Implausibility of Materialism

June 25, 2007

On Jun 25, 7:56?pm, Fred Stone <fston...@earthling.com> wrote:

> James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote innews:1182797074.772268.53300@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:

>

> > Computers aren't conscious. If you think they might be, you don't

> > understand what consciousness is.

>

> So what is consciousness then?

Consciousness is 'awareness of reality', and has evolved in mammals

because it is a Darwinian survival trait. To be aware of reality

requires sense organs that sense reality, and a brain to experience

the senses - these evolved along with consciousness.

Take the awareness of hunger, as a simple example. Underneath it all,

the occurrence in nature of low-blood sugar levels in an organism to

make it move about and ingest material from the surroundings, is

little more than a chemical process. Low level organisms that don't

have brains are not aware of their surroundings, and are not

conscious, but they still eat. A biological organism

dies if it doesn't eat, and, in conscious animals, nature has evolved

the ability to feel hunger, together with the intelligence to find

food in the environment. The experience of hunger occurs in

the brain, not the stomach - if we didn't have a brain, we wouldn't

feel hungry; one could say that brains evolved solely so that the

animal can experience hunger, and fill its stomach because of the

hunger, otherwise it would die. If the awareness of hunger hadn't

evolved, the species would not survive, because the animal wouldn't

eat. When an animal's blood sugar levels are low, a pattern of

neurons forms in its brain which indicate to the animal that it is

hungry, and should eat. Conscious evolved animals would not exist if

they didn't feel hungry sometimes; low sugar-levels cause a brain

pattern corresponding to hunger, and that is all that consciousness

(of hunger) is. The awareness has evolved because it is directly

related to reality, and that awareness of reality is what we call

consciousness.

The more aware of hunger, and what to do about it, the species

becomes, the better the species survives, and that causes evolution to

maximise awareness of reality (consciousness) - animals which are less

conscious just die out, because they can't compete with the animals

that understand their surroundings. Our own awareness is very highly-

evolved and we tend to think of it as particularly special, but from

nature's point of view, consciousness is no more special than a

giraffe's neck or a toenail, each of which is similarly highly evolved

to a brain.

I hope you can understand from my postings, what consciousness is, and

how conscious awareness has evolved along with brains and the

associated sense organs, over billions of generations of continuous

evolution, from tiny creatures with minuscule automatic reactions to

light and dark, hot and cold, and so on, to our full-blown human 'we

understand everything' awareness of reality. You are unlikely to find

a better explanation than the one I have given, and if you don't

understand it at first, you should think about it occasionally over a

period of a few weeks. If you are reasonably intelligent, you will

then understand what consciousness is.

June 25, 2007

On 25 Jun, 19:44, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

> On Jun 25, 6:48?pm, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

>

> > On 25 Jun, 18:38, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

> > > On Jun 25, 6:08?pm, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

> > > > On 25 Jun, 17:16, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

> > > > > On Jun 25, 11:51 am, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

> > > > > > On 25 Jun, 10:05, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

> > > > > > > On Jun 24, 10:31?am, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

>

> > > > > > No the laws of physics can't explain consciousness. They could never

> > > > > > explain why anything physical should consciously/subjectively

> > > > > > experience.

>

> > > > > I disagree with you. The 'laws of physics' do explain

> > > > > consciousness. Conscious awareness of reality is an evolved feature

> > > > > of some biological organisms. Evolution occurs because of ordinary

> > > > > physical processes.

>

> > [...]

>

> > > > > It seems to me from all that lot that you don't understand what

> > > > > consciousness is, so it is not surprising that you have a problem

> > > > > working out why a mechanical robot is not conscious, but a human 'meat

> > > > > machine' is conscious.

>

> > > > > Take the awareness of hunger, as a simple example. 'Feeling hungry'

> > > > > is a subjective experience: you can't experience someone else's

> > > > > hunger for them, so how do you know it exists? How would your robot

> > > > > ever feel hungry - and how would you know if it did?

>

> > > > > Undeneath it all, the occurrence in nature of low-blood sugar levels

> > > > > in an organism to make it move about and ingest material from the

> > > > > surroundings, is little more than a chemical process. Low level

> > > > > organisms that don't have brains are not aware of their surroundings,

> > > > > and are not conscious, but they still eat. A biological organism

> > > > > dies if it doesn't eat, and, in conscious animals, nature has evolved

> > > > > the ability to feel hunger, together with the ability to find food in

> > > > > the environment. When an animal's blood sugar levels are too low, a

> > > > > pattern of neurons forms in its brain which indicate to the animal

> > > > > that it is hungry, and should eat. The experience of hunger occurs in

> > > > > the brain, not the stomach - if we didn't have a brain, we wouldn't

> > > > > feel hungry; brains evolved solely so that they can experience

> > > > > hunger, and fill its stomach to correct it. If the awareness of

> > > > > hunger hadn't evolved, the species would not survive, because the

> > > > > animal wouldn't eat. Conscious evolved animals would not exist if

> > > > > they didn't feel hungry sometimes; low sugar-levels cause a brain

> > > > > pattern corresponding to hunger, and that is all that consciousness

> > > > > (of hunger) is. The awareness has evolved because it is directly

> > > > > related to reality, and that awareness of reality is what we call

> > > > > consciousness.

>

> > > > > The more aware of hunger, and what to do about it, the species

> > > > > becomes, the better the species survives, and that causes evolution to

> > > > > maximise awareness of reality (consciousness) - animals which are less

> > > > > conscious just die out, because they can't compete with the animals

> > > > > that understand their surroundings. Our own awareness is very highly-

> > > > > evolved and we tend to think of it as particularly special, but from

> > > > > nature's point of view, consciousness is no more special than a

> > > > > giraffe's neck or a toenail, each of which is similarly highly

> > > > > evolved.

>

> > > > > The only conscious beings we know of are biologically evolved ones,

> > > > > such as ourselves. You can (I hope) understand from my postings, how

> > > > > conscious awareness has evolved along with brains and the associated

> > > > > sense organs, over billions of generations of continuous evolution,

> > > > > from tiny creatures with minuscule awareness of light and dark, hot

> > > > > and cold, and so on, to our full-blown human 'we understand

> > > > > everything' awareness of reality.

>

> > > > > Computers are not intended to be conscious. They are designed just to

> > > > > perform simple arithmetic/logical operations at high speed, and there

> > > > > is no reason to expect them to be conscious. They certainly haven't

> > > > > evolved any ability to be aware of and interact with the environment,

> > > > > so that they can exist, any more than a teaspoon has, so why would

> > > > > they be any more conscious than a teaspoon?

>

> > > > > You could pretend that a robot was conscious, by copying brain

> > > > > patterns from a human and arranging them in the computer 'memory', and

> > > > > then getting the robot to say 'I want food' whenever the memory

> > > > > corresponding to 'hunger' was accessed by the computer user. You

> > > > > could plug the robot into electricity until it made a programmed

> > > > > 'burping' sound, and possibly turn on a small tap to let out some

> > > > > smelly water at the same time, to make the effect more convincing.

> > > > > But that would clearly just be an expensive toy doll. It would be

> > > > > simpler to give the computer a wig made of human hair, and then talk

> > > > > about the computer's behaviour compared to a human, than to bother

> > > > > with computer simulation of patterns of biological neuronal activity,

> > > > > and pretending that it was aware.

>

> > > > > The only conscious beings we know of are biologically evolved ones,

> > > > > and it may well be the case that biological creatures are the only

> > > > > conscious creatures that can exist. The notion of a conscious robot

> > > > > is just the same ancient myth of golems and statues brought to life,

> > > > > given an up-to-date gloss because of modern technology. Anyone who

> > > > > imagines that computers might be conscious doesn't really understand

> > > > > that computers are just complicated machines, like a car or a

> > > > > television - it is almost more likely that a galaxy might be

> > > > > conscious, or a forest or ocean, but to me, that is also so unlikely

> > > > > that if it were true, I'd say perhaps God does exist after all.

>

> > > > So you think we are explainable as biological mechanisms, but you

> > > > don't think that robots could be conscious, only biological mechanisms

> > > > is that it?

>

> > > Yes, you've almost understood what I was explaining. Biological

> > > organisms such as ourselves have evolved a very high level of

> > > awareness of our surroundings, because we interact biologically with

> > > it in order to exist. Robots (mechanical computer-controlled devices)

> > > are no more aware of their surroundings than a washing machine.

>

> > > Surgeons can construct a conscious being from functioning parts of

> > > other biological animals - head transplants of decapitated chimps were

> > > performed successfully as early as the 1960s, for example. But I'm

> > > not saying that only biological material can be conscious - clouds of

> > > chemicals containing electrical energy might be conscious on a planet

> > > such as Jupiter, for example.

>

> > So if conceptually the biological mechanism was emulated with a

> > different underlying (say an artificial neural network), it would

> > behave the same but the biological one would be conscious, but the

> > emulated one wouldn't be? Or would they both be?

>

> The biological brain is by definition conscious, so you shouldn't be

> getting confused about that. If you 'emulate' a brain with a computer

> it wouldn't be conscious. Is that clear enough?

>

> If you only did a conceptual emulation, as you suggested, you would

> just be imagining it. But if you actually performed a computer

> emulation of the neuronal behaviour in a brain, all it would be doing

> is describing the position and state of the neurons at any particular

> time, like a printout of the traffic flow in a network. It wouldn't

> have any experiences, any more than a piece of paper with writing on

> it has experiences. It is just a computer running a program on some

> data, even though it might be running a special program called a

> neural network algorithm, which you seem to think important for some

> reason. Neural networks are just ordinary programs that have been

> 'taught' (the subroutine parameters have been 'tweaked') to match

> specific types of pattern. The idea for doing it that way came from

> studies of vision in mammal brains, but a neural network algorithm is

> no more likely to be conscious than an algorithm that decides on the

> spin behaviour of the drum in a washing machine.

>

> Computers aren't conscious. If you think they might be, you don't

> understand what consciousness is. It is a red-herring to wonder about

> computers as having consciousness. Perhaps they do - they presumably

> would be aware of what it is like to being computers? But you might

> as well wonder if a chair could be conscious of being a chair. Every

> so often, of the billions of chairs in the world, one of them perhaps

> has a fleeting notion of existence - the arms and legs, and constant

> interaction with humans, together with the minute amounts of

> electrostatic energy in the stuffing, might cause consciousness - how

> would we know if it did or didn't? Of course, the chair is most

> likely to have a mad notion of existence, and think its a hat or

> something. Perhaps humans should consider building mental hospitals

> for chairs, just in case?

>

So the mechanism that emulated the brain would behave the same, even

though it wasn't conscious. All it "would be doing is describing the

position and state of the neurons at any particular time, like a

printout of the traffic flow in a network".

I have understood you correctly haven't I?

June 25, 2007

On 25 Jun, 20:19, Sippuddin <s...@macrosoft.net> wrote:

> Jeckyl wrote:

> > "Sippuddin" <s...@macrosoft.net> wrote in message

> >news:_q-dnWeKNLTKaObbnZ2dnUVZ_vKunZ2d@comcast.com...

> >> Jeckyl wrote:

>

> >>> ... That a robot pushed off a cliff falls down, and a human with

> >>> subjective experiences pushed off a cliff also falls down, does not imply

> >>> that humans have no subjective experience.

> >>

> >> It's not the falling that hurts, it's the sudden impact with the ground at

> >> the end of the experience that does.

>

> > Just like whales and flowers that suddenly appear from nowhere above a

> > planet

>

> >> 'experience' usually means events gone through

> >> wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

>

> > eh?

>

> 'experience' usually means events gone through

> wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

>

> Is there something you don't understand about this simple explanation of

> the term 'experience'? You go through an event, that is an experience.

> Get it now?

>

> >> Are you saying that the one will have gone through destruction at the

> >> bottom of the cliff but the other will not?? That would be a pretty stout

> >> robot!

> >> If you just mean the experience of falling through space, then why can't

> >> we provide the robot with the same sort of motion-sensing equipment,

> >> including visual apparatus the human has so that the perceptions of both

> >> are equal?

>

> >> If not, then what's your operational definition of 'experience'?

>

> >> operational definition: a description of something in terms of how it is

> >> actually observed and measured.

>

> >>http://preview.tinyurl.com/248ept

>

> > As usual, you have the whole question backwards

>

> No I don't, it's you who appear to be experiencing total confusion here.

>

> 'experience' usually means events gone through

> wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

>

> Take the event we were discussing, crashing into the rocks after falling

> off a cliff. Human or robot, it does not matter, either one can be

> observed having such an experience (going through such an event). It's

> one of the laws of the universe (gravity) in action determining the

> observable behavior of the subject of study, human or robot.

>

You are talking about experience in the sense of a thermostat

experiencing a change in temperature. The converstation is about

subjective/conscious experiences, i.e. sensations such as pleasure,

pain, smell, sight, warmth etc. Though the word "experience" appears

in both, don't try to confuse what is being discussed.

June 25, 2007

On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:44:34 -0700, in alt.atheism , James Norris

<JimNorris01@aol.com> in

<1182797074.772268.53300@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com> wrote:

[snip]

>

>The biological brain is by definition conscious, so you shouldn't be

>getting confused about that. If you 'emulate' a brain with a computer

>it wouldn't be conscious. Is that clear enough?

Not to me it isn't. How can you determine that the thing being

examined is "biological" vs "mechanical"? What is the objective test

for this? And what is the external test that determines that some

"robot" is not conscious?

>If you only did a conceptual emulation, as you suggested, you would

>just be imagining it. But if you actually performed a computer

>emulation of the neuronal behaviour in a brain, all it would be doing

>is describing the position and state of the neurons at any particular

>time, like a printout of the traffic flow in a network. It wouldn't

>have any experiences, any more than a piece of paper with writing on

>it has experiences.

Yes, the Chinese Room. And how do you know that humans are not such

mechanical devices? By all observations they sure seem such.

[snip]

>

>Computers aren't conscious.

ITYM that current man "built" computers are not conscious, not that no

computer can be conscious. If you mean the latter I would like to see

the argument.

>If you think they might be, you don't

>understand what consciousness is.

Perhaps I don't. Can you enlighten me?

[snip]

--

Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org

http://www.darfurgenocide.org

http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

June 25, 2007

On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 12:40:02 -0700, in alt.atheism , James Norris

<JimNorris01@aol.com> in

<1182800402.912119.124370@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com> wrote:

>On Jun 25, 7:56?pm, Fred Stone <fston...@earthling.com> wrote:

>> James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote innews:1182797074.772268.53300@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:

>>

>> > Computers aren't conscious. If you think they might be, you don't

>> > understand what consciousness is.

>>

>> So what is consciousness then?

>

>Consciousness is 'awareness of reality', and has evolved in mammals

>because it is a Darwinian survival trait.

Wow, an Ultra-Darwinist. And Dawkins claims they don't exist.

> To be aware of reality

>requires sense organs that sense reality, and a brain to experience

>the senses - these evolved along with consciousness.

And you know that no computer can have the because of what?

>Take the awareness of hunger, as a simple example. Underneath it all,

>the occurrence in nature of low-blood sugar levels in an organism to

>make it move about and ingest material from the surroundings, is

>little more than a chemical process.

Sounds like a mechanical process to me.

>Low level organisms that don't

>have brains are not aware of their surroundings, and are not

>conscious, but they still eat. A biological organism

>dies if it doesn't eat, and, in conscious animals, nature has evolved

>the ability to feel hunger, together with the intelligence to find

>food in the environment.

Lots of words there, but I am not sure you are actually explaining

what "consciousness" is.

>The experience of hunger occurs in

>the brain, not the stomach - if we didn't have a brain, we wouldn't

>feel hungry; one could say that brains evolved solely so that the

>animal can experience hunger, and fill its stomach because of the

>hunger, otherwise it would die.

One could say lots of things, just-so stories are not science though.

>If the awareness of hunger hadn't

>evolved, the species would not survive, because the animal wouldn't

>eat.

But we have already established that some organisms are not aware that

they are hungry.

>When an animal's blood sugar levels are low, a pattern of

>neurons forms in its brain which indicate to the animal that it is

>hungry, and should eat. Conscious evolved animals would not exist if

>they didn't feel hungry sometimes; low sugar-levels cause a brain

>pattern corresponding to hunger, and that is all that consciousness

>(of hunger) is. The awareness has evolved because it is directly

>related to reality, and that awareness of reality is what we call

>consciousness.

>

>The more aware of hunger, and what to do about it, the species

>becomes, the better the species survives,

Where is your evidence that this is always a trait with positive

selective value?

>and that causes evolution to

>maximise awareness of reality (consciousness) - animals which are less

>conscious just die out, because they can't compete with the animals

>that understand their surroundings. Our own awareness is very highly-

>evolved and we tend to think of it as particularly special, but from

>nature's point of view, consciousness is no more special than a

>giraffe's neck or a toenail, each of which is similarly highly evolved

>to a brain.

So what is this "highly evolved" then? Perhaps you should remove it

from your argument (and thinking) since contemporaneous sponges are as

"highly" evolved as H. sapiens.

>I hope you can understand from my postings, what consciousness is, and

>how conscious awareness has evolved along with brains and the

>associated sense organs, over billions of generations of continuous

>evolution, from tiny creatures with minuscule automatic reactions to

>light and dark, hot and cold, and so on, to our full-blown human 'we

>understand everything' awareness of reality. You are unlikely to find

>a better explanation than the one I have given, and if you don't

>understand it at first, you should think about it occasionally over a

>period of a few weeks. If you are reasonably intelligent, you will

>then understand what consciousness is.

ROTFLMAO. Wow, that may well be the most arrogant bit of tripe I have

encountered this year. Did you really think that your post was so deep

and impressive, so new, that it would take weeks to process? I can

suggest to you several books you might want to read on this topic that

will begin to give you a basis for a discussion of this topic. Those

will take more than a few weeks to read, no less process.

--

Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org

http://www.darfurgenocide.org

http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

June 25, 2007

On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 10:08:16 -0700, in alt.atheism , someone2

<glenn.spigel2@btinternet.com> in

<1182791296.196398.186430@q69g2000hsb.googlegroups.com> wrote:

>On 25 Jun, 17:16, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

[snip]

>So you think we are explainable as biological mechanisms, but you

>don't think that robots could be conscious, only biological mechanisms

>is that it?

Perhaps one of you can provide me with an effective objective test to

determine if something is "mechanical" or if it is "biological".

--

Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org

http://www.darfurgenocide.org

http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

June 25, 2007

On Jun 25, 8:42?pm, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

> On 25 Jun, 19:44, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

>

> > On Jun 25, 6:48?pm, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

>

> > > On 25 Jun, 18:38, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

> > > > On Jun 25, 6:08?pm, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

> > > > > On 25 Jun, 17:16, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

> > > > > > On Jun 25, 11:51 am, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

> > > > > > > On 25 Jun, 10:05, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

> > > > > > > > On Jun 24, 10:31?am, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

>

> > > > > > > No the laws of physics can't explain consciousness. They could never

> > > > > > > explain why anything physical should consciously/subjectively

> > > > > > > experience.

>

> > > > > > I disagree with you. The 'laws of physics' do explain

> > > > > > consciousness. Conscious awareness of reality is an evolved feature

> > > > > > of some biological organisms. Evolution occurs because of ordinary

> > > > > > physical processes.

>

> > > [...]

>

> > > > > > It seems to me from all that lot that you don't understand what

> > > > > > consciousness is, so it is not surprising that you have a problem

> > > > > > working out why a mechanical robot is not conscious, but a human 'meat

> > > > > > machine' is conscious.

>

> > > > > > Take the awareness of hunger, as a simple example. 'Feeling hungry'

> > > > > > is a subjective experience: you can't experience someone else's

> > > > > > hunger for them, so how do you know it exists? How would your robot

> > > > > > ever feel hungry - and how would you know if it did?

>

> > > > > > Undeneath it all, the occurrence in nature of low-blood sugar levels

> > > > > > in an organism to make it move about and ingest material from the

> > > > > > surroundings, is little more than a chemical process. Low level

> > > > > > organisms that don't have brains are not aware of their surroundings,

> > > > > > and are not conscious, but they still eat. A biological organism

> > > > > > dies if it doesn't eat, and, in conscious animals, nature has evolved

> > > > > > the ability to feel hunger, together with the ability to find food in

> > > > > > the environment. When an animal's blood sugar levels are too low, a

> > > > > > pattern of neurons forms in its brain which indicate to the animal

> > > > > > that it is hungry, and should eat. The experience of hunger occurs in

> > > > > > the brain, not the stomach - if we didn't have a brain, we wouldn't

> > > > > > feel hungry; brains evolved solely so that they can experience

> > > > > > hunger, and fill its stomach to correct it. If the awareness of

> > > > > > hunger hadn't evolved, the species would not survive, because the

> > > > > > animal wouldn't eat. Conscious evolved animals would not exist if

> > > > > > they didn't feel hungry sometimes; low sugar-levels cause a brain

> > > > > > pattern corresponding to hunger, and that is all that consciousness

> > > > > > (of hunger) is. The awareness has evolved because it is directly

> > > > > > related to reality, and that awareness of reality is what we call

> > > > > > consciousness.

>

> > > > > > The more aware of hunger, and what to do about it, the species

> > > > > > becomes, the better the species survives, and that causes evolution to

> > > > > > maximise awareness of reality (consciousness) - animals which are less

> > > > > > conscious just die out, because they can't compete with the animals

> > > > > > that understand their surroundings. Our own awareness is very highly-

> > > > > > evolved and we tend to think of it as particularly special, but from

> > > > > > nature's point of view, consciousness is no more special than a

> > > > > > giraffe's neck or a toenail, each of which is similarly highly

> > > > > > evolved.

>

> > > > > > The only conscious beings we know of are biologically evolved ones,

> > > > > > such as ourselves. You can (I hope) understand from my postings, how

> > > > > > conscious awareness has evolved along with brains and the associated

> > > > > > sense organs, over billions of generations of continuous evolution,

> > > > > > from tiny creatures with minuscule awareness of light and dark, hot

> > > > > > and cold, and so on, to our full-blown human 'we understand

> > > > > > everything' awareness of reality.

>

> > > > > > Computers are not intended to be conscious. They are designed just to

> > > > > > perform simple arithmetic/logical operations at high speed, and there

> > > > > > is no reason to expect them to be conscious. They certainly haven't

> > > > > > evolved any ability to be aware of and interact with the environment,

> > > > > > so that they can exist, any more than a teaspoon has, so why would

> > > > > > they be any more conscious than a teaspoon?

>

> > > > > > You could pretend that a robot was conscious, by copying brain

> > > > > > patterns from a human and arranging them in the computer 'memory', and

> > > > > > then getting the robot to say 'I want food' whenever the memory

> > > > > > corresponding to 'hunger' was accessed by the computer user. You

> > > > > > could plug the robot into electricity until it made a programmed

> > > > > > 'burping' sound, and possibly turn on a small tap to let out some

> > > > > > smelly water at the same time, to make the effect more convincing.

> > > > > > But that would clearly just be an expensive toy doll. It would be

> > > > > > simpler to give the computer a wig made of human hair, and then talk

> > > > > > about the computer's behaviour compared to a human, than to bother

> > > > > > with computer simulation of patterns of biological neuronal activity,

> > > > > > and pretending that it was aware.

>

> > > > > > The only conscious beings we know of are biologically evolved ones,

> > > > > > and it may well be the case that biological creatures are the only

> > > > > > conscious creatures that can exist. The notion of a conscious robot

> > > > > > is just the same ancient myth of golems and statues brought to life,

> > > > > > given an up-to-date gloss because of modern technology. Anyone who

> > > > > > imagines that computers might be conscious doesn't really understand

> > > > > > that computers are just complicated machines, like a car or a

> > > > > > television - it is almost more likely that a galaxy might be

> > > > > > conscious, or a forest or ocean, but to me, that is also so unlikely

> > > > > > that if it were true, I'd say perhaps God does exist after all.

>

> > > > > So you think we are explainable as biological mechanisms, but you

> > > > > don't think that robots could be conscious, only biological mechanisms

> > > > > is that it?

>

> > > > Yes, you've almost understood what I was explaining. Biological

> > > > organisms such as ourselves have evolved a very high level of

> > > > awareness of our surroundings, because we interact biologically with

> > > > it in order to exist. Robots (mechanical computer-controlled devices)

> > > > are no more aware of their surroundings than a washing machine.

>

> > > > Surgeons can construct a conscious being from functioning parts of

> > > > other biological animals - head transplants of decapitated chimps were

> > > > performed successfully as early as the 1960s, for example. But I'm

> > > > not saying that only biological material can be conscious - clouds of

> > > > chemicals containing electrical energy might be conscious on a planet

> > > > such as Jupiter, for example.

>

> > > So if conceptually the biological mechanism was emulated with a

> > > different underlying (say an artificial neural network), it would

> > > behave the same but the biological one would be conscious, but the

> > > emulated one wouldn't be? Or would they both be?

>

> > The biological brain is by definition conscious, so you shouldn't be

> > getting confused about that. If you 'emulate' a brain with a computer

> > it wouldn't be conscious. Is that clear enough?

>

> > If you only did a conceptual emulation, as you suggested, you would

> > just be imagining it. But if you actually performed a computer

> > emulation of the neuronal behaviour in a brain, all it would be doing

> > is describing the position and state of the neurons at any particular

> > time, like a printout of the traffic flow in a network. It wouldn't

> > have any experiences, any more than a piece of paper with writing on

> > it has experiences. It is just a computer running a program on some

> > data, even though it might be running a special program called a

> > neural network algorithm, which you seem to think important for some

> > reason. Neural networks are just ordinary programs that have been

> > 'taught' (the subroutine parameters have been 'tweaked') to match

> > specific types of pattern. The idea for doing it that way came from

> > studies of vision in mammal brains, but a neural network algorithm is

> > no more likely to be conscious than an algorithm that decides on the

> > spin behaviour of the drum in a washing machine.

>

> > Computers aren't conscious. If you think they might be, you don't

> > understand what consciousness is. It is a red-herring to wonder about

> > computers as having consciousness. Perhaps they do - they presumably

> > would be aware of what it is like to being computers? But you might

> > as well wonder if a chair could be conscious of being a chair. Every

> > so often, of the billions of chairs in the world, one of them perhaps

> > has a fleeting notion of existence - the arms and legs, and constant

> > interaction with humans, together with the minute amounts of

> > electrostatic energy in the stuffing, might cause consciousness - how

> > would we know if it did or didn't? Of course, the chair is most

> > likely to have a mad notion of existence, and think its a hat or

> > something. Perhaps humans should consider building mental hospitals

> > for chairs, just in case?

>

> So the mechanism that emulated the brain would behave the same, even

> though it wasn't conscious. All it "would be doing is describing the

> position and state of the neurons at any particular time, like a

> printout of the traffic flow in a network".

>

> I have understood you correctly haven't I?

No you have not understood. There is no way that your sentence makes

any sense as a reply to what I wrote, and yet again, you obviously

haven't read what I wrote. I'm beginning to think you're just an

annoying time-waster. It is impolite and thoughtless to waste other

people's valuable time, and a criminal offence if you are doing it

with malicious intent. Is reading difficult for you? When reading a

few paragraphs of information, it is normal to spend several minutes

thinking about what you have read before deciding what to write in

reply and then replying. If you don't do that, you will most likely

not understand what has been written, and your reply will make you

look like an idiot.

The mechanism that emulated the brain would not behave the same (as

the brain, I assume you mean). The mechanism (a computer program in

your example) that emulated the brain would behave like a computer

program. It would follow a sequence of CPU instructions that a

programmer had written, and would modify data in the RAM. In no way

is that the same as the behaviour of a brain. I've explained to you

several times now, that if you are trying to understand what

consciousness is, your idea of a conscious robot computer which

'emulates' some brain activity is a misleading distraction. You would

be better off understanding why a taperecorder which 'emulates' the

speech behaviour of a human is not conscious, or why a machine that

'emulates' the behaviour of many Usenet posters and just posts silly

fragments of text that show no understanding of the messages to which

it is replying, is also not conscious.

June 25, 2007

On 25 Jun, 22:18, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

> On Jun 25, 8:42?pm, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

>

> > On 25 Jun, 19:44, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

>

> > > On Jun 25, 6:48?pm, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

>

> > > > On 25 Jun, 18:38, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

> > > > > On Jun 25, 6:08?pm, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

> > > > > > On 25 Jun, 17:16, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

> > > > > > > On Jun 25, 11:51 am, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

> > > > > > > > On 25 Jun, 10:05, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

> > > > > > > > > On Jun 24, 10:31?am, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

>

> > > > > > > > No the laws of physics can't explain consciousness. They could never

> > > > > > > > explain why anything physical should consciously/subjectively

> > > > > > > > experience.

>

> > > > > > > I disagree with you. The 'laws of physics' do explain

> > > > > > > consciousness. Conscious awareness of reality is an evolved feature

> > > > > > > of some biological organisms. Evolution occurs because of ordinary

> > > > > > > physical processes.

>

> > > > [...]

>

> > > > > > > It seems to me from all that lot that you don't understand what

> > > > > > > consciousness is, so it is not surprising that you have a problem

> > > > > > > working out why a mechanical robot is not conscious, but a human 'meat

> > > > > > > machine' is conscious.

>

> > > > > > > Take the awareness of hunger, as a simple example. 'Feeling hungry'

> > > > > > > is a subjective experience: you can't experience someone else's

> > > > > > > hunger for them, so how do you know it exists? How would your robot

> > > > > > > ever feel hungry - and how would you know if it did?

>

> > > > > > > Undeneath it all, the occurrence in nature of low-blood sugar levels

> > > > > > > in an organism to make it move about and ingest material from the

> > > > > > > surroundings, is little more than a chemical process. Low level

> > > > > > > organisms that don't have brains are not aware of their surroundings,

> > > > > > > and are not conscious, but they still eat. A biological organism

> > > > > > > dies if it doesn't eat, and, in conscious animals, nature has evolved

> > > > > > > the ability to feel hunger, together with the ability to find food in

> > > > > > > the environment. When an animal's blood sugar levels are too low, a

> > > > > > > pattern of neurons forms in its brain which indicate to the animal

> > > > > > > that it is hungry, and should eat. The experience of hunger occurs in

> > > > > > > the brain, not the stomach - if we didn't have a brain, we wouldn't

> > > > > > > feel hungry; brains evolved solely so that they can experience

> > > > > > > hunger, and fill its stomach to correct it. If the awareness of

> > > > > > > hunger hadn't evolved, the species would not survive, because the

> > > > > > > animal wouldn't eat. Conscious evolved animals would not exist if

> > > > > > > they didn't feel hungry sometimes; low sugar-levels cause a brain

> > > > > > > pattern corresponding to hunger, and that is all that consciousness

> > > > > > > (of hunger) is. The awareness has evolved because it is directly

> > > > > > > related to reality, and that awareness of reality is what we call

> > > > > > > consciousness.

>

> > > > > > > The more aware of hunger, and what to do about it, the species

> > > > > > > becomes, the better the species survives, and that causes evolution to

> > > > > > > maximise awareness of reality (consciousness) - animals which are less

> > > > > > > conscious just die out, because they can't compete with the animals

> > > > > > > that understand their surroundings. Our own awareness is very highly-

> > > > > > > evolved and we tend to think of it as particularly special, but from

> > > > > > > nature's point of view, consciousness is no more special than a

> > > > > > > giraffe's neck or a toenail, each of which is similarly highly

> > > > > > > evolved.

>

> > > > > > > The only conscious beings we know of are biologically evolved ones,

> > > > > > > such as ourselves. You can (I hope) understand from my postings, how

> > > > > > > conscious awareness has evolved along with brains and the associated

> > > > > > > sense organs, over billions of generations of continuous evolution,

> > > > > > > from tiny creatures with minuscule awareness of light and dark, hot

> > > > > > > and cold, and so on, to our full-blown human 'we understand

> > > > > > > everything' awareness of reality.

>

> > > > > > > Computers are not intended to be conscious. They are designed just to

> > > > > > > perform simple arithmetic/logical operations at high speed, and there

> > > > > > > is no reason to expect them to be conscious. They certainly haven't

> > > > > > > evolved any ability to be aware of and interact with the environment,

> > > > > > > so that they can exist, any more than a teaspoon has, so why would

> > > > > > > they be any more conscious than a teaspoon?

>

> > > > > > > You could pretend that a robot was conscious, by copying brain

> > > > > > > patterns from a human and arranging them in the computer 'memory', and

> > > > > > > then getting the robot to say 'I want food' whenever the memory

> > > > > > > corresponding to 'hunger' was accessed by the computer user. You

> > > > > > > could plug the robot into electricity until it made a programmed

> > > > > > > 'burping' sound, and possibly turn on a small tap to let out some

> > > > > > > smelly water at the same time, to make the effect more convincing.

> > > > > > > But that would clearly just be an expensive toy doll. It would be

> > > > > > > simpler to give the computer a wig made of human hair, and then talk

> > > > > > > about the computer's behaviour compared to a human, than to bother

> > > > > > > with computer simulation of patterns of biological neuronal activity,

> > > > > > > and pretending that it was aware.

>

> > > > > > > The only conscious beings we know of are biologically evolved ones,

> > > > > > > and it may well be the case that biological creatures are the only

> > > > > > > conscious creatures that can exist. The notion of a conscious robot

> > > > > > > is just the same ancient myth of golems and statues brought to life,

> > > > > > > given an up-to-date gloss because of modern technology. Anyone who

> > > > > > > imagines that computers might be conscious doesn't really understand

> > > > > > > that computers are just complicated machines, like a car or a

> > > > > > > television - it is almost more likely that a galaxy might be

> > > > > > > conscious, or a forest or ocean, but to me, that is also so unlikely

> > > > > > > that if it were true, I'd say perhaps God does exist after all.

>

> > > > > > So you think we are explainable as biological mechanisms, but you

> > > > > > don't think that robots could be conscious, only biological mechanisms

> > > > > > is that it?

>

> > > > > Yes, you've almost understood what I was explaining. Biological

> > > > > organisms such as ourselves have evolved a very high level of

> > > > > awareness of our surroundings, because we interact biologically with

> > > > > it in order to exist. Robots (mechanical computer-controlled devices)

> > > > > are no more aware of their surroundings than a washing machine.

>

> > > > > Surgeons can construct a conscious being from functioning parts of

> > > > > other biological animals - head transplants of decapitated chimps were

> > > > > performed successfully as early as the 1960s, for example. But I'm

> > > > > not saying that only biological material can be conscious - clouds of

> > > > > chemicals containing electrical energy might be conscious on a planet

> > > > > such as Jupiter, for example.

>

> > > > So if conceptually the biological mechanism was emulated with a

> > > > different underlying (say an artificial neural network), it would

> > > > behave the same but the biological one would be conscious, but the

> > > > emulated one wouldn't be? Or would they both be?

>

> > > The biological brain is by definition conscious, so you shouldn't be

> > > getting confused about that. If you 'emulate' a brain with a computer

> > > it wouldn't be conscious. Is that clear enough?

>

> > > If you only did a conceptual emulation, as you suggested, you would

> > > just be imagining it. But if you actually performed a computer

> > > emulation of the neuronal behaviour in a brain, all it would be doing

> > > is describing the position and state of the neurons at any particular

> > > time, like a printout of the traffic flow in a network. It wouldn't

> > > have any experiences, any more than a piece of paper with writing on

> > > it has experiences. It is just a computer running a program on some

> > > data, even though it might be running a special program called a

> > > neural network algorithm, which you seem to think important for some

> > > reason. Neural networks are just ordinary programs that have been

> > > 'taught' (the subroutine parameters have been 'tweaked') to match

> > > specific types of pattern. The idea for doing it that way came from

> > > studies of vision in mammal brains, but a neural network algorithm is

> > > no more likely to be conscious than an algorithm that decides on the

> > > spin behaviour of the drum in a washing machine.

>

> > > Computers aren't conscious. If you think they might be, you don't

> > > understand what consciousness is. It is a red-herring to wonder about

> > > computers as having consciousness. Perhaps they do - they presumably

> > > would be aware of what it is like to being computers? But you might

> > > as well wonder if a chair could be conscious of being a chair. Every

> > > so often, of the billions of chairs in the world, one of them perhaps

> > > has a fleeting notion of existence - the arms and legs, and constant

> > > interaction with humans, together with the minute amounts of

> > > electrostatic energy in the stuffing, might cause consciousness - how

> > > would we know if it did or didn't? Of course, the chair is most

> > > likely to have a mad notion of existence, and think its a hat or

> > > something. Perhaps humans should consider building mental hospitals

> > > for chairs, just in case?

>

> > So the mechanism that emulated the brain would behave the same, even

> > though it wasn't conscious. All it "would be doing is describing the

> > position and state of the neurons at any particular time, like a

> > printout of the traffic flow in a network".

>

> > I have understood you correctly haven't I?

>

> No you have not understood. There is no way that your sentence makes

> any sense as a reply to what I wrote, and yet again, you obviously

> haven't read what I wrote. I'm beginning to think you're just an

> annoying time-waster. It is impolite and thoughtless to waste other

> people's valuable time, and a criminal offence if you are doing it

> with malicious intent. Is reading difficult for you? When reading a

> few paragraphs of information, it is normal to spend several minutes

> thinking about what you have read before deciding what to write in

> reply and then replying. If you don't do that, you will most likely

> not understand what has been written, and your reply will make you

> look like an idiot.

>

> The mechanism that emulated the brain would not behave the same (as

> the brain, I assume you mean). The mechanism (a computer program in

> your example) that emulated the brain would behave like a computer

> program. It would follow a sequence of CPU instructions that a

> programmer had written, and would modify data in the RAM. In no way

> is that the same as the behaviour of a brain. I've explained to you

> several times now, that if you are trying to understand what

> consciousness is, your idea of a conscious robot computer which

> 'emulates' some brain activity is a misleading distraction. You would

> be better off understanding why a taperecorder which 'emulates' the

> speech behaviour of a human is not conscious, or why a machine that

> 'emulates' the behaviour of many Usenet posters and just posts silly

> fragments of text that show no understanding of the messages to which

> it is replying, is also not conscious.

You think the brain is a mechanism though right? I don't understand

why you would expect a silicon based mechanism which is built so as to

function the carbon based mechanism (which is what I mean by emulate),

wouldn't behave the same. This is not the same as a tape recorder,

with regards to a talking robot, or biological mechanism. As the tape

recorder doesn't emulate the mechanism.

June 25, 2007

On Jun 25, 9:56?pm, Matt Silberstein

<RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nos...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:44:34 -0700, in alt.atheism , James Norris

> <JimNorri...@aol.com> in

>

> <1182797074.772268.53...@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com> wrote:

>

> [snip]

>

> >The biological brain is by definition conscious, so you shouldn't be

> >getting confused about that. If you 'emulate' a brain with a computer

> >it wouldn't be conscious. Is that clear enough?

>

> Not to me it isn't. How can you determine that the thing being

> examined is "biological" vs "mechanical"? What is the objective test

> for this? And what is the external test that determines that some

> "robot" is not conscious?

>

> >If you only did a conceptual emulation, as you suggested, you would

> >just be imagining it. But if you actually performed a computer

> >emulation of the neuronal behaviour in a brain, all it would be doing

> >is describing the position and state of the neurons at any particular

> >time, like a printout of the traffic flow in a network. It wouldn't

> >have any experiences, any more than a piece of paper with writing on

> >it has experiences.

>

> Yes, the Chinese Room. And how do you know that humans are not such

> mechanical devices? By all observations they sure seem such.

>

> [snip]

>

> >Computers aren't conscious.

>

> ITYM that current man "built" computers are not conscious, not that no

> computer can be conscious. If you mean the latter I would like to see

> the argument.

Your questions are answered in my earlier postings to this thread.

> >If you think computers might be conscious, you don't

> >understand what consciousness is.

>

> Perhaps I don't. Can you enlighten me?