Re: How Robots Will Steal Your Job

[Joseph Dionne]

----------------
Insipid. You're merely stating thereby that you prefer to think that
non-human, non-intelligent animals still have, for no reason at all,
the samesort of mind we do.




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Even a teddy bear must surely see with his eyes, or not, if blind...




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You're out of your intellectual depth again, aren't you?
We told you about that.

-Steve

Mr Walz, it must be nice to live in your world.

 

[dan michaels]

That sidesteps the question that intrigues everyone. Do animals
create this mental scene purely as a calculation or is there something
in there actually experiencing it?

You're asking a slightly different question here than the boys I cited
were addressing. The definitions given are probably consistent with
the vast amount of observations on animals, and allows the animals the
pleasure of being conscious of their own small worlds in their own
small way. People who argue than only humans are conscious, have
feelings, etc, do so because of the narrow limits they give to their
personal definitions.

Dennett said something like "philosphers who have dogs believe that
dogs have consciousness, while philosophers who don't have dogs don't
believe that dogs have consciousness". This simply shows how
definition-dependent this entire issue is.
====================

Is what goes on inside a frog closer to what goes on inside me (before
my morning coffee), or closer to what I imagine would go on inside a
simulated frog in a video game.

I will put out this speculation. Consciousness happens as a quantum
effect of a lot of rapid state change within a small volume. It
requires a minimum level of activity, then it suddenly kicks in as a
field effect. It is a fundamental of the universe like mass, time,
distance etc.

This would imply that machines are probably already conscious.

Again, what you've done here is selected a definition that allows you
to place machines into the universe of consciousness. That's your
perogative, but others will see it simply as how you've constructed
your definition.

Regards your statment "... quantum effect of a lot of rapid state
change within a small volume ...", I think that's that's a useful way
of looking at things, but I won't say it's a reasonable description
regarding C - rather, maybe for complexity or something purely
mechanical.

However, there are also some around who go so far as to abscribe
consciousness to thermostats, becuase of the large amount of
handwaving in their personal definition of C.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=thermostat+consciousness&meta=
===================

My hypothesis is 99% handwaving, but it at least suggests a line of
enquiry, trying to notice something physical that changes when you
come out of anaesthesia. What does the pattern of increased brain
activity look like when consciousness suddenly kicks in again?

This has probably been measured ... at least those parts that are
measurable with present-day instrumentation. Check the literature on
neurology, etc. Many operations are monitored by neurologists.

 

[Eugeny Kornienko]

Roedy Green on 09 jan 2004 wrote

Do animals create this mental scene purely as a calculation or is there
something in there actually experiencing it?

Is what goes on inside a frog closer to what goes on inside me (before
my morning coffee), or closer to what I imagine would go on inside a
simulated frog in a video game.

Mechanizing animals is less valid than mechanizing humans. We do what now
machines do - create databases, send messages, work as a flesh mechanism
among other mechanisms in a battle-plane. It's too humancentric to think
that only humans can feel pain. Yes, we can speak, write, watch TV. But what
did we can before we began speak, write, make machines? A million years ago
we only could feel pain like other animals. Does it need prove?

I will put out this speculation. Consciousness happens as a quantum
effect of a lot of rapid state change within a small volume. It
requires a minimum level of activity, then it suddenly kicks in as a
field effect. It is a fundamental of the universe like mass, time,
distance etc.

What about common idea that consciousness is an emergent feature of a system
that must have account of its detailed condition for orientation in changing
environment. My consciousness is a form of qualitative measurement of my own
condition. Consciousness is ideal. It doesn't relate to quantum and other
physical properties of the world.

My behavior is measurable by external investigator. My intention for
specific behavior is "measurable" by me only. A series of non-actualized
intentions may be treated as thoughts.

EK

 

[OmegaZero2003]

That is true for sensory inputs - we are always sensing the past.

Internal signals may be coincident with awareness of them time-wise. So our
internal life is in the present.

 

[Roedy Green]

Regards your statment "... quantum effect of a lot of rapid state
change within a small volume ...", I think that's that's a useful way
of looking at things, but I won't say it's a reasonable description
regarding C - rather, maybe for complexity or something purely
mechanical.

That not my definition of consciousness. I am suggesting that
consciousness is what spontaneously appears when those conditions are
met, (not those conditions themselves) much the way a magnetic field
spontaneously appears in the presence of an electric current.

Of course, it could well turn out that consciousness does not
spontaneous appear when those conditions are met. Then we would be
back to the drawing board for a new definition.

If we in future discovered that consciousness did occur under those
conditions in living beings, I think we would have a hard time coming
up with an argument why it should not also happen in non-living
beings. After all magnetic fields work the same in living and non
living entities and we have no trouble with that.

It would be a bit like the old argument than slaves and horses had no
souls (were not conscious) based on notions of social status or
religious belief.

 

[Roedy Green]

A million years ago
we only could feel pain like other animals. Does it need prove?

We developed our talents gradually. Most of man's special abilities
are completely lost in a feral child.

If we think about comparing man's consciousness with animals, we
should pick a more typical man -- a cave dweller (not the recent
aberration) unless you want to argue that man very recently developed
his special talent for consciousness.

 

[Roedy Green]

A series of non-actualized
intentions may be treated as thoughts.

One interesting factoid is that the intention to move your arm can be
measured my monitoring neural activity. It precedes the conscious
intention by something like .3 seconds.

The 'deciding' you do consciously is not really a decision. You have
already done the calculation.

 

[Roedy Green]

That is true for sensory inputs - we are always sensing the past.

The other way of looking at it is that the past is always just a
present memory. The future is always just a present-moment
projection.

The scary thing is seeing how witnesses can't agree on details in a
court case, even when the witnesses have no obvious interest in the
case. There, they are trying hard to be accurate. It shows you how
much of your memory is a few fragments refleshed out with plausible
details. You might compare memory to a dream with a theme.

 

[Joseph Dionne]

Eugeny Kornienko wrote:

[snip]

A million years ago we only could feel pain like other animals.

How do you know what early man felt? Perhaps early man felt much what
we feel today, I don't know either way.

[snip]

 

[OmegaZero2003]

The other way of looking at it is that the past is always just a
present memory. The future is always just a present-moment
projection.
Yes!


The scary thing is seeing how witnesses can't agree on details in a
court case, even when the witnesses have no obvious interest in the
case. There, they are trying hard to be accurate. It shows you how
much of your memory is a few fragments refleshed out with plausible
details. You might compare memory to a dream with a theme.

Sure; analogous to blindsight - the filling in the gaps. One can train
oneself NOT to do this however!

 

[Roedy Green]

How do you know what early man felt? Perhaps early man felt much what
we feel today, I don't know either way.

My little brother related events to me that we shared together long
before he could talk. Humans are thus at least capable of forming
visual memories long before they can speak.

My first "memory" is seeing an enamel tray and being utterly amazed at
my first Object. (Whew, back on topic).

 

[R. Steve Walz]

And you keep stating the reverse, similarly for no reason at all. I
think we are going around in circles.
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.

--------------------
Mischaracterization. You have no reasons, but I do indeed. Animals
don't have our capabilities, they manifest no self-awareness in
interactions with us. You continue to pretend that their platform
is unimportant, and that an awareness must surely "ride" it, as we
do ours, which is unreasonable given their responses. If what you
suggest was so, they would be aware of our superiority and wish
to gain our attention to their plight. Instead what they DO manifest,
and obviously so, is that they have NO such concerns, have NO "ideas"
as we do, no abstraction, and how one would even do anything that
could be alleged to be thinking without abstraction is unworth even
considering seriously. To believe such a thing you would have to be
untutored in what "abtraction" EVEN MEANS, or be so dense as to have
never actually given real consideration to philosophical concepts.

-Steve

 

[R. Steve Walz]

She gets the
dicking she wants, and the support for her children,

I think it comes down to this. If the paternity is not clear, then
all males in the tribe will tend to protect all children in the tribe.

Since humans are so much better protecting as groups than
individually, this trait wins out over groups who look only after
their "own" children. []
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.

----------------
Bingo. Monogamous nuclear familiazation is a but a degenerated and
damaged form of the human potential. We became chief species on this
rock due to massively serious group allegiance, but right after we
achieved this dramatic success in putting the dangers both from other
species and from primitive circumstances of exposure to decisive route,
something in our more recent development

-Steve

 

[Roedy Green]

Animals
don't have our capabilities, they manifest no self-awareness in
interactions with us

You have not yet demonstrated any argument that self awareness has
anything to do with consciousness. Self awareness sounds a bit like a
high fallutin concept that perhaps even some humans don't have.
Consciousness is very simple and requires no philosophical
sophistication. Do you FEEL or not? I can feel even when I am half
asleep. The test for self awareness is recognising a reflection as
yourself in the mirror, right? Can babies do this? Are babies
conscious?

By the way, I am arguing for agnosticism. I don't think we have
enough data to decide.

To me your argument sounds like this: Only humans are conscious
because only humans can do trigonometry. If humans are unique in one
respect they must be unique in all respects.

 

[Roedy Green]

is that they have NO such concerns, have NO "ideas"
as we do, no abstraction,

Are you aware of experiments demonstrating that many animals can
count? (And I am not referring to Hans the horse.) That is an
abstraction. Have you ever seen the video about the parrot that
understands colour, shape and number and is able to do simple logical
functions?

 

[R. Steve Walz]

I think it comes down to this. If the paternity is not clear, then
all males in the tribe will tend to protect all children in the tribe.

Since humans are so much better protecting as groups than
individually, this trait wins out over groups who look only after
their "own" children.
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.

----------------
Bingo. Monogamous nuclear familiazation is a but a degenerated and
damaged form of the human potential that is the tool of the rich to
keep us separated by jealousies and enslaved in their worker-state,
and to prevent serious collective organization by the rest of us to
ever organize against them and retake Majority Democratic Egalitarian
control of our collective Human Power and Destiny, preferring to
stifle human Destiny for their crass short-term Plutocratic benefit.

Listen!: We became chief species on this rock due to massive serious
intimate group allegiance, but right after we achieved this dramatic
success in putting to an amazingly decisive route the dangers both
from other species and from other primitive circumstances of exposure,
and which set us up in an unapproachably successful tenure as rulers
of the planet, something in our more recent development suddenly
permitted abusive psychopaths among us to enslave us, something we
would never have permitted OR possible for them in the times before
when our group solidarity was still absolutely required to consolidate
our success.

This blind-alley of wealth and privilege for some and not all of us
is an abuse of power which is surely an anomalous and inherently
inhumane occurrence which must be beaten back before we can continue
to expand our collective success that has taken us so far so fast,
else we will continue to be stultified in this enslaved ant hill
society with economic rulers so enamored of the stolen luxurious
material wealth they derive from us, that they paranoidly fight the
natural progress of humanity in favor of the status quo, preventing
this species to advance collectively as it rightfully should, to the
stars.

Remember!: In the Star Trek Universe, as well as All Other Good and
Worthy Dreams of Our Human Future, WEALTH for a FEW will ALWAYS be
nothing but Reactionary Backwardness, Evil and Crime!

Nothing but CRIME!

-Steve

 

[R. Steve Walz]

Mr Walz, it must be nice to live in your world.

 

[R. Steve Walz]

That is true for sensory inputs - we are always sensing the past.

Internal signals may be coincident with awareness of them time-wise. So our
internal life is in the present.

 

[R. Steve Walz]

The other way of looking at it is that the past is always just a
present memory. The future is always just a present-moment
projection.

 

[Roedy Green]

Animals
don't have our capabilities, they manifest no self-awareness in
interactions with us.

A human who takes some heavy drug may be unable to speak or reason,
but when the trip is over he is able to describe the experience. He
was apparently conscious through it all. Consciousness does not seem
to have all that much to do with higher brain function.