Can a man-made computer become conscious?
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
Conscious is the Holy Grail, the vessel that holds the Essence, the Soul,
the Spirit of each and every Individual Person, Place or Thing, the seed, the Passion, of all Living things.
The Vessel itself being without form, shape, design.
In its own Right said Vessel has no relative, numerical, physical, material, worth, value, has a numerical value of Zero-0, being that is omnisciently Infinite, Immense, Boundless.
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
- Atreyu
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
How very strange. You say that one must define consciousness in order to answer the question, then you proceed to answer the question without defining consciousness!Ashurean wrote: ↑January 25th, 2018, 1:31 pm To answer this, you would have to define what consciousness really is. I'm non-religious, so I'll be ignoring the concept of an immutable "soul" or essence that gives us definition. In essence, consciousness appears to be a kind of chaotic principle filtered down into a different, comprehensible form. However, saying that this is something that is unique to humanity is foolish. Consider the concept of the Boltzmann Brain, in which even inanimate matter can, with significant chaotic intervention, become conscious. But the full concept of consciousness in this and other examples may not even be something we would recognize. We may possess one of many forms of consciousness, a result of the specific predicaments and evolutionary changes our species has dealt with. Consider the process of unsupervised deep learning, which uses a process similar to the ones we use to learn. It is my belief that a computer can become "conscious", using processes such as that. To what degree and in what form this consciousness makes itself apparent may vary.
But I do agree with your point.
However, it's very difficult to define consciousness because it's ordinarily something we only imagine in ourselves. And, as everyone knows, it's not possible to define something you've never experienced, or something you've perhaps briefly experienced but have completely forgotten about...
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
- Sy Borg
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
Yet would it have qualia? It seems to me that the body's energetic processing is at least somewhat responsible for qualia, a sense of being.
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
I suggest the following necessary and sufficient preconditions for a quale event:
1. Short term memory
2. Primal evaluation of pleasure/pain.
3. Unbreachable and privileged access to individually differentiated brain/mind events.
I think that computers are okay for 1. Not sure about 2. with regard to computers. With regard to 3. computers replicate events with 100% accuracy therefor they lack this precondition for qualia.
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
How Great is the Great Void, Infinite !
Consciousness is likened to a tea cup that can never be Filed, and Empty Space, exists without form, shape or design.
Consciousness is omnipresent, omniscient, Boundless, Infinite, is not measurable as to Location and Momentum in Space-Time, falls under the vale of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.
Consciousness is a non-Material, is a Spiritual Reality, Consciousness indwelling in the Flesh Body of Man as the Immoral Spirit of God.
So say I, Hermes Trismegistus, "Lord of the Ring, Keeper of the Holy Grail, ---->0, Ye, amen, Make it so"!
- JamesOfSeattle
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
Belindi, I’m not sure about 2 either. It seems a qualia of “red” could be had in the absence of pleasure or pain.Belindi wrote: ↑March 15th, 2018, 6:20 amI suggest the following necessary and sufficient preconditions for a quale event:
1. Short term memory
2. Primal evaluation of pleasure/pain.
3. Unbreachable and privileged access to individually differentiated brain/mind events.
I think that computers are okay for 1. Not sure about 2. with regard to computers. With regard to 3. computers replicate events with 100% accuracy therefor they lack this precondition for qualia.
With regard to 3, I agree with the precondition, but disagree that it disqualifies computers. (BTW, what does accuracy have to do with it?) When considering computers with regard to access to mind events, you need to consider it from the perspective of the software that is running on the computer. It’s the software that has access to “feels”.
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
What accuracy has to do with it is that computers' memories are all the same memories whereas humans' memories are peculiarly interpreted by each of the individuals that have the memories. So computers don't interpret as individuals. In this lies their weakness. Unless there is dialectic there isn't any change, there's nothing but agreement and so the end of history and the end of being itself.With regard to 3, I agree with the precondition, but disagree that it disqualifies computers. (BTW, what does accuracy have to do with it?) When considering computers with regard to access to mind events, you need to consider it from the perspective of the software that is running on the computer. It’s the software that has access to “feels”.
The information from computing is like mathematics, closed. Insofar as reality is information reality is open-ended information.It may be objected that computing is merely a tool with a tool's limitations and uses the better the tool generally the better its specific application to a task.You may use a bit of cheese rind as a book mark but it isn't a very good one for obvious reasons. A computer and its software is a tool and the better it is the less it adapts to genuine novelty. The users of the tool which is a computer may of course use the machine and its software for open-endedly synthesising all manner of things
- JamesOfSeattle
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
Belindi, I don’t think you understood my point about software. AlphaZero is the computer that taught itself to play Go, except that AlphaZero is not the computer, it’s the software. If you ran AlphaZero on a different computer it would still teach itself to play Go, but it’s play could be be slightly different. It’s “memories” would not all be the same as the original.
They can if they are programmed to..So computers don't interpret as individuals.
If you program the computer to learn about reality, it’s learning is as open-ended as reality itself.The information from computing is like mathematics, closed. Insofar as reality is information reality is open-ended information.
It may be objected that a chicken is merely a tool for making eggs with a tool’s limitations. You may use a chicken as a guard dog, but it isn’t a good one for obvious reasons. My point is that the status of being a tool really doesn’t have anything to do with consciousness.It may be objected that computing is merely a tool with a tool's limitations and uses the better the tool generally the better its specific application to a task.
I don’t think you really mean this. Adaptation to novelty is likely to be a very important capability of computer/robots.A computer and its software is a tool and the better it is the less it adapts to genuine novelty.
Like when I use my computer(robot) by saying “Go to Mars and build me a nice hotel there”, and it does.The users of the tool which is a computer may of course use the machine and its software for open-endedly synthesising all manner of things
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
I think that's a neat functional summary of consciousness.Jan Sand wrote: ↑March 13th, 2018, 8:21 pm I have thought about my sense of existence for a long time and, as I've indicated elsewhere, consciousness seems to me to be an instrument of the brain to navigate life through simulating reality by manufacturing a personal version of it by arranging the continuous patterns of nerve stimulations into some kind of sensible self consistent totality which it modifies continuously as new stimulants arise. In other words its a dynamic map of whats going on within and outside the body. The consciousness is a representation of itself on that map. Aside from nerve input, the brain is more or less isolated from what goes on outside the body but this reality simulation contains enough information to permit the entire person to exist and, hopefully, prosper.
The big mystery lies in how a functioning physical system gives rise to experiential states.
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
''Insofar as reality is information...''
Can you explain what you mean by ''information'' here? My idea of ''information'' is that it's no more than a type of representation of reality, so this doesn't make sense to me
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Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
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