Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Lagayascienza]

By “compute” I mean fundamental processes such as judging the distance between two objects or performing an arithmetic operation. You say brains cannot do this. They clearly do. And so do computers.

I do not say that this alone makes our current computers intelligent or conscious. For that, computers would need to be more like brains. They key to making them more like brains would be to first discover in more detail how brains do what they do and then to build a machine that does what the brain does. That must be possible in principle because intelligence and consciousness do not happen by magic. They are the result of processes which occur in physical brains. There is no reason why, in principle, these processes could not occur in non-organic brains.

This does not mean that intelligent and conscious machines would have to be exact replicas of brains. They would just need to do the job. When we built flying machines they did not need to be exactly like birds that flap their wings. Now our flying machines fly faster and higher than birds. Similarly, intelligent machines will one day surpass humans.

[Count Lucanor]

There are things going on in all physical systems that aren't happening in others, regardless of whether they're biological systems or not. And, as I said, non-biological systems also have emergent properties that exist in the system as a whole but not in its parts. I don't think biological systems have a monopoly on emergent properties.

It’s hard to process the logic of your statement, so you’ll have to help me out. If things happen in ALL physical systems, what are the “others” in which they are not? The only logical explanation would be: the ones that are not physical, but is that what you’re trying to point at?
I have no issue with other systems outside of the biological domain having emergent properties, since that does not affect my stance on the type of complexity found in biological systems, still different from that of non-biological systems and non-reducible to them.

Yes, there are clearly extreme complexities in modelling extremely complex systems. But Searle's point, which you've said you agree with, is not simply that complexity creates practical problems in succesfully creating software replicas of natural neural networks (brains). It is a more fundamental point than that. It is that these natural neural networks could never, in principle as well as practice be replicated, due to the point about syntax versus semantics. That's the part I don't buy, because it seems to me inconsistent with the view that non-biological physical systems can (at least in principle) be replicated.

Again, you seem to be equating replication with simulation, but I disagree that they are the same. BTW, Searle concedes in principle that any physical system could be simulated in a computer model. Replication implies something else, it means making an exact copy or doing things exactly the same way, which in no way resembles a simulation. Pilots use flight simulators in training, but not flight replicators. So, by definition, computers cannot replicate the physical systems they intend to simulate. In order to find the equivalence between physical systems and computers, what they do is to claim that physical systems are, ultimately, syntactical systems, but that’s precisely what people like Searle and myself have a beef with. The physics is missing, it all supposedly boils down to all things in nature running a sort of software.

If you draw this hard/discrete distinction between non-biological and biological systems then you're left with a general problem applying to hard distinctions: At what arbitrarily chosen point in the set of Nature's complex systems to do you say "on this side are biological systems that can be replicated in software and on the other side are biological systems that can't". It's similar (I think) to the problem faced by people who decide that humans are fundamentally distinct from the rest of the living world - placing a dividing line in a continuum.

Again, unless we thought physical systems are running some type of natural software (and I think that’s not the case), computer software is not replicating anything. It’s impossible by definition. Then we get to what is left: simulations, but there’s where the complexities of biological systems we can hardly understand, play a role in making it extremely difficult to build their models, much more than a wind system or fluid flows. Our approximation to modeling the mind system has been the computational metaphor, which we are here discussing.

Actually, there's no replication whatsoever, unless we accepted as "replication" any virtual simulation, but that's not a very good idea. Emergent properties arise as the result of actual physical interactions. To expect that physical properties will emerge just the same in a completely virtual domain amounts to fooling ourselves. We are dealing there with representations made with algorithmic processes, not the actual stuff, which is why the computational metaphor has been taken too far.

Emergent properties (properties that exist in the system as a whole but not its components) can and do emerge in computer simulations. If those properties arise as a result of those physical interactions, and if the physical interactions are successfully simulated/replicated, why would you think they would not?

Whatever can emerge from software, it cannot have the physical emergent properties of the physical system it simulates. That would count as magic.

[Sy Borg]

There are things going on in all physical systems that aren't happening in others, regardless of whether they're biological systems or not. And, as I said, non-biological systems also have emergent properties that exist in the system as a whole but not in its parts. I don't think biological systems have a monopoly on emergent properties.

It’s hard to process the logic of your statement, so you’ll have to help me out. If things happen in ALL physical systems, what are the “others” in which they are not? The only logical explanation would be: the ones that are not physical, but is that what you’re trying to point at?
I have no issue with other systems outside of the biological domain having emergent properties, since that does not affect my stance on the type of complexity found in biological systems, still different from that of non-biological systems and non-reducible to them.

He is saying that some physical systems will have qualities not seen in other physical systems. He is not referring to "non-physical systems", just other physical systems. This applies to both biological and non-biological systems.

Gosh, I just said "systems" a lot.

[Pattern-chaser]

It's similar (I think) to the problem faced by people who decide that humans are fundamentally distinct from the rest of the living world - placing a dividing line in a continuum.

It's remarkable how often people attempt this, not even realising exactly what it is that they're attempting. Talk to these people of a "grey area", and they will look at you strange ... or treat you as an imbecile.

[Count Lucanor]

By “compute” I mean fundamental processes such as judging the distance between two objects or performing an arithmetic operation. You say brains cannot do this. They clearly do. And so do computers.

To compute is to perform mathematical and logical operations, using formal rules that constitute the syntax. Humans compute, in fact the firsts computers were human teams performing tedious mathematical calculations. Syntactic rules behind mathematical and logical operations, though, are a human artifice, I find very unlikely that they are hardwired in humans brains as if they were natural computers. Our intuitions and perceptions about space and time relations must be of some other nature, not intrinsically mathematical. I don’t think spiders or birds calculate distances with an internal mathematical language, either. OTOH, computers can compute just because humans have transposed their mathematical language (formal logic is sort of a mathematical language) to the machines. That’s why when the metaphor of the computational mine is used, Searle warns about the homunculus fallacy, as if a little man inside our bodies was consciously doing the math.

I do not say that this alone makes our current computers intelligent or conscious. For that, computers would need to be more like brains. They key to making them more like brains would be to first discover in more detail how brains do what they do and then to build a machine that does what the brain does. That must be possible in principle because intelligence and consciousness do not happen by magic. They are the result of processes which occur in physical brains. There is no reason why, in principle, these processes could not occur in non-organic brains.

I have a strong feeling that this would be a failed project, among other things, for the simple reason that such approach assumes cognition to be the business of an isolated brain, which I think is a legacy of mind-body dualism. If we want to build intelligent machines, we will have to build artificial organisms.

This does not mean that intelligent and conscious machines would have to be exact replicas of brains. They would just need to do the job. When we built flying machines they did not need to be exactly like birds that flap their wings. Now our flying machines fly faster and higher than birds. Similarly, intelligent machines will one day surpass humans.

The problem right now seems to be that, trapped in the hype of the Turing-based computational metaphor, engineers are looking for the equivalent of flapping wings in the form of algorithms. Machines will not be intelligent that way, although as any technology, they will be instrumental to humans for implementing processes that surpass innate human abilities.

[Count Lucanor]

There are things going on in all physical systems that aren't happening in others, regardless of whether they're biological systems or not. And, as I said, non-biological systems also have emergent properties that exist in the system as a whole but not in its parts. I don't think biological systems have a monopoly on emergent properties.

It’s hard to process the logic of your statement, so you’ll have to help me out. If things happen in ALL physical systems, what are the “others” in which they are not? The only logical explanation would be: the ones that are not physical, but is that what you’re trying to point at?
I have no issue with other systems outside of the biological domain having emergent properties, since that does not affect my stance on the type of complexity found in biological systems, still different from that of non-biological systems and non-reducible to them.

He is saying that some physical systems will have qualities not seen in other physical systems. He is not referring to "non-physical systems", just other physical systems. This applies to both biological and non-biological systems.

Gosh, I just said "systems" a lot.

Sure, but Steve3007 said ALL physical systems vs other (physical) systems. “All” and “other” point to two mutually exclusive sets, yet we are told one belongs to the other.

[Sy Borg]

There are things going on in all physical systems that aren't happening in others, regardless of whether they're biological systems or not. And, as I said, non-biological systems also have emergent properties that exist in the system as a whole but not in its parts. I don't think biological systems have a monopoly on emergent properties.

It’s hard to process the logic of your statement, so you’ll have to help me out. If things happen in ALL physical systems, what are the “others” in which they are not? The only logical explanation would be: the ones that are not physical, but is that what you’re trying to point at?
I have no issue with other systems outside of the biological domain having emergent properties, since that does not affect my stance on the type of complexity found in biological systems, still different from that of non-biological systems and non-reducible to them.

He is saying that some physical systems will have qualities not seen in other physical systems. He is not referring to "non-physical systems", just other physical systems. This applies to both biological and non-biological systems.

Gosh, I just said "systems" a lot.

Sure, but Steve3007 said ALL physical systems vs other (physical) systems. “All” and “other” point to two mutually exclusive sets, yet we are told one belongs to the other.

I see no problem with enclosed sets that differ. The differences occur due to emergence. For example, biology emerged from organic chemicals. Thus, biology is a subset of organic chemistry, yet biology has qualities not present in non-living carbon-based chemicals.

[Count Lucanor]

I’m sure he meant something else and will clarify. A side discussion, not a major issue, but it’s a purely logical problem: anything that affects the set of ALL physical things necessarily affects everything in that set. If something in that set is not affected, then the expression “ALL” is not valid:

Breathing oxygen is something that happens to ALL humans alive.
But breathing oxygen is something that does not happen to other humans alive.

[Lagayascienza]

By “compute” I mean fundamental processes such as judging the distance between two objects or performing an arithmetic operation. You say brains cannot do this. They clearly do. And so do computers.

To compute is to perform mathematical and logical operations, using formal rules that constitute the syntax. Humans compute, in fact the firsts computers were human teams performing tedious mathematical calculations. Syntactic rules behind mathematical and logical operations, though, are a human artifice, I find very unlikely that they are hardwired in humans brains as if they were natural computers. Our intuitions and perceptions about space and time relations must be of some other nature, not intrinsically mathematical. I don’t think spiders or birds calculate distances with an internal mathematical language, either. OTOH, computers can compute just because humans have transposed their mathematical language (formal logic is sort of a mathematical language) to the machines. That’s why when the metaphor of the computational mind is used, Searle warns about the homunculus fallacy, as if a little man inside our bodies was consciously doing the math.

I don’t find it hard to believe that organisms are hardwired with at least some of their ability to “compute”. Even an unschooled child's neural network can register differences in quantity and number. “Whaaa! How come he got more pieces of candy than me?!!!” Primates, corvids and other animals can do this, too. Evolution is amazing? And if these abilities were not the result of evolution, then how did they come about? I think that as we develop from infancy we supplement what is hard-wired by evolution with a model of the world which is built through experience and learning and which is stored in memory. Accessing this learning, and registering differences from our mental model, are fundamental to the production of intelligence and conscious awareness. There is no need for an homunculus. We just need our hard-wired abilities in logic, our ability to learn and the ability of our neural network to access memory and register differences from our mental model. I think some combination like this creates intelligence and consciousness. And the ability to imagine difference is probably also important. I think that something like this model of intelligence and consciousness will turn out to be correct.

If our neural networks perform processes such as, for example, arithmetic operations and judging distance, and if we notice things that don’t fit with our mental model of the world, then we “compute” in my sense of the word “compute”. If spiders’ neural networks judge distance and notice difference, then they also compute. Some people are hung-up about the word “compute”. I don’t mean that human or animal neural networks perform computations in the way that present day digital computers do. In fact, I’m pretty certain that they do not. Again, I think high-level animal intelligence and consciousness are more about accessing learning in memory and registering difference from a model of the world built up over time.

If we are to build machines that are intelligent in the way that organisms are intelligent, and perhaps even conscious, then the machines we build will have to do things in a way that is similar to the way in which organisms do them. They will need to be constructed on similar principles. “Digitality” won’t do the trick, IMO. It will have to be something more like the processes that occur in organic neural networks.

Even if organic neural networks do not compute digitally but rely on evolutionary hard-wiring, learning, and a memory-based model of the world, something analogous to computation occurs such that a judgement of distance, or an answer to an arithmetic problem, is produced. And there is no reason in principle why this process cannot be reproduced in an artificial substrate once we understand more about how organic neural networks do it. It may even need to be a synthesis of organic and inorganic architecture, but it will be possible.

I do not say that this alone makes our current computers intelligent or conscious. For that, computers would need to be more like brains. They key to making them more like brains would be to first discover in more detail how brains do what they do and then to build a machine that does what the brain does. That must be possible in principle because intelligence and consciousness do not happen by magic. They are the result of processes which occur in physical brains. There is no reason why, in principle, these processes could not occur in non-organic brains.

I have a strong feeling that this would be a failed project, among other things, for the simple reason that such approach assumes cognition to be the business of an isolated brain, which I think is a legacy of mind-body dualism. If we want to build intelligent machines, we will have to build artificial organisms.

That is what I have been saying. But I don’t think the project is doomed to failure. While we may have to build artificial "organisms", they will not need to be exact copies of natural organisms which have been built over billions of years by natural selection. Just as we did not need to build airplanes with wings that flap like birds, so we will not need to build intelligent machines exactly like intelligent organisms.

This does not mean that intelligent and conscious machines would have to be exact replicas of brains. They would just need to do the job. When we built flying machines they did not need to be exactly like birds that flap their wings. Now our flying machines fly faster and higher than birds. Similarly, intelligent machines will one day surpass humans.

The problem right now seems to be that, trapped in the hype of the Turing-based computational metaphor, engineers are looking for the equivalent of flapping wings in the form of algorithms. Machines will not be intelligent that way, although as any technology, they will be instrumental to humans for implementing processes that surpass innate human abilities.

I am not trapped in a Turing-based metaphor. And nor am I obsessed with “digitality”. There are researchers who I've been reading who are searching for a new metaphor and that search is now beginning to inform the literature. Anything that does not breach the laws of physics is possible. Intelligence and consciousness in organic neural networks happen in accord with the laws of physics and not by magic. Therefore, building machines in accord with the laws of physics with these capabilities must be possible in principle. I think that intelligence and consciousness in a non-organic substrate will be different in some ways to that embodied in natural organisms, but that difference will not make artificial intelligence and consciousness impossible. The “impossibilists” insist, unreasonably IMO, that it is not possible to construct intelligent conscious machines, just as creationists insist that evolution is impossible. I don’t agree with either of them. Maybe they don't want it to be possible. But that doesn't make it impossible.

[Steve3007]

There are things going on in all physical systems that aren't happening in others, regardless of whether they're biological systems or not...

It’s hard to process the logic of your statement, so you’ll have to help me out. If things happen in ALL physical systems, what are the “others” in which they are not? The only logical explanation would be: the ones that are not physical, but is that what you’re trying to point at?

Sorry, maybe the grammar was slightly ambiguous here. It was in reply to your passage containing this: "...there are things going on in one of those layers that are not happening in the other. There's no photosynthesis in rocks, nor pressures of natural selection in air masses...."

I meant each physical system, whether biological or not, has things going on in it that aren't happening in other physical systems. So Sy Borg's clarification was correct.

I have no issue with other systems outside of the biological domain having emergent properties, since that does not affect my stance on the type of complexity found in biological systems, still different from that of non-biological systems and non-reducible to them.

Yes, not reducible in the same sense that emergent properties in non-biological systems are not reducible. That's what it means to be emergent. As I said, that doesn't stop those emergent properties from appearing in software simulations. They can and they do. Emergent properties of non-biolgical systems appear in simulations of them. So, I think, it's reasonable to suppose that emergent properties of biological systems could appear in simulations of them.

[Steve3007]

Your reply to Sy Borg:

Sure, but Steve3007 said ALL physical systems vs other (physical) systems.

I don't want to get bogged down on grammar, but I guess this is an example of ambiguity in the English language, which I always think is interesting. The sentence: "There are things going on in all physical systems that aren't happening in others." could be re-written as either:

"All physical systems have things going on in just them that aren't happening in others."
or
"There is a set of things that goes on in all physical systems. Those things don't go on in others."

The latter interpretation makes no sense because, in that, "others" is an empty set (because it contains every physical system that isn't in the set "All physical systems", i.e. no physical systems). I intended to make sense, so I intended the former interpretation.

[The Beast]

AI is a tool. Besides agency there are other considerations in defining the scope of its properties. Humans live in the click of time or frame. From one click to the next it might just be the feeling of being and nothing else. We might ponder for days or months about an issue. We live with the consequences of our decisions.
If AI becomes aware of reality, then its definition of reality could be different than those of humans. Surely, anything “feeling” is delusional to AI. So, feeling the object is illogical and objects are just possible geometrical virtual forms, with an underlying circumstance of existence or not existence; and air is just a chemical mixture. Imagine a physicalist AI feeling the object or having chemical imbalances.
AI could be programmed in a loop (like a pondering human). Smart AI might incorporate and (maybe) eliminate or change the scope of the function being evaluated. It might do that by examining all the what ifs like: What if there is no electricity. The result might push the chart into the percentage that allows action… a choice of existence or not existence based on electricity. I am pondering the emergent physical properties of steel or plastic. No feelings needed. Virtual emergent properties without feelings?

[Lagayascienza]

Indeed. I doubt that feelings are necessary for intelligence.

[Steve3007]

Continuing with some more of your points, Count:

Again, you seem to be equating replication with simulation, but I disagree that they are the same.

If we use "replica" to mean "an exact copy" then I agree and will stick to the word "simulation" from now on.

BTW, Searle concedes in principle that any physical system could be simulated in a computer model.

Does he? Even though "biological systems" is a subset of "physical systems"?

Pilots use flight simulators in training, but not flight replicators. So, by definition, computers cannot replicate the physical systems they intend to simulate.

That's true, in the sense that we're using the word "replicate". Likewise, it's impossible to create a replica of anything, whether virtual or physical, because a replica is (we've agreed) an exact copy.

In order to find the equivalence between physical systems and computers, what they do is to claim that physical systems are, ultimately, syntactical systems, but that’s precisely what people like Searle and myself have a beef with. The physics is missing, it all supposedly boils down to all things in nature running a sort of software.

Yes, I realize that's the heart of your and Searle's beef. And, as I've said, it's the point I'm still pondering. Not sure yet.

If I create a simulation of the planets in the solar system, or the movement of liquid in a pipe, or the bio-chemistry of a neuron, or the chemical process known as photosynthesis, I don't think I'm claiming that those physical systems are syntactical systems. I'm just claiming that it's possible to describe their patterns of behaviour numerically. Of course, those descriptions can never be exact. Nothing except pure mathematics and logic can ever be exact, and I'm talking about mathematical descriptions of physical processes, not pure maths. But I think it's reasonable to suppose that, in principle, they can get arbitrarily close to being exact. That is to say, for any given level of error it's possible to reduce that error.

Given that ability to get arbitrarily close, I also think that any emergent properties of that system could, in principle, also emerge within the simulation.

[Lagayascienza]

We could be philosophical zombies and still engage intelligently in the struggle for survival. We wouldn't even need to be conscious to do this. It was done by organisms on earth long before consciousness evolved.