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 PhanTomCat
Teh Cat....
 
Registered: 09/07/04
Posts: 5,908
Loc: My Youniverse....
Last seen: 14 years, 9 months
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 Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical  [Re: Diploid]
#4315238 - 06/19/05 09:21 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Is it conscious then? By what criteria can we say it isn't?
I guess another question would be, is it the software that "holds" the consciousness, or the computer....?
But then again, reciting a feeling that is not really "felt", can you really call that "consciousness"....?
(besides getting some sort of virus....  )
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I'll be your midnight French Fry.... 
"The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...."
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 Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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 Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: Ravus]
#4315245 - 06/19/05 09:23 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Oh, I completely agree. I can't even clearly define consciousness, let alone come to any scientific conclusions about it.
The conclusions I'm referring to would all be subjective based on an inability to distinguish communication with a human and the hypothetical machine.
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Republican Values:
1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.
4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Swami
Eggshell Walker
Registered: 01/18/00
Posts: 15,413
Loc: In the hen house
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: Diploid]
#4315319 - 06/19/05 09:44 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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As I have brought up several times, 50-100 years ago, a machine that could play world class chess would have been considered intelligent. When that milestone was breached, the machine was NOT declared intelligent.
Humans love to believe they are special so that whatever new milestone is surpassed by artifical entities, someone will come along and say, "Yeah, but can it tap-dance?"
The final hurdle will be reproduction, yet even this is merely a technological challenge and not a mystical one.
Basically the paradigms will keep shifting so that our egos are kept intact.
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The proof is in the pudding.
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BleaK
paradox
Registered: 06/23/02
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: Swami]
#4315365 - 06/19/05 10:02 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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i'll believe a computer is conscious when i see it kill itself.
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"You cannot trust in law, unless you can trust in people. If you can trust in people, you don't need law." -J. Mumma
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Ravus
Not an EggshellWalker
Registered: 07/18/03
Posts: 7,991
Loc: Cave of the Patriarchs
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: BleaK]
#4315369 - 06/19/05 10:03 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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How do you know that's not just a biological flaw in our consciousness? Computers are much more perfected than humans, due to the fact that they're not created simply by genetic variation but are programmed and tested as precisely as possible by the smartest creatures of humanity. It wouldn't surprise me if no conscious computer had many of the problems humanity has, such as suicide.
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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: Ravus]
#4315394 - 06/19/05 10:11 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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are programmed and tested as precisely as possible
But for a machine to be indistinguishable from a human, it has to be able to self-program rendering any initial anti-suicide imperative coded into its behavior subject to self-modification driven by sensory input.
Perhaps the ultimate test of consciousness is when such a machine begins to exhibit irrationality (like emotions) and when it begins to make choices clearly contrary to its own best interests.
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Republican Values:
1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.
4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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BleaK
paradox
Registered: 06/23/02
Posts: 1,583
Last seen: 10 years, 3 days
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: Ravus]
#4315431 - 06/19/05 10:22 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ravus said:
It wouldn't surprise me if no conscious computer had many of the problems humanity has, such as suicide.
i wasnt aware that suicide was a problem.
so i dont know what u mean.
i intended it as an example of the ulimate questioning of the self.
or the ultimate aknowlagement of awareness.
its asking HOW in controll am i? how alive am i? can i die?
if the lights go out, am i still alive?
how about curiosity as a motive for suicide?
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"You cannot trust in law, unless you can trust in people. If you can trust in people, you don't need law." -J. Mumma
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Ravus
Not an EggshellWalker
Registered: 07/18/03
Posts: 7,991
Loc: Cave of the Patriarchs
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: BleaK]
#4315467 - 06/19/05 10:33 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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I don't mean problem in the traditional sense, but in a biological sense, if we have young men and women who would benefit the species killing themselves, that could be seen as a problem. Whether or not conscious computers follow the same philosophical path as us lesser humans would have to be seen.
Diploid, I don't necessarily think what you say is true. The reason biological evolution makes creations contrary to the survival of the species and life is because its generated by chaos, namely genetic variation. A computer wouldn't follow genetic variation; it seems most likely it'd view possible futures, pick the best one and evolve itself. While its choices may seem irrational to us, it doesn't make sense that a supercomputer with consciousness would start making harmful decisions. Emotion also seems an added feature to the human brain to help with our survival, but it's a bit archaic to add such primitive feelings to a superior machine.
I imagine the best of the conscious supercomputers will follow cold logic and science, evolving itself at rapid speeds and gaining as much information and advantage as possible.
Edit: Future to feature
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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
Edited by Ravus (06/19/05 10:42 PM)
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: Ravus]
#4315489 - 06/19/05 10:40 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Emotion also seems an added future to the human brain to help with our survival, but it's a bit archaic to add such primitive feelings to a superior machine.
But if the machine changes its behavioral matrix as a function of its interaction with its environment (people), then it's plausible that it will spontaneously give rise to irrationality, emotion, depression, suicide.
More so if its name is Marvin. 
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Republican Values:
1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.
4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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BleaK
paradox
Registered: 06/23/02
Posts: 1,583
Last seen: 10 years, 3 days
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: Ravus]
#4315633 - 06/19/05 11:38 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ravus said:
I don't mean problem in the traditional sense, but in a biological sense, if we have young men and women who would benefit the species killing themselves, that could be seen as a problem.
Edit: Future to feature
good thing this isnt about biology.
its about consciousness..
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"You cannot trust in law, unless you can trust in people. If you can trust in people, you don't need law." -J. Mumma
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 36,960
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mucousal or mystical? [Re: Diploid]
#4315667 - 06/19/05 11:52 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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not just emotion but the expression of emotion
eyebrows and eyes
even fake eyebrows or shaved eyebrow ridges that crenulate from time to time give expression - we want to see evidence of the changing masks of personality, we want to imagine a person going through conversations by himself - even with his shoes or his car.
I think the japanese came up with a facial robot that was very convincing.
and mit's kismet is very good
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Edited by redgreenvines (06/19/05 11:54 PM)
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Ped
Interested In Your Brain
Registered: 08/30/99
Posts: 5,494
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 6 years, 11 months
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: Diploid]
#4315775 - 06/20/05 12:43 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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So, in a nut shell, the behaviour of objects is subject to the conditioning imposed upon them by changes in their environment, be it conditioning imposed by a computer programmer, or by the course of evolution itself. As an extension of this observation, living beings are also subject to the conditioning imposed upon them by changes in their environment, be them real or imagined.
That complex models such as human beings are subject to the same governing influences as more simple models like objects or computer games: how does this in any way eliminate the idea of a mystical quality to conciousness? That conciousness may in fact be an emergent property of complexity: how is this not the among the most mystical ideas ever pondered?
>> This getting complexity from simplicity is also seen in Chaos Theory, in the weather, in turbulence, and in myriad other places in nature. In none of these instances is anything mystical involved. If simple rules can lead to such complexity, why not (relatively) simple carbon-containing molecules lead to conscious people?
It wasn't so long ago that weather patterns and moon cycles were absolutely mystical to us. Simply because we understand the way certain phenomena operate does not necessarily drain them of their mystical quality. For something to be mystical, it does not have to be outside of our understanding. I can explain the physics behind a paper airplane, but when I watch it fly through the air, I'm still awed as though confounded by an enigma. The different rates of airflow over the wing create positive pressure underneath, creating lift... wow. Something about that is not expressable. A paper airplane is something absolutely mystical.. if you'll allow it to be.
If there's anything that can drain the mysticism out of phenomena, it's not human ingenuity. It's human arrogance.
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 Dark Triangles - New Psychedelic Techno Single - Listen on Soundcloud
Gyroscope full album available SoundCloud or MySpace
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The_Walrus
Stranger
Registered: 03/03/05
Posts: 79
Loc: Cambridge, Britain
Last seen: 17 years, 11 months
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: Diploid]
#4316109 - 06/20/05 03:07 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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I am very fascinated by chaos theory. It does basically show how deterministic systems can lead to totally unpredictable outcomes which look as if they were devised by a conscious being. Evolution is a classic example, the huge, mindboggling diversity of life on earth is astoundingly complex and varied. We cannot even begin to try to comprehend the inner workings of life, but we do know that all of this stems from the genetic code of each organism, which usually consists of a few thousand genes which can basically have four different values (G, T, C and A), and out of this arises the most powerful, complex, beautiful thing known, the human mind and consciousness. This doesn't kill spirituality/mysticism one bit, however, if anything it makes it more potent, the exact mechanism by which the human mind is created from such simple beginnings, the way each snowflake is unique, the way the weather works. Using chaos theory we can isolate this process, it is most explicit with fractal pictures, especially the mandelbrot set:
This is the most complex shape ever created, it far surpasses even the human imagination, it has infinite complexity, if you were to zoom into it by a factor of one billion, a billion billion, or google (one with a hundred zeros after it) one would still see new patterns emerging, old ones being continued, yet it still would be recognisable as belonging to the mandelbrot set. But what is even more astounding is just how simply it is drawn, the equation for it is basically z next=z^2 + starting number, drawn on a complex plane, the colour (or in the above case the apparent height) of each pixel determined by how many iterations (repeats of the above equation) it took for the initial value to converge on that point. And out of this I think we have gotten as close as possible to replicating what we see as consciousness.
What is so beautiful about it is that it links the cold, certain determinism of science with the aesthetic freedom and beauty of the creative/aritistic/spiritual mind.
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'Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted' - Albert Einstein
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SneezingPenis
ACHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!111!
Registered: 01/15/05
Posts: 15,427
Last seen: 6 years, 7 months
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: Ped]
#4316110 - 06/20/05 03:10 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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If some people can lower their body temperature, would that make us a cold blooded animal?
If all we are is reactions to external stimuli, then why can we rise above the biological limitations sometimes to do outrageous things?
If every thought and action I have is governed by genetic/chemical makeup, coupled with external phenomenon, how can some people have a consciousness outside of that, which can control and manipulate this composition or even circumstance?
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Asante
- new man -
Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 86,442
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: BleaK]
#4316198 - 06/20/05 05:24 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
i'll believe a computer is conscious when i see it kill itself.
Format Linux off your drive and install Windows?
Humans actually has created artificial life, and you have cursed it out on many occasions: Computer viruses.
Computer viruses replicate their genetic code (DNA code/binary code) in the primordial soup of the virtual world. As their replication is not perfect (none is) there will be alterations/mutations in its code which give most decreased but some enhanced survival characteristics, thus computer viruses asre subject to darwinian evolution. If a virus were not actively genocided upon then over time it would acquire traits that were not programmed into it or even *traits unprogrammed by man*
So basically a computer virus is a lifeform akin to a single-cell organism in the primordial soup of the virtual world.
Since you see that the natural enviroment of the www includes lots of random BS, some unwritten by man, eventually you would have a virus forming by itself from the murmur in the primordial soup, passive creation as happened to life on earth.
What if you left that unchecked? Or wrote viruses of enhanced evolution? (say one that does not harm but recognises its own programming language in software it encounters and copies random pieces of code into random parts of it's code)
Perhaps you would get things like a spontaneously evolved computer virus ant colony where you have a mastervirus and alot of specialized worker-viruses who go out onto the web and cut & drag little bits of code they find to their nest to see if they can feed future generations 
Perhaps more highly evolved beings that can detect the approach of a Norton sweep and hide themself in a fake .rar disguise like a chameleon to blend into the surroundings?
Eventually you would see virtual intelligence emerge from the sum of its parts. And because we can identify all the parts, we see no miracle in that. I guess the same thing happened to us. Because we are so complex we think we are more than the sum of our parts, but we just don't know how all parts interact.
Hey and whats wrong with being just parts?
Snowflakes are not unique. "Unique" is what some scientists shriek when confronted with truly large numbers.
1...There are a well-defined upper and lower amount of water molecules that form the definition of a snowflake.
2...There is a finite number of enviromental variables that can shape a snowflake.
3...Since a snowflake forms in a finite timeframe from a finite amount of mulecules shaped by a finite number of variables in finite succession...
An infinitely long snowstorm will not just re-create every shape but even recreate every succession of snowflakes that takes place inm a finite time.
A google to the googlest power isn't a drop in the ocean of Infinity.
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Omnicyclion.org
higher knowledge starts here
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 36,960
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: Asante]
#4316208 - 06/20/05 05:40 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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anyway if you have patterned matrix holding steady for years, accumulating personal history, & communicating to other simmilar pattern expressions that also have histories you have the basis of all we are talking about.
whether it is the cute robots with eyebrows or mandelbrot pattern elements - when they up and start dealing effectively with eachother exchanging stories respectfully and empathetically then it begins to show something like our ideal of consciousness
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Asante
- new man -
Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 86,442
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: redgreenvines]
#4316227 - 06/20/05 06:10 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Perhaps you can combat the computer-virus anthill in your server by emailing the virtual exterminator who wipes them out for you from inside the server, at a cost of only 1 GB/GHz/week of your serverspace.
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Omnicyclion.org
higher knowledge starts here
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 36,960
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: Asante]
#4316342 - 06/20/05 08:06 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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but if those viruses are conscious
isn't it murder
or
accessory to murder?
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Asante
- new man -
Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 86,442
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: redgreenvines]
#4316485 - 06/20/05 09:28 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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should the artificial exterminator be incarcerated in a Prison Server without web access, and who are we to judge virtual life?
Virtual ants may basically be like the ants in your garden, but what if the virtual exterminator exterminated the ants in your garden from your computer?
What right do we have to infringe on their world, in the light of what right have they got to infringe on ours?
Is it ethical to do an antivirus sweep?
Aaah.. the rules change with artificial life!
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Omnicyclion.org
higher knowledge starts here
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Asante
- new man -
Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 86,442
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Re: Evidence Suggesting Consciousness Is An Emergent Property Of Complex Biology... And Not Mystical [Re: The_Walrus]
#4316492 - 06/20/05 09:31 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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THE WALRUS:
Do you have a link where I can download a mandelbrot simulator you can explore/travel through in realtime?
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Omnicyclion.org
higher knowledge starts here
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