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I've never understood why people feel that way. As far as I can tell, there is no evidence that consciousness is not able to be emulated by a machine.

fdsfdsgad 7y ago
Emulation is fine, is whether machines are able to achieve "consciousness" that is at stake. I don't know if anyone feels strongly on the matter either, at least on the academic level. But it's the same as with other odd philosophical position: people run into problems with other alternatives, go like "why not..." and suddenly they have an odd belief.
- lachlan-sneff 7y ago
  Personally, I don't see the difference.
  - jonkho 7y ago
    The difference is that a physical process makes specific physical state changes to the physical world while an emulation does not. A computer simulation of an ice cube melting does not and cannot make state changes to the physical world as a physical ice cube can. For example, if you wanted to chill your beverage, dropping an ice-cubed sized computer running the algorithmic emulation of an of an ice cube melting will not chill your drink no matter how perfect your emulation is, while a physical ice cube can perform that physical state change of your drink. Is consciousness a physical phenomenon? If it's not physical, then what is it? Is it an algorithm? Well, for one, there is no precedent. Nothing else in the material world is purely an algorithm...except maybe a computer running an algorithm...
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      "If it's not physical, then what is it? Is it an algorithm? Well, for one, there is no precedent. Nothing else in the material world is purely an algorithm...except maybe a computer running an algorithm..." I don't see the distinction you're making. I think I want to say "ok, so nothing is purely an algorithm". A computer relies on the rest of the universe just like your brain and I guess it's therefore a "physical phenomenon"? In order to draw a distinction, perhaps one could say that a "pure algorithm" is something that can run on "many" substrates, so the difference between a "pure algorithm" and a "physical phenomenon" is about the variance in the substrates maybe? But everything is physical. Statements about abstractions are statements about patterns of physical things.
    - Enginerrrd 7y ago
      >For example, if you wanted to chill your beverage, dropping an ice-cubed sized computer running the algorithmic emulation of an of an ice cube melting will not chill your drink no matter how perfect your emulation is, while a physical ice cube can perform that physical state change of your drink. Interestingly enough, this may not be entirely true. There are some fundamental relationships between computation, information, and entropy, that, in the limit of computational and representational perfection, probably would require exactly the amount of input energy as the ice-cube itself would to melt. Now, you might argue that this is a pedantic attack on your argument. It's not though. The real point is that the laws of physics often seem to have grander symmetries and transformation laws than observable at first glance, and the universe has very clever ways of enforcing these symmetries in what appear to be very different contexts, but are indicative of less intuitive symmetry laws.
closetohome 7y ago
Because if you don't subscribe to a branch of philosophy that's ok with being just a Newtonian thinking machine, it's kind of a scary concept.
- fdsfdsgad 7y ago
  Not really.
  - closetohome 7y ago
    That's like saying spiders aren't scary. It's a little subjective.
axguscbklp 7y ago
A machine could emulate consciousness in the sense that we could probably in principle build a machine that acted, viewed from the outside, as if it were conscious. But we have no way to measure whether something is conscious or not so we would never really know if the machine actually was conscious, had interiority, had qualia, etc. (three different ways of saying the same thing). There is no good reason to believe that consciousness is reducible to physical phenomena. I think that intelligence is almost certainly reducible to physical phenomena, but consciousness? No. Consciousness is a mystery that quite likely will forever be beyond the reach of physical investigation.
- MikeSchurman 7y ago
  By the same argument I'll never know if other humans are conscious.
  - gfodor 7y ago
    This is clearly the case today, pending some new discovery or intellectual leap surrounding consciousness. For all I know, you are unconscious, and your purpose was to type that comment so as to trigger my realization I am the only conscious being in existence :) (Not a good way to live your live, but a theory consistent with the evidence.)
  - goatlover 7y ago
    And that’s why solipsism is not entirely defeasible. You can’t be certain other people are conscious. But it’s reasonable to think they are. It gets harder with other animals, and even worse with machines. See Ned Block’s paper on The Harder Problem and Commander Data.
- Enginerrrd 7y ago
  >A machine could emulate consciousness in the sense that we could probably in principle build a machine that acted, viewed from the outside, as if it were conscious. But we have no way to measure whether something is conscious or not so we would never really know if the machine actually was conscious, had interiority, had qualia, etc. (three different ways of saying the same thing). You could ask try asking it? You can ask clever questions that would prove things like persistence of thought in between questions, and ability to reason about things. If it's able to reason about it's own processes, it's basically conscious by any measure that matters. >There is no good reason to believe that consciousness is reducible to physical phenomena. Lol, what? Other than the fact that we have millennia of scientific progress that have, in every single area of exploration developed predictive models of reality that have been tested, confirmed, retested and refined over time, and every single one of those successful models is not based on some invisible unmeasurable magic nonsense. What on earth could possibly make you think that consciousness is somehow the sole outlier that doesn't obey the laws of physics and is therefore reducible to physical phenomena?
krtong 7y ago
There is no evidence that a tree can't be used a ram stick either.
ben_w 7y ago
“Consciousness” is too poorly defined to have a proper discussion about what is required to have it. We can only be somewhat sure about certain things altering or removing consciousness, but even then I’m sure you can have a very long argument about whether or not a dream is a state of consciousness. Or if consciousness is a continuous variable, where perhaps a newborn has less than an adult, or a dog has less than a human.
oklol123 7y ago
There is also no evidence that consciousness can be emulated on machines. Before we don’t even understand how the brain functions and creates consciousness, we aren’t really smarter than fifty years ago. Until then we just created machines that can find optimized patterns in highly abstracted actions of humans. Yes, Stockfisch can beat you at chess, but you can’t ask it what the difference between poker and backgammon is. Currently there doesn’t exist a general artificial intelligence.
- gfodor 7y ago
  Hell, we don’t even know if the brain is the causal creator of consciousness. It’s a contrarian view to think otherwise, but it can’t be proven false.
  - Enginerrrd 7y ago
    It can be proven false to any reasonable degree of certainty. With experiment, you'd increasingly be looking at an overwhelming probability that it is, or that the universe is actively conspiring against you to fool you on that notion. Which is, frankly, a bad argument. If something is possible, but has measure zero in the probability space, it's really not worth considering.
- avmich 7y ago
  If consciousness is a special state of matter, it should be analysable and detectable, right? Can't we apply scientific methods to the hypothesis that "there exist a special state of matter"?
  - JackFr 7y ago
    You think we get to know, or at least we can know, everything we want to know. Why? Is it faith? Or has your brain tricked you?
    - avmich 7y ago
      No, I don't think. I assume, and bring arguments, and can listen to others.
goatlover 7y ago
There is no evidence either for or against, because evidence is objective, while consciousness is subjective. Instead there are arguments for and against, depending on what people think the nature of subjectivity is, and therefore whether a machine could be conscious.

fdsfdsgad 7y ago

Emulation is fine, is whether machines are able to achieve "consciousness" that is at stake. I don't know if anyone feels strongly on the matter either, at least on the academic level. But it's the same as with other odd philosophical position: people run into problems with other alternatives, go like "why not..." and suddenly they have an odd belief.

lachlan-sneff 7y ago
Personally, I don't see the difference.
- jonkho 7y ago
  The difference is that a physical process makes specific physical state changes to the physical world while an emulation does not. A computer simulation of an ice cube melting does not and cannot make state changes to the physical world as a physical ice cube can. For example, if you wanted to chill your beverage, dropping an ice-cubed sized computer running the algorithmic emulation of an of an ice cube melting will not chill your drink no matter how perfect your emulation is, while a physical ice cube can perform that physical state change of your drink. Is consciousness a physical phenomenon? If it's not physical, then what is it? Is it an algorithm? Well, for one, there is no precedent. Nothing else in the material world is purely an algorithm...except maybe a computer running an algorithm...
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    "If it's not physical, then what is it? Is it an algorithm? Well, for one, there is no precedent. Nothing else in the material world is purely an algorithm...except maybe a computer running an algorithm..." I don't see the distinction you're making. I think I want to say "ok, so nothing is purely an algorithm". A computer relies on the rest of the universe just like your brain and I guess it's therefore a "physical phenomenon"? In order to draw a distinction, perhaps one could say that a "pure algorithm" is something that can run on "many" substrates, so the difference between a "pure algorithm" and a "physical phenomenon" is about the variance in the substrates maybe? But everything is physical. Statements about abstractions are statements about patterns of physical things.
  - Enginerrrd 7y ago
    >For example, if you wanted to chill your beverage, dropping an ice-cubed sized computer running the algorithmic emulation of an of an ice cube melting will not chill your drink no matter how perfect your emulation is, while a physical ice cube can perform that physical state change of your drink. Interestingly enough, this may not be entirely true. There are some fundamental relationships between computation, information, and entropy, that, in the limit of computational and representational perfection, probably would require exactly the amount of input energy as the ice-cube itself would to melt. Now, you might argue that this is a pedantic attack on your argument. It's not though. The real point is that the laws of physics often seem to have grander symmetries and transformation laws than observable at first glance, and the universe has very clever ways of enforcing these symmetries in what appear to be very different contexts, but are indicative of less intuitive symmetry laws.

closetohome 7y ago

Because if you don't subscribe to a branch of philosophy that's ok with being just a Newtonian thinking machine, it's kind of a scary concept.

fdsfdsgad 7y ago
Not really.
- closetohome 7y ago
  That's like saying spiders aren't scary. It's a little subjective.

axguscbklp 7y ago

A machine could emulate consciousness in the sense that we could probably in principle build a machine that acted, viewed from the outside, as if it were conscious. But we have no way to measure whether something is conscious or not so we would never really know if the machine actually was conscious, had interiority, had qualia, etc. (three different ways of saying the same thing). There is no good reason to believe that consciousness is reducible to physical phenomena. I think that intelligence is almost certainly reducible to physical phenomena, but consciousness? No. Consciousness is a mystery that quite likely will forever be beyond the reach of physical investigation.

MikeSchurman 7y ago
By the same argument I'll never know if other humans are conscious.
- gfodor 7y ago
  This is clearly the case today, pending some new discovery or intellectual leap surrounding consciousness. For all I know, you are unconscious, and your purpose was to type that comment so as to trigger my realization I am the only conscious being in existence :) (Not a good way to live your live, but a theory consistent with the evidence.)
- goatlover 7y ago
  And that’s why solipsism is not entirely defeasible. You can’t be certain other people are conscious. But it’s reasonable to think they are. It gets harder with other animals, and even worse with machines. See Ned Block’s paper on The Harder Problem and Commander Data.
Enginerrrd 7y ago
>A machine could emulate consciousness in the sense that we could probably in principle build a machine that acted, viewed from the outside, as if it were conscious. But we have no way to measure whether something is conscious or not so we would never really know if the machine actually was conscious, had interiority, had qualia, etc. (three different ways of saying the same thing). You could ask try asking it? You can ask clever questions that would prove things like persistence of thought in between questions, and ability to reason about things. If it's able to reason about it's own processes, it's basically conscious by any measure that matters. >There is no good reason to believe that consciousness is reducible to physical phenomena. Lol, what? Other than the fact that we have millennia of scientific progress that have, in every single area of exploration developed predictive models of reality that have been tested, confirmed, retested and refined over time, and every single one of those successful models is not based on some invisible unmeasurable magic nonsense. What on earth could possibly make you think that consciousness is somehow the sole outlier that doesn't obey the laws of physics and is therefore reducible to physical phenomena?

krtong 7y ago

There is no evidence that a tree can't be used a ram stick either.

ben_w 7y ago

“Consciousness” is too poorly defined to have a proper discussion about what is required to have it. We can only be somewhat sure about certain things altering or removing consciousness, but even then I’m sure you can have a very long argument about whether or not a dream is a state of consciousness. Or if consciousness is a continuous variable, where perhaps a newborn has less than an adult, or a dog has less than a human.

oklol123 7y ago

There is also no evidence that consciousness can be emulated on machines. Before we don’t even understand how the brain functions and creates consciousness, we aren’t really smarter than fifty years ago. Until then we just created machines that can find optimized patterns in highly abstracted actions of humans. Yes, Stockfisch can beat you at chess, but you can’t ask it what the difference between poker and backgammon is. Currently there doesn’t exist a general artificial intelligence.

gfodor 7y ago
Hell, we don’t even know if the brain is the causal creator of consciousness. It’s a contrarian view to think otherwise, but it can’t be proven false.
- Enginerrrd 7y ago
  It can be proven false to any reasonable degree of certainty. With experiment, you'd increasingly be looking at an overwhelming probability that it is, or that the universe is actively conspiring against you to fool you on that notion. Which is, frankly, a bad argument. If something is possible, but has measure zero in the probability space, it's really not worth considering.
avmich 7y ago
If consciousness is a special state of matter, it should be analysable and detectable, right? Can't we apply scientific methods to the hypothesis that "there exist a special state of matter"?
- JackFr 7y ago
  You think we get to know, or at least we can know, everything we want to know. Why? Is it faith? Or has your brain tricked you?
  - avmich 7y ago
    No, I don't think. I assume, and bring arguments, and can listen to others.

goatlover 7y ago

There is no evidence either for or against, because evidence is objective, while consciousness is subjective. Instead there are arguments for and against, depending on what people think the nature of subjectivity is, and therefore whether a machine could be conscious.