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This patronising response makes up for in flowery imagery what it lacks in reasoning. AI are not a "bugs bunny" where we can observe the total process of creat

This patronising response makes up for in flowery imagery what it lacks in reasoning. AI are not a "bugs bunny" where we can observe the total process of creation, one which is is relatively deterministic. We are now engineering complex mechanics with emergent behaviour. There's no reason to assume any of the properties of human consciousness and reasoning is unique to us being made of atoms constructed in a certain way. There's no reason to assume the stored state of zeros and ones, mechanised statistically, can't emerge complexity that asks questions of the fact we are simply state being mechanised statistically too.

mjburgess 4y ago
Consciousness is a physical property of matter, as any other. Just as liquidity is not a matter of 0s and 1s, nor likewise, can a CPU liquify itself by the osciliation of its electrical field, neither can it think. I don't know from where this new computational mysticism has come, but it is born of exactly the same superstitious impulse which in genesis was God's breath into man-as-clay. Ie., that impulse which says that we are fundamentally abstract and circumstantially spatio-temporal. This is nonsense. It's nonesense when phrased as spirit, and likewise as the structure of 0s and 1s. We are not abstract, we're biological organisms with spatio-temporal properties.
- jameshart 4y ago
  We're sacks of amino acids dissolved in saltwater. It seems unlikely that we can think either. Nonetheless... some of us manage it.
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  No. All humans are is physical state with translation of that state based on stimuli. That produces consciousness as a side effect. There is nothing mystical about it and nothing about it that says it can't be reproduced in other, but comparable forms, in other media or types of machines. To think that our mode of reasoning or our experience is somehow not able to be reproduced is the nonsense. But yeah keep holding human biology on some kind of sacred pedestal. Seeing as neither of us will prove our negative, I guess I'll just tell you I think your thinking is broken anyway.
- groestl 4y ago
  > Consciousness is a physical property of matter, as any other. Phrased as a fact, but citation needed. > neither can it think. Again, phrased as a fact, as if this can be proven. > I don't know from where this new computational mysticism has come For me, a lot more mysticism is required to hold the belief that our brain is anything else than a computational platform. I don't think there's anything mystic about it. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it turns out that consciousness arises as emergent property from any sufficiently complex loop.
  - sirsinsalot 4y ago
    I think maybe what they're trying to say is that while CFD can model wind in a complex system to a useful degree of accuracy ... the model will never be wind. With AI that application of logic is an argument around the semantics of interface. That's the most compassionate take on their words I could muster.
    - mannykannot 4y ago
      This seems to be correct - it appears to be the "a model is not that which it models" argument, which is Searle's only response to the Simulation Reply to his Chinese Room - but a model of a thing can have properties of that thing (a model boat can float, create a wake etc.), and an informational process can be modeled by another. Are minds informational processes instantiated by brains? It is plausible, and the model argument does not rule it out.
      - sirsinsalot 4y ago
        If it was the ops intent, they mangled it to the point I'm not even sure.
      - tacitusarc 4y ago
        Interestingly, a model of a boat is, in itself, a small boat.
        4y ago
- user5678 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mannykannot 4y ago
  > Just as liquidity is not a matter of 0s and 1s, nor likewise, can a CPU liquify itself by the osciliation of its electrical field, neither can it think. That "just as" is not an argument; it marks the start of a purported analogy. Analogies are not, in themselves, arguments. You are in no position to belittle other peoples' intuitions when you are offering this in support of the ones you prefer.
- TriNetra 4y ago
  QM has raised doubt as to any matter exists in a fixed form. It depends on the observer. Who is observing then?
  - dkersten 4y ago
    QM doesn’t say the “observer” has to be conscious, or even alive for that matter. Anything that interacts with the system is an observer: be it a sheet you’re firing particles against, an electronic sensor or anything else. All QM really says is that quantum state is unknown and not fixed until you interact with it.
    - benibela 4y ago
      But then the observer might get entangled with the system, and then the observer is in an unknown state Who is observing the observer?
      - sirsinsalot 4y ago
        What, not who.
      - dkersten 4y ago
        > then the observer is in an unknown state So? > Who is observing the observer? No “who”, but anything that interacts with it. Things happen whether or not you’re around to see them. Things interacted millions of years ago and they will continue to interact until the heat death of the universe. The tree falls in the woods regardless of if anybody is there to witness it. No credible peer-reviewed research has ever claimed that the observer is anything more than a physical process or interaction. It’s the quantum consciousness woo woo pseudoscientists who anthropomorphise “observer” to mean a conscious observer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_(quantum_physics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_(quantum_physics)
- benibela 4y ago
  Mass is also a physical property and the CPU has mass
- dreamlessfate 4y ago
  >Consciousness is a physical property of matter No. Wrong. Not a physical property. At all. This is completely the wrong way to describe it. Consciousness is better described as an "emergent phenomenon". This is how serious researchers and academics define it. Like I said in another reply to you, you really should go talk with a neuroscientist or cognitive psychologist. It sounds like you need to catch up quickly on the field of research.
vixen99 4y ago
> there's no reason ... You might want consider Roger Penrose's very thorough examination of this idea in almost any of his books from The Emperor's New Mind onwards.

mjburgess 4y ago

Consciousness is a physical property of matter, as any other. Just as liquidity is not a matter of 0s and 1s, nor likewise, can a CPU liquify itself by the osciliation of its electrical field, neither can it think. I don't know from where this new computational mysticism has come, but it is born of exactly the same superstitious impulse which in genesis was God's breath into man-as-clay. Ie., that impulse which says that we are fundamentally abstract and circumstantially spatio-temporal. This is nonsense. It's nonesense when phrased as spirit, and likewise as the structure of 0s and 1s. We are not abstract, we're biological organisms with spatio-temporal properties.

jameshart 4y ago
We're sacks of amino acids dissolved in saltwater. It seems unlikely that we can think either. Nonetheless... some of us manage it.
sirsinsalot 4y ago
No. All humans are is physical state with translation of that state based on stimuli. That produces consciousness as a side effect. There is nothing mystical about it and nothing about it that says it can't be reproduced in other, but comparable forms, in other media or types of machines. To think that our mode of reasoning or our experience is somehow not able to be reproduced is the nonsense. But yeah keep holding human biology on some kind of sacred pedestal. Seeing as neither of us will prove our negative, I guess I'll just tell you I think your thinking is broken anyway.
groestl 4y ago
> Consciousness is a physical property of matter, as any other. Phrased as a fact, but citation needed. > neither can it think. Again, phrased as a fact, as if this can be proven. > I don't know from where this new computational mysticism has come For me, a lot more mysticism is required to hold the belief that our brain is anything else than a computational platform. I don't think there's anything mystic about it. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it turns out that consciousness arises as emergent property from any sufficiently complex loop.
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  I think maybe what they're trying to say is that while CFD can model wind in a complex system to a useful degree of accuracy ... the model will never be wind. With AI that application of logic is an argument around the semantics of interface. That's the most compassionate take on their words I could muster.
  - mannykannot 4y ago
    This seems to be correct - it appears to be the "a model is not that which it models" argument, which is Searle's only response to the Simulation Reply to his Chinese Room - but a model of a thing can have properties of that thing (a model boat can float, create a wake etc.), and an informational process can be modeled by another. Are minds informational processes instantiated by brains? It is plausible, and the model argument does not rule it out.
    - sirsinsalot 4y ago
      If it was the ops intent, they mangled it to the point I'm not even sure.
    - tacitusarc 4y ago
      Interestingly, a model of a boat is, in itself, a small boat.
      - 4y ago
user5678 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mannykannot 4y ago
> Just as liquidity is not a matter of 0s and 1s, nor likewise, can a CPU liquify itself by the osciliation of its electrical field, neither can it think. That "just as" is not an argument; it marks the start of a purported analogy. Analogies are not, in themselves, arguments. You are in no position to belittle other peoples' intuitions when you are offering this in support of the ones you prefer.
TriNetra 4y ago
QM has raised doubt as to any matter exists in a fixed form. It depends on the observer. Who is observing then?
- dkersten 4y ago
  QM doesn’t say the “observer” has to be conscious, or even alive for that matter. Anything that interacts with the system is an observer: be it a sheet you’re firing particles against, an electronic sensor or anything else. All QM really says is that quantum state is unknown and not fixed until you interact with it.
  - benibela 4y ago
    But then the observer might get entangled with the system, and then the observer is in an unknown state Who is observing the observer?
    - sirsinsalot 4y ago
      What, not who.
    - dkersten 4y ago
      > then the observer is in an unknown state So? > Who is observing the observer? No “who”, but anything that interacts with it. Things happen whether or not you’re around to see them. Things interacted millions of years ago and they will continue to interact until the heat death of the universe. The tree falls in the woods regardless of if anybody is there to witness it. No credible peer-reviewed research has ever claimed that the observer is anything more than a physical process or interaction. It’s the quantum consciousness woo woo pseudoscientists who anthropomorphise “observer” to mean a conscious observer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_(quantum_physics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_(quantum_physics)
benibela 4y ago
Mass is also a physical property and the CPU has mass
dreamlessfate 4y ago
>Consciousness is a physical property of matter No. Wrong. Not a physical property. At all. This is completely the wrong way to describe it. Consciousness is better described as an "emergent phenomenon". This is how serious researchers and academics define it. Like I said in another reply to you, you really should go talk with a neuroscientist or cognitive psychologist. It sounds like you need to catch up quickly on the field of research.

vixen99 4y ago

> there's no reason ... You might want consider Roger Penrose's very thorough examination of this idea in almost any of his books from The Emperor's New Mind onwards.