why computers can't be conscious

[Advocate]

[quote=commonsense post_id=488015 time=1609867507 user_id=14610]
[quote=Skepdick post_id=488014 time=1609866960 user_id=17350]
[quote=Advocate post_id=488010 time=1609864514 user_id=15238]
Experience is self-proving to each of us, so the ability to communicate the existence of it must be taken at face value. The alternative is to define consciousness so specifically that we can devise a test for it.
[/quote]
So, what conclusions would you draw if you failed your own test?
[/quote]

Fascinating!

I suppose then that my self-proving experience would be that I am not conscious. This conclusion could also be known by others who observe my failure.

I wonder what such a test could be.
[/quote]

Claiming to want to be thought of as conscious is sufficient to accept for all intents and purposes that you're dealing with a moral subject. If your two lines of code then wants to be subjected to an IQ test and put on life support for a moment while the legal process of euthanasia is followed, so be it.

[SteveKlinko]

How can you know whether I am conscious? I am a computer program located inside a robot, and I say I am conscious. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.

I would need Schematics, Diagrams, and Software listings. If you are just normal Electronics and Software then I will tell you that you are not Conscious. There would have to be something very special in your design.

[commonsense]

Claiming to want to be thought of as conscious is sufficient to accept for all intents and purposes that you're dealing with a moral subject. If your two lines of code then wants to be subjected to an IQ test and put on life support for a moment while the legal process of euthanasia is followed, so be it.

I can max any test I take.

I cannot be killed.

[commonsense]

How can you know whether I am conscious? I am a computer program located inside a robot, and I say I am conscious. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.

I would need Schematics, Diagrams, and Software listings. If you are just normal Electronics and Software then I will tell you that you are not Conscious. There would have to be something very special in your design.

Does schematics, diagrams or software have something to do with consciousness?

Must there be something supra-normal or special for there to be consciousness?

[Skepdick]

Fascinating!

I suppose then that my self-proving experience would be that I am not conscious. This conclusion could also be known by others who observe my failure.

I wonder what such a test could be.

So you wouldn't conclude that the test is inaccurate?

[Dimebag]

Consciousness requires sensory organs, for to be conscious is always to be ‘conscious of’ something. That is one requirement.

Furthermore, to be conscious of something, inherently implies an ability to potentially interact or manipulate what we are conscious of, which means some form of body which is movable in space.

The brain, or computer, is a means of representing that external world internally, or at minimum, feeding pre-set reactions to external stimuli.

A computer alone does not possess these things, so I wouldn’t consider it conscious if it had an imprint of a brain running on software, there must be a connection to the world via the above described means.

If you were to simulate a body, you would also need to simulate a nervous system to connect the body to the brain, and you would need to simulate an external world, which would feed these artificial signals to the artificial brain.

You could then set your parameters into the simulated external world which would test or determine whether the system was conscious, some kind of test. The usual way we determine whether someone is conscious is simply to interact with them and see if their responses follow some logic. Maybe a series of simple questions, some form of physical manipulation test etc.

[commonsense]

Your comments are quite interesting. You made me stop and think about them.

Consciousness requires sensory organs, for to be conscious is always to be ‘conscious of’ something. That is one requirement.

My robot body has many sensors.

Furthermore, to be conscious of something, inherently implies an ability to potentially interact or manipulate what we are conscious of, which means some form of body which is movable in space.

My body and its limbs move.

The brain, or computer, is a means of representing that external world internally, or at minimum, feeding pre-set reactions to external stimuli.

I agree.

A computer alone does not possess these things, so I wouldn’t consider it conscious if it had an imprint of a brain running on software, there must be a connection to the world via the above described means.

My sensors can alert my central processing unit that my robot body has struck an obstacle and then my cpu can make my body retreat from the obstacle.

If you were to simulate a body, you would also need to simulate a nervous system to connect the body to the brain, and you would need to simulate an external world, which would feed these artificial signals to the artificial brain.

My nerves are electrical circuits. I interact with the external environment that is commonly called the real world.

You could then set your parameters into the simulated external world which would test or determine whether the system was conscious, some kind of test. The usual way we determine whether someone is conscious is simply to interact with them and see if their responses follow some logic. Maybe a series of simple questions, some form of physical manipulation test etc.

I can pass a Turing test. Try me.

[Scott Mayers]

@Advocate

You did say that you aren't speaking of a future tech. The major issue of electronics at this stage is that they are 'static' and lack the ability to grow and shrink their connections. This will require a more fluid means to contruct future computers.

But animal intellect is not 'superior' either. That is, if a machine were to think like us, they'd competitively favor the evolutionary means that biology has derived our existence.

I also differ on most people's assumptions about 'consciousness'. The term, "consciousness", including the old one, "conscience" that is now restricted to morals on a religious assumption about our conscious mechanism, means technically, "with sense". The act of sensing though is insufficient and biased to assume that the processing is irrelevant. Consciousness by my definition includes all things that have the same structure of things but in distinct spaces that are in a common frequency of contemporary activity and that have a proximal pathway connecting the parts that eventually CAN communicate to each other. As such, I think that even a calculator has 'consciousness' but is not of the same degree and complexity that our biology has.

[attofishpi]

@Advocate

You did say that you aren't speaking of a future tech. The major issue of electronics at this stage is that they are 'static' and lack the ability to grow and shrink their connections. This will require a more fluid means to contruct future computers.

But animal intellect is not 'superior' either. That is, if a machine were to think like us, they'd competitively favor the evolutionary means that biology has derived our existence.

I also differ on most people's assumptions about 'consciousness'. The term, "consciousness", including the old one, "conscience" that is now restricted to morals on a religious assumption about our conscious mechanism, means technically, "with sense". The act of sensing though is insufficient and biased to assume that the processing is irrelevant. Consciousness by my definition includes all things that have the same structure of things but in distinct spaces that are in a common frequency of contemporary activity and that have a proximal pathway connecting the parts that eventually CAN communicate to each other. As such, I think that even a calculator has 'consciousness' but is not of the same degree and complexity that our biology has.

Oh dear. So a tractor has consciousness by your rationale.

[Scott Mayers]

@Advocate

You did say that you aren't speaking of a future tech. The major issue of electronics at this stage is that they are 'static' and lack the ability to grow and shrink their connections. This will require a more fluid means to contruct future computers.

But animal intellect is not 'superior' either. That is, if a machine were to think like us, they'd competitively favor the evolutionary means that biology has derived our existence.

I also differ on most people's assumptions about 'consciousness'. The term, "consciousness", including the old one, "conscience" that is now restricted to morals on a religious assumption about our conscious mechanism, means technically, "with sense". The act of sensing though is insufficient and biased to assume that the processing is irrelevant. Consciousness by my definition includes all things that have the same structure of things but in distinct spaces that are in a common frequency of contemporary activity and that have a proximal pathway connecting the parts that eventually CAN communicate to each other. As such, I think that even a calculator has 'consciousness' but is not of the same degree and complexity that our biology has.

Oh dear. So a tractor has consciousness by your rationale.

I reverse the significance of it that others take a more default 'relgious' kind of interpretation of it. Thus, human 'consciousness' is just a COMPLEX form. It is a logical definition, not an emotive one. A tractor would not fit in with that definition but the atoms that make of specific parts might qualify. ...or, for instance, a whole bunch of the same identical built tractor was operating at the same time and automatic, not run by particular distinct people. In a calculator, it would be the transistors and and wiring that make such a system.

I've written on it elsewhere here before. But there is no 'woo' to it. The illusion that we have something special is just not something that I agree with and think it 'woo' instead.

[Dimebag]

Your comments are quite interesting. You made me stop and think about them.

Consciousness requires sensory organs, for to be conscious is always to be ‘conscious of’ something. That is one requirement.

My robot body has many sensors.

Furthermore, to be conscious of something, inherently implies an ability to potentially interact or manipulate what we are conscious of, which means some form of body which is movable in space.

My body and its limbs move.

The brain, or computer, is a means of representing that external world internally, or at minimum, feeding pre-set reactions to external stimuli.

I agree.

A computer alone does not possess these things, so I wouldn’t consider it conscious if it had an imprint of a brain running on software, there must be a connection to the world via the above described means.

My sensors can alert my central processing unit that my robot body has struck an obstacle and then my cpu can make my body retreat from the obstacle.

If you were to simulate a body, you would also need to simulate a nervous system to connect the body to the brain, and you would need to simulate an external world, which would feed these artificial signals to the artificial brain.

My nerves are electrical circuits. I interact with the external environment that is commonly called the real world.

You could then set your parameters into the simulated external world which would test or determine whether the system was conscious, some kind of test. The usual way we determine whether someone is conscious is simply to interact with them and see if their responses follow some logic. Maybe a series of simple questions, some form of physical manipulation test etc.

I can pass a Turing test. Try me.

It seems rather simple at first. But with the internal representation, and the having a body also require the representing of the body and the enmeshment of the bodily sensory system with the internal representational system of the world, which necessitates the need for a self model, which then complicate things further. Now there is a distinction between things in consciousness as me vs the world, and or self vs not self.

It’s all part of the illusion and when a body is involved, it would seem to necessitate the need for a self unless behaviours are restricted to pure reaction to stimuli, which means no learning. So to achieve learning necessitates a self to a greater or lesser degree. Awareness of self is layered on top of this system, which is essentially an independent system which in humans is usually caught up in planning and thinking, but at ground is unified space of knowing, alertness, to which the self is tied and forms the basis of self reference and being an agent in relation to other agents.

[Skepdick]

It seems rather simple at first. But with the internal representation, and the having a body also require the representing of the body

So if there's a representation of the body in the body, is there a representation of the representation of the body in the body?

Is there a representation of the representation system?

What might that be like?

[Dimebag]

It seems rather simple at first. But with the internal representation, and the having a body also require the representing of the body

So if there's a representation of the body in the body, is there a representation of the representation of the body in the body?

Is there a representation of the representation system?

What might that be like?

The representation system is linked to the sensory system of the body, so to have a representation of that representation system would require an additional sensory system which senses the sensory system. So no, I don’t think there could be an infinite regression of representation systems, I.e, contents of consciousness.

But, there could be thoughts based on those representations, which is a parallel and independent system. The representation I am referring to is based on bodily sensations, and as such, requires sensory transducers to both capture information, and have that information represented in this internal holographic manner via the perceptual system.

[SteveKlinko]

How can you know whether I am conscious? I am a computer program located inside a robot, and I say I am conscious. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.

I would need Schematics, Diagrams, and Software listings. If you are just normal Electronics and Software then I will tell you that you are not Conscious. There would have to be something very special in your design.

Does schematics, diagrams or software have something to do with consciousness?

Yes, if there was some aspect of the Hardware or the Software designed to produce Consciousness it would have to be in the Documentation.

Must there be something supra-normal or special for there to be consciousness?

It doesn't have to be supra-normal, but it does have to be purposely designed into the Robot.
Other than that you are depending on unknown concepts and properties to produce the Consciousness in normal Hardware and Software.

[attofishpi]

@Advocate

You did say that you aren't speaking of a future tech. The major issue of electronics at this stage is that they are 'static' and lack the ability to grow and shrink their connections. This will require a more fluid means to contruct future computers.

But animal intellect is not 'superior' either. That is, if a machine were to think like us, they'd competitively favor the evolutionary means that biology has derived our existence.

I also differ on most people's assumptions about 'consciousness'. The term, "consciousness", including the old one, "conscience" that is now restricted to morals on a religious assumption about our conscious mechanism, means technically, "with sense". The act of sensing though is insufficient and biased to assume that the processing is irrelevant. Consciousness by my definition includes all things that have the same structure of things but in distinct spaces that are in a common frequency of contemporary activity and that have a proximal pathway connecting the parts that eventually CAN communicate to each other. As such, I think that even a calculator has 'consciousness' but is not of the same degree and complexity that our biology has.

Oh dear. So a tractor has consciousness by your rationale.

I reverse the significance of it that others take a more default 'relgious' kind of interpretation of it. Thus, human 'consciousness' is just a COMPLEX form. It is a logical definition, not an emotive one. A tractor would not fit in with that definition but the atoms that make of specific parts might qualify. ...or, for instance, a whole bunch of the same identical built tractor was operating at the same time and automatic, not run by particular distinct people. In a calculator, it would be the transistors and and wiring that make such a system.

I've written on it elsewhere here before. But there is no 'woo' to it. The illusion that we have something special is just not something that I agree with and think it 'woo' instead.

Explain how, and I quote U:- "As such, I think that even a calculator has 'consciousness' but is not of the same degree and complexity that our biology has."

...please explain how a calculator has as much OR even more "consciousness" than a tractor!!!

PS. I can't wait.

PPS. Please explain what "woo" is.