The Minds of Machines

[Philosophy Now]

Namit Arora considers the complexity of consciousness and its implications for artificial intelligence.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/87/The_ ... f_Machines

[Mark Question]

I felt certain that Artificial Intelligence (AI) was a doomed enterprise.

as doomed as artificial heart beating?
how artificial is human individuals social and cultural intelligence?
and why would artificial lives intelligence have to be like humans, why not more like bacteria or plants, the dominant life forms? something more dominant coming soon?

[keithprosser2]

Artificial intelligence - or more accurately artificial consciousness has always been 'just around the corner'. In 1968 when Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001 no one seemed to imagine an intelligent/conscious computer was the least likely part of the story. Here we are in 2012 and we are still fumbling over it, rehashing the same ideas that were knocking around in the 70's. At some point we do have to face up to the fact that AI - and certainly not AC - have not been achieved and asking ourselves some serious questions about why not. Die hards will no doubt just demand more time, or more computing power, or more complexity but how much more time, how much more computing power, how much more complexity? No one knows. Know one even knows if we are on the right track even if we had more power, more complexity.

We may be nearing the point when we have to consider the unthinkable - dualism. Chalmers has already taken some steps down that route. As a life-long non-dualist I don't suggest dualism with an easy conscience, but haven't we reached the point where the standard excuses for the non-achievement of artificial minds are wearing a bit thin? The first HAL9000 is already over 11 years overdue...

[Mark Question]

Chinese Legends Tells: Chang'e Flies to the Moon

A classic portrait of Chang'e, from the Ming Dynasty, 16th-17th century

Die hards no doubt just demand more time to see man on the moon?
theres saying that people usually overestimates the near future, and underestimate the long-term development of technology.
what will evolution theory say about the possibility to develop or change from mindless materia to bright and bona fide, philosophists and theists? okay, thats a theory.
is dualism a theory too?
but haven't we reached the point where the standard definitions for the non-achieved "artificial mind"s and "AI"s are wearing a bit thin?
are you even faster and better than your pocket calculator? my mr. mortgage lives in my pocket and is a savant. he cant smoke or watch tv and eat batteries without my help. i made little working suit for him. home back yard we are both naked.

[Impenitent]

nuance is seldom binary...

-Imp

[keithprosser2]

Would Mark care to say what he wants to say, clearly and without sarcasm? Is he saying everything is ok and all we need is more of the same?

Mark asks "Is dualism a theory"? I love answering questions that a intended rhetorically! The way science has developed since the Greeks has been a triumph of monist objectivism. We have got where we are by denying dualism, but exorcising the ghost from the machine and no one can deny the benefits of the monist world-view. But science achieved this success at a price; it had to abdicate any claim to comment on the subjective.

Science cannot say anything about beauty, or honour or love. Indeed, it has to deny they even exist - there is no such thing as beauty; there are only "judgements of beauty" made by brains. The brain is a legitimate subject of study for scientists, but minds are not. Mind is a subject for philosophers, not scientists. Science is the study of everything except the mind, the mental, the 'subjective'.

But is that necessarily the case? Is there not a sense in which - for example - 'duty' is as real as atoms or gravity? As a human being I am more influenced by the forces of love and duty than I am by the weak nuclear force, but as a scientist I am not allowed to consider love and duty as forces - I can do so as a poet, or a philosopher but not as a scientist.

So if we don't have a theory of dualism it may be that science has developed into an attempt to do without the mind, to consider the universe as if mind did not exist. If we look at the successes of science then that looks like an excellent policy, but with such things as consciousness, free will and 'the subjective' we are confronted some of with the failures of science. Perhaps all we need to tame the problems of mind is 'more of the same' monistic objectivism, but on the other hand maybe - just maybe - it isn't.

[Thundril]

Would Mark care to say what he wants to say, clearly and without sarcasm? Is he saying everything is ok and all we need is more of the same?

Mark asks "Is dualism a theory"? I love answering questions that a intended rhetorically! The way science has developed since the Greeks has been a triumph of monist objectivism. We have got where we are by denying dualism, but exorcising the ghost from the machine and no one can deny the benefits of the monist world-view. But science achieved this success at a price; it had to abdicate any claim to comment on the subjective.
Science cannot say anything about beauty, or honour or love. Indeed, it has to deny they even exist - there is no such thing as beauty; there are only "judgements of beauty" made by brains. The brain is a legitimate subject of study for scientists, but minds are not. Mind is a subject for philosophers, not scientists. Science is the study of everything except the mind, the mental, the 'subjective'.

The triumph of dualism (academically, at least) has persisted in precisely this 'splitting off' of the sciences and the arts. That science is not allowed to make statements on matters which are considered to belong properly to the arts is not the fault of the scientists exclusively.

But is that necessarily the case? Is there not a sense in which - for example - 'duty' is as real as atoms or gravity? As a human being I am more influenced by the forces of love and duty than I am by the weak nuclear force, but as a scientist I am not allowed to consider love and duty as forces - I can do so as a poet, or a philosopher but not as a scientist.

So if we don't have a theory of dualism it may be that science has developed into an attempt to do without the mind, to consider the universe as if mind did not exist. If we look at the successes of science then that looks like an excellent policy, but with such things as consciousness, free will and 'the subjective' we are confronted some of with the failures of science. Perhaps all we need to tame the problems of mind is 'more of the same' monistic objectivism, but on the other hand maybe - just maybe - it isn't.

The neurological sciences do seem to making some inroads into the 'forbidden territory' in recent years.See for example the RSA social brain project

[Thundril]

nuance is seldom binary...

-Imp

Hitting the nail on the head, Imp!

[Mark Question]

nuance is seldom binary...

is nuance or is it not seldom binary? binary logically: yes or no? maybe?
is logical thinking seldom binary or is it not? yes or no? maybe?
can logical thinking think nuances or not? yes or no? maybe?
is logic all about correct reasoning or not? yes or no? maybe?
can correct reasoning reason correctly nuance or not? yes or no? maybe?
is nuance seldom reasoned correctly? yes or no? maybe?

Would Mark care to say what he wants to say, clearly and without sarcasm? Is he saying everything is ok and all we need is more of the same?

maybe its easier to you if you try to answer thundrils post first?

[keithprosser2]

But I can't see anything to answer in Thundril's post! I'm sure he'll tell me what I missed.

[Arising_uk]

I'd have thought the failure of some kinds of AI would have put the nail in some forms of dualism? As the idea that 'mind' is a substrate independent 'thing' appears wrong. Now Artificial Life on the other hand...

[keithprosser2]

I'd like a_uk to expand on that... to me it seems to me quite the opposite. We have built substrates but they have not - as yet - produced a mind... the implication is surely that mind is indeed something independent of a material substrate?

Compared to artificial consciousness, projects to create artificial life seems to be going fairly well...

[Arising_uk]

I'd like a_uk to expand on that... to me it seems to me quite the opposite. We have built substrates but they have not - as yet - produced a mind... the implication is surely that mind is indeed something independent of a material substrate?

Have we built a cybernetic being yet? On the whole the only substrates we've used are simulations upon general purpose digital machines and even there I doubt we've run a full model of a brain, I doubt we even know all the connections yet. But I presume we have and are building small hardware neural nets with sensors that show all the signs of interacting with the environment at least at the level of an insect, as such I think we could make an artificial consciousness, whether we could make a self-consciousness, or whether it'd be wise to, I think will depend upon whether we ever manage to define what it means rather than it being some immaterial 'substance'. But I do think it won't be a top-down but a bottom-up approach that'll produce any results.

Compared to artificial consciousness, projects to create artificial life seems to be going fairly well...

Ah... I agree but I was thinking more about the Santa Fe Artificial Life projects.

[Mark Question]

Have we built a cybernetic being yet?

do you have eye glasses? wireless mobile headphone and other gadgets? artificial heart or other body parts? artifically intelligent clothes and tools? wooden leg? eye patch? education? third part knowledge?...?
do we have to think again what is life, biology and all other words in lexicons?
word "mind" seems to be some kind of beauty award?

[Mark Question]

Would Mark care to say what he wants to say, clearly and without sarcasm? Is he saying everything is ok and all we need is more of the same?
Mark asks "Is dualism a theory"? I love answering questions that a intended rhetorically!

i only ask simple questions and seek your knowledge for me too. not your money. is there a problem, houston?