Machine Consciousness Experiment Conceivability

[SteveKlinko]

Answer 1) I don't think I have ever said that PSp is Primary, in fact the website has a whole section on the Primacy of Consciousness. I say that PSp and CSp both exist as separate and different Phenomena. Conscious Space could even be prior to PSp.

Then, how would you explain a causality trajectory from Physical World (=PSp?) to Consious World?

"Today it is clear that there is a causality trajectory from the Physical World to the Conscious World and not the other way around."

That was part of a discussion on the Visual Experience I was having with Idealists who think that the Redness Experience happens in their Minds and that causes the Neural Activity in their Brains. I was pointing out that Idealism preaches a Reverse Causality Trajectory like this. The reality of the situation is that the Neural Activity in the Brain causes or produces in some way the Redness Experience.

Answer 2) The Machine Consciousness Experiments do not Simulate Conscious Space, but rather they try to Connect to a theoretically already Existing Conscious Space.

Is there a theory or clue available for the potential to connect a machine to Conscious Space?

Quantum Mechanics has been linked to Consciousness from its conception back in the 20's.

Answer 3) Machines can become Conscious just like the Human Brain machine has become Conscious. Both Connect to Consciousness but are not Conscious in and of themselves.

Do you consider a brain to be a machine that operates out of itself and facilitates consciousness?

Yes, if I understand the question.

What about my criticism with regard the argument that the senses are primary, and that the potential for sensing, which is moral valuing must therefore underlay consciousness a priori in the face of a physical brain?

You are saying the word Sensing and Moral Valuing as if they are connected things. I take Sensing to mean things like the Visual Experience or the Hearing Experience. No Moral Valuing there.

Did you consider the thought experiment: "What can possibly 'say' (figuratively speaking) that it has sensed when it had never sensed? "

The 'brain in a vat' idea (purely empirical Machine Volition) is nonsensical. A brain is a posteriori in the face of the senses and the senses are a posteriori in the face of the potential required for sensing, which is moral valuing which itself derives its potential from what can be indicated as pure meaning or 'good per se'.

Yes I forgot. I think from this that you seem to have Idealist Reverse Causality Trajectory beliefs.

[Sculptor1]

That was part of a discussion on the Visual Experience I was having with Idealists who think that the Redness Experience happens in their Minds and that causes the Neural Activity in their Brains. I was pointing out that Idealism preaches a Reverse Causality Trajectory like this. The reality of the situation is that the Neural Activity in the Brain causes or produces in some way the Redness Experience.

This way of thinking tend to trip up many discussion.
It is not the experience that causes the neural activity in a "mind" or in a "brain". Neither is it the other way round.
Both ways of thinking are obviously wrong.

The neural activity IS THE experience. "Neural activity" is just another way - an objective way of describing the subjective experience. They are the same thing.

[GE Morton]

Well, you're making the opposite mistake SteveKlinko makes. While there is indeed no evidence of "consciousness" understood as some sort of substance ("realm of existence," field, entity, etc.), evidence that it exists as a property of certain systems is ubiquitous and beyond question. The term "conscious" applies to systems which exhibit certain distinctive patterns of behavior. It also denotes the subjective phenomena we experience in the course of our waking lives, and which we infer others also experience, based on their behavior.

That statement is not valid. There is no scientific evidence for consciousness.

"Consciousness" has two referents. 1), a distinctive class of behaviors exhibited by certain systems, and 2) internal, experiential phenomena inferred to accompany those behaviors. You're correct that there is, and can be, no empirical evidence for the latter, at least with respect to systems other than ourselves (as I acknowledged above). There is abundant empirical evidence for "consciousness" in the first sense.

When it concerns consciousness (meaningful experience) it concerns an aspect that is impossible to grasp or explain within the scope of empirical value (the foundation of scientific evidence) so that any argument by which it can be said that consciousness is to be considered a factor would originate from one's assignment of value to one's own conscious experience.

Well, you seem to be using "value" in some idiosyncratic way. I have no idea what "empirical value" might be. Are you referring to say, the value of (for example) of an electrical current read by an ammeter? Value assignments are one of the categories of conscious experience, but not all conscious experience involves values or assignment of values.

The philosophical zombie theory illustrates the problem and shows that science cannot explain consciousness (meaningful experience).

Science can't explain "consciousness" in the 2nd sense above. It can explain it the first sense.

[GE Morton]

Your argumentation is an argumentation of a believer based on believed premises. The arguments you are applying have been applied in ancient times to "prove" the existence of "the soul". Concomitant concepts of "consciousness" have inherited much from concomitant concepts of "soul" but "consciousness" appears to be more satisfying for the secular believer.
No reasonable person would posit "consciousness" on the basis of "certain distinctive patterns of behavior" of a computer/robot.

Well, that is quite obviously false. Those patterns of behavior are the only evidence we have, and the only evidence we need, to ascribe consciousness
to a system. When a doctor says, "The patient is now conscious," his only evidence is that patient's behavior. If you assume another person is conscious, your only evidence is his behavior. If you consider your cat, but not your sofa, to be conscious it will be on the basis their behaviors (or lack of them). As for computers/robots, if their (relevant) behaviors are indistinguishable from those of persons, then if you wish to be consistent you'll deem them conscious also (that is Turing's criteria).

In the same way once the material basis and the mechanisms of the functionings of human organisms will be known ("functioning" including all kinds of alleged "subjective experiences" which are aspects of self-regulation) the word "consciousness" will become meaningless.

Now, why would you conclude that? Because we know how an airplane works, does "flying" become meaningless? As long as there is a perceptible difference between cats and sofas "consciousness" will be meaningful.

[GE Morton]

Conscious Space is not Panpsychism. Panpsychism is the theory that all matter has an element of Consciousness built in. So even an Electron is slightly Conscious. I promote the Connection Perspective of Connectism. Connectism stipulates the there is a Conscious Space that is separate from normal Space which we can call Physical Space.

It is just another ontological dualism with a different label.

Of course all variables of the Experiment must be analyzed and properly controlled. It will only be after years of running these kinds of Experiments that we would be confident in any results. There were a number of false positives during the initial runs of these Experiments. But the real problem was that the fidelity of these Experiments were only as good as could be done in a home lab situation and with a limited budget.

You're not considering the problem mentioned above. Those experiments are all occurring in "physical space." They are using physical instruments, measuring physical forces and phenomena. Any result obtained will be a physical result. If you wish to attribute a certain result to intervention from a "Conscious space," you'll face the same "explanatory gap" neurologists and physicists now face in trying to derive subjective phenomena from neural phenomena. Nor is QM a "magic bullet" which can bridge that gap. QM is just another physical theory derived from observation of physical phenomena and applicable only to physical phenomena. It doesn't transcend those phenomena.

[GE Morton]

What about my criticism with regard the argument that the senses are primary, and that the potential for sensing, which is moral valuing must therefore underlay consciousness a priori in the face of a physical brain?

Well, that is mysterious. First, you seem to be equating morality (deontology) with valuing (axiology). Those are two different subjects. Also, "potential for sensing" is so vague as to be useless. A photodiode has a potential for sensing, as does a neuron. But those potentials have nothing to do with either morality or values, as far as I can see, except in the sense that a stimulus must have a certain strength value before it can trigger one of those potentials. Can you elaborate on this?

[SteveKlinko]

Conscious Space is not Panpsychism. Panpsychism is the theory that all matter has an element of Consciousness built in. So even an Electron is slightly Conscious. I promote the Connection Perspective of Connectism. Connectism stipulates the there is a Conscious Space that is separate from normal Space which we can call Physical Space.

It is just another ontological dualism with a different label.

Of course all variables of the Experiment must be analyzed and properly controlled. It will only be after years of running these kinds of Experiments that we would be confident in any results. There were a number of false positives during the initial runs of these Experiments. But the real problem was that the fidelity of these Experiments were only as good as could be done in a home lab situation and with a limited budget.

You're not considering the problem mentioned above. Those experiments are all occurring in "physical space." They are using physical instruments, measuring physical forces and phenomena. Any result obtained will be a physical result. If you wish to attribute a certain result to intervention from a "Conscious space," you'll face the same "explanatory gap" neurologists and physicists now face in trying to derive subjective phenomena from neural phenomena. Nor is QM a "magic bullet" which can bridge that gap. QM is just another physical theory derived from observation of physical phenomena and applicable only to physical phenomena. It doesn't transcend those phenomena.

Even the Human Brain occurs in Physical Space but we know the Human Brain is Connected to Conscious Space. Or at least this is what we assume for the sake of this Experiment. The anticipation is that a Machine that can also be Connected to Conscious Space with the right point of view. Wave Functions are not Physical things (they are Mathematical Contrivances) but Wave Functions seem to control where Electrons are located in a Probabilistic way. The results of the Experiment are dependent on whether there is a Consciousness in Conscious Space that could interact and affect Wave Functions to influence where the Electrons are Probabilistically located. In other words the Interaction must be at a Probabilistic level of reality. We don't know exactly what this is or how the interaction could happen, but the Machine Consciousness Experiments are an attempt to find out if it even does happen.

[GE Morton]

Even the Human Brain occurs in Physical Space but we know the Human Brain is Connected to Conscious Space. Or at least this is what we assume for the sake of this Experiment.

Yes, that is the assumption, and because "conscious space" has no empirical basis and is not even well-defined, it is a vacuous assumption.

The anticipation is that a Machine that can also be Connected to Conscious Space with the right point of view.

"Points of view" don't establish empirically confirmable connections.

Wave Functions are not Physical things (they are Mathematical Contrivances) but Wave Functions seem to control where Electrons are located in a Probabilistic way.

Wave functions are indeed mathematical constructs. The waves, however, are measurable physical phenomena. The functions are just descriptions of their behavior. The functions don't control that behavior; they only describe it.

The results of the Experiment are dependent on whether there is a Consciousness in Conscious Space that could interact and affect Wave Functions to influence where the Electrons are Probabilistically located.

Well, physicists would argue that any results obtained would be explicable entirely in terms of physical variables. No observed result would lend any support to intervention from a mysterious "conscious space." Such an assumption would have no more explanatory power than "Goddidit." Your "Conscious space" is just a deux ex machina.

[stevie]

Your argumentation is an argumentation of a believer based on believed premises. The arguments you are applying have been applied in ancient times to "prove" the existence of "the soul". Concomitant concepts of "consciousness" have inherited much from concomitant concepts of "soul" but "consciousness" appears to be more satisfying for the secular believer.
No reasonable person would posit "consciousness" on the basis of "certain distinctive patterns of behavior" of a computer/robot.

Well, that is quite obviously false.

So you believe that a reasonable person would posit the consciousness of a computer/robot. Well,

Those patterns of behavior are the only evidence we have, and the only evidence we need, to ascribe consciousness to a system.

There is no scientific evidence for the ascription of "consciousness". The ascription is based exclusively on mere belief in "consciousness".

In the same way once the material basis and the mechanisms of the functionings of human organisms will be known ("functioning" including all kinds of alleged "subjective experiences" which are aspects of self-regulation) the word "consciousness" will become meaningless.

Now, why would you conclude that? Because we know how an airplane works, does "flying" become meaningless?

Strawman. Because it is known how an airplane works a reasonable person would not ascribe "consciousness" to an airplane. It's the same with human organisms: once the material basis and the mechanisms of the functionings of human organisms will be known ("functioning" including all kinds of alleged "subjective experiences" which are aspects of self-regulation) the word "consciousness" will become meaningless.
So we have the correspondences of 'airplane <-> human organisms' and 'flying <-> human behaviour'.

[stevie]

I find Churchland's outline of today's outlooks on the "consciousness" issue helpful:

1. Dualism
1.1 Substance Dualism
1.2 Property Dualism
2. Philosophical Behaviorism
3. Reductive Materialism (the Identity Theory)
4. Functionalism
5. Eliminative Materialism

[GE Morton]

So you believe that a reasonable person would posit the consciousness of a computer/robot. Well,

Not to any existing computers or robots. But you're studiously avoiding the substance of the claim, which is that if a computer or robot exhibited behaviors relevantly similar to those of humans, then we would have the same grounds for imputing consciousness to them as we do for humans.

Those patterns of behavior are the only evidence we have, and the only evidence we need, to ascribe consciousness to a system.

There is no scientific evidence for the ascription of "consciousness". The ascription is based exclusively on mere belief in "consciousness".

Sorry, but if by "scientific" evidence you mean empirical evidence, then we certainly do have it. Behavioral evidence is the only evidence we do have for attributing consciousness to anyone other than ourselves. Or are you perhaps arguing that "consciousness" is a meaningless term applicable to no one or no thing? Do you prefer a different term for describing the behavioral differences between your wife, neighbor, co-worker, cat, on the one hand, and your sofa, bicycle, and potted geranium on the other? Or are you claiming there are no behavioral differences?

You seem to be ignoring the point made earlier, that "consciousness" has two referents: it denotes, on one hand, certain patterns of behavior --- which are empirical phenomena --- and also certain internal, phenomenal states that we infer accompany those behaviors. We know those internal states exist in ourselves, because we experience them directly. We infer that they also exist in others, because that assumption renders their behaviors explicable.

Strawman. Because it is known how an airplane works a reasonable person would not ascribe "consciousness" to an airplane.

No one has ascribed consciousness to an airplane. The point was that flying is a property, a behavior, of airplanes, just as consciousness is a property, a behavior, of certain organisms. Understanding the mechanisms underlying/enabling those behaviors doesn't render the terms for those behaviors meaningless or redundant.

[GE Morton]

I find Churchland's outline of today's outlooks on the "consciousness" issue helpful:

1. Dualism
1.1 Substance Dualism
1.2 Property Dualism
2. Philosophical Behaviorism
3. Reductive Materialism (the Identity Theory)
4. Functionalism
5. Eliminative Materialism

The "mind-body" problem indeed derives from a dualism, but it is only a linguistic dualism, two different vocabularies that are not inter-translatable or reconcilable. But it has no ontological implications.

[stevie]

Strawman. Because it is known how an airplane works a reasonable person would not ascribe "consciousness" to an airplane.

The point was that ... consciousness is a behavior, of certain organisms. ...

That's hilarious.

[GE Morton]

Strawman. Because it is known how an airplane works a reasonable person would not ascribe "consciousness" to an airplane.

The point was that ... consciousness is a behavior, of certain organisms. ...

That's hilarious.

Ah. So you have no substantive rebuttals to offer.

[stevie]

Strawman. Because it is known how an airplane works a reasonable person would not ascribe "consciousness" to an airplane.

The point was that ... consciousness is a behavior, of certain organisms. ...

That's hilarious.

Ah. So you have no substantive rebuttals to offer.

Well sorry but someone who claims to see "consciousness" as a visible "behavior, of certain organisms" seems to be beyond the reach of all words.