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rms hit on point #2, so I'll respond to point #1: a) Why should an AI be similar architecturally to a human? The size of mind design space is much larger than

by jey 19y ago

rms hit on point #2, so I'll respond to point #1: a) Why should an AI be similar architecturally to a human? The size of mind design space is much larger than the space of possible human minds. There's many more ways to build an intelligent system than to copy a human. Humans were incrementally designed by evolution, and are by no means the only possible design. b) What's consciousness? Is it real? It seems likely that consciousness is simply an illusion of sorts; after all, isn't it more useful for you to model yourself as being "in control" of your actions? Look up the experiments with split-brain patients; you'll see that one hemisphere will simply dream up explanations for what the other hemisphere is doing! Your brain is a chunk of matter operating according to the rules (physical laws) of our universe. It's a pile of biochemical processes. You understand yourself as "being in control" as a model of your behavior, but really, you're a chunk of matter running according to the Universe's physical laws. (I'm not saying we shouldn't act as if we have "free will"; I'm just saying it may be a meaningless abstraction.) c) Even if we assume consciousness is some property needed for an intelligent system, why couldn't we implement consciousness in something other than a human? Isn't a human an existence proof that it's possible to implement an intelligent system using just matter?

yters 19y ago
Cool, thanks for the reply. Well, if consciousness/free will an illusion, doesn't the notion of illusion require a consciousness to be having the illusion? And why does it make sense to say we have to act as if we can choose to act in order to act, if it's an illusion? Yeah, I know the arguments in the end tend to boil down to: we're just matter, therefore all intelligence is AI, QED. But, can we go the other way? AI is logically impossible, therefore we're not just matter. That's why I'm interested in the purely logical case for AI here. As for whether it is meaningful to say we aren't just matter, it seems so on the surface of things. Most of oure concepts that we use to communicate aren't material, especially if consciousness is an illusion. I.e. there is no such physical thing as 'red.' Yet, we still seem to communicate quite effectively, even better than when restricting ourselves to purely physical terms.

by jey 19y ago

yters 19y ago

Cool, thanks for the reply. Well, if consciousness/free will an illusion, doesn't the notion of illusion require a consciousness to be having the illusion? And why does it make sense to say we have to act as if we can choose to act in order to act, if it's an illusion? Yeah, I know the arguments in the end tend to boil down to: we're just matter, therefore all intelligence is AI, QED. But, can we go the other way? AI is logically impossible, therefore we're not just matter. That's why I'm interested in the purely logical case for AI here. As for whether it is meaningful to say we aren't just matter, it seems so on the surface of things. Most of oure concepts that we use to communicate aren't material, especially if consciousness is an illusion. I.e. there is no such physical thing as 'red.' Yet, we still seem to communicate quite effectively, even better than when restricting ourselves to purely physical terms.