread, but that's life.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jul 14, 2016 - 07:56pm PT
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no, the job is in the doing... and following where the research takes you... not to prove that it is possible to get to some point.
If I claim my toaster's ability to produce toast of a superior quality is by virtue of its sentient nature, it is my job to then offer proof of that nature. It's not the job of others to prove I'm wrong. You're mistaking research for forgone conclusions sans evidence.
I don't think I'm the one with a strange view of science.
Again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jul 14, 2016 - 09:42pm PT
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extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
That would seem a difficult task when nothing is your basic argument.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 15, 2016 - 12:48am PT
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You're mistaking research for forgone conclusions sans evidence.
I think I understand research... one keeps an open mind and listens carefully to the data...
...you're the one shouting "IMPOSSIBLE!" not me.
Oh, and what do you do for a living? I mean besides posting on STForum?
Hopefully you can back up you understanding of science by saying you actually do science...
Or maybe not, there seem to be a lot of science "experts" who have less than a passing familiarity with the subject, but reach conclusions without evidence (I think you can just use the English word for "without," Largo's kinda appropriated the French word)...
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jul 15, 2016 - 07:41am PT
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MH2,
Nice site. You Canadian?
Jgill, . . . :->
I ain’t no Buddha ( . . . or wait a minute, . . . maybe I am!) :-)
Ed,
I believe you have an open mind. You let the data do the talking.
You have to admit that researchers get attached and invested in their hypotheses, theories and worldviews, though. Especially when there are resources on the line—as Ward reminded us. None of us can be purely objective.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 15, 2016 - 07:50am PT
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If I claim my toaster's ability to produce toast of a superior quality is by virtue of its sentient nature
How does your toaster determine when the toast is done? Could your toaster's design be improved?
If we keep making machines that sense the outcome of their performance and adjust their behavior according to circumstances, and the complexity of the jobs they do keeps increasing, could they not eventually be called sentient?
Are apes sentient? Cats? Clams?
What is the hurdle that machines and/or animals cannot get over?
Heaven is not reached at a single bound...
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jul 15, 2016 - 08:56am PT
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Oh, and what do you do for a living? I mean besides posting on STForum?
Hopefully you can back up you understanding of science by saying you actually do science...
Always the request for bona fides. Unfortunately they don't make the argument.
If we keep making machines that sense the outcome of their performance and adjust their behavior according to circumstances, and the complexity of the jobs they do keeps increasing, could they not eventually be called sentient?
Nope.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 15, 2016 - 09:37am PT
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How did humans become sentient? Do you know?
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cintune
climber
Colorado School of Mimes
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Jul 15, 2016 - 04:34pm PT
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Jul 15, 2016 - 05:32pm PT
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Them's some mighty long posts, LoveGasoline. You might want to just post the link next time -- It's not like they are your ideas.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 15, 2016 - 07:37pm PT
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Why would one ever equate sentience with data processing?
because "sentience" is not very rigorously described... given that, it is relatively easy to stretch the meaning to include something that could be construed as "data processing."
---
It rather amuses me that you still think there is something I am not "getting" about a data processing model, as though there is some aspect that is so nuanced that only a number cruncher might fathom the complexity and genius of the belief.
There are fundamentally two problems with your approach to mind, IMO.
First, "describing" in they way you use it is measurements, a process hat works well with external objects, but yields no fruit per the subjective (though it does a wonderful job of describing WHAT we are aware of). So putting the onus on me to provide numbers per consciousness is a little off base since I don't see how you are going to render a qualitative (internal) reality in quantitative) external) terms. You can alway default out of the task and say the internal is "actually" the external, but you have dded nothing to our understanding of what mind is, only the mechanical stirrings that you believe give rise to consciousness.
What's more, when I offer up technical aspects of consciousness, as a starting point for "knowing" what is involved (focus, attention, awareness, etc.), you ask no questions about these building blocks and hark right back to measurements, as thought the aforementioned factors will bite you if studied closely.
Second, I am not convinced that you actually understand or grasp the fundamental difference between content and being aware of content. A machine can have all manner of content in the form of data and so forth, but it lacks a subjective life entirely. Your belief that one follows the other is what I call folk science, as wonky as the belief that consciousness is some stand-alone "thing" we cannot measure. That one would not question the verity of that belief seems odd to me.
Then this:
You have no argument that demonstrates that machines could not possess sentience, or mind, or introspection, or any of that.
You have an opinion based on your experience. And your main argument is that someone cannot show you that it is true.
But you have not shown that it is false.
My main argument per machine sentience is that every attempt by AI geeks to frame sentience is fused to data processing, not being aware of data, and so long as people believe the two are selfsame, what hope is there of making your aunt your uncle, so to speak. The very nature of the belief is silly, based as it is on a fundamental misunderstanding. And as I've said, trying to wrangled down what sentience is by way of a process seeking mind-independent status for what is observed seems patently absurd. Sure, I don't believe that a space probe has a subjective life, but what's the point of proving it doesn't.
Question, when you settle into your own awareness and let all the attachments to data and impluses fall away, when you shut up and stop calculating (stop data processing), what is there about awareness that leads you to believe it is comparable to the functioning of a computer, and what function, in particular?
JL
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 15, 2016 - 07:47pm PT
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A machine can have all manner of content in the form of data and so forth, but it lacks a subjective life entirely.
Why can a machine not have a subjective life?
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 15, 2016 - 07:51pm PT
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Why can a machine not have a subjective life?
Life will be in the machine only if you put the live driver in it .......
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 15, 2016 - 07:51pm PT
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Jul 15, 2016 - 07:55pm PT
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It's not like they are your ideas.
There are original ideas here?
Maybe nah000 can index 'em? Sure would help.
When did you first start making up songs, Johnny?
And just how high is that water, mama?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Probably better to head for higher ground, eh?
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