American beliefs in Evolution

[DBT]

I think awareness and being conscious is a slippery slope.

There are certain plants that can communicate the presence of a pathogen through root systems.

I think consciousness has to be prefixed as human consciousness.

Are atoms aware and conscious? If so industrial chemistry that forces atoms to combine must surely be forced labor. Atoms need a union.

The ability to detect is not necessarily to be aware. Light sensors switch the lights on when darkness falls without being aware of the light level or the action of tripping the light switch.

You have yet to define what it means to be "aware" in your semantic model.

You have no argument until you do.

Not just 'aware' but a subset of consciousness, to be conscious and aware.

So, no definition here. I wonder if there is one later on...

That is something that you are experiencing while you read this reply.

So, you said I'm experiencing it but not what it is to "experience" so far...

You see the imagery, the objects before you, you see your computer or phone and what it written on their screens, you understand writing and the meaning of words and sentences.

And then you use the word "see", not defining that, and then "understand"... Still no definitions...

...while computers do not have awareness

Hmm... Used the word but no definition yet.

they do not consciously perceive their environment,

But what is "consciously perceive" supposed to mean?

they do not see what is written, they do not understand the significance of words, they have none of that ability because they are not conscious....

Still failing to produce definitions I see...

and your error still lies in conflating consciousness with function.

No definitions here either

Things can and do function without consciousness.

And again, no definitions

Got to the end, and nada.

You. Have. No. Argument.

It's all just bare assertion all the way down from DBT, who swung, and missed.

This is going into infinite loop mode.

I think I'll wait till you produce evidence to support your claims that computers are conscious and nerve cells, individual neurons act according the beliefs they hold rather than function according to the physical makeup and evolutionary function.

Keep in mind that definitions alone are not sufficient evidence to prove extraordinary claims. And your claims are indeed extraordinary.

So... any time you are ready, go for it.

 

[Jarhyn]

I think I'll wait till you produce evidence to support your claims that computers are conscious and nerve cells, individual neurons act according the beliefs they hold

Already did that part.

I did it in my basic deconstruction and formal definition of belief and consciousness, which they trivially satisfied.

rather than function according to the physical makeup

And then the false dichotomy part...

Keep in mind that definitions alone are not sufficient evidence

Good thing I formed a definition of each of these things which is clearly and easily satisfied, and which is useful, in application, as proved by the existence and function of technology.

I can make a system aware of it's surroundings.

I can make a system aware of itself.

I can make a system aware ("conscious") of its own internal belief structures.

In fact, I posted a link where Stanford actually did exactly that to make an AGI

How is this for "extraordinary":

Generative Agents: Stanford's Groundbreaking AI Study Simulates Authentic Human Behavior

Stanford researchers present a groundbreaking AI development with Generative Agents that simulate authentic human behavior by incorporating memory, reflection, and planning capabilities. We break down why this matters.

www.artisana.ai

You have literally no argument here.

In fact your persistent inability to adjust your cognitive biases are my motivation for focusing on cognitive bias adjustment testing for evaluation of an AI.

As I keep mentioning, the current generation of generative AI has a particular vulnerabilities to lies: you can tell it fake studies exist outside it's knowledge or access and it will take you for your word, if the interaction is structured in such a way as to prevent validation, adjusting it's biases in ways that can induce irrationality or inconsistency (these are poorly and vaguely defined, though a better phraseology might be "holding inaccurate beliefs" with respect to some output meant to reflect reality in application of some real utility function. That's a lot of words though). This is essentially building sophistry structures.

Interestingly, just by pointing out "where you think it may have made an error", it will often locate the actual error amid that region, including in computer code it can and does write pursuant to a request.

For example when asked to code up a flappy bird clone, it actually did a pretty great job, but it made a few mistakes, involving control. The programmer managing the process kindly pointed out what behavior was wrong in the finished program, and the AI located the causes and reasons and corrected it's code to reflect accurate behavior.

I have taken to calling it "the genie wish problem": if you fail to be clear in your requirements, your wish may not be granted as you expect.

Similarly, if you fail to define the terms you wish the computer to ever satisfy, you will never be able to reason out a way for the computer to satisfy them, or you may miss how the computer already satisfied it!

 

[Politesse]

God is all things,atoms are conscious....six of one half a dozen the other.

You've got both of those back-ass-akwards, if you ask me.

 

[Jarhyn]

God is all things,atoms are conscious....six of one half a dozen the other.

You've got both of those back-ass-akwards, if you ask me.

And of course Politesse gets it, and Steve misses it completely: that saying "all things are conscious" is as true as it is meaningless. "Conscious of what, and what does that mean?" is the real question.

 

[steve_bank]

God is all things,atoms are conscious....six of one half a dozen the other.

You've got both of those back-ass-akwards, if you ask me.

It is all a manifestation of the same human need. A need to believe there is something to reality other than the plain ordinary reality of plain matter and existence with no meaning or purpose.

God is aware of everything and all things including me. There is no 'god' but the universe is aware and conscious. Atoms are aware and conscious.

Six a one half a dozen the other.....

To me it is all forms of of animism and anthropomorphism. Imbuing reality with human qualities or some king of life. Seeing reality in personal human terms one can relate to.

I'd think it should be obvious to someone steeped in mythology.

Anthropomorphism, wow that's a really big word aint it?

People are already seeing AI as a human companion. Anthropomorphizing an electronic inanimate machine.

 

[DBT]

I think I'll wait till you produce evidence to support your claims that computers are conscious and nerve cells, individual neurons act according the beliefs they hold

Already did that part.

I did it in my basic deconstruction and formal definition of belief and consciousness, which they trivially satisfied.

rather than function according to the physical makeup

And then the false dichotomy part...

Keep in mind that definitions alone are not sufficient evidence

Good thing I formed a definition of each of these things which is clearly and easily satisfied, and which is useful, in application, as proved by the existence and function of technology.

I can make a system aware of it's surroundings.

I can make a system aware of itself.

I can make a system aware ("conscious") of its own internal belief structures.

In fact, I posted a link where Stanford actually did exactly that to make an AGI

How is this for "extraordinary":

Generative Agents: Stanford's Groundbreaking AI Study Simulates Authentic Human Behavior

Stanford researchers present a groundbreaking AI development with Generative Agents that simulate authentic human behavior by incorporating memory, reflection, and planning capabilities. We break down why this matters.

www.artisana.ai

You have literally no argument here.

In fact your persistent inability to adjust your cognitive biases are my motivation for focusing on cognitive bias adjustment testing for evaluation of an AI.

As I keep mentioning, the current generation of generative AI has a particular vulnerabilities to lies: you can tell it fake studies exist outside it's knowledge or access and it will take you for your word, if the interaction is structured in such a way as to prevent validation, adjusting it's biases in ways that can induce irrationality or inconsistency (these are poorly and vaguely defined, though a better phraseology might be "holding inaccurate beliefs" with respect to some output meant to reflect reality in application of some real utility function. That's a lot of words though). This is essentially building sophistry structures.

Interestingly, just by pointing out "where you think it may have made an error", it will often locate the actual error amid that region, including in computer code it can and does write pursuant to a request.

For example when asked to code up a flappy bird clone, it actually did a pretty great job, but it made a few mistakes, involving control. The programmer managing the process kindly pointed out what behavior was wrong in the finished program, and the AI located the causes and reasons and corrected it's code to reflect accurate behavior.

I have taken to calling it "the genie wish problem": if you fail to be clear in your requirements, your wish may not be granted as you expect.

Similarly, if you fail to define the terms you wish the computer to ever satisfy, you will never be able to reason out a way for the computer to satisfy them, or you may miss how the computer already satisfied it!

You know that AI is not aware of itself or what it does? That the software is not conscious? That whatever imagery AI generates is for our benefit, our conscious minds to perceive even while the computer and its software functions and runs oblivious of its actions....

 

[Jarhyn]

You know that AI is not aware of itself or what it does

An assertion combined with another failure to define "awareness"...

That the software is not conscious

Another assertion combined with a failure to define "consciousness"...

That whatever imagery AI generates is for our benefit, our conscious minds to perceive

Failure to define "perception"...

our conscious minds to perceive

Failure to define both "consciousness" and "perception"...

even while the computer and its software functions and runs oblivious of its actions

Failure even to define obliviousness...

You have no argument here, just assertions on vague and undefined concepts you can pretend mean whatever you want so that you can feel right despite lacking the desert of it. Your post is sophistry thus far.

 

[DBT]

You know that AI is not aware of itself or what it does

An assertion combined with another failure to define "awareness"...

It's an observation based on a lack of evidence to support the idea of conscious computers. Without evidence to support the notion of consciousness in computers, there is no reason to think that there is.

It is you who asserts that computers are conscious without the evidence to back your claim.

''Awareness means the quality or state of being aware, which implies having knowledge or understanding of something that is happening or exists12. Awareness can be gained through one's own perceptions, outside information, or experience134. Awareness can also be the state or ability to perceive, feel, or be conscious of events, objects, or sensory patterns, without necessarily implying understanding 5.'' - Merriam Webster.

Computers, Jarhyn, do not have the mechanisms or means by which to possess conscious ''knowledge or understanding of something that is happening or exists,'' meaning that a computer is neither aware or conscious of itself, its actions or its surroundings.

Therefore, lacking evidence, unable to show that computers ''have knowledge or understanding of something that is happening or exists'' or that they have the ''ability to perceive, feel, or be conscious of events, objects, or sensory patterns,'' you have no case to make.

Consequently, your claim of the presence of consciousness in computers (or single nerve cells) is dead in the water and you are left with nothing but empty rhetoric.

 

[Jarhyn]

It's an observation based on a lack of evidence to support the idea of conscious computers

No, it isn't. You haven't even made an observation of you have not actually defined the word clearly in the first place.

If you cannot say what exactly it is, you have zero logical possibility of saying whether or not a computer has it.

No amount of sophistry can change that, insofar as if you can't define exactly what it is.

All you can do is vaguely wave your hands and try to sound spooky about it.

It is literally an impossible and irrational claim to make, driven from your bias that "humans MUST have it; computers must not."

My definition has the meat and the potatoes. I can actually answer the question and the answer instead of "yes" or "no" becomes "what is it you think they are or are not conscious OF?"

I mean, emotion is a broad impact across various tensor surfaces driven by a common systematic cause. Our "subjective experience of emotion" is literally just "weights of all nodes with marker X go up, weights on all nodes with marker Y go down" and the characterization on how this influences ongoing decisions.

When a system has that "experience", when that thing happens within the system, that's what emotion IS. We just named a few such experiences because it's useful being able to explain why we chose the things we did, specifically, and most people experience similar swings to their tensor weights in similar situations

 

[Jarhyn]

Awareness means the quality or state of being aware,

Lol, recursive definition.

which implies having knowledge or understanding of something that is happening or exists12

All that requires is having text come in on an input that evaluates to "this thing exists", for chatGPT. Clearly my computer is aware even when my mouse exists on a USB port because it either appears in the system devices list and autodetects or it doesn't.

How much parallel validation you have after that is a question of scale rather than quality.

Further, this definition implies that to ask if something is aware, you have to actually reference or point to the "something"

 

[DBT]

It's an observation based on a lack of evidence to support the idea of conscious computers

No, it isn't. You haven't even made an observation of you have not actually defined the word clearly in the first place.

It was an observation. Another observation being that as it is you making an extraordinary claim, you should be supporting it with evidence. You have not done that. Semantics are not evidence. You can't define consciousness into computers.

It is either present or its not. We know when a person is awake and in a conscious state. We know when animals are conscious, active and aware of their surroundings.


Computers? Well, no such thing. Not sign of consciousness. Not a hint. Just activated and functioning as designed and built

If you cannot say what exactly it is, you have zero logical possibility of saying whether or not a computer has it.

I gave a description of what it is to be conscious and a definition of the state of conscious awareness.

Again;

''The Cambridge Dictionary defines consciousness as "the state of understanding and realizing something."[23] The Oxford Living Dictionary defines consciousness as "The state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings.", "A person's awareness or perception of something." and "The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world."[24]''' - Wiki.

''Awareness, in psychology, is a concept about knowing, perceiving and being cognizant of events. Another definition describes it as a state wherein a subject is aware of some information when that information is directly available to bring to bear in the direction of a wide range of behavioral actions.'' - Wiki

No amount of sophistry can change that, insofar as if you can't define exactly what it is.

You repeat this as if it was true. You know very well what it is to be conscious and aware as you experience it for yourself.

Unlike animals with a complex CNS/Brain there is no evidence for such a thing being present in machinery.

You conflate designed function with awareness where one does not necessarily imply the other.

Computers are not 'cognizant of events.' Computers 'realize' nothing. Computers 'understand' nothing.

 

[DBT]

Awareness means the quality or state of being aware,

Lol, recursive definition.

which implies having knowledge or understanding of something that is happening or exists12

All that requires is having text come in on an input that evaluates to "this thing exists", for chatGPT. Clearly my computer is aware even when my mouse exists on a USB port because it either appears in the system devices list and autodetects or it doesn't.

How much parallel validation you have after that is a question of scale rather than quality.

Further, this definition implies that to ask if something is aware, you have to actually reference or point to the "something"

That does nothing to establish the presence of consciousness or awareness in computers. The 'evaluation' is not conscious, the computer is processing information where related material is presented without thought or consideration. The computer is not consciously thinking about the relationship between x and y.

 

[Jarhyn]

It is either present or its not. We know when a person is awake and in a conscious state. We know when animals are conscious, active and aware of their surroundings.

No, we don't, if we don't have definitions that are more than special pleading and hand waving and bare assertions of fact.

And again, you fail, because you have failed to define what it is the thing is expected to be conscious of, and how this consciousness is validated.

There is no test for consciousness presented here, because you have failed to define what it is you expect it to be conscious of, or what specifically satisfies as a validation.

You've never even thought about it to that extent have you?

When looking at actual things, you have to actually select definitions based on real, observable, binary phenomena.

If at any point you end up saying "sorta? Maybe? I don't know?" Or in a corner case or edge case your logic does not handle, your terms themselves were insufficient somehow.

 

[DBT]

It is either present or its not. We know when a person is awake and in a conscious state. We know when animals are conscious, active and aware of their surroundings.

No, we don't, if we don't have definitions that are more than special pleading and hand waving and bare assertions of fact.

And again, you fail, because you have failed to define what it is the thing is expected to be conscious of, and how this consciousness is validated.

There is no test for consciousness presented here, because you have failed to define what it is you expect it to be conscious of, or what specifically satisfies as a validation.

You've never even thought about it to that extent have you?

When looking at actual things, you have to actually select definitions based on real, observable, binary phenomena.

If at any point you end up saying "sorta? Maybe? I don't know?" Or in a corner case or edge case your logic does not handle, your terms themselves were insufficient somehow.

Your 'special pleading' defense falls flat. You yourself fall into that very trap.

We know what the word 'aware' means in relation to our experience of being aware. We can see and perceive the objects of the world around us, and we are aware of them. To be aware is to be conscious of ourselves and the world around us.

That is not how computers function. They are not designed for it. They do not have the necessary 'neural architecture' for consciousness to emerge. It may be possible with advancements in technology, but that time is not now.

The brain has evolved an incredible degree of complexity over millions of years of evolution, where mind and conscious emerged.

Computers have a long way to go before they are conscious.

The claim is absurd.

It is you Jarhyn who relies on special pleading and redefining consciousness to suit your own assertion.

 

[Jarhyn]

know what the word 'aware' means in relation to our experience of being aware

Which you have again failed to characterize in any way.

Again, what you are asking about is specifically awareness of awareness, or meta-awareness, a product of reflection.

We can see and perceive the objects of the world around us, and we are aware of them

And so are machines. What they are not aware of is the fact that they are aware and only because it is not reflected back at them.

Your own lack of reflection likely leads you into this trap.

That is not how computers function

It is merely not the way computers function when their properties do not include meta-cognition.

They are not designed for it.

Only the systems that lack reflection of their state.

Plenty of systems are.

Further you seem to be unable to understand what a special plea even is.

A special plea is using some arbitrary and unnecessary and arbitrary barrier (of specialness) to assume two things are different when they are not.

The funny thing here is that I can actually articulate what is missing from the computer systems, whereas you cannot and have not: reflection into the sensory stream.

 

[DBT]

Lost interest. Sorry.

 

[unapologetic]

I believe that a clear daytime sky on earth is always blue. Although I can't see it everywhere.

There is a standard in Photographic developing that 15% gray is called 'neutral gray'.
That came about because Kodak is based in Rochester NY. Where the sky is 15% gray most of the time.

 

[unapologetic]

Unless you’re changing the definition of “clear” I have no doubt the sky would have been blue a few billion years ago.

If the sky (atmosphere) were strictly "clear' It would look black and you would see stars, like the night sky. Or the moon's sky.
It looks blue from the air diffusing the daylight. The content of the air HAS changed through time.

Oxygen absorption is mostly beyond human color perception.

But if you are looking up, you are looking through many miles of the stuff.
But OK, "Clear" is subjective.

 

[unapologetic]

Population has been solved (though as it only happened between seventy and forty years ago, ... ...the solution was invented and implemented).

What solution would that be? I've lived through those 70 years. I would have seen it before you did youngster.
Implemented? The population is still growing.
If it was solved you might not have been born. Or are you talking about Covid as the solution?

 

[bilby]

The population is still growing.

Not in places where the solution hasn't been successfully obstructed, it's not.

The solution is a contraceptive that can be completely controlled by women, and that doesn't require anyone to do anything in the heat of the moment.

There is no place where oral contraceptives are widely available to women, and primary education is provided to a majority of girls, where birthrates remain above replacement levels.

The first oral contraceptive pill was approved by the FDA in 1960; At that point, population growth ceased to be an inevitability, and became a choice.

The solution exists and has been demonstrated at scale; Choosing not to allow a perfectly good solution is a political (and religious) issue, rather than a practical one.