Talk:Artificial consciousness/Archive 6

message: Much of this is just semantics.
*We switch between different definitions of "conscious".  When a doctor says "conscious" in the context of your example he is not considering the philosophical issues.  He is like the mechanic talking about the engine of a car:  He uses the word "conscious" like the mechanic uses the term "running".  And there are different meanings of "running", too.  The SOED merely acknowledges the doctor's use of the term conscious in one of its definitions.  
**Doctor: "The patient is now conscious."
**Skeptic: "So you say, but is he self-aware?"
**Patient: "I am hungry."
**MSCE: "The computer is now running."
**Skeptic: "So you say, but is it self-aware?"
**Computer: "Battery low."
*The thermostat has its one feedback loop and, stuck on that loop, it deliberates.  And if it doesn't, if that is a term we must reserve for humans, another term is required.  But nothing is said about AC thereby.  All that is demonstrated is the need to reserve the term.
Someone is on a mountainside and does not notice rocks being piled around him.  When he shifts in position and "causes" an avalanche, that is not something which he consciously did.  The expanding rock in your example and the moving person in mine are in the same position here.  Not the thermostat and the rock.  In your example the thermostat cannot be conscious because the rock isn't, in my example the person cannot be conscious because the rock isn't.  But awake? Yes.  
Two points are made by re-stating your example.  (1) Awake and conscious are not the same thing.  (2) The question is pre-judged if the non-aliveness, non-humanness and simplicity of both the rock and the thermostat is used to say that each is not conscious because one of them isn't and they are similar in other respects.  All that has happened is you have stated your belief that consciousness is a preserve of more complicated things:  The thing you set out to prove.
As for the "driving a car" example surely you have had the same experience yourself:  On arriving somewhere the journey is not one you can say you consciously undertook.  "Well, I must have been awake."  That is the doctor's definition.  What about your internal watcher, what was he doing?  
Paul Beardsell 13:33, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: My internal watcher, that quintessential aspect of my consciousness, would have been watching something all the time during my drive. The fact that my attention, i.e. that which my internal watcher watches, was not focused on my driving, which I had allowed to happen through habitually learned processes, is neither here nor there. I am all the time unaware of that which I am not being attentive to - that doesn't mean that I'm unconscious. Obviously I'm unconscious of, i.e. unaware of the things to which I'm not being attentive, but that does not affect whether or not I'm a conscious entity. I don't think you can apply the same argument to a rock or a thermostat. The question is whether you can conceive a machine to which that argument does apply. Matt Stan 19:18, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Semantics

message: See /NPOV Version and /NPOV Version/discuss. --Jiang 06:14, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please leave draft articles in the talk namespace 

message: I consider it necessary to answer here a question asked in the beginning of the dispute over "artificial consciousness" article, because due to the dispute my answer may remain unclear.
"To say Artificial Consciousness is not Consciousness is simply to define Consciousness as being something human beings cannot build. If "it", whatever "it" is, is built by humans, then by definition it would not be conscious." (Paul Beardsell)
Yes, I said that artificial consciousness is not consciousness and I insist it, considering that we determine consciousness as the totality of a person's thoughts and feelings. This is the most general description of consciousness, the more narrow definitions supposed to be used in specific context, but it may again be understood differently by different people. That way we determine consciousness through human abilities, to be a totality of human abilities. And this may remain so, as we measure consciousness through our own abilities. As consciousness is subjective (Searle etc, feelings), then we can never determine if there is an equivalent to it. So if there is something similar to human consciousness in other than human, then we should call it with some other name, not just consciousness. But there will always be many subjective abilities or aspects like certain feelings etc even because there will always be new conditions to what different people react differently and therefore understand related ideas or experiences differently, what means that these ideas or experiences will be subjective. And we cannot build a machine to fully satisfy subjective concepts, at least just because people can never determine whether such machine finally does what it supposed to do or not. Therefore machine is something made by humans based on what they objectively know, not even anything what theoretically can be emulated by algorithm. So yes, by that if a machine is built by humans, then by definition it cannot be conscious. I don't know any AC effort to build a machine equivalent to human, so it is not commonly considered that AC must be equivalent to consciousness. But in spite I don't agree with that, I was not against including opposite point of view into the article. Tkorrovi 20 Mar 2004
So is the human being only a machine or is it something more than a machine?   Paul Beardsell 11:32, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Paul, this is a very interesting philosophical problem, and this article may be worth to be in Wikipadia even only because of mentioning this problem. It has its origins in writings of Dennett probably. The main problem there is what is a machine. If we consider that machine is anything what satisfies Church-Turing thesis, then the logic is correct. But the question is, are humans capable of making all possible machines what satisfy Church-Turing thesis? If by any reason they cannot, then the difference between human and machine is simply what we don't know yet or cannot objectively model because it is subjective (what different people understand differently), what may be rational and satisfy Church-Turing thesis (at least maybe when applied to everything), not necessarily soul or "magic spark". And in spite that we learn more all the time, there still remain things what we don't know, even just because people are constantly changing and interdependent on their environment and each other. So the dilemma remains and none of the views are proved wrong. Tkorrovi 22 Mar 2004
By Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation consistent with the facts is likely to be the correct one, and the Copernican principle, that no special or priveleged position should unnecessarily be given to any part of the problem,
Artificial Consciousness will be real consciousness.  The Church Turing thesis says we need new physics before two computing machines are different, by Occam's Razor we should not posit new physics without good reason.  By the Copernican principle we should claim no special position for human beings without good reason.  The only good reasons we have are arrogant ones:  Humans are too complicated, too special, too something for their brains to be built or copied artificially.  Surely, here you are correct:  we have lots to learn, we learn more all the time, many things are possible, each POV must be in the article.  But where you are wrong, if you hold this view, is that each POV has equal merit.  No, the approach consistent with the scientific method says:  Artificial consciousness is likely to be real consciousness, by Occam's Razor and the Copernican principle.  And that will remain the most likely true POV until contradictory evidence is discovered.  Paul Beardsell 16:43, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: Background on Penrose:  Most (practically all) scientists do not agree with Penrose, he is widely regarded as a crank in this field.  He posits that human consciousness depends on quantum processes in microtubules in the neurons of the brain!  Other scientists correctly ask:  What is your evidence for that?  Penrose ultimately has to resort to the circular argument that something special is required for consciousness.  Paul Beardsell 08:58, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: NPOV: Wikipedia rules do not say that all views must be included.  We can fairly leave the more cranky ones out.  But, I agree, Penrose's views must be included.  But it is neutral to expose his views to the fair criticism of others.  And, before you complain, I think you are saying nothing different.  Paul Beardsell 08:58, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: What I personally think is that human is not machine, but Church-Turing thesis apply, if not to a single human (because human is dependent on everything else), then at least to everything as a whole. The question is about "strong AC" view I don't agree with but as there is such view, then we may discuss it. "Is AC equivalent to consciousness" is a question asked in accordance with that view. The answer to this question depends on what we assume, what we consider to be AC (and therefore "machine") and what we consider to be consciousness. Essentially, it seems to me that "strong AC" view comes from the assumption that AC is meant to be an exact copy of human consciousness and it concludes that it must be so, because Church-Turing thesis must apply to AC and by assumption that AC is equivalent to consciousness, they must also apply to consciousness. So in essence this view assumes that human is a machine, and so it cannot conclude otherwise. And this doesn't exclude other views based on other assumptions. And not only assumptions, it was said that the only exact model of the universe is the universe itself, the same way we cannot exactly model such subjective and dependent entity as human consciousness, and AC cannot be equivalent to consciousness. But OK, we may discuss, but what I said was that we cannot assume that we here solve all the problems in the world, so we may discuss but not take the task to solve everything. It remains so that there are different views, not proved to be wrong, and it's not for us to judge what books should be burned. Tkorrovi 14:40, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Is AC equivalent to consciousness or not

message: At the village pump tkorrovi asked what I thought about this version.  And I replied I would comment here.
I think that a lot of work has gone into it and in some important ways it is better than the main article.  I also think that the main article is better than this one in some important ways.
I can spot some obvious minor flaws (e.g. grammar, wording) here.  I also can spot one or two larger mistakes made when tkorrovi made what is an obviously honest and well-meaning attempt to incorporate views that he himself does not hold.  Experience tells me that correcting these errors here might be problematic.
I want to incorporate some of the main article's talk page into the article itself.  Then the two pages need merging.
Paul Beardsell 14:23, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Preparing for a merger

message: Would it be worth summarising what the issues are about this topic? I'll have a go, and perhaps we can reach some consensus:
1) The epimestological question of whether artificial consciousness is possible or whether the term is an oxymoron, i.e. that by definition consciousness cannot be artificial because it wouldn't then be consciousness at all. To get around this, we either have to remove the need for thought from the definition of consciousness or change the title of the piece to simulated concsiousness.
2) The question of whether consciousness or indeed artificial consciousness necessarily requires a predictive capability, as suggested in the original article. Evidence from alternative sources should be provided to justify the original claim, and I have suggested that the alternative of anticipation should be included to cover his requirement.
3) The question of whether it is possible to define an average human for the purposes of setting criteria against which to measure the capabilities of an artificially conscious machine. No attempt has been made to indicate what this average is, and I have suggested that even a totally paralysed person or a highly mentally retarded person is still deemed to be conscious by humane people. I woukld add that a newborn baby or an Altzeimer's sufferer are also both conscious, although the latter probably in an impaired way.
4) the question of whether merely the ability to demonstrate consciousness of some phenomenon should be deemed as consciousness (consciousness in the transitive sense) or whether consciousness is absolute and doesn't require its experiencer to be conscious of anything in particular in order to be conscious (consciousness in the intransitive sense). If we accept that any inanimate object that is used to engineer some outcome is itself conscious by virtue of its function, then there isn't really anything to artificial consciousness and it could simply be defined as anything instrumental in achieving some end.
5) The question of reliable academic sources to back up claims made about a technical subject for the purposes of its entry in an encyclopedia, which I haven't seen any evidence of yet.
Matt Stan 18:21, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: The Issues