Can a man-made computer become conscious?

[Belindi]

We are conscious but our bodies are not.

Then there is nothing I can tell you. You have made consciousness the equivalent of elan vital, a mystical magical thing that only humans can have. When strong AI comes, and two different "people" come and tell you about their suffering, their hopes and dreams, you'll have to ask for a blood sample to determine whether they are human and so have consciousness. There will literally be no other difference between their experiences.

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If qualia were to be measured against a public criterion would that make James believe that qualia are both physical and mental? And that no machine at this present time qualifies its learning?

-- Updated September 11th, 2017, 6:13 am to add the following --

The ethical problem we have about AI and consciousness is insignificant compared with the problem of how to stop men becoming like machines. However in both connections quality is the key to ethics and proper morality.

James, whereas elan vital was a fallacy, quality is real.

[Tamminen]

We walk with our legs, see with our eyes, think with our brains...

This can also be expressed in this way: The subject-object relation is the subject's relation to the material universe. Consciousness is the subjective side of this relation and the body, as part of the material universe, is its objective side. It is one and the same relation, but there necessarily appears two conceptually incompatible layers of description, e.g. qualia vs. brain events. Therefore we have a mind-body correspondence or parallelism.

[JamesOfSeattle]

If qualia were to be measured against a public criterion would that make James believe that qualia are both physical and mental?

I do believe that qualia are both physical and mental: qualia are a class of physical, information processing events.

And that no machine at this present time qualifies its learning?

I'm not sure I understood this sentence, but I will agree to something near ... no machine at this present time "qualiafies" it's experiences. I have said that qualia are experiences plus the further experiences that directly result, so the qualia of seeing red is the original experience of seeing red plus further experiences that are triggered by the first recognition of red. To date most machines have not been built to generate further experiences (recognitions) after the first, so their qualia would be minimal. Okay, if you want to require that qualia requires at least one further experience beyond the original recognition, then you could say they don't have qualia. However, there are people working on machine architectures that are more like the architectures in the human brain. IBM and Chris Eliasmith (not associated with IBM) come to mind. I haven't verified this, but I anticipate that these architectures will be getting closer to human-like qualia. I think they will be related to what Eliasmith calls semantic pointers.

James, whereas elan vital was a fallacy, quality is real.

I'm pretty sure that the people who came up with the idea of elan vital thought it was real, until it wasn't.

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[The Beast]

The view and definition of qualia is one of “evolving”. The spectrum of “existing qualia” is one of minimums in the case of basic elements of the periodic table. How do they (the elements) change if at all. I might agree that elements possess qualia in the minimal sense without any detectable consciousness by the standard of living cells. It is then that qualia is the property of consciousness or the white canvas or the Noema on which the experience of living or the self writes its own story. In the case of Human, it absorbs the metaphysical. As to whether we could give life to the elements by speeding the process of change in some procedural algorithm it is in the realm of possibility. But, it is my view that the white canvas is called Believe. A metaphysical property from which consciousness arises and changes the nature of reality. Can we reproduce the metaphysical? (The canvas from which the concept arises). If instead the canvas is an artificial light, a reproduction based on known beliefs that could change at the speed of rational light. LOL, what will happens to us irrational beings?

[SimpleGuy]

The problem is how to define consciousness within the scope of computer science. If it's just mere inference and unification in higher order modal-logics this is ok. But this is not the whole problem. The interaction of a system with the real world counts and the mere simulation of behaviour. One should think about that the optical and accoustical perception as well as haptical perception within a system should be equivalent in understanding to that of a human beeing. The mere comprehension of a book can not be formulated simply by higher order logics as well as belief desire intention logical systems are not fully fit to enhance the simulation of a human mind. IBM watson uses stochastic inference and inference systems , but it's quite complicated for this system to find out what the user wants and it would be even more complicated to understand a very complex novel from the beginning to the end.

[Belindi]

Conscious individuals don't share the same nervous system unlike AI machines which can transfer exactly the same information between one AI machine and other AI machines.

[JamesOfSeattle]

Belinda, I don't see what difference that makes. Besides, some conscious individuals do share the same nervous system. See
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5916013/do-these ... sciousness

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[Atreyu]

Exactly why is life necessary for consciousness?

Because only life has the necessary awareness and energy from whence consciousness can arise.

Exactly what does life have that a man-made machine cannot ever have? What can life do that a machine can never do? And don't just say "consciousness", because that would be assuming the conclusion.

Life has a certain matter/energy which machines do not have, by definition. Some people might call this life/energy present in life but not in non-life the "soul" or "life force". But whatever it is, there is no doubt that living organisms have a certain energy or force (and this implies a certain corresponding matter) that non-living objects do not have. We detect a certain animation in living things which we do not detect in non-living matter.

I kind of agree that life is a prerequisite for consciousness, but only in the same way that life is a prerequisite for playing chess. But that doesn't mean a machine can't be made to play chess.

Of course a machine can be made to play chess. Just like a horse can be made to run and a boulder can be made to roll down a hill. This has nothing to do with consciousness.

A conscious entity can make itself play chess, something the computer will never be able to do....

[Belindi]

Belinda, I don't see what difference that makes. Besides, some conscious individuals do share the same nervous system. See
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5916013/do-these ... sciousness

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For the Hogan twins, this raises the interesting possibility that they may share both sensory experiences and conscious thoughts.

A first rate example of the exception that proves the rule.

-- Updated September 12th, 2017, 3:31 am to add the following --

Belinda, I don't see what difference that makes. Besides, some conscious individuals do share the same nervous system. See
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5916013/do-these ... sciousness

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For the Hogan twins, this raises the interesting possibility that they may share both sensory experiences and conscious thoughts.

A first rate example of the exception that proves the rule.

James of Seattle wrote;

I'm pretty sure that the people who came up with the idea of elan vital thought it was real, until it wasn't.

All empirical claims have an inductive gap. Elan vital fell through the gap. Quality is still on the table.

[Tamminen]

I can make an experiment: always when I see yellow, I observe feature X among my brain events, and always when I observe feature X among my brain events I see yellow. Now I can say that seeing yellow is X, and that is true in a sense. But can you imagine a robot making that experiment? Perhaps you can.

All in all, I would say that robots behave and "think" within the rules we have made, whereas we cannot find any fixed rules in us if we do not believe in the rules God has given us when he created us from dust. What motivates a robot? And all conscious beings we know die. What does it mean to say a robot dies?

[Belindi]

Tamminem, I like your thought experiment, above. When I imagine a robot doing that experiment the robot ceases to be a robot. The robot that remains a robot lacks subjectivity, and subjectivity is strongly implied by the presence of , not one, but both of the variables in the correlation.
Each variable by itself is necessary for subjecthood, but the two variables significantly in concert together are sufficient for subjecthood.

-- Updated September 12th, 2017, 8:03 am to add the following --

One may object that the robot is telling lies. Can robots tell lies?

[JamesOfSeattle]

I can make an experiment: always when I see yellow, I observe feature X among my brain events, and always when I observe feature X among my brain events I see yellow. Now I can say that seeing yellow is X, and that is true in a sense. But can you imagine a robot making that experiment? Perhaps you can.

Yup.

All in all, I would say that robots behave and "think" within the rules we have made

Except when they teach themselves how to play Go

whereas we cannot find any fixed rules in us

AlphaGo knows nothing of the rules by which it functions, just like us. Well, we know some of the rules, because we have general intelligence. We haven't made robots with general intelligence, yet.

What motivates a robot?

Depends on how it's built. What motivates Watson to give questions in response to answers? Something does.

What does it mean to say a robot dies?

It means that it stops working as expected with the expectation that it will never work again. Just like when my car died. Same with people. Used to be that when your heart stopped, you were dead.

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[Belindi]

James of Seattle wrote:

I do believe that qualia are both physical and mental: qualia are a class of physical, information processing events.

But if qualia were nothing but physical events your nearest and dearest, at least, could experience your perceptions.

An AI machine can share information with us and with other AI machines. AI machines' conceptualisations are digital: our conceptualisations are analogical, aided by digital methods.

For the above reason it's confusing to say that AI machines have minds, can learn from the aspect of mind. Minds as usually understood imply privileged access.

For Descartes, we still have privileged access even in the doubt scenario. That is, for him we would retain self-knowledge even in those extreme situations in which we can't have knowledge about anything else.

Gilbert Ryle, on the other hand, maintains a diametrically opposed view. According to the behaviorism of Ryle, each of us knows our own thoughts in the same way we know other's thoughts. We only come to know the thoughts of others through their linguistic and bodily behaviors, and must do exactly the same in order to know our own thoughts. There is no privileged access. We only have access to what we think upon evidences supplied through our own actions.

-- Updated September 13th, 2017, 5:04 am to add the following --

When I wanted to recall that phrase 'privileged access' I consulted my own personal memories, which are memories of events from my perspective and mine alone. You could not have a clue as to the connotations that I personally cluster around the half-remembered phrase. Another person would recall the same phrase according to their own personal and unique memory systems.

Once I had recalled the phrase which I sought:

the AI called Google however found the philosophical commentary on 'privileged access' according to a publicly available method which other computers follow in an identical manner.

[Tamminen]

I surrender. James really seems to think that there is no fundamental difference between us and robots. Maybe some day we'll see machine-Hamlets struggling about the meaning of being and planning suicide.

Some philosophers say that philosophical discussion is impossible because we speak of different things. Sometimes I think they are right. But, on the other hand, in this case there seems to be a concrete question, but still we cannot find a common language. What is the problem with us?

It cannot be a matter of evidence. Materialists and idealists, for instance, have the same evidence, but their world views differ from each other in a profound way. No common language. No fruitful debate. Pity.

Maybe some of us look outwards, others inwards, and we see two different worlds.

[Steve3007]

Tamminen, I think the questions you asked in that last post are interesting enough that it might be worth starting a new topic from them.