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Invisiblekake
The answer to1984 is 1776.
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: Diploid]
    #6287531 - 11/15/06 08:52 PM (17 years, 4 months ago)

i can definitely see the first computers who have self consciousness going "WTF?" and destroying themselves.

they likely would not have the emotional self defense mechanisms we have to fend off FEAR (which is a result of logic)


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OfflineEpigallo
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: kake]
    #7350367 - 08/29/07 11:54 PM (16 years, 6 months ago)

:thumbup:

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InvisibleAlteredAgain
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The Thread Returns [Re: Epigallo]
    #7350593 - 08/30/07 01:59 AM (16 years, 6 months ago)



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OfflineEllis Dee
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: Diploid]
    #7350691 - 08/30/07 03:40 AM (16 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
I am certain that we can code up some machine that will have "conscious" reflection of its condition

I tend to agree with this, but I don't think it can happen on a finite-sized Turing machine. Here's why.

No matter how large and complex a program is, at the bottom of it all, it is simply a list of instructions which can branch to other parts of the list depending on the results of calculations or input from the outside world.

Taken a step further, no matter how complicated the computer and its programming, it can be recreated in a giant assemblage of mechanical gears, cogs, springs, and assorted clockwork. This mechanical machine would be huge indeed to recreate a consumer grade PC. The 8 billion or so memory bits that fit in a silicon chip the size of a postage stamp would have to be represented by 8 billion cogs in our clockwork machine. This is not a practical device that could realistically be built, but IN PRINCIPLE, if you did build it, you could run any Windows program (very very slowly) on the mechanical version of the Pentium chip.

So, the question this leads to is: even if a digital computer is ever programmed such that it achieves consciousness, then what would happen to our mechanical version if its gears and cogs are also pre-set to the same program and someone starts turning the crank that makes the program steps execute one at a time?

Would the giant pile of intricate mechanical parts all suddenly become self-aware? Intuitively, that doesn't seem likely.

And even if it can be argued that somehow the machine clockwork COULD become self-aware, the analogy can be extended into a program written down on paper instead of represented by the position of springs and gears in the machine.

A human with the program printed out could step through it by hand, writing 'memory' values on a scratch paper as he 'executes' the program by reading each line of the programming instructions, and doing what they say to do.

Would the paper containing the instructions then be conscious? Would some vague area of space near where this takes place 'contain' the conscious self-awareness? Again, this doesn't seem likely.

If we ever manage to make a conscious machine, I don't think it will be with anything at all like the technology we currently have access to.



I think the same argument could be made about carbon based life. How did human beings evolve from amino acids and proteins? We think, we are here. We are. Silicon based life is not so far fetched. If not for carbon based life, silicon based life might exist.


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"If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do."-King Solomon

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: Ellis Dee]
    #7351157 - 08/30/07 09:50 AM (16 years, 6 months ago)

I think the same argument could be made about carbon based life. How did human beings evolve from amino acids and proteins?

The difference is that human brains take advantage of Quantum Indeterminacy when proteins fold in the brain and give rise to consciousness. A digital computer doesn't have this.


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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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Invisibledeimya
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: Diploid]
    #7351251 - 08/30/07 10:13 AM (16 years, 6 months ago)

There's no doubt quantum processes takes place everywhere in the universe, but whether they are coherent enough in our brain to have any impact at all is still an hypothesis, proposed by Penrose and Hameroff in the 90's I think.

I would tend to think so though, that the very experience of consciousness you are living right now, the ever ending present, is highly related to quantum mechanical behaviors, or more; something along the idea of the universe experiencing itself through its most fundamentals processes. But I don't think that simply having a quantum computer is enough to make machine "think" in a way similar, or related in complexity, to us. It would indeed have to evolve its own way through consciousness.

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: deimya]
    #7351319 - 08/30/07 10:33 AM (16 years, 6 months ago)

You're well informed. The Penrose and Hameroff hypothesis is what I was referring to.

But I don't think that simply having a quantum computer is enough to make machine

I agree. What I mean is that a conventional, deterministic digital computer is never going to become conscious any more than its programming implemented in a mechanical computer or written on paper will ever become conscious.

This is all conjecture, but I think some coupling to quantum effects will be required for a conscious machine modeling of the brain to work. On the other hand, modeling a brain may not be the only route to machine consciousness if such a thing is possible at all.


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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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Invisibletruekimbo2
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: Diploid]
    #7351619 - 08/30/07 11:37 AM (16 years, 6 months ago)

a couple fun ways to look at this question:
a) my gut reaction is that this question will become obsolete by the time it could become relevant. organic life and computers will be fully meshed by the time processing power and programming knowledge reaches the level of sophistication that organic life has.

b) another way of looking at is if we look at intelligence as being something that inhabits organic life instead of being generated by it, it would appear that intelligence is putting all its energy into freeing itself from these relatively frail and fickle bodies. i can imagine that it is inevitable digital life and consciousness will develope (and perhaps dominate) just from looking at this trend.

c) i also think its possible the internet is already alive and conscious. it has tons of sensory inputs, it has millions of brains working daily to sort, organize and process all the data its recieving. its obviously working to spread and sustain itself.
we wouldn't be able to recognize its comings and going because it exsists on higher order than we do (much like the often repeated ants to humans metaphor).
I think this last one is very possibly true. similar to the the above thought that perhaps intelligence isn't dependent on brains, perhaps ideas are alive, the internet being the most successful idea at this time. ideas shape the output of organic life around its needs the way humans shape matter around its needs.

edit: OOOOOOOOHHHH, i'm taking the S&P up a notch!


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Edited by truekimbo2 (08/30/07 11:39 AM)

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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: Meat_hod]
    #7351814 - 08/30/07 12:18 PM (16 years, 6 months ago)

MMMmmmmaybe if some sufficient amount of information is 'logically' transfered in a limited space for a specific (not too long) period of time, consciousness arises automatically...
(in the long run)


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Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

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Invisibledeimya
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #7351872 - 08/30/07 12:29 PM (16 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
I agree. What I mean is that a conventional, deterministic digital computer is never going to become conscious any more than its programming implemented in a mechanical computer or written on paper will ever become conscious.

This is all conjecture, but I think some coupling to quantum effects will be required for a conscious machine modeling of the brain to work. On the other hand, modeling a brain may not be the only route to machine consciousness if such a thing is possible at all.




Very true IMHO.

Quote:

BlueCoyote said:
MMMmmmmaybe if some sufficient amount of information is 'logically' transfered in a limited space for a specific (not too long) period of time, consciousness arises automatically...
(in the long run)




I would tend to think so too, such that given any sufficient raw material, our universe is hardwired to generate consciousness. I think life and/or consciousness are inevitable.


Quote:

truekimbo2 said:
c) i also think its possible the internet is already alive and conscious.  it has tons of sensory inputs, it has millions of brains working daily to sort, organize and process all the data its recieving.  its obviously working to spread and sustain itself.
we wouldn't be able to recognize its comings and going because it exsists on higher order than we do (much like the often repeated ants to humans metaphor). 
  I think this last one is very possibly true.  similar to the the above thought that perhaps intelligence isn't dependent on brains, perhaps ideas are alive, the internet being the most successful idea at this time.  ideas shape the output of organic life around its needs the way humans shape matter around its needs.




ooh, I like that stuff, let me ponder on it a bit ok ? :laugh:

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: truekimbo2]
    #7351911 - 08/30/07 12:41 PM (16 years, 6 months ago)

i also think its possible the internet is already alive and conscious.

I'm listening to a sci-fi audiobook of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series in which this theme is explored.

In the book, humans have colonized about a hundred planets outside the solar system and all are linked by a device called an Ansible taken as a spoil of war from an insect-like alien race humans defeated.

The device figures prominently in the plot. It allows superluminal communication among the networks on each colonized planet. Humans have figured out how to use it and build more of them, but the physics of how they work is not understood. It appears to be linked to the same physical processes that create consciousness in sentient beings.

At some point, the complexity of the Ansible-interconnected planetary networks reaches some threshold and the gestalt becomes conscious.

Card's fiction is especially interesting because, to the extent allowed by creative license, he includes the relativistic consequences of superluminal communication and travel in the plot. Most sci-fi writers are lazy and disregards these things, but not Card.

It's some of the best sci-fi I've read (listened to) and I've read a lot. If anyone's interested in listing with me, PM and I'll hook you up with the MP3s.


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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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OfflineRedNucleus
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: Meat_hod]
    #7356366 - 08/31/07 03:22 PM (16 years, 6 months ago)

Consciousness consists of electrical signals, and electrical signals are of course not unique to human brains. If a electrical structure was made that could wholly copy the activity of a person's brain, the object would have exactly the same experience as the person. The object would think it was the person and would even see, without eyes, the image the person saw and hear the sounds the person heard. This is a physical possibility so yes, consciousness can physically exist outside of a human body.


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Namaste

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Invisibletruekimbo2
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: RedNucleus]
    #7356474 - 08/31/07 03:53 PM (16 years, 6 months ago)

i think saying consciousness consists of electrical signals is over-simplifying a good bit... there is a large chemical aspect, and then of course the actual structure of an individual's brain is fairly unique and important to functioning...


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: RedNucleus]
    #7356710 - 08/31/07 05:17 PM (16 years, 6 months ago)

This is a physical possibility so yes

Actually, no.

A perfect copy of a brain and its state can't be made, not even in principle. The Uncertainty Principle prevents it.


--------------------
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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OfflineKingkole
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: RedNucleus]
    #7358458 - 09/01/07 10:24 AM (16 years, 6 months ago)

The brain relates messages with chemicals as well as electrical signals.

however i think you are right that we can make a very simple "brain".

The big difference is that DNA get randomly changed buy radiation and therefore can improve its self (or in most cases it would just die).

Computer programs cannot make themselves aware but i support the theory that the net could become aware, but the chances of that is slim i think.

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OfflineSCleROTiUM_LICK
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Re: Can a computer code evolve into a thinking entity? [Re: Kingkole]
    #7360085 - 09/01/07 09:42 PM (16 years, 6 months ago)

Future Bumper Sticker:

I think, (therefore)
I am. (Therefore),
Get used to it!

So, will human souls WANT to reincarnate as machines?
The Book of The Dead says I should look for a good human birth if I am unable to see past my own projections, and must reincarnate. It says I should do so in order to realize my true self. Being free of physical needs, yet being "conscious" sounds pretty enlightening.


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