Talk:Artificial consciousness/Archive 11

message: SUGGESTION IMPLEMENTED. The words ARTIFICIAL CONSCIOUSNESS were changed for STRONG AI in MS Word and the article pasted back. It reads fine as a description of Strong AI.
suggestion: 
1. Put a revised version of the previous version at 30/11/04 as the article under this heading with clear links to a Strong AI article. It will also be possible to provide a clear discussion of simulation versus real AC and how simulation means something different for a radical behaviourist to what it means for a dualist. Discussion of Zombies etc can be included to expand this AC article into a broad coverage of the field.
2. Create a Strong AI article by removing the more general discussion in the current AC article (perhaps writing these back to the AC article).  That the Artificial Intelligence article is also amended to give clear links to the new Strong AI article.
Discussion of Zombies is not a part of the Artificial consciousness article, neither is it a part of strong AI article, it is a part of consciousness studies, and so belongs under the consciousness article. Tkorrovi 20:20, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a need, as you suggest, in order to avoid the naive realist fantasy, to have some reality checkpoints. Surely a discussion of artificial consciousness should be grounded on a primary definition of consciousness itself and not on wikipedia's own 'derived' definition, no matter how good the latter might be. Matt Stan 10:30, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: The focus of previous discussions revolved more around the idea of the artifice in artificial consciousness, since, as you point out, consciousness per se is covered elsewhere. Another term, synthetic consciousness, was coined to get over the philosophical problem that artificial consciousness is a tautology: if observers are aware of the artifice then they will never deem artificial consciousness to be real, and if it's not real consciousness then it isn't consciousness at all! Conversely, if observers are unaware of the artifice and deem the entity to be real then it is no longer artificial, but real consciousness, regardless of how it was contrived. But also see Philosophical zombie and zimboe Matt Stan 10:30, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: Or it could mean consciousness that was perceived to be artificial. Otherwise why not use the term synthetic consciousness or simulated consciousness. An artificial sweetener is so called because it is ersatz sugar, and detectable as such. If term artificial consciousness really only refers to the conscious aspects of entities with artificial intelligence, then this connection should be made clear. This is merely a semantic point, but it is intended to isolate the definition of consciousness and if it can ever be said to be artificial in itself. An artificially conscious entity simply means an entity created by artifice that is conscious. That is not the same as artificial consciousness. Matt Stan 11:12, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: I think you are getting my drift and beginning to see the nature of the semantic problem. Real and artificial are opposites. What is real or artificial about the manufacture of sugar? There can't be a real way which is different from an artificial way to make sugar. Ok, if artificial consciousness is real consciousness made by artifice, then we are discussing the means and not the ends, and I like your definition: Artificial consciousness is real consciousness made by artifice. And there is no such thing as an artificial consciousness analogous to artificial sweeteners, i.e. like, but not the same as, the real thing. Matt Stan 15:33, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: You are right! Matt Stan 11:15, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It's all very well saying, 'I disagree' and then mentioning editing policy - of which, incidentally, there is very little: anybody can do what they like; the final arbiter is the quality of the end result. If there is any policy, it is at the bottom of the page that I am editing now, which says, in bold If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it. I can't see the difference anyway between what Tkorrovi is suggesting as an alternative and what the anonymous user actually did! Matt Stan 11:34, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It was also written somewhere, that Wikipedia is not about testing the limits of anarchy,  don't remember where it was written, but I think it is self-evident. Tkorrovi 14:06, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  NEUTRALITY! 

message: Recipe for recognising the true nature of the brain:  Define finite state machine.  See that brain conforms to definition.  Acknowledge the proof that finite state machines are Turing machines (or, more accurately, that FSMs are no more powerful than a TM).  Acknowledge that the Church-Turing thesis holds that all computing machines (FSMs, Pentium IVs, etc) are equivalent in capability except in speed and memory capacity.  Adopt the true faith.  Paul Beardsell 10:39, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Brain as Finite State Machine

message: *artificial intelligence
*emotional intelligence
*consciousness
*philosophy of mind
*unconscious mind
*artificial life
*digital organism
*mind-body problem
I think AC is most directly related to consciousness, other fields come from that (intelligence->artificial intelligence), artificial life and digital organisms should be related to biology. BTW thereis mind also, its somewhat unclear, should it be synonum to consciousness? Tkorrovi 20:35, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Related Topics

message: If we want to use free dictionary what also remains free (is under GPL licence), then we should not use dictionary.com but GCIDE , it includes entries from both public domain 1913 Webster and 1997 WordNet. dictionary.com searches GCIDE and also some proprietary dictionaries. Tkorrovi 01:20, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  What dictionary 

message: There is benefit in using a dictionary (any dictionary, but a learner's dictionary in particular) to discriminate between the usage of what and that. One of the benefits of humanity is that people (or at least some people) are able to learn languages. Some people, unfortunately, never master this art. Matt Stan 13:01, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: As I remember, you were the one who suggested to use free dictionary, and was so vehemently against using Concise Oxford Dictionary. Did your opinion change meanwhile? Why free dictionary is better than just any dictionary is that it is available to everyone, this avoids confusion of referring to different dictionaries. This is advised in Wiktionary as well. Tkorrovi 16:24, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

text: You act like chatbot what cannot understand that a mistake was made just by not pressing a key hard enough. Tkorrovi 18:01, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

text: To illustrate, the sentences 'I know what you wrote correctly.' and 'I know that you wrote correctly.' are both gramatically correct, but mean different things. The first indicates that I know something and you wrote it correctly; the second simply that I know about the correctness of what you wrote (regardless of whether I know about what you wrote about). Matt Stan 08:44, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  What and that

message: Matt Stan, with what right you deleted part of my post  without even saying anything? Tkorrovi 17:09, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I deleted nothing that you wrote. If you read what is there, in the comparison URL given above, you'll see that I just broke your long paragraph up into sections so that I could answer the points separately. But your paranoia seems to preclude your being able to understand what I wrote or answer the points that I make. Why is that? I think the Russell quote is particularly apt in this context. Matt Stan 08:19, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Matt Stan falsely accused by Tkorrovi 

message: Part of my post was made unreadable  Tkorrovi 17:09, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Part of my post was made unreadable", says Tkorrovi, blaming his tools, "by Mozilla" 

message: OK, I'm sorry, I admit that I made a mistake and deleted the dispute, proposing to forget the whole issue, but you don't want to stop. Part of my post indeed appeared on a single line, I don't know what technical problem may cause this, but I made mistake and didn't notice that line, I must be more careful in the future. We all make mistakes, I think you admit that you also sometimes make mistakes. Tkorrovi 23:34, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tkorrovi apologizes and propose to forget the issue 

message: The article includes all views whatever are proposed, for and against, what still doesn't satisfy you Paul, why you still insist that article is not NPOV? Tkorrovi 23:57, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: NPOV isn't the be all and end all of articles in wikipedia. Sure, when a view is expressed, it should be expressed in such a way as to acccmmodate a different view. But that isn't the same as saying 'anything goes (provided one expresses it couched in NPOV terms)' People come to an encyclopedia expecting to obtain knowledge, not patent nonsense. The discriminant between knowledge and patent nonsense (and the shades of indeterminate truth in between, i.e. pseudoscience) is the academic establishment and the institution of peer review. How can I make a judgment about, say, the reality of cold fusion unless I am aware of the claims and counter-claims about it? The same must surely apply to machine consciousness. There is also a tradition in wikipedia of removing patent nonsense. Who judges what constitutes patent nonsense? Why, we the wikipedians, who ourselves provide the ultimate peer review, ultimate because it is not restricted to subscribers to academic web sites. What is the arbiter to help us decide whether something is patent nonsense? Why, it is whether or or not the view expressed on a scientific topic is expressed properly and is itself backed up by academic references. If not, then any wikipedian can refute that view and, if need be, remove it from an article. The question that remains then is, "Is artificial consciousness supposed to be a scientific article or a pseudoscientific article?" Again the convention in Wikipedia is that an article should state at its outset its terms of reference. Rather than putting "The neutrality of this article is disputed", perhaps it would be better for the article to start with "This article covers the aspects of machine consciousness that are not backed up by scientific research. For a more rigorous scientific treatment, see machine consciousness (or perhaps link to a section within the artificial consciousness page. Matt Stan 08:54, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: How that can be solved by agreement?  For instance, by going through the questions that have been asked and then answering them, ideally in plain English, and without mentioning yourself in any context, i.e. by keeping it objective, as you allege is good scientific practice. For example, what is wrong with bringing the emotional component of artificial consciosness into the article, as indicated by Igor Aleksander? Matt Stan 15:59, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Who was against it? Tkorrovi 16:03, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

text: Why you didn't link to artificial consciousness article from synthetic consciousness article what you and Paul recently created, this supposed to be related. This is also not a Wikipedia policy to create parallel articles. Tkorrovi 16:09, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: One aspect is the ability to predict the external events in every possible environment when it is possible to predict for capable human.
OK, this is but the first of many. What scholar says this? Paul Beardsell 02:20, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I note that the discussion in which I quoted Bertrand Russell has been archived. What he wrote was "A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand." Matt Stan 11:00, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: As a clever man, Matthew, do you think I fairly (as in NPOV "write for the enemy" exhortation) represent the Aleksander view? 
Thanks for the Aleksander quote.  But I think that the article has this as it stands.  We have no specific support for "capable human" here.  I will add the reference to the article.   Paul Beardsell 11:07, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

text: This was an interpretation of the provided source, by original research it is allowed to interpret sources in Wikipedia. Also that I was an only user who wanted to write that is not in contradiction with NPOV and Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial. You may say that it was in contradiction with original research, but this guide is also in contradiction with NPOV and  Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial what allows even new theories with the condition that they should not be given equal importance, as to widely accepted theories. So in that sense we may proceed from main guide, just when it is stated so that it clearly is not a widely supported view. The requirement that the opinion of the small minority cannot be written in Wikipedia may be reduced to absurd that no single individual cannot write anything in Wikipedia when it doesn't directly come from sources, but interpreting sources in their own way is what most of the Wikipedia users do, and allowed to do when they allow other opinions. For AC there is also a problem that it is new field and people who study that are by themselves a small minority compared to AI researchers or other scientific community. So there a single not well known study or researcher means a lot. So I think we should take it reasonably, not the way that anything written by me or you should be deleted just because not exactly that was said by any known scientist. Tkorrovi 18:22, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

text: From NPOV "...the task is to represent the majority (scientific) view as the majority view and the minority (sometimes pseudoscientific) view as the minority view." This is in contradiction with original research. My statement was just one possible interpretation of the argument provided in source, and not obviously wrong interpretation. But I changed it stating clearly that this is not widely accepted. So it is in accordance with NPOV guidelines. Tkorrovi 18:40, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

text: I understand now where comes the controversy between what is stated in NPOV and in original research. What is said in original research can only be applied when there is some new theory written in the article. This article doesn't describe any new theory, it describes and gives possible interpretations of different views about AC based on different sources. The aim is to provide all human knowledge there is about AC as NPOV advises, not any full theory. Concerning "personal controversial interpretations of the editors" the NPOV policy says that "we should fairly represent all sides of a dispute, and not make an article state, imply, or insinuate that any one side is correct." This means that all interpretations should be included. It's obvious that most of such interpretations come from one or another single editor. It seems that by policy it should be said then that "this and this editor said that...", but this would mean emphasizing the name of the editor in the article, what would be an unfair promotion of a small person. Therefore, as Wikipedia users should be considered a small persons, none of them should be considered so special that what he says, nobody else could never think. So considering your personal view, only your personal view is somewhat arrogant as well, you only represent one person who thinks in some particular way. Therefore we can only say that certain point of view or interpretation is not widely accepted. Concerning "capable human", how else would you determine a human who is fully conscious, having all what is necessary for consciousness, with enough mental resources for that? Not everybody thinks that any mentally disabled person is conscious. But if you have another approach, then write it, as far as it is not wrong, my view, or similar view by other people, should not dominate. I'm not so keen to write my particular sentence mentioned into the article, most importantly I want it to become clear how writing the article fairly should be done. Tkorrovi 21:10, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

text: It's not so big problem to consider all opinions here, by far not every person has different opinion, and unfortunately Wikipedia can only include the views of these people who edit it, this is why everything is done to increase the number of editors, even to allow to edit anonymously. The article what recommends to write in news style is news style. But this is only a recommendation, not a compulsory policy. In Manual of Style it is recommended to write event articles in news style, but AC article is not event article. It is not obligatory to write such articles as reportage. This should be good for many articles, especially these what should report the facts or events, but articles as AC article should rather give all knowledge there is about the topic, and give idea to reader how different people may look at these issues. "Ideally, presenting all points of view also gives a great deal of background" (NPOV), this is not the same as reporting the facts, and is especially important for such controversial topic as AC. Also, as there is not so huge amount of information about AC, acting as reporters would not provide enough reported events to form any complete representation of the knowledge there is. So this reporting style is a matter of opinion, not obligatory rule. There is also not so strict policy concering bias in some particular views "But experienced academics, polemical writers, and rhetoricians are well-attuned to bias, both their own and others', so that they can usually spot a description of a debate that tends to favor one side" (NPOV). Wikipedia should be unbiased by presenting all views. Wikipedia should present all views, and all possible interpretations, and it is allowed to interpret the sources, not demanded that every sentence we write must come from some authoritative person. NPOV is rather "representing disputes, characterizing them, rather than engaging in them", not deleting one disputed interpretation because no authoritative person didn't say exactly that. A lot of how you and others interpret the views are also not said exactly so by an authoritative person. Tkorrovi 23:03, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The opinion "unfortunately Wikipedia can only include the views of these people who edit it" is wrong.  Of course we can represent the views of others.  When acting as your copy-editor I do it all the time.  :-)  Paul Beardsell 00:17, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: To correct, I meant only the views put there by the people who edit it, these may be their views, or the views of the others. Tkorrovi 00:37, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia is not New Scientist, New Scientist only represents the most established views, there is a rigorous peer review before anything is published there. Articles about AC have not much chance to get there, as there are not much peers in the field, and even almost no peer-reviewed articles. Wikipedia aims to include all views, not only the most established, as I mentioned above, even the pseudoscientific views can be included, when it is mentioned that these are minority views. It's not desirable though to include something what is obviously wrong (or, say, having a lot of negative peer review what confirms that). In Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is also said that "you don't have to get all of your information on entries from peer-reviewed journals", what I'm not sure that is allowed in New Scientist, or your article would not get a positive peer review then. So by all that, Wikipedia is very different from New Scientist. In NPOV is also stated that Wikipedia should not adopt a "scientific point of view" instead of "neutral point of view", so Wikipedia is clearly not such scientific publication as New Scientist, by NPOV it is a general encyclopedia, a "representation of human knowledge", not a publication for widely accepted scientific research (peer review etc). And one more thing. New scientist is a very good journal, containing only research, correctness of what is thoroughly checked. But peer review may take a year or two. Can you imagine how many years (or centuries) it did take for example to develop Linux operating system, if nothing could be used before it was published, say, in New Scientist. Tkorrovi 23:53, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an encyclopaedia, not an operating system.  AC is a scientific subject - the appropriate place to see an exposition on AC is New Scientist or Popular Psychology.  But, I agree, some views that either journal would ignore we should include.  BUT it seems to me that you yourself prefer the scientific approach, no?  Paul Beardsell 00:11, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Linux was built based on knowledge as well, and knowledge is what Wikipedia should represent. I certainly prefer scientific method, but not peer-reviewed style rigor for just everything, I think that every knowledge in science should be available for users of this knowledge to decide. And AC, some want rather to put it under philosophy than science. I want it to be science, and more precise science than psychology, under what they once created this article. Tkorrovi 00:32, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ability to predict 

message: :This was an interpretation of the provided source, by original research it is allowed to interpret sources in Wikipedia. Also that I was an only user who wanted to write that is not in contradiction with NPOV and Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial. You may say that it was in contradiction with original research, but this guide is also in contradiction with NPOV and  Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial what allows even new theories with the condition that they should not be given equal importance, as to widely accepted theories. So in that sense we may proceed from main guide, just when it is stated so that it clearly is not a widely supported view. The requirement that the opinion of the small minority cannot be written in Wikipedia may be reduced to absurd that no single individual cannot write anything in Wikipedia when it doesn't directly come from sources, but interpreting sources in their own way is what most of the Wikipedia users do, and allowed to do when they allow other opinions. For AC there is also a problem that it is new field and people who study that are by themselves a small minority compared to AI researchers or other scientific community. So there a single not well known study or researcher means a lot. So I think we should take it reasonably, not the way that anything written by me or you should be deleted just because not exactly that was said by any known scientist. Tkorrovi 18:22, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: From NPOV "...the task is to represent the majority (scientific) view as the majority view and the minority (sometimes pseudoscientific) view as the minority view." This is in contradiction with original research. My statement was just one possible interpretation of the argument provided in source, and not obviously wrong interpretation. But I changed it stating clearly that this is not widely accepted. So it is in accordance with NPOV guidelines. Tkorrovi 18:40, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

text: I understand now where comes the controversy between what is stated in NPOV and in original research. What is said in original research can only be applied when there is some new theory written in the article. This article doesn't describe any new theory, it describes and gives possible interpretations of different views about AC based on different sources. The aim is to provide all human knowledge there is about AC as NPOV advises, not any full theory. Concerning "personal controversial interpretations of the editors" the NPOV policy says that "we should fairly represent all sides of a dispute, and not make an article state, imply, or insinuate that any one side is correct." This means that all interpretations should be included. It's obvious that most of such interpretations come from one or another single editor. It seems that by policy it should be said then that "this and this editor said that...", but this would mean emphasizing the name of the editor in the article, what would be an unfair promotion of a small person. Therefore, as Wikipedia users should be considered a small persons, none of them should be considered so special that what he says, nobody else could never think. So considering your personal view, only your personal view is somewhat arrogant as well, you only represent one person who thinks in some particular way. Therefore we can only say that certain point of view or interpretation is not widely accepted. Concerning "capable human", how else would you determine a human who is fully conscious, having all what is necessary for consciousness, with enough mental resources for that? Not everybody thinks that any mentally disabled person is conscious. But if you have another approach, then write it, as far as it is not wrong, my view, or similar view by other people, should not dominate. I'm not so keen to write my particular sentence mentioned into the article, most importantly I want it to become clear how writing the article fairly should be done. Tkorrovi 21:10, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

text: It's not so big problem to consider all opinions here, by far not every person has different opinion, and unfortunately Wikipedia can only include the views of these people who edit it, this is why everything is done to increase the number of editors, even to allow to edit anonymously. The article what recommends to write in news style is news style. But this is only a recommendation, not a compulsory policy. In Manual of Style it is recommended to write event articles in news style, but AC article is not event article. It is not obligatory to write such articles as reportage. This should be good for many articles, especially these what should report the facts or events, but articles as AC article should rather give all knowledge there is about the topic, and give idea to reader how different people may look at these issues. "Ideally, presenting all points of view also gives a great deal of background" (NPOV), this is not the same as reporting the facts, and is especially important for such controversial topic as AC. Also, as there is not so huge amount of information about AC, acting as reporters would not provide enough reported events to form any complete representation of the knowledge there is. So this reporting style is a matter of opinion, not obligatory rule. There is also not so strict policy concering bias in some particular views "But experienced academics, polemical writers, and rhetoricians are well-attuned to bias, both their own and others', so that they can usually spot a description of a debate that tends to favor one side" (NPOV). Wikipedia should be unbiased by presenting all views. Wikipedia should present all views, and all possible interpretations, and it is allowed to interpret the sources, not demanded that every sentence we write must come from some authoritative person. NPOV is rather "representing disputes, characterizing them, rather than engaging in them", not deleting one disputed interpretation because no authoritative person didn't say exactly that. A lot of how you and others interpret the views are also not said exactly so by an authoritative person. Tkorrovi 23:03, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The opinion "unfortunately Wikipedia can only include the views of these people who edit it" is wrong.  Of course we can represent the views of others.  When acting as your copy-editor I do it all the time.  :-)  Paul Beardsell 00:17, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: To correct, I meant only the views put there by the people who edit it, these may be their views, or the views of the others. Tkorrovi 00:37, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia is not New Scientist, New Scientist only represents the most established views, there is a rigorous peer review before anything is published there. Articles about AC have not much chance to get there, as there are not much peers in the field, and even almost no peer-reviewed articles. Wikipedia aims to include all views, not only the most established, as I mentioned above, even the pseudoscientific views can be included, when it is mentioned that these are minority views. It's not desirable though to include something what is obviously wrong (or, say, having a lot of negative peer review what confirms that). In Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is also said that "you don't have to get all of your information on entries from peer-reviewed journals", what I'm not sure that is allowed in New Scientist, or your article would not get a positive peer review then. So by all that, Wikipedia is very different from New Scientist. In NPOV is also stated that Wikipedia should not adopt a "scientific point of view" instead of "neutral point of view", so Wikipedia is clearly not such scientific publication as New Scientist, by NPOV it is a general encyclopedia, a "representation of human knowledge", not a publication for widely accepted scientific research (peer review etc). And one more thing. New scientist is a very good journal, containing only research, correctness of what is thoroughly checked. But peer review may take a year or two. Can you imagine how many years (or centuries) it did take for example to develop Linux operating system, if nothing could be used before it was published, say, in New Scientist. Tkorrovi 23:53, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an encyclopaedia, not an operating system.  AC is a scientific subject - the appropriate place to see an exposition on AC is New Scientist or Popular Psychology.  But, I agree, some views that either journal would ignore we should include.  BUT it seems to me that you yourself prefer the scientific approach, no?  Paul Beardsell 00:11, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Linux was built based on knowledge as well, and knowledge is what Wikipedia should represent. I certainly prefer scientific method, but not peer-reviewed style rigor for just everything, I think that every knowledge in science should be available for users of this knowledge to decide. And AC, some want rather to put it under philosophy than science. I want it to be science, and more precise science than psychology, under what they once created this article. Tkorrovi 00:32, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: what should be in the article

message: Another test of AC, in the opinion of some, should include a demonstration that machine is capable to learn the ability to filter out certain stimuli in its environment, to focus on certain stimuli, and to show attention toward its environment in general. The mechanisms that govern how human attention is driven are not yet fully understood by scientists. This absence of knowledge could be exploited by engineers of AC; since we don't understand attentiveness in humans, we do not have specific and known criteria to measure it in machines. Since unconsciousness in humans equates to total inattentiveness, an AC should have outputs that indicate where its attention is focused at any one time, at least during the aforementioned test. 
I am looking for references to support the above.  Where something is a truism or plainly logically follows references are obviously not required.  But we have to be careful to include relevant material only.  Having said that I like attentiveness as a desirable attribute of AC - at least it can be tested!  Paul Beardsell 12:28, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  attentiveness 

message: I think the AC article on the whole should be deleted. --Wikiwikifast 02:26, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: But that is just my opinion. It makes the AC talk page interesting, though. Wikiwikifast 04:10, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  AC article should be deleted 

message: Simulated consciousness cannot be real consciousness, by definition. says the article.  However this may not be true.  Consider the following cases: A simulated aeroplane and a simulated author.  A simulated aeroplane can simulate the making of a simulated flight. A simulated author can simulate the writing of a simulated story.  However note that, although it is easy to tell the difference between a simulated flight and a real flight, it may not be nearly so easy to to tell the difference between a simulated story and a real story. In fact a good enough simulated author will be able to write simulated stories which pass all the tests of real stories.  In principle there is no difference between a simulated story and a real story whereas there is an inherent difference between a simulated flight and a real flight.  Since it now appears that there are at least two classes of concepts (those in which the distinction between simulated and real examples of the concept is meaningful and those in which it isn't), the question is "Which class does consciousness belong to ?". Mere appeal to the definition of "simulated" is not enough. Perhaps a conscious being, is like a story rather than a flight. -- Derek Ross 20:03, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there is any such thing as a simulated story. A story is just a story. Therefore Derek's question goes to the heart of the issue. There is only one example of consciousness that each of us can draw on: our own. Anything else is theoretical. The assessment of another entity's consciousness is therefore necessarily subjective; there is no exterior (objective) model against which to judge it. The only yardstick for assessment of an implementation of artificial consciousness must therefore be (analogous to the method of the Turing test) whether a set of people judge that implementation to be effective. Artificial consciousness and simulated consciousness are not synonymous. Indeed the idea of simulated consciousness doesn't make sense, in the same way that the idea of a simulated story doesn't make sense. So, yes, indeed, a conscious being is like a story rather than a flight. Matt Stan 11:31, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Simulated story was considered to be a story generated by a simulated author, for example  (Java must be installed to run that). Tkorrovi 13:20, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

text: Interesting. That seems to be going beyond the standard definition of simulated.  It seems to imply that if I were to ask a person with real consciousness for a list of web pages featuring the phrase "artificial consciousness", I would receive a real answer in the form of a list of URLs but if I were to ask a machine with simulated consciousness for the same thing, I would receive a simulated answer in the form of a list of URLs. The two lists might well look identical but apparently one would be real whereas the other would be merely simulated. Is that what you mean to say ? -- Derek Ross 14:41, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Derek wrote (above): "A simulated aeroplane can simulate the making of a simulated flight. A simulated author can simulate the writing of a simulated story." I would have written: "A flight simulator simulates the making of a real flight. (There is no point in it simulating a simulated flight, unless it is a test simulator intended to show whether the actual flight simulator works, although even this is unlikely.) A simulated author can write a real story. (I do not understand the idea of a simulated story. Like Derek says, a list of URLs is a list or URLs regardless of who or what produced it.)" But although there might appear to be semantic identity between the result of a flight simulator and the result of a simulated author, there isn't really. Although a flight simulator simulates a real flight, its result is a simulated flight. But a simulated author produces real story, come what may. So I don't see where we're going beyond the definition of simulated. In an attempt to substitute consciousness in the argument, we get: "A consciousness simulator either produces real consciousness or simulated consciousness." I'd suggest that there's no way to tell whether the result of the consciousness simulator is simulated consciousness or real consciousness - the manifestation of consciousness is hence more akin to the list of URLs than to a simulated flight. That might seem counter-intuitive, but is there a counter-argument? Matt Stan 16:59, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

text: What I was trying to say, Paul, is that although English will allow us to discuss simulated stories, brave potatoes, or waterproof fluency, that doesn't mean that these words refer to concepts that are real, useful or meaningful. They may be; they may not be. Referring to the definition of simulated will not tell us whether simulated consciousness is real or not since some simulated things are real and some are not. So I think that the words by definition are inappropriate. They seem to give unwarranted authority to a statement which may be true or untrue but is definitely controversial.  In my opinion it's probably untrue but I'm happy to admit that I don't really know and that I don't believe that anyone else does (although they too may have an opinion). -- Derek Ross 20:53, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

text: I can tell whether a flight is real or simulated by looking out of the window and checking whether I see pixels or the blue and beyond. But how would I discriminate between a real and so-called simulated story? I suggest there is no way of doing this. Therefore there is no such thing as a simulated story and, by inference, there is no such thing as simulated consciousness. That's not to say that there can't be a consciousness simulator (although that is perhaps a misleading name for whatever it might be) just as there might be a simulated author (as Tkorrovi suggests above) who lives somewhere in Java. Matt Stan 16:59, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Very true.  But then again if the definition of an author is one who writes stories, is the author really simulated just because it is artificial ? -- Derek Ross 01:59, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

text: One of the things we have been doing here for a while is to discuss semantic differences between different terms. In terms of citations, as indicated above there doesn't seem to be mucch on the internet on 'artificial consciousness' per se, though there is plenty on various aspects of consciousness within an AI context. Therefore the adjective used is not of great significance. Because it is not an established academic discipline in its own right, whereas artificial intelligence is, we find that references to machine consciousness use a number of different terms which mean the same thing. Artificial consciousness is just one of those terms, perhaps claiming closest affinity with artificial intelligence by use of the word artificial. Therefore the artificial consciousness article should be the most rigorously scientific of all the alternatives, and there could happily be a artificial consciousness (alternative theories) page. But let's keep the main page free of anything without citation. Matt Stan 00:10, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  By definition ? 

message: Matthew Stannard, an expert of the English language, who constantly criticizes my use of English, interprets in his latest edit "capable human" as a "human deemed to have the capabilities of humanity". In what dictionary did you find such definition? The word "capable" has much more exact meaning, what is widely known to every educated person, in 1913 public domain Webster the first definition is "Possessing legal power or capacity; as, a man capable of making a contract, or a will". The capable person must have enough mental powers and ability to think to make a contract or will, what this means is legally very well determined. Old people who are going to make a will are sometimes asked questions like who is the prime minister of his/her country, to find out whether he/she is mentally able, and carefully checked that every sentence is what he/she really wants. The other definition is "Possessing adequate power; qualified; able; fully competent; as, a capable instructor; a capable judge; a mind capable of nice investigations", but these are mostly the meanings for specific cases (like instructor or judge, not ordinary human). But not "deemed to have the capabilities of humanity". Tkorrovi 17:10, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That's the paranoia I mentioned earluier.  Paul Beardsell 07:35, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I just wanted to find a reasonable explanation. It's humane that something what we don't understand may seem redicilous to us. Smarter people just usually think more. If they find a reason why something is wrong, then they say that, and if they don't find it, and find that they are not at the moment competent to criticize, then they choose to ignore instead of laughing at the people involved and thinking that they would achieve something by that. This can be solved by thinking more, but if the reason of ridiculing others is paranoia, then it's sad. You said me once (in the Archive 8) "I want to use the term artificial consciousness in the same way I might one day have to use natural consciousness to distinguish it from the artificial variety and as a separate subset of consciousness. You must not be allowed to impose some other meaning on the term than what it literally does now mean." Then somene in the Village Pump said to me that what you wanted to say was "I don't want you to". I started to think that maybe you indeed just act like a child who feels hurt when something is not as it likes, and then starts to attack others as a protest. As you may notice, most of the people who have been here don't support your personal attacks. Tkorrovi 12:35, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

text: The sentence you keep on inserting into the article therefore means that any AC must have the capability to enter into legal contracts as that is an ability of a capable human.  Your sentence is not backed up with a quote from any scholar or a citation of any article, nor do you demonstrate that it follows logically from any such reference.  And it isn't even common sense.  Paul Beardsell 07:56, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: "Capable" was just meant to mean a level of development. Maybe we can also say "mentally able". There were many attempts to develop AC what should exhibit human behaviour, not just some behaviour what seems to be conscious for some, like  "The system must be able to acquire arbitrary new knowledge and cognitive skills from a human instructor and must understand the acquired knowledge. It must exhibit human-like psychological states, in particular, motivated voluntary behavior and emotional states such as appreciation of a joke." This also shows that learning is deemed necessary for AC. This is not the best paper, just one example. Tkorrovi 17:53, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

text: Yes, I think it is vitally important that we restrict discussion of artificial consciousness to instances that are cabable of being judged against the capable human (the usual legal term is actually 'capable person', or perhaps Tkorrovi just means compos mentis). This accords with the overall idiosyncratic nature of this article. After all we wouldn't want to consider an illegal implementation: an instance of artificial consciousness that was incompetent, that perhaps artificially authored graffiti and sprayed it on railway carriages, that simulated a sociopath and killed anyone who came within range, and so on. So let us restrict the discussion to instances that are cabaple of demonstrating integrity and that are eventually so trustworthy that we can hand over world leadership to them. What a noble aim! Matt Stan 08:45, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: We also talked about it earlier. The aim of artificial consciousness cannot be creating an "artificial idiot" what should not necessarily have any mental ability, then we can create just literally nothing and call it artificial consciousness. This would make artificial consciousness a nonsense. Don't know that any scholar ever seriously suggested that. "So let us restrict the discussion to instances that are cabaple of demonstrating integrity..." Not that we should restrict discussion to that, but what is wrong in trying to create AC what demonstrates integrity? "...eventually so trustworthy that we can hand over world leadership to them" This would be a subject of another long discussion similar to "AI taking over the world" what was discussed a lot i the Internet, but recently it seems to me that more and more people who are competent in AI think that this is an absurd idea, often propagated by incompetent people who have no other way to make their ideas interestig. Tkorrovi 11:39, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

text: Yes there seems to be confusion between propriety, proprietorial, and proprietary, which must be very difficult. Is hypocriticism the opposite of hypercriticism, as hypoglycaemic is the opposite of hyperglycaemic? The noun from hypocritical is hypocrisy  - not hypocriticism (from below), just one of the idiosyncracies of the English language. But I am still not sure whether Tkorrovi is being sensitive to criticism or accusing me of hypocrisy - both probably, but who cares? A hypocrite says one thing and does another. Is there an equivalent word for someone who says one thing but means another? Perhaps this should be dubbed the 'incapable human'?   Matt Stan 08:45, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Proprietorial means "Of or pertaining to ownership; proprietary; as, proprietorial rights" (1913 Webster) and proprietary means "Belonging, or pertaining, to a proprietor; considered as property; owned; as, proprietary medicine" so the proprietorial claim may mean that something was claimed to be somebodie's property (proprietary claim) or that he has other rights of ownership to it. Why do you accuse me in making proprietorial claims on the article when I never did it? Don't you understand that this is a serious accusation? Tkorrovi 15:35, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It may be that a dictionary gives proprietary as synonymous with proprietorial, but an important point about English is that there are practically no synonyms in the language (according to Fowler, whom I respect). Proprietorial and proprietary have distinct meanings and usages. If they meant the same thing then there wouldn't be the two words in the languiage. To accuse someone of being proprietorial about a wikipedia article is no big deal. We are all proprietorial about the items we have on our watchlists - it's the first thing we look at when we log in - to see who's been messing with my stuff. It's against the spirit in Wikipedia, however, where we are exorted via the open licence to forgo the ownership which we naturally feel about our writing. It's intended to be helpful to warn someone who is being unduly proprietorial to watch out about their own ego. Someone who is in dispute about a page, who complains bitterly about others' edits, and persists in preserving their own form of words is being proprietorial, and they don't need to say they are; it's plainly self-evident, and it's not an insult, just a friendly reflection and a warning not to become obsessed. Matt Stan 23:55, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I never said and the dictionary doesn't say that proprietorial and proprietary are synonyms. Trying to preserve some phrase is not a proprietorial claim when it is not a copyrighted quote. Accusing me in making proprietorial claims is accusing me in violating the Wikipedia copyright (the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License). This is a serious accusation. I never made any proprietorial claims on the article and never considered to have any copyright of the article or the parts of it what I edited. Take back your accusation. Tkorrovi 08:01, 12 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course I take back any accusation you feel I might have made and apologise unequivocally for any offence you might have taken about the notion of your proprietoriality over the content of the artificial consciousness page. It is not rational, however, to infer that you may have violated Wikipedia copyright, as I was at pains to ensure you understood the distinction between proprietorial and proprietary, and I never suggested anything to do with the latter term.  I was making an observation, which I don't think was inchoate, that you would do well to take a step back, so to speak. Check out Ogden Nash quote. Matt Stan 08:30, 12 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, apology accepted. It is not the exact wording what is important, but it is sometimes important that the description is complete, therefore it cannot always be edited only by taking something out of there. It is not so easy to formulate them, and this is because they don't change very rapidly. Therefore it would be more reasonable to add other interpretations and not delete the others. We may add to every interpretation that it is not widely accepted, but different interpretatations help reader to better understand different ways how some concept can be understood. We may back interpretations with different sources but we cannot replace all interpretations with quotes, there may not be exactly such quotes because this article is like an overview, every source may be specialized only to certain aspect. Maybe the best for article on such not so well established topic would be not to delete anything except what is obviously wrong, and include as many views as possible. This is the best what we can do and is not in contradiction with Wikipedia rules. If we try to write a scientifically perfect article, then trying to do it without contradiction we would inevitably decline towards scholars with a certain view, and may even go to wrong direction as the research is still very preliminary. We should discuss more about the way how to write such article. Tkorrovi 11:27, 12 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Under the Eye of the Clock, A Brief History of Time

message: Perhaps a problem with this topic is to know how to build a good encyclopedia article. It could become a meandering piece, essentially an unstructured set of notes about whatever any wikipedians happen to pick up from elsewhere. What is needed, I think, is a vision, a focus, and to which end I suggest that consciousness, whilst difficult to define entirely, is nevertheless a singluar phenomenon. Whatever theories there are about how it works there is probably only one which is right. Which? I.e. What is the leading theory, and to answer that, we need to know who are the leading theorists. If the discipline is too immature to answer this question, i.e. development is of such a nature that no one can tell who the leading theorists are, we should at least ask who is making progress in the field. So we might divide the experts up into those who are active today, those who were once active and whose ideas have been superseded, and those whose ideas, whilst old, provide the bedrock from which modern theories have been built. My feeling is that if we can agree about the structure of the AC article, and define that in this talk area, then we will make better progress on the article itself. Matt Stan 08:00, 13 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This would be a work for several months, in fact a work what nobody exactly did before. To start from something, I collected links from first 200 results of Google search for "artificial consciousness" what are about the topic at , this should give some kind of overview at least on the most active research. As you see, several articles are these what we already saw. There is exactly no complete theory, and different papers are mostly about different aspects of AC.  Attention, awareness (of processes), imagination, prediction, learning, perception, association, dynamism, adaptability are possible aspects of AC, and they may not be a separate modules of the AC system, but aspects of the same mechanism. Many of them are mentioned in connection with neural networks, but neural network is in essence a simple mechanism. It's restricted to recognizing images though, so it may need some additional software. There are other mechanisms what are less restricted like cellular automata, but nobody could train them yet. And lastly there is my mechanism, what is very simple, but deemed to be more unrestricted than neural networks and by some theoretical reasons (like Dennett's multiple drafts principle) may in some way have all these aspects. But there is no complete AC theory yet. I tend to think that the right theory may be somewhere near to what I talked about, but the article is not for such conclusions. Then there is top down approach, like create the system and input there all human knowledge, seems to be quite infeasible for some, and bottom up approach many AC projects are based on. Not much software except neural networks and artificial emotions systems. Well, what I think. But more importantly it should be necessary to systematize the articles there are. I try to work on it, but it's not very easy. Tkorrovi 21:22, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

text: I added keywords to AC articles . A lot of articles are a kind of philosophy what we also talked here a lot, unfortunately often quite fruitless concerning how to actually make an AC system. But as there is a lot of such philosophy, then it should be in the article as well. There is no leading theory, but what I like the most is an article by Igor Aleksander and Owen Holland in Guardian Unlimited , this is also the most similar to that how I understand AC, and almost the only theory what really gives an idea what AC is. I think that they would not succeed in building their robot, though I think that at least the given details of the theory are correct. But it most likely would not be able to adapt to any a bit more complex environment because it's not unrestricted enough. I think there are reasons to consider that what concerns the principles of making an AC system, the work of Daniel Dennett and Igor Aleksander is the most essential, then there are many others, whose work add to that. Tkorrovi 22:59, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: A good article

message: For these who wanted me to explain the Igor Aleksander's theory, this is a very preliminary (as I do everything too quickly) description of Artificial Neuroconsciousness: An Update. The neural networks he used as an example are a very primitive preliminary models of AC, but based on these models he derived a quite complete, and I think more or less correct, basic theory of AC, what may also be a basis of AC implementations by mechanisms other than neural networks. The examples may be implemented by a freeware program "Machine Consciousness Toolbox", but unfortunately the download site is off, as well as there is no other AC software (except artificial emotions software) for download, I wonder if my program is the only one.
"Here the theory is developed by defining that which would have to be synthesized were consciousness to be found in an engineered artefact. This is given the name "artificial consciousness" to indicate that the theory is objective and while it applies to manufactured devices it also stimulates a discussion of the relevance of such a theory to the consciousness of living organisms." Igor Aleksander says that the theoretical framework of the theory "has been inspired by Kelly's [5] theory of "personal constructs" which explains the causes of personality differences in human beings."
He defines a perceptual mode "which is active during perception - when sensory neurons are active" and mental mode "which is active even when sensory neurons are inactive". In his model the inputs of both modes are added, and mental mode is modelled as a feedback loop from neural network's output.
The neural network what he used as an example has an inner state, and it can be trained (e.g. by reinforcement signal) to go from certain state qw to certain other state qx when input is ix. This means that after training it goes from qw to qx also when input is similar to ix (the main reason why neural networks are useful). By set theory such learning is described as qx = §( ix, qw ). If we then continue to give a reinforcement signal, but provide no input, then it goes to mental mode, and input comes from output, such way we can teach it to stay in the state qx. As a result of such training, the only "learned" state will be qx, and it only goes to that state from the state qw. It likely cannot be in any other state when it is not in training mode. If, after such training, we put it into state qw, then it stays in the state qw and changes its output, and in time the output would be similar to ix, it goes to the state qx, and would stay there   (also Owen Holland proposed a "Recurrent Neural Machine" what does it faster). This is a primitive example of prediction that the state qw is followed by the state qx, a primitive learned model of the environment.
"Prediction is one of the key functions of consciousness. An organism that cannot predict would have a seriously hampered consciousness."
He argues that awareness of self follows from prediction, because by his model the prediction requires a feedback loop. But if prediction is done in accordance with Dennett's multiple drafts principle, then it also requires information from other processes, to find out whether a process fits into its environment, what sometimes may also include feedback loops.
He says that spatial association is necessary for representation of meaning. He also named language learning, will, instict and emotion as aspects of AC. "Language is a result of the growth process of a societal repository from which it can be learned by a conscious organism, given the availability of knowledgeable 'instructors'".
As an answer to Penrose argument he says that "the main aim of the theory is to show that the complex mixture of properties normally attributed to a conscious organism are the properties associated with some computing structures and may be described through appropriate formalisms" and "while it is possible to agree that consciousness cannot be captured by a programmer's recipe (algorithm), the door should at least be kept open for computational models of consciousness based on systems that are capable of building up their own processing structures". Concerning Dennett's multiple drafts principle he says that "While the Cartesian ghost in the machine has been expunged, the ghost of the programmer is still there, and this does little to explain how the machine components come into being and do what they do", implying that there is no mechanism yet to implement that principle other than in a pre-programmed way (my program  provides a proposed mechanism and passed one, though a very simple test). "Nagel's suggestion that it is necessary to say what it is like to be a particular conscious organism [13], can, in ACT be expressed in terms of a taxonomy of state structures (i.e. how does the state structure of a bat differ from that of a human?)".
Tkorrovi 21:51, 18 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Artificial Neuroconsciousness: An Update 

message: I've put a new heading in because it seems to me that the notion that consciouness is only "explainable" in terms of a holistic quantum dynamic theory, though interesting and worthy of coverage in the article, could also be deemed a form of vitalism, i.e. that there is some overarching phenomenon - that we will never get to the root of because of the quantum dynamics tenet that mere observation changes what is observed - which ensures that consciousness will always remain mysterious and can never be fully explained without use of mystical icons. I pursue my theme by pointing out that, to my knowledge, no other biological phenomenon has required quantum dynamics to explain it. The application of scientific empiricism in medical research has borne fruit pretty consistently and we keep expanding our knowledge at the genetic level as elsewhere using entirely mechanistic models. On that basis, though the philosophical arguments about the nature of consciousness will I'm sure continue to rage, I don't think it has been demonstrated that the notion that I'm terming here vitalism needs to be explained before there can be an implementation of artificial consciousness. Matt Stan 13:00, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Vitalism]]

message: Whilst discussion of the nature of aC continues at the philosophical level, it occurred to me that there are various manifestations which qualify as examples of artificial consciousness. There's Asimo, mentioned above, which I think qualifies under this discussion. But I have in mind now the annunciator at my local railway station, a human-sounding voice that uses the first person to tell me that my train is late or has been cancelled. It makes announcements like, "I am sorry to announce that the 8.32 to London Bridge has been cancelled due to a fault." I have usually scorned such announcements as being insincere and giving me no opportunity to forgive this entity, as I would usually expect to be able to do upon receipt of a personal apology. Then it occurred to me that this voice is actually that of a robot, triggered by that great timetabling computer that monitors the progress of all the trains across the network. That computer is conscious that there may be people awaiting this cancelled train and therefore tells me via the loudspeakers on the platform. Should not this system qualify as an artificially conscious entity? If so, my ire at the insincerity of the railway company would be mitigated, because I would be relating to a robot that genuinely was sorry that my journey was being delayed. Or is this a rather fanciful interpretation of artificial consciousness? Matt Stan 11:04, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Manifestations