Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 21:11:11 -0500 (EST)
From: Dan Fabulich <daniel.fabulich@yale.edu>
Subject: Re: Immortality
Steve Nichols wrote:
> Exactly ..... whereas evolvable circuitry machines (silicon or biological)
> can be or approach infinite-state. The mammalian brain is infinite-state
> in a way that a simple thermostat, or even a massive Turing machine,
> cannot.
>I had not heard the news that brains were infinite-state. Last I
>heard, atoms were all finite-state, so a finite clump of atoms must
>necessarily be finite-state.
>The brain has very very many possible states, but it is no more
>infinite state than a hundred billion thermostats would be
>infinite-state, if you wired them all together in an interesting way.
@ But the brain can self-organise and forge new neuronal patterns.
@ Furthermore, it is a massively parallel distributed system, and
@ *not* a Turing machine or von Neumann computer. Cite Kohonnen &c.
@ I doubt that it is ever in the same state twice!
@ Any thought is possible, there are no boundaries to imagination.
@ Apparently there are more possible moves in a game of chess than
@ there are atoms in the universe, and there are presumably an (infinite)
@ different possible games of chess. This is because we are talking of
@ dynamic potentials. The thing with MVT is that we recognise a non-
@ physical component ... this is true infinite-state!
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 22:33:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Dan Fabulich <daniel.fabulich@yale.edu>
Subject: Re: Sentience
Steve Nichols wrote:
> Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 12:56:40 -0500
> From: "John Clark" <jonkc@worldnet.att.net>
> Subject: Re: Immortality
>
>A bald assertion. I get the sense that you're not aware of the bigger
>picture John Clark has in mind (and with which I largely agree).
>John and I actually DO think that the human brain is (analogous to) an
>oversized Turing machine. We think that it's programmed, and that we
>make "decisions" the same way that Deep Blue "decides" to move its
>bishop.
How does such (unsubstantiable) conjecture even begin to explain
consciousness? How can any Turing machine, a glorified card-reader,
have experience? Anyway, big blue is a CPU machine, not even a
neural computer, so is absolutely nothing like a brain. Are you saying
the DNA is the "program" or what other medium are you identifying?
>"But," you reply, "Deep Blue was programmed to do that!" and we reply:
>SO ARE WE. We just have a very complex program, given to us by
>millions of years of evolution. We "change our own logic" the same
>way Deep Blue alters its play style, the same way a thermostat adjusts
>the gas on your heater. We're all programmed to do that. Some of us
>have a more complex program than others.
Hang about, Deep Blue is an extremely limited program that just plays
common chess. It is so dumb it can't even play other chess-like games, let
alone "learn" ... it cannot even start to cope with natural language.
What about extrapolation abilities, how can programs alter themselves
to deal with entirely new circumstances? Complexity (more depth) is
not any sort of answer. Learning abilities are needed.
> >based on its internal state and
>
> A digital switch does not have an "internal state"
Yes, it does. It has an "desired" temperature, which it must
"remember" in order to work properly. The "desired" temperature isn't
a property of anything else in the thermostat-heater-room system, so
it must be an internal state of the thermostat.
But precisely my point is it has not control over any "memory" of
the temperature setting, this is made EXTERNALLY and is not
within the thermostat's remit. So you are completely wrong in
anthromorphising that the thermostat "desires" a setting. A digital
switch is On or OFF, there is no intermediate or internal state, either
current goes through it or not. It cannot override its programming.
>These differ only in complexity, not in kind. Deep Blue is a Turing
>machine: it differs only in complexity from a simple adder. Our
>brains are just a finite arrangement of simple finite-state machines
>which do simple things, like thermostats.
> > Turing machines are neither conscious,
>
> >How do you know?
>
> Well, they would fail the Turing test for starters.
<blink blink> ALL Turing machines??? This is to say that we'll never
have a computer that will pass the Turing test, that we can never
write a program so complex that it could trick people into believing
that it acted like us. Were you thinking about this when you said
that?
Even passing the Turing test does not suggest consciousness, just AI.
The very fact that every aspect of Turing machines actions can be
predicted, I would say, might even preclude them from consciousness.
> You have rather foolishly missed the whole point that ANALOG is the
> abbreviation of "analogous to infinite-state" ... since true infinity
> is a conjecture ......
>But that's just the point. Very-many-state is still finite-state, is
>still predictable, is still programmed, in an important sense. It is
>difficult to predict the behaviour of complex very-many-state hardware,
>but obviously possible in principle.
Yes, but as I try to point out, what MVT brings to table is *absent* or
non-physical, phantom components that complete the circuit!
A cathode ray tube is infinite-state in that it is fully variable, scalar,
but because it operates within boundaries it is ANALOG. This stuff
is fairly rudimentary solid-state physics, you have no grounds to be
obfusticating here.
> Are you actually claiming the Turing machines exhibit phasic
> transients? Cite evidence please, you are utterly lost on this.
>There's no evidence to cite; this is a purely philosophical problem.
No, your problem is that these Turing machines you talk about do not
exist, and probably never will. Unlike brains and silicon RGA circuits
(reconfigurable hardware), and all the many designs of neural computers,
your ideas are mere armchair theorising and of no relevance to anything.
>I can obviously get a Turing machine to exhibit periodic behaviour. If
>I hooked a Turing machine up to a set of motors hooked up to some
>eyes, I could program it to go into REM. If you had some other
>requirements, you could tack those on to a kind of Turing Test for
>Phasic Transient Behaviour. The point is that an adequately complex
>Turing machine could pass that test.
No, phasic transients occur simply because a circuit is undergoing
transformation from finite-state (lock step) to self-organising ....
and they happen after the removal of an external clock (whether
electronic or organic pineal eye). Aren't Turing machines always
lock-stepped?
> >Seems to me all you've done is conjure up a black box, call it the
> >phantom median eye and say consciousness comes from there.
> >Not very helpful.
>
> No, the conceptual "black box" which was a problem before MVT
> now has a complete description, in actual terms and as an evolutionary
> narrative, as the phantom media eye. I have done away with mere
> "black box" conjecture!
>How good of you to say so. But just saying THAT doesn't convince
>anyone.
>Look, you're overlooking the very simple point that in order to make
>any kind of induction, you need to first NOTICE a correlation.
Absolutely. The main body of MVT concerns comparative brain
anatomy and behavioural difference between E-2 and E-1 animals.
>You
>can't justify any scientific inference to "consciousness" unless you
>can observe a few cases where the phantom median eye and consciousness
>go together. You have to *observe* that, say, wherever you find
>consciousness, the pineal eye is less developed, and then posit that
>wherever the pineal eyes is underdeveloped, you'll find consciousness.
You obviously haven't read anything of MVT. All mammals and birds
are E-1, and have REM. No cold-blooded animals have REM. The
pineal eye atrophied across all species during the reptilian/mammalian
boundary, and during the emergence of endothermy (internal or warm-
blooded strategies). There is a clear experimental correlation between
absence of pineal input (after pinealectomy, or when pineal eye has
been covered by metal foil and subject reptiles compared with a control
group) and intelligent behaviour ... *awareness* ... I don't really like to
use the "C" word!
>But you can't observe any such cases, thanks to the problem of other
>minds.
Yes, as I mention above, there are about 130 years of records of such
experiments. Other minds is an artificial lingoistic problem, it
doesn't stop consciousness (sentience) happening, just gives philosophers
something to argue amongst themselves about.
>I know I have feelings, and that I smile, cry, scream, etc. as
>I have them. But all I see you do is smile, cry, scream, etc. How
>can I tell whether you're having feelings, or whether you're just
>going through the motions? How do I know you're actually conscious,
>rather than just passing the Turing Test?
Newborn infants seem to have empathic abilities, plus abilities
to monitor and judge emotions in others. It is a fair bet that if someone
is screaming in pain, particularly if they have correlating signs such
as a red-hot poker sticking up their arse, that they are actually feeling
pain, in much the same way you would. I really fail to see the problem here,
other than that you cannot be the other person so have to rely on reports.
The median eye (template for E-1 consciousness) cannot be swapped
between animals, so a phantom equivalent of it likewise is non-transferable.
>Maybe you have something simpler in mind. Maybe you're just positing
>MVT as a theory to explain how and when things can pass the Turing
>Test. But you fail on THOSE grounds, too: you provide no *mechanism*
>by which the phantom pineal eye causes people to be conscious, or to
>act conscious, or, well, anything. You only claim that consciousness
>DOES happen, and you tell us WHEN, but you don't explain HOW.
On the contrary, MVT takes Melzack's neuromatrix theory of self (and
gateway theory of pain) a step further, and does explain how experiences
are identified by the brain as being self-originating (neurosignatures &c)
or not. The deep structures of the brain evolved concurrently in early
evolution with their main sensory information supplier, the median or
*primal* eye (not "third eye" ... it predates lateral eyes). The brain
expects
information from the median eye ... and when it doesn't come from external
light, generates phantom information instead.
>That's a black box.
NO. Fodorian modules and central executive theories, supervenience and
all the other philosophical lingoistic drivel are not physiology based, nor
do
they give a clear account of the *evolution* of consciousness.
> Solipsism is simply one (admissible) viewpoint. It isn't "refutable" since
> I do not deny that people have this thought. Infinite-state capability
> allows
> *any possible thoughts* including the solipsistic ones. Likewise you
cannot
> prove it "correct."
>Another miscommunication. The solipsist you DO have to deal with is
>someone who's a realist about matter but worries about the problem of
>other minds; you really MUST claim to have dealt with it if you have
>a scientific theory of consciousness. You should be able to say:
>"Look Clark, you can measure my phantom median eye, so you know that I
>MUST be conscious." Or whatever.
>But you offer nothing like that. That's why you're offering a black box.
Experimental evidence can only observe behaviour .... would that be
acceptable to you? If so, MVT has it in abundance. However, if as
I suspect you are not happy with circumstantial evidence (correlation
between
REM and dream mentation, even in humans, cannot be absolutely proven
since it relies on reports of the dreamer) then YOU have a problem, because
you
can never accept any account of consciousness, MVT or not.
Look Clark, you can measure the parietal foramen in a human infant and
correlate the span of its clore with emerging indicators of self-awareness
(tests involving self-recognition mirrors), and you can measure the degree
of atrophy of the pineal eye across species (most atrophied in primates
where pineal gland is much more deep in the brain because of the subsequent
development of the cortex). But what I, or nobody, can prove is that
behaviour +
correlating brain activity shows their MUST be consciousness. This is a
problem
with your MUST (100% certainty) criteria, and not with MVT.
No-one has come up with a better idea than MVT, which explains both
walking and sleeping consciousness (24/7). Your Turing machine idea
doesn't even reach first base, it only models intelligence.
Perhaps I should develop new and irresistible hypnotic applications
from MVT and enforce belief in it ... would this satisfy you?
Level Up
www.steve-nichols.com
The Physician of Souls
Posthuman Organisation
> Then (whether you believe that I exist independently, or am just
> another facet of *your* consciousness - the solipsistic claim) by
> accepting that at least your dreams exist, you allow a conscious
> phenomenon, and defeat your previous claim that consciousness
> doesn't occur.
I *know* he didn't say that. He knows that HE'S conscious, but he's
worried about YOU (and everyone else).
> Do you still deny "consciousness"? I argue the idealist stance that in
> fact the world can be said to exist in consciousness, and not that
> consciousness (phantom pineal eye) is located in space.
Idealism is good and well. (Not my bag, but, hey.) But the question
you STILL need to ask yourself, even as an idealist, is: are those
other people in the world conscious? It doesn't matter whether the
world is in consciousness or not to answer this question; the answer
could turn out to be "yes" or "no" whether or not we accept idealism.
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