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A simulation of digestion, does not digest pizza. > Either a computer can perfectly imitate digestion, or it can't. Yeah, it cant. What you seem to think is

A simulation of digestion, does not digest pizza. > Either a computer can perfectly imitate digestion, or it can't. Yeah, it cant. What you seem to think is that "imitation in form" means being the same as. A photograph of me is imitation in the form of me, it isnt me. It doenst have a pulse. The universe is not an idealised abstract world of Forms, and so anything with the same abstract pattern is equivalent. Abstract patterns exist only form our point of view. They are our way of describing things. To say a computer imitates anything is only to say that when we look at it, we can use it to inform ourselves. Simulating digestion is a means of learning about digestion because we design it to correlate across systems. Without a point-of-view to impose correspondence, the two systems are a like in no respect. "Being a simulation of" is like Beauty. Its not a process in the universe, its not a property of objects. A piece of silicon with an oscillating electric field across it remains the same regardless of whether it is running the "digestion simulation" or the "consciousness simulation". It is only a matter of electrical frequencies and amplitudes. This acquires meaning to us when we look at them. In the case of digestion one 01010 pattern means "too acidic", in the case of a lifelike chat bot "01010" means "hi!". The cinema screen is not a train. It's a movie. Its just light hitting a canvas. It wont hurt you. 01010 isnt acid. It isnt thought. It's just a voltage fluctuation, it cant talk to you.

Dylan16807 9y ago
> The cinema screen is not a train. It's a movie. Ooh, this is a good example! When I watch a movie, I don't care if the camera was pointed at real events, or if it was CGI. I care about the actual movie experience. It's the same either way. When I have a telephone call with someone, I don't care if the microphone is pointed at flesh. I care about the conversation. > What you seem to think is that "imitation in form" means being the same as. A photograph of me is imitation in the form of me, it isnt me. It doenst have a pulse. Actually my thought process is not that at all. My goal is to create an identical photograph with my computer. Or more specifically, 60 of them per second, plus audio. Do you think that's possible or impossible? If it's possible, then I have something that claims to be real, that claims to feel, that responds as intelligently as a human in every way... That's good enough for a lot of people to call it conscious. It's definitely good enough to drive a car, or translate a book, or fill out a captcha, or do whatever "AGI" is supposed to do. If it's not possible, then why? If everything is a purely physical process, can't a computer can use math to figure out where atoms would go, and where photons would bounce?
- mjburgess 9y ago
  > When I watch a movie, I don't care if the camera was pointed at real events, or if it was CGI. We call something conscious because it actually thinks, not because it can fool human beings into believing it does. The foolishness of a human audience is not the measure of all things. Whether neo exists or not matters. We have moral obligations to thinking things, we have none to non-thinking things. etc. We have none to fictional things.
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    What evidence do you have that you are conscious? What if your neurons are running a biological program that merely emulates thinking, and fools humans into believing that it thinks? But all of that is philosophy, right? In terms of external behavior, you're admitting this machine could match a human? Because that's enough for AGI. You don't need "genuine consciousness".
    - mjburgess 9y ago
      They are not "running a biological program". Acid melting metal isn't a "program" it's a chemical reaction. Consciousness is what I am doing. That's my definition of the term. It's incoherent to say "what's my evidence for it". > In terms of external behavior, you're admitting this machine could match a human? No. I am only saying that a stupid human being using only stupid human faculties of speaking to something might be fooled, by their stupidity, into thinking they were speaking to something as equally stupid as their are. A dog which observes a toy dog walking around may bark at it as-if it were another dog. But that toy dog isnt. it doesnt think, it has no emotion, experiences no pain. has no goals, no interests, no skills, etc. No piece of silicon will every amount to more than a toy dog. Neuroscientists will not be fooled by it. Incraesingly sophisticated tests of cognition and goal-directed behaviour won't be fooled by it. People on the street might be. But their foolishness is no guide to the temperature of the sun, the cause of the tides, nor whether the toy dog thinks.,
      - Dylan16807 9y ago

Dylan16807 9y ago

> The cinema screen is not a train. It's a movie. Ooh, this is a good example! When I watch a movie, I don't care if the camera was pointed at real events, or if it was CGI. I care about the actual movie experience. It's the same either way. When I have a telephone call with someone, I don't care if the microphone is pointed at flesh. I care about the conversation. > What you seem to think is that "imitation in form" means being the same as. A photograph of me is imitation in the form of me, it isnt me. It doenst have a pulse. Actually my thought process is not that at all. My goal is to create an identical photograph with my computer. Or more specifically, 60 of them per second, plus audio. Do you think that's possible or impossible? If it's possible, then I have something that claims to be real, that claims to feel, that responds as intelligently as a human in every way... That's good enough for a lot of people to call it conscious. It's definitely good enough to drive a car, or translate a book, or fill out a captcha, or do whatever "AGI" is supposed to do. If it's not possible, then why? If everything is a purely physical process, can't a computer can use math to figure out where atoms would go, and where photons would bounce?

mjburgess 9y ago
> When I watch a movie, I don't care if the camera was pointed at real events, or if it was CGI. We call something conscious because it actually thinks, not because it can fool human beings into believing it does. The foolishness of a human audience is not the measure of all things. Whether neo exists or not matters. We have moral obligations to thinking things, we have none to non-thinking things. etc. We have none to fictional things.
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  What evidence do you have that you are conscious? What if your neurons are running a biological program that merely emulates thinking, and fools humans into believing that it thinks? But all of that is philosophy, right? In terms of external behavior, you're admitting this machine could match a human? Because that's enough for AGI. You don't need "genuine consciousness".
  - mjburgess 9y ago
    They are not "running a biological program". Acid melting metal isn't a "program" it's a chemical reaction. Consciousness is what I am doing. That's my definition of the term. It's incoherent to say "what's my evidence for it". > In terms of external behavior, you're admitting this machine could match a human? No. I am only saying that a stupid human being using only stupid human faculties of speaking to something might be fooled, by their stupidity, into thinking they were speaking to something as equally stupid as their are. A dog which observes a toy dog walking around may bark at it as-if it were another dog. But that toy dog isnt. it doesnt think, it has no emotion, experiences no pain. has no goals, no interests, no skills, etc. No piece of silicon will every amount to more than a toy dog. Neuroscientists will not be fooled by it. Incraesingly sophisticated tests of cognition and goal-directed behaviour won't be fooled by it. People on the street might be. But their foolishness is no guide to the temperature of the sun, the cause of the tides, nor whether the toy dog thinks.,
    - Dylan16807 9y ago