Could a Robot be Conscious?

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jayjacobus
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by jayjacobus »

AlexW wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 5:01 am
jayjacobus wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 4:46 am Ridiculous

Its fairly easy to find out that none of our senses provide any information about a separate self that has a choice - if it exists only in/as thought, can it be real?
[/quote]

Of course it can. You don't know. That's my point.
AlexW wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 5:01 am
jayjacobus wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 4:46 am What if the map is right?
How can the map be right? Only reality is right - a map (conceptual thought) is always an abstraction. It can, at best, be a good approximation, but the map is never the territory. Unfortunately the map we use isn't even a good approximation, but rather pretty much upside down.
The map comes from senses and senses are just representations. They are hardly upside down.
AlexW
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by AlexW »

jayjacobus wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 11:17 am The map comes from senses and senses are just representations. They are hardly upside down.
I am not saying that your senses are upside down, but the way you think about what they deliver is.
The senses cannot provide a map - only thought can. A map has labels, descriptions, borders... senses provide none of that.
Point is that we have learned to create (thought made) borders where there are none - we create separation in our mind where there is only the whole.
jayjacobus
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by jayjacobus »

jayjacobus wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 11:17 am
AlexW wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 5:01 am
jayjacobus wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 4:46 am Ridiculous

Its fairly easy to find out that none of our senses provide any information about a separate self that has a choice - if it exists only in/as thought, can it be real?
Of course it can. You don't know. That's my point.
AlexW wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 5:01 am
jayjacobus wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 4:46 am What if the map is right?
How can the map be right? Only reality is right - a map (conceptual thought) is always an abstraction. It can, at best, be a good approximation, but the map is never the territory. Unfortunately the map we use isn't even a good approximation, but rather pretty much upside down.
The map comes from senses and senses are just representations. They are hardly upside down.
[/quote]

Some people reason from "reality could be an illusion" to "reality is an illusion" but their logic is convoluted and not convincing at all.
jayjacobus
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by jayjacobus »

AlexW wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 11:30 am
jayjacobus wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 11:17 am The map comes from senses and senses are just representations. They are hardly upside down.
I am not saying that your senses are upside down, but the way you think about what they deliver is.
The senses cannot provide a map - only thought can. A map has labels, descriptions, borders... senses provide none of that.
Point is that we have learned to create (thought made) borders where there are none - we create separation in our mind where there is only the whole.
Thought is not the map because without the map that senses provide there is nothing to think about except mapless thought.
AlexW
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by AlexW »

jayjacobus wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 11:34 am Thought is not the map because without the map that senses provide there is nothing to think about except mapless thought.
I guess you can think of sensual information as a map - I call this "map" reality. There is no other reality you can know.
Thought interprets this map (reality) and adds an overlay to the primary map/reality.
All I am saying is that the overlay you are using - your dualistic, conceptual knowledge - is not in tune with reality (the primary map). This can easily be proven by diving into your direct experience and performing an honest investigation of the primary map.

You become upset, not because I oppose your theory, but because you don't see or understand where I am coming from. See, you subscribe to a dualistic view of reality where separation rules whereas I see the world from the unified perspective where everything is an expression of the undivided whole. This non-dual perspective/knowledge is based on how reality is directly experienced whereas the dualistic perspective, while at times practical, is not more than an abstraction (and as such ultimately untrue).
jayjacobus
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by jayjacobus »

AlexW wrote: Fri May 04, 2018 1:27 am
jayjacobus wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 11:34 am Thought is not the map because without the map that senses provide there is nothing to think about except mapless thought.
I guess you can think of sensual information as a map - I call this "map" reality. There is no other reality you can know.
Thought interprets this map (reality) and adds an overlay to the primary map/reality.
All I am saying is that the overlay you are using - your dualistic, conceptual knowledge - is not in tune with reality (the primary map). This can easily be proven by diving into your direct experience and performing an honest investigation of the primary map.

You become upset, not because I oppose your theory, but because you don't see or understand where I am coming from. See, you subscribe to a dualistic view of reality where separation rules whereas I see the world from the unified perspective where everything is an expression of the undivided whole. This non-dual perspective/knowledge is based on how reality is directly experienced whereas the dualistic perspective, while at times practical, is not more than an abstraction (and as such ultimately untrue).
Without brains reality is not dual. The brain creates a representation of reality. Hence there are two realities: the one outside the brain and the "copy" within the brain.

Stop putting words in my mouth.
commonsense
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by commonsense »

AlexW wrote: Fri May 04, 2018 1:27 am ...the dualistic perspective, while at times practical, is not more than an abstraction (and as such ultimately untrue).

If your meaning is like, "the dualistic perspective...[is] ultimately untrue", I believe I understand what you're saying here.

If you are saying that an "abstraction..[is] ultimately untrue", I don't know how you came up with that and I want you to explain how you did.

Or is it something else altogether?
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Sir-Sister-of-Suck
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by Sir-Sister-of-Suck »

Sorry for the late reply.
AlexW wrote: Tue May 01, 2018 9:12 amI am not sure what you mean with "intuitive truth" and "laws of thought" - can you please elaborate.
The law of the excluded middle, the law of contradiction and the law of identity are what form the basis for all reasoning. They can't however be proven in a traditional sense, because they are essentially the very tools used to prove things themselves. This is what I'm comparing to consciousness, in terms of being at that same level of confidence that they're true.
If nobody would have ever told you that you are a self thats conscious - would you know it?
...I mean, apparently no ones explained to you what the laws of thought are. But you knew the truth of their principle before knowing their concept. Just because you can't deduce something into a quotable term doesn't mean you don't believe in it. Going back, again dogs understand object permanence but clearly can't articulate the concept like I just have.
Well... I challenge you to find the I that is conscious in your own experience. Can you find it (and I am not talking about a self referential thought that states "I am conscious!")?
I'm not quite sure what you're talking about.
AlexW wrote: Tue May 01, 2018 9:12 am
Sir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: Tue May 01, 2018 8:52 am The process of even raising that question validates (to yourself) the idea that you are conscious.
No, it only validates consciousness, but not a self.
...what do you mean 'no'. Why do you say 'no', then confirm exactly what I just said? It's like if I told my friend that 'I'm going to McDonalds to pick up a big mac', and he replied with, 'no, you're going to pick up a big mac.' Well... yes, that's what I just said.

The concept of 'self' isn't something we were even discussing.
jayjacobus
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by jayjacobus »

If an elephant grieves, is she conscious? Why? Because grieving has no biological reason but does have a psychological reason.

A computer that grieves must be programmed to grieve because computers have no psychological reasons at all.
commonsense
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by commonsense »

AlexW wrote: Fri May 04, 2018 1:27 am ...the dualistic perspective, while at times practical, is not more than an abstraction (and as such ultimately untrue).

I'm just saying that I am unsure of your meaning. I am confused.

If you mean that the dualistic perspective is ultimately untrue, I get it. If you mean that abstractions are ultimately untrue, I don't get it.

Since I don't know what you mean, I don't even know if I get it or not. Hence, my confusion. Will you explain which you meant, please?
AlexW
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by AlexW »

jayjacobus wrote: Fri May 04, 2018 12:24 pm Without brains reality is not dual. The brain creates a representation of reality. Hence there are two realities: the one outside the brain and the "copy" within the brain.
Agree, yes, without thought reality is not dual. But even with thought reality is not dual - simply because thought cant change reality. It might be interpreted to be dualistic, but an interpretation doesn't make it so.
I also agree that thought "creates a representation of reality".
Its the dualistic "map" we use to interpret reality.
But there are never two realities - there is ONLY reality - and then there are interpretations of it, they are only ideas/beliefs/maps that try to explain non-dual reality in a dualistic way. They are as such never real.
jayjacobus wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 12:32 pm If an elephant grieves, is she conscious? Why? Because grieving has no biological reason but does have a psychological reason.
No animal or human IS conscious - simply because consciousness can not be owned by an object (or subject), it is not divided into pieces and allotted to individuals. Its rather the opposite, all apparent individuals ARE consciousness (on the level of consciousness there are as such no separate individuals - they only exist on the dualistic level of mind).
AlexW
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by AlexW »

commonsense wrote: Fri May 04, 2018 7:09 pm If your meaning is like, "the dualistic perspective...[is] ultimately untrue", I believe I understand what you're saying here.
If you are saying that an "abstraction..[is] ultimately untrue", I don't know how you came up with that and I want you to explain how you did.
Yes, I am saying that "the dualistic perspective is ultimately untrue".
The dualistic perspective arises from interpreting non-dual reality in a dualistic/relativistic way. The objects you (seem to) experience don't exist as separate objects in reality - they exist as abstractions/interpretations. The abstraction is real as an idea but it is, at the same time, also not real as it doesn't have a counterpart in reality - it points to a part of reality (extracted via a pattern matching algorithm), which makes it ultimately unreal as only the whole IS real and all parts (as well as ideas of parts) are not more than appearances.
AlexW
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by AlexW »

Sir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 8:17 am The law of the excluded middle, the law of contradiction and the law of identity are what form the basis for all reasoning. They can't however be proven in a traditional sense, because they are essentially the very tools used to prove things themselves. This is what I'm comparing to consciousness, in terms of being at that same level of confidence that they're true.
Thank you for explaining :-)
The way I see it, anything that can be used to "prove things themselves" can ultimately not be true. How could it? Truth is before all things. It doesn't know of separation and as such things are perfectly alien to it.
Sir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 8:17 am Well... I challenge you to find the I that is conscious in your own experience. Can you find it (and I am not talking about a self referential thought that states "I am conscious!")?
I'm not quite sure what you're talking about.
What I am saying is that if one believes that he/she is a separate self that is conscious (has consciousness) then it would be logical that one should be able to find this entity, this separate self. Would you agree?
Sir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 8:17 am ...what do you mean 'no'. Why do you say 'no', then confirm exactly what I just said?
Haha... well, you said "The process of even raising that question validates (to yourself) the idea that you are conscious."
and my answer to your statement is "No, it only validates consciousness, but not a self."
There is a big difference between the statement "you are conscious" and "you are consciousness"
The latter points to the non-dual understanding that there is only consciousness and that there can be no you (no self) that is conscious. Thats why I said what I said...
jayjacobus
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by jayjacobus »

AlexW wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 9:02 am
jayjacobus wrote: Fri May 04, 2018 12:24 pm Without brains reality is not dual. The brain creates a representation of reality. Hence there are two realities: the one outside the brain and the "copy" within the brain.
Agree, yes, without thought reality is not dual. But even with thought reality is not dual - simply because thought cant change reality. It might be interpreted to be dualistic, but an interpretation doesn't make it so.
I also agree that thought "creates a representation of reality".
Its the dualistic "map" we use to interpret reality.
But there are never two realities - there is ONLY reality - and then there are interpretations of it, they are only ideas/beliefs/maps that try to explain non-dual reality in a dualistic way. They are as such never real.
There is a reality external to the brain and a reality internal to the brain. Two realities.
jayjacobus
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Re: Could a Robot be Conscious?

Post by jayjacobus »

AlexW wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 9:02 am
jayjacobus wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 12:32 pm If an elephant grieves, is she conscious? Why? Because grieving has no biological reason but does have a psychological reason.
No animal or human IS conscious - simply because consciousness can not be owned by an object (or subject), it is not divided into pieces and allotted to individuals. Its rather the opposite, all apparent individuals ARE consciousness (on the level of consciousness there are as such no separate individuals - they only exist on the dualistic level of mind).
This is ignoring the thread. Why crap on my post? You know quite well that there are many, many people who understand consciousness as defined in a dictionary and you also know that is the definition I used. Yet you pretend you don't know what I meant so you can say something completely unrelated.

Perhaps you hope to make computers seem humanlike by undefining words. Elephants have emotions. Computers don't Computers are completely conditional. Humans (and most likely elephants) are conditional and interpretive.
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