Troll-thread apparently

wiegraf:


And are you sure you are Jtf? You weren't totally ret.arded in the other thread, so a bit suspicious.....

Its good to talk to you after years of ignoring each other. I think you're not totally ret.arded too.

I can still make a case for your insanity though, a convincing one.


How does one spot and identify the soul? The same way you identify a sentient awareness and being. You're a thought generator, a being. (just the basicestest example I can communicate right now, please read the rest of my post before telling me alphago thinks too, so you can see what I mean, and the difference between alphago's primitive programming and your independent self-awareness and the self-evidence of your own transcendent consciousness)

Alphago, and others follow algorithms and neural mappings to achieve programmed goals(and overcome pre-programmed problems?)

Its not a pre-programmed algorithm you follow, you are an independent and aware thought-generator. A self, (unless you want to dabble in imaginative fairy tales of your packaging and programming).



Are you asking me specifically why I believe in and live from the supernatural? Because my definition of religion and Christianity and faith is different from popular opinion.


I have experienced the supernatural and continue to live in immaterial power.






But as your school master, I direct you through what I suspect is your line of reasoning. Suppose we're nothing but biological machines, and what people call soul is just an intelligent brain? I mean, look at alphago and the robot my friend is building that teaches itself navigation. They all show the potential of increasing complexity and may become what we call soul, abi?

But wait a little, we build most of these machines, we design them under inspiration from observable biological processes. Ask yourself WHO BUILT US?

Maybe you believe we began spontaneously from some natural elements and have actively evolved to reach our present complex state, ask yourself HOW IGNORANT NATURE COULD PRODUCE SUCH A WORK AS Einstein or Newton while our various smarty pants have not been successful producing something simpler like a miniature wiegraf? or even the smallest form of life?

Maybe nature is alive, and smarter than all of us, a mastermind working behind her processes, or maybe we were seeded by foreign intelligence? But not god of course, such thinking will make us religious nuts.

sonOfLucifer:
Ideatoprince18 North or South?

... am from north

TheHarbinger:
Its good to talk to you after years of ignoring each other. I think you're not totally ret.arded too.

I can still make a case for your insanity though, a convincing one.

Just to be clear, I think josh is genuinely ret.arded

Harbinger is veering close to that predicament too

TheHarbinger:

How does one spot and identify the soul? The same way you identify a sentient awareness and being.

Are you saying a soul is a sentient being? Just that? Then no problem. I do wonder why the need to use the word soul though

Well, no, let's cut to the chase. That's not what you are saying. You're adding extra mumbo-jumbo into the mix.

Once again, where from?

TheHarbinger:

You're a thought generator, a being. (just the basicestest example I can communicate right now, please read the rest of my post before telling me alphago thinks too, so you can see what I mean, and the difference between alphago's primitive programming and your independent self-awareness and the self-evidence of your own transcendent consciousness)

To be clear, I think you mean to say alphago's programming is more basic, less sophisticated than what my brain can come up with, rather than less primitive.

It would be odd to call simple arithmatic primitive. It's less complicated than calculus or whatever, but definitely not primitive in the strict sense.

Either ways, simple arithmatic or calculus; both mathematics. So, can we agree that what my brain does and what a machine does are the same thing: thinking, essentially. The only difference being that the thinking machines can come up with is less complex (in certain cases) than what my brain can come up with?

Goot

TheHarbinger:

Alphago, and others follow algorithms and neural mappings to achieve programmed goals(and overcome pre-programmed problems?)

Not exactly, no.

I will not give a long lecture on how it works. It's written in all the links I provided earlier. Please read when you have the time if you're inclined to. A small summary tho...

They follow algorithms, true, to achieve a set goal. However, what the algorithm might be, is not preset. It would modify as it sees fit (read: trains itself), forming a black box which we do not necessarily need know the details of. We just know it works.

Or rather, that it works to an acceptable degree

You see, it does not need to go through every single permutation of a given problem and what not. It is not the sort of program that is a hundred percent certain of where it is going, and that's the beauty of it. It's almost like it acts on......instinct

Trained, calculated instinct, of course. But the idea is that you yourself have trained your instinct and intuition as well, you just don't realise it.

More on that soon.

TheHarbinger:

Its not a pre-programmed algorithm you follow, you are an independent and aware thought-generator. A self, (unless you want to dabble in imaginative fairy tales of your packaging and programming).

Err, yes. I follow a algorithms, and similar ones to the ones that alphago generates. You forget that neural networks draw their inspiration from nature? (Indeed, on of the most famous examples of a generic black box is.....the brain. But a black box can simply mean anything that works but is not (or even, theoretically, cannot be) understood)

And by the way, assuming only the cerebral cortex is related consciousness (big assumption, but meh for now), you've got 20 billion neurons in there. I can guarantee you alphago doesn't simulate anywhere near that figure of nodes. At the most, it simulates a couple of hundred thousand nodes or such.

So, yes, what nature has come up with after billions of years of evolution may be more sophisticated in various use cases, but many basic principles are shared between alphago's neural networks and my brain.

Why do you mention fairytales when you believe a man can walk on water?

TheHarbinger:

Are you asking me specifically why I believe in and live from the supernatural? Because my definition of religion and Christianity and faith is different from popular opinion.


I have experienced the supernatural and continue to live in immaterial power.

This is your evidence? Kayi. Well done. Clap for yourself.

Anyways, provided I brought you a reasonable framework to explain somethng that you previously attributed to mumbojumbo, you'd stick with mumbojumbo because.....this?

TheHarbinger:

But as your school master, I direct you through what I suspect is your line of reasoning. Suppose we're nothing but biological machines, and what people call soul is just an intelligent brain? I mean, look at alphago and the robot my friend is building that teaches itself navigation. They all show the potential of increasing complexity and may become what we call soul, abi?

But wait a little, we build most of these machines, we design them under inspiration from observable biological processes. Ask yourself WHO BUILT US?

Maybe you believe we began spontaneously from some natural elements and have actively evolved to reach our present complex state, ask yourself HOW IGNORANT NATURE COULD PRODUCE SUCH A WORK AS Einstein or Newton while our various smarty pants have not been successful producing something simpler like a miniature wiegraf? or even the smallest form of life?

Maybe nature is alive, and smarter than all of us, a mastermind working behind her processes, or maybe we were seeded by foreign intelligence? But not god of course, such thinking will make us religious nuts.

WHO BUILT YOU GOD!?!

I don't think you have to be particularly smart to build a mini-wiegraf. I mean, you've built a god, supposedly much greater than mine. I'm sure you can come up with a miniature wiegraf, even if it will only exist in your brain.

Anyhow, computers are basic, simple brains. So we are actually building mini-wiegrafs, see? And don't worry, we'll get to life soon enough. But no, continue with the god of the gaps as it pleases you

atlantic:

A New Theory Explains How Consciousness Evolved

Ever since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, evolution has been the grand unifying theory of biology. Yet one of our most important biological traits, consciousness, is rarely studied in the context of evolution. Theories of consciousness come from religion, from philosophy, from cognitive science, but not so much from evolutionary biology. Maybe that’s why so few theories have been able to tackle basic questions such as: What is the adaptive value of consciousness? When did it evolve and what animals have it?

The Attention Schema Theory (AST), developed over the past five years, may be able to answer those questions. The theory suggests that consciousness arises as a solution to one of the most fundamental problems facing any nervous system: Too much information constantly flows in to be fully processed. The brain evolved increasingly sophisticated mechanisms for deeply processing a few select signals at the expense of others, and in the AST, consciousness is the ultimate result of that evolutionary sequence. If the theory is right—and that has yet to be determined—then consciousness evolved gradually over the past half billion years and is present in a range of vertebrate species.

Even before the evolution of a central brain, nervous systems took advantage of a simple computing trick: competition. Neurons act like candidates in an election, each one shouting and trying to suppress its fellows. At any moment only a few neurons win that intense competition, their signals rising up above the noise and impacting the animal’s behavior. This process is called selective signal enhancement, and without it, a nervous system can do almost nothing.

We can take a good guess when selective signal enhancement first evolved by comparing different species of animal, a common method in evolutionary biology. The hydra, a small relative of jellyfish, arguably has the simplest nervous system known—a nerve net. If you poke the hydra anywhere, it gives a generalized response. It shows no evidence of selectively processing some pokes while strategically ignoring others. The split between the ancestors of hydras and other animals, according to genetic analysis, may have been as early as 700 million years ago. Selective signal enhancement probably evolved after that.

The arthropod eye, on the other hand, has one of the best-studied examples of selective signal enhancement. It sharpens the signals related to visual edges and suppresses other visual signals, generating an outline sketch of the world. Selective enhancement therefore probably evolved sometime between hydras and arthropods—between about 700 and 600 million years ago, close to the beginning of complex, multicellular life. Selective signal enhancement is so primitive that it doesn’t even require a central brain. The eye, the network of touch sensors on the body, and the auditory system can each have their own local versions of attention focusing on a few select signals.

The next evolutionary advance was a centralized controller for attention that could coordinate among all senses. In many animals, that central controller is a brain area called the tectum. (“Tectum” means “roof” in Latin, and it often covers the top of the brain.) It coordinates something called overt attention – aiming the satellite dishes of the eyes, ears, and nose toward anything important.

All vertebrates—fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals—have a tectum. Even lampreys have one, and they appeared so early in evolution that they don’t even have a lower jaw. But as far as anyone knows, the tectum is absent from all invertebrates. The fact that vertebrates have it and invertebrates don’t allows us to bracket its evolution. According to fossil and genetic evidence, vertebrates evolved around 520 million years ago. The tectum and the central control of attention probably evolved around then, during the so-called Cambrian Explosion when vertebrates were tiny wriggling creatures competing with a vast range of invertebrates in the sea.

The tectum is a beautiful piece of engineering. To control the head and the eyes efficiently, it constructs something called an internal model, a feature well known to engineers. An internal model is a simulation that keeps track of whatever is being controlled and allows for predictions and planning. The tectum’s internal model is a set of information encoded in the complex pattern of activity of the neurons. That information simulates the current state of the eyes, head, and other major body parts, making predictions about how these body parts will move next and about the consequences of their movement. For example, if you move your eyes to the right, the visual world should shift across your retinas to the left in a predictable way. The tectum compares the predicted visual signals to the actual visual input, to make sure that your movements are going as planned. These computations are extraordinarily complex and yet well worth the extra energy for the benefit to movement control. In fish and amphibians, the tectum is the pinnacle of sophistication and the largest part of the brain. A frog has a pretty good simulation of itself.

With the evolution of reptiles around 350 to 300 million years ago, a new brain structure began to emerge – the wulst. Birds inherited a wulst from their reptile ancestors. Mammals did too, but our version is usually called the cerebral cortex and has expanded enormously. It’s by far the largest structure in the human brain. Sometimes you hear people refer to the reptilian brain as the brute, automatic part that’s left over when you strip away the cortex, but this is not correct. The cortex has its origin in the reptilian wulst, and reptiles are probably smarter than we give them credit for.

The cortex is like an upgraded tectum. We still have a tectum buried under the cortex and it performs the same functions as in fish and amphibians. If you hear a sudden sound or see a movement in the corner of your eye, your tectum directs your gaze toward it quickly and accurately. The cortex also takes in sensory signals and coordinates movement, but it has a more flexible repertoire. Depending on context, you might look toward, look away, make a sound, do a dance, or simply store the sensory event in memory in case the information is useful for the future.

The most important difference between the cortex and the tectum may be the kind of attention they control. The tectum is the master of overt attention—pointing the sensory apparatus toward anything important. The cortex ups the ante with something called covert attention. You don’t need to look directly at something to covertly attend to it. Even if you’ve turned your back on an object, your cortex can still focus its processing resources on it. Scientists sometimes compare covert attention to a spotlight. (The analogy was first suggested by Francis Crick, the geneticist.) Your cortex can shift covert attention from the text in front of you to a nearby person, to the sounds in your backyard, to a thought or a memory. Covert attention is the virtual movement of deep processing from one item to another.

The cortex needs to control that virtual movement, and therefore like any efficient controller it needs an internal model. Unlike the tectum, which models concrete objects like the eyes and the head, the cortex must model something much more abstract. According to the AST, it does so by constructing an attention schema—a constantly updated set of information that describes what covert attention is doing moment-by-moment and what its consequences are.

Consider an unlikely thought experiment. If you could somehow attach an external speech mechanism to a crocodile, and the speech mechanism had access to the information in that attention schema in the crocodile’s wulst, that technology-assisted crocodile might report, “I’ve got something intangible inside me. It’s not an eyeball or a head or an arm. It exists without substance. It’s my mental possession of things. It moves around from one set of items to another. When that mysterious process in me grasps hold of something, it allows me to understand, to remember, and to respond.”

The crocodile would be wrong, of course. Covert attention isn’t intangible. It has a physical basis, but that physical basis lies in the microscopic details of neurons, synapses, and signals. The brain has no need to know those details. The attention schema is therefore strategically vague. It depicts covert attention in a physically incoherent way, as a non-physical essence. And this, according to the theory, is the origin of consciousness. We say we have consciousness because deep in the brain, something quite primitive is computing that semi-magical self-description. Alas crocodiles can’t really talk. But in this theory, they’re likely to have at least a simple form of an attention schema.

When I think about evolution, I’m reminded of Teddy Roosevelt’s famous quote, “Do what you can with what you have where you are.” Evolution is the master of that kind of opportunism. Fins become feet. Gill arches become jaws. And self-models become models of others. In the AST, the attention schema first evolved as a model of one’s own covert attention. But once the basic mechanism was in place, according to the theory, it was further adapted to model the attentional states of others, to allow for social prediction. Not only could the brain attribute consciousness to itself, it began to attribute consciousness to others.

When psychologists study social cognition, they often focus on something called theory of mind, the ability to understand the possible contents of someone else’s mind. Some of the more complex examples are limited to humans and apes. But experiments show that a dog can look at another dog and figure out, “Is he aware of me?” Crows also show an impressive theory of mind. If they hide food when another bird is watching, they’ll wait for the other bird’s absence and then hide the same piece of food again, as if able to compute that the other bird is aware of one hiding place but unaware of the other. If a basic ability to attribute awareness to others is present in mammals and in birds, then it may have an origin in their common ancestor, the reptiles. In the AST’s evolutionary story, social cognition begins to ramp up shortly after the reptilian wulst evolved. Crocodiles may not be the most socially complex creatures on earth, but they live in large communities, care for their young, and can make loyal if somewhat dangerous pets.

If AST is correct, 300 million years of reptilian, avian, and mammalian evolution have allowed the self-model and the social model to evolve in tandem, each influencing the other. We understand other people by projecting ourselves onto them. But we also understand ourselves by considering the way other people might see us. Data from my own lab suggests that the cortical networks in the human brain that allow us to attribute consciousness to others overlap extensively with the networks that construct our own sense of consciousness.

Language is perhaps the most recent big leap in the evolution of consciousness. Nobody knows when human language first evolved. Certainly we had it by 70 thousand years ago when people began to disperse around the world, since all dispersed groups have a sophisticated language. The relationship between language and consciousness is often debated, but we can be sure of at least this much: once we developed language, we could talk about consciousness and compare notes. We could say out loud, “I’m conscious of things. So is she. So is he. So is that damn river that just tried to wipe out my village.”

Maybe partly because of language and culture, humans have a hair-trigger tendency to attribute consciousness to everything around us. We attribute consciousness to characters in a story, puppets and dolls, storms, rivers, empty spaces, ghosts and gods. Justin Barrett called it the Hyperactive Agency Detection Device, or HADD. One speculation is that it’s better to be safe than sorry. If the wind rustles the grass and you misinterpret it as a lion, no harm done. But if you fail to detect an actual lion, you’re taken out of the gene pool. To me, however, the HADD goes way beyond detecting predators. It’s a consequence of our hyper-social nature. Evolution turned up the amplitude on our tendency to model others and now we’re supremely attuned to each other’s mind states. It gives us our adaptive edge. The inevitable side effect is the detection of false positives, or ghosts.

And so the evolutionary story brings us up to date, to human consciousness—something we ascribe to ourselves, to others, and to a rich spirit world of ghosts and gods in the empty spaces around us. The AST covers a lot of ground, from simple nervous systems to simulations of self and others. It provides a general framework for understanding consciousness, its many adaptive uses, and its gradual and continuing evolution.

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-consciousness-evolved/485558/

So, there's a lot to take from there. However, can you now see how (and why) your intuition and instinct are trained in the background, without you being aware of it?

Well, that's basic knowledge; the brain doing a lot behind the scenes that you're consciously unaware of ie. It's nice to have the how's and why's in one simple theory though.

So, if I brought to you a theory like this one, inchoate as it is, you'd choose mumbojumbo over this? Why?

wiegraf:


http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-consciousness-evolved/485558/

So, there's a lot to take from there. However, can you now see how (and why) your intuition and instinct are trained in the background, without you being aware of it?

Well, that's basic knowledge; the brain doing a lot behind the scenes that you're consciously unaware of ie. It's nice to have the how's and why's in one simple theory though.

So, if I brought to you a theory like this one, inchoate as it is, you'd choose mumbojumbo over this? Why?

What's the difference between your consciousnesses and that of a cat?

Sonoflucifer I'm very sorry I have not had time and network to play live. Clinics have resumed. Ward rounds.

TheSixthsense is an encouragement that all my apologist activist work and that of others is not in vain

Joshthefirst:
Sonoflucifer I'm very sorry I have time and network to play live. Clinics have resumed. Ward rounds.

TheSixthsense is an encouragement that all my apologist activist work and that of others is not in vain

Cool. We play today then. Check your wall, been posting messages like a lost lover

Joshthefirst:
What's the difference between your consciousnesses and that of a cat?

I am capable of certain computational functions a cat is incapable of, just as a cat is capable of certain functions I'm incapable of performing.

Hardware differences do not help, of course,

there is the thing we Call CPU I think that would do..

wiegraf:


I am capable of certain computational functions a cat is incapable of, just as a cat is capable of certain functions I'm incapable of performing.

Hardware differences do not help, of course,

So your consciousnesses is limited to computational functions?


If you think all there is to the essence of consciousness is background information processing then you're very wrong.

This theory is crap, as the basic issues of human self awareness, quality, and even diversity in language and intelligence cannot and can never be explained by qualitative science, by definition.

“The hypothesis of modern science starts from matter as the basic reality, considering space to be an extension of the void. The phenomenon of creation of stable cosmic matter, therefore, goes beyond the scope of present science. The theory also neither pinpoints the source of cosmic energy that resides in the structure of matter, nor can it explain the cause of material properties that are experienced with the behavior of matter. These are, in brief, the limitations of modern scientific theories at the most basic level of the physical phenomena of nature. When a scientific theory cannot cope with the question of the very origin of the universal matter and energy, how could it ever grasp and explain the phenomenon of consciousness which is evident in living beings?” – Paramahamsa Tewari

Have you heard of the double slit experiment?

Joshthefirst:
So your consciousnesses is limited to computational functions?


If you think all there is to the essence of consciousness is background information processing then you're very wrong.

This theory is crap, as the basic issues of human self awareness, quality, and even diversity in language and intelligence cannot and can never be explained by qualitative science, by definition.

Are you saying we'll never create AI?

Joshthefirst:
Have you heard of the double slit experiment?

Yes, and I've heard of quantum eraser one as well.

wiegraf:


Are you saying we'll never create AI?

And the idea is that we might be someone else's/another specie's AI project

wiegraf:


Are you saying we'll never create AI?

depends on what you think AI means

wiegraf:

Yes, and I've heard of quantum eraser one as well.

What did the fact that observation collapsed the wave function of a particle tell you?

Is observation conscious activity? Does the fact that consciousness directly brings casualty to the very character of matter in reality not tell you that consciousness transcends physical matter itself?

Joshthefirst:
depends on what you think AI means

wiki:
Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the intelligence of a (hypothetical) machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. It is a primary goal of artificial intelligence research and an important topic for science fiction writers and futurists. Artificial general intelligence is also referred to as "strong AI",[1] "full AI"[2] or as the ability of a machine to perform "general intelligent action".[3]

.......

Many different definitions of intelligence have been proposed (such as being able to pass the Turing test) but there is to date no definition that satisfies everyone.[6] However, there is wide agreement among artificial intelligence researchers that intelligence is required to do the following:[7]

reason, use strategy, solve puzzles, and make judgments under uncertainty;
represent knowledge, including commonsense knowledge;
plan;
learn;
communicate in natural language;
and integrate all these skills towards common goals.

Other important capabilities include the ability to sense (e.g. see) and the ability to act (e.g. move and manipulate objects) in the world where intelligent behaviour is to be observed.[8] This would include an ability to detect and respond to hazard.[9] Many interdisciplinary approaches to intelligence (e.g. cognitive science, computational intelligence and decision making) tend to emphasise the need to consider additional traits such as imagination (taken as the ability to form mental images and concepts that were not programmed in)[10] and autonomy.[11] Computer based systems that exhibit many of these capabilities do exist (e.g. see computational creativity, automated reasoning, decision support system, robot, evolutionary computation, intelligent agent), but not yet at human levels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence

Joshthefirst:

What did the fact that observation collapsed the wave function of a particle tell you?

Is observation conscious activity? Does the fact that consciousness directly brings casualty to the very character of matter in reality not tell you that consciousness transcends physical matter itself?

The bolded: NO

Or more accurately, not necessarily. Consciousness is not a requirement.

wiki:

In quantum mechanics, "observation" is synonymous with quantum measurement and "observer" with a measurement apparatus and "observable" with what can be measured. Thus the quantum mechanical observer does not have to necessarily present or solve any problems over and above the (admittedly difficult) issue of measurement in quantum mechanics. The quantum mechanical observer is also intimately tied to the issue of observer effect.

A number of interpretations of quantum mechanics, notably "consciousness causes collapse", give the observer a special role, or place constraints on who or what can be an observer. For instance, Fritjof Capra writes:

"The crucial feature of atomic physics is that the human observer is not only necessary to observe the properties of an object, but is necessary even to define these properties. ... This can be illustrated with the simple case of a subatomic particle. When observing such a particle, one may choose to measure — among other quantities — the particle's position and its momentum" [1]

However, other authorities downplay any special role of human observers:

"Of course the introduction of the observer must not be misunderstood to imply that some kind of subjective features are to be brought into the description of nature. The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration, i.e., the transition from the "possible" to the "actual," is absolutely necessary here and cannot be omitted from the interpretation of quantum theory."[2]

Critics of the special role of the observer also point out that observers can themselves be observed, leading to paradoxes such as that of Wigner's friend; and that it is not clear how much consciousness is required ("Was the wave function waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer for some highly qualified measurer - with a PhD?"[3]).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_(quantum_physics)

And when it's said that other authorities downplay any special role for humans, they mean the vast majority

wiki:

A poll was conducted at a quantum mechanics conference in 2011 using 33 participants (including physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers). Researchers found that 6% of participants (2 of the 33) indicated that they believed the observer "plays a distinguished physical role (e.g., wave-function collapse by consciousness)". They also mention that "Popular accounts have sometimes suggested that the Copenhagen interpretation attributes such a role to consciousness. In our view, this is to misunderstand the Copenhagen interpretation."[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse

Now, to be clear, there are various intepretations as to what's going on, and non are definitive. But if you're looking at which are more supported, Copenhagen, many worlds, etc, definitely have more support than Von Neumann–Wigner (AKA consciousness causes collapse). Even Wigner himself stopped supporting it.

wiegraf:




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence



The bolded: NO

Or more accurately, not necessarily. Consciousness is not a requirement.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_(quantum_physics)

And when it's said that other authorities downplay any special role for humans, they mean the vast majority



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse

Now, to be clear, there are various intepretations as to what's going on, and non are definitive. But if you're looking at which are more supported, Copenhagen, many worlds, etc, definitely have more support than Von Neumann–Wigner (AKA consciousness causes collapse). Even Wigner himself stopped supporting it.

Try to understand what is meant by observation and you would see that there is no such thing without intelligence.

Look at a quote from the link you sent:

The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being;

Apparatuses do not register decisions, only humans do. The apparatus is simply an instrument of our observation.

Joshthefirst:


Try to understand what is meant by observation and you would see that there is no such thing without intelligence.

Look at a quote from the link you sent:


Apparatuses do not register decisions, only humans do. The apparatus is simply an instrument of our observation.

Read the full quote.. .

He states it very clearly that the device need not be human.

He describes 'decisions' as 'processes in space and time'. Simply put; events.


Apparatuses register 'decisions' all.the.time.


Even if I indulged and played the language game, the machine you're using to read this right now registered (and made) thousands of decisions from booting up to displaying this page, no? (don't believe me? Look at the code!)

wiegraf:


Read the full quote.. .

He states it very clearly that the device need not be human.

He describes 'decisions' as 'processes in space and time'. Simply put; events.


Apparatuses register 'decisions' all.the.time.


Even if I indulged and played the language game, the machine you're using to read this right now registered (and made) thousands of decisions from booting up to displaying this page, no? (don't believe me? Look at the code!)

It still does not matter whether it's decisions or events, Without our deliberate conscious influence there would be no measuring apparatus at all.

And I read the full note. I subject it to my criticism.

Without my conscious intelligent influence this machines processes would be nothing, and mean nothing at all.

If you dare believe it does not matter whether the observer is a human being or an apparatus you have to think of the implications of the observer being an apparatus. Apparatuses don't observe events of their own accord. Humans do. I believe the very decision of observation of a quantum event (with an apparatus) collapsed the wave function.

wiegraf:


Read the full quote.. .

He states it very clearly that the device need not be human....

And remember also that the ordinary human has no sense for observing quantum level processes. He needs an apparatus. An apparatus of non-living machine components placed to fulfil a particular purpose.


Consciousness is not merely a function of brain activity.

wiegraf:


Just to be clear, I think josh is genuinely ret.arded

Harbinger is veering close to that predicament too

Looks like you're genuinely mad. I am harbinger. Stop being undecided and make up your mind about me.

wiegraf:

To be clear, I think you mean to say alphago's programming is more basic, less sophisticated than what my brain can come up with, rather than less primitive.

It would be odd to call simple arithmatic primitive. It's less complicated than calculus or whatever, but definitely not primitive in the strict sense.

Either ways, simple arithmatic or calculus; both mathematics. So, can we agree that what my brain does and what a machine does are the same thing: thinking, essentially. The only difference being that the thinking machines can come up with is less complex (in certain cases) than what my brain can come up with?

Goot

Nonsense. When did I imply all this? Especially the emboldened? You and I are saying two different things entirely. You argue that your thoughts simply come from your brain. And I reject that notion. You come up with, conceive, and create thoughts, immaterial substance, from nothing. The difference between you and a self-evaluating algorithm is quite self-evident.

Even then, some Intelligent animals think and overcome basic challenges of their environment. Still, the difference between your consciousness and theirs is immense. You are not your brain. Brain is what the soul uses to communicate image with the physical world. You are self-aware. You understand the individual depth of your very being.

Not exactly, no.

I will not give a long lecture on how it works. It's written in all the links I provided earlier. Please read when you have the time if you're inclined to. A small summary tho...

They follow algorithms, true, to achieve a set goal. However, what the algorithm might be, is not preset. It would modify as it sees fit (read: trains itself), forming a black box which we do not necessarily need know the details of. We just know it works.

Or rather, that it works to an acceptable degree

You see, it does not need to go through every single permutation of a given problem and what not. It is not the sort of program that is a hundred percent certain of where it is going, and that's the beauty of it. It's almost like it acts on......instinct

Trained, calculated instinct, of course. But the idea is that you yourself have trained your instinct and intuition as well, you just don't realise it.

More on that soon.

This is simply not enough to hinge your hopes on man. Believe the truth. Stop looking for news of discoveries that will pacify your stubborn rejection of intelligence.

Err, yes. I follow a algorithms, and similar ones to the ones that alphago generates. You forget that neural networks draw their inspiration from nature? (Indeed, on of the most famous examples of a generic black box is.....the brain. But a black box can simply mean anything that works but is not (or even, theoretically, cannot be) understood)

No you dont. A thought is not an algorithm.

And by the way, assuming only the cerebral cortex is related consciousness (big assumption, but meh for now), you've got 20 billion neurons in there. I can guarantee you alphago doesn't simulate anywhere near that figure of nodes. At the most, it simulates a couple of hundred thousand nodes or such.

So, yes, what nature has come up with after billions of years of evolution may be more sophisticated in various use cases, but many basic principles are shared between alphago's neural networks and my brain.

Why do you mention fairytales when you believe a man can walk on water?

Give an example of basic principles you and alphago share. And dont give me nonsense. Explain what thoughts are and where you thoughts come from. We can define and quantify algorithms but we cannot quantify thoughts can we?

This is your evidence? Kayi. Well done. Clap for yourself.

Anyways, provided I brought you a reasonable framework to explain somethng that you previously attributed to mumbojumbo, you'd stick with mumbojumbo because.....this?

You have provided me with nothing but baseless conclusions of non-existent concurring and agreements

WHO BUILT YOU GOD!?!

I don't think you have to be particularly smart to build a mini-wiegraf. I mean, you've built a god, supposedly much greater than mine. I'm sure you can come up with a miniature wiegraf, even if it will only exist in your brain.

Anyhow, computers are basic, simple brains. So we are actually building mini-wiegrafs, see? And don't worry, we'll get to life soon enough. But no, continue with the god of the gaps as it pleases you

I believe I have explained away this God of the gaps issue many times before but selective amnesia plagues you as usual. You may need to reinstall some brain programs maybe

Joshthefirst:
Looks like you're genuinely mad. I am harbinger. Stop being undecided and make up your mind about me.



Nonsense. When did I imply all this? Especially the emboldened? You and I are saying two different things entirely. You argue that your thoughts simply come from your brain. And I reject that notion. You come up with, conceive, and create thoughts, immaterial substance, from nothing. The difference between you and a self-evaluating algorithm is quite self-evident.

Even then, some Intelligent animals think and overcome basic challenges of their environment. Still, the difference between your consciousness and theirs is immense. You are not your brain. Brain is what the soul uses to communicate image with the physical world. You are self-aware. You understand the individual depth of your very being.



This is simply not enough to hinge your hopes on man. Believe the truth. Stop looking for news of discoveries that will pacify your stubborn rejection of intelligence.




No you dont. A thought is not an algorithm.

Give an example of basic principles you and alphago share. And dont give me nonsense. Explain what thoughts are and where you thoughts come from. We can define and quantify algorithms but we cannot quantify thoughts can we?


You have provided me with nothing but baseless conclusions of non-existent concurring and agreements

I believe I have explained away this God of the gaps issue many times before but selective amnesia plagues you as usual. You may need to reinstall some brain programs maybe

You need help

@JoshTheFirst : didn't hear from you. Chess.com

sonofluc1fer:
@JoshTheFirst : didn't hear from you. Chess.com

I'm available right now and then later today.