danbaron
03-02-2011, 09:05
The "off" topic is often more interesting than the topic!
My own view is that consciousness has something to do with memory and internal simulation of the world. I think any artificial system capable of this reflective behaviour really is conscious. After all, both animal nervous systems and computers rely on electronics, though the technology is very different.
Consciousness itself is as intangible as photons and electrons
I think I've mentioned him before. Colin McGinn, is a professor of philosophy at Rutgers. He has a book, which I have, and which, I guess I should read. It is called, "The Mysterious Flame - Conscious Minds in a Material World" (1999).
http://www.amazon.com/Mysterious-Flame-Conscious-Minds-Material/dp/0465014232/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296715718&sr=1-1
From inside the front cover:
"Can consciousness be explained?
Is consciousness nothing more than the result of neurons firing through brain tissue? Or is it, as some claim, a fundamental reality like space, time and matter? In recent years the nature of consciousness - our immediately known experiences - has taken its place as the most profound problem in scientific discourse. Now in this brilliant and thoroughly accessible new book, Colin McGinn takes a provocative position on this perplexing problem.
Arguing that we can never truly "know" consciousness - that human intellect is simply not equipped to unravel this mystery - he demonstrates that accepting this limitation opens up a whole new field of investigation. Indeed, he asserts, consciousness is the best place from which to begin to understand the internal makeup of human intelligence, to investigate our cognitive strengths and weaknesses, and to explore the possibility of machine minds. The Mysterious Flame will challenge readers with intriguing questions about the very nature of our minds and brains."
Contents
1 Consciousness - Still Unexplained After All These Years
Consciousness Defined, 1
Materialism, 18
Dualism, 23
2 Natural Mysteries and Biased Minds
Knowledge and Ignorance, 31
The Structure of Intelligence, 37
How is Science Possible?, 41
Cognitive Closure, 43
Fugitive Concepts, 46
Combinations, 54
The Simplicity of Consciousness, 62
The Brain Again, 66
The Good News, 68
3 God, the Soul, and Parallel Universes
Origins, 77
Miracles, 83
Troubles with Dualism, 86
Dualism without God, 89
Panpsychism, 95
All Mind, 101
4 Mind Space
Found in Space, 105
Tiny Minds, 109
The Space Problem, 115
The Origins of Space, 119
The Nature of Space, 123
Naive and Real Space, 125
Space Blindness, 129
5 Secrets of the Self
Beyond the Appearances, 139
Logic and Blindsight, 145
The Embodied Mind, 151
You or Not You, 156
Freedom, 165
Death, 169
6 Could a Robot Get the Blues?
Meatless Minds, 175
Computers and Consciousness, 178
The Turing Test, 186
What is a Machime?, 192
Inorganic Brains, 196
Smart Zombies, 201
7 The Unbearable Heaviness of Philosophy
Philosophy and Science, 205
A Brief History of Thought, 209
The Form of the Solution, 214
New Brains for Old, 218
Philosophical Genes, 224
How Funny Are We?
Notes 233
Index 237
I don't know (I read part of the book a long time ago), but maybe he is saying that no matter how hard we look, we will never be able to find, "the ghost in the machine". Maybe we will be able to completely map the brain at the tiniest scale, and we will find that there is nothing special about it. Maybe, like a computer, it consists of many interconnected bits, each of which is always in one of two possible states. At any scale at which we look, the "ghost", will elude us. Maybe because, due to limitations in our brain's "wiring", we are and will always remain, blind to recognizing the consciousness "ghost".
There's no guarantee that says humans are capable of understanding everything, right? There's lots of things that I can understand, which I'm pretty sure my dogs and cats cannot understand. That fact does not astound me. So, I guess I shouldn't find it unbelievable if it turns out that we cannot use our minds, to fully understand our minds. In computer science, isn't the ability for a computer program to examine (and, so far, I guess in a primitive sense, to understand) itself, called, "reflection"? Do you think it is theoretically possible for reflection to be complete? (<-- rhetorical questions) Mathematicians admit that it is impossible for them to define every object they use. If they try, they either get circular definitions, or, an infinite chain of definitions. So, for instance, they usually do not try to provide a rigorous definition for a set.
(Concerning matter, I'm beginning to become more and more convinced, that at the smallest scale, there is nothing there. I guess I mean that at the smallest scale, matter becomes energy - whatever that means. In other words, I think that if you look at the smallest scale, there will be nothing to see. Maybe, outside of our universe, there is a running computer program, which determines how the "virtual matter" inside our universe, behaves.)
:mad::p
My own view is that consciousness has something to do with memory and internal simulation of the world. I think any artificial system capable of this reflective behaviour really is conscious. After all, both animal nervous systems and computers rely on electronics, though the technology is very different.
Consciousness itself is as intangible as photons and electrons
I think I've mentioned him before. Colin McGinn, is a professor of philosophy at Rutgers. He has a book, which I have, and which, I guess I should read. It is called, "The Mysterious Flame - Conscious Minds in a Material World" (1999).
http://www.amazon.com/Mysterious-Flame-Conscious-Minds-Material/dp/0465014232/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296715718&sr=1-1
From inside the front cover:
"Can consciousness be explained?
Is consciousness nothing more than the result of neurons firing through brain tissue? Or is it, as some claim, a fundamental reality like space, time and matter? In recent years the nature of consciousness - our immediately known experiences - has taken its place as the most profound problem in scientific discourse. Now in this brilliant and thoroughly accessible new book, Colin McGinn takes a provocative position on this perplexing problem.
Arguing that we can never truly "know" consciousness - that human intellect is simply not equipped to unravel this mystery - he demonstrates that accepting this limitation opens up a whole new field of investigation. Indeed, he asserts, consciousness is the best place from which to begin to understand the internal makeup of human intelligence, to investigate our cognitive strengths and weaknesses, and to explore the possibility of machine minds. The Mysterious Flame will challenge readers with intriguing questions about the very nature of our minds and brains."
Contents
1 Consciousness - Still Unexplained After All These Years
Consciousness Defined, 1
Materialism, 18
Dualism, 23
2 Natural Mysteries and Biased Minds
Knowledge and Ignorance, 31
The Structure of Intelligence, 37
How is Science Possible?, 41
Cognitive Closure, 43
Fugitive Concepts, 46
Combinations, 54
The Simplicity of Consciousness, 62
The Brain Again, 66
The Good News, 68
3 God, the Soul, and Parallel Universes
Origins, 77
Miracles, 83
Troubles with Dualism, 86
Dualism without God, 89
Panpsychism, 95
All Mind, 101
4 Mind Space
Found in Space, 105
Tiny Minds, 109
The Space Problem, 115
The Origins of Space, 119
The Nature of Space, 123
Naive and Real Space, 125
Space Blindness, 129
5 Secrets of the Self
Beyond the Appearances, 139
Logic and Blindsight, 145
The Embodied Mind, 151
You or Not You, 156
Freedom, 165
Death, 169
6 Could a Robot Get the Blues?
Meatless Minds, 175
Computers and Consciousness, 178
The Turing Test, 186
What is a Machime?, 192
Inorganic Brains, 196
Smart Zombies, 201
7 The Unbearable Heaviness of Philosophy
Philosophy and Science, 205
A Brief History of Thought, 209
The Form of the Solution, 214
New Brains for Old, 218
Philosophical Genes, 224
How Funny Are We?
Notes 233
Index 237
I don't know (I read part of the book a long time ago), but maybe he is saying that no matter how hard we look, we will never be able to find, "the ghost in the machine". Maybe we will be able to completely map the brain at the tiniest scale, and we will find that there is nothing special about it. Maybe, like a computer, it consists of many interconnected bits, each of which is always in one of two possible states. At any scale at which we look, the "ghost", will elude us. Maybe because, due to limitations in our brain's "wiring", we are and will always remain, blind to recognizing the consciousness "ghost".
There's no guarantee that says humans are capable of understanding everything, right? There's lots of things that I can understand, which I'm pretty sure my dogs and cats cannot understand. That fact does not astound me. So, I guess I shouldn't find it unbelievable if it turns out that we cannot use our minds, to fully understand our minds. In computer science, isn't the ability for a computer program to examine (and, so far, I guess in a primitive sense, to understand) itself, called, "reflection"? Do you think it is theoretically possible for reflection to be complete? (<-- rhetorical questions) Mathematicians admit that it is impossible for them to define every object they use. If they try, they either get circular definitions, or, an infinite chain of definitions. So, for instance, they usually do not try to provide a rigorous definition for a set.
(Concerning matter, I'm beginning to become more and more convinced, that at the smallest scale, there is nothing there. I guess I mean that at the smallest scale, matter becomes energy - whatever that means. In other words, I think that if you look at the smallest scale, there will be nothing to see. Maybe, outside of our universe, there is a running computer program, which determines how the "virtual matter" inside our universe, behaves.)
:mad::p