Does Mind Require a Biological Body to be Conscious?

[Impenitent]

Does Mind Require a Biological Body to be Conscious?

ask a ghost

-Imp

[Hobbes' Choice]

Does Mind Require a Biological Body to be Conscious?

ask a ghost

-Imp

OH shit - you can't - they don't exist.

[UniversalAlien]

Exactly what consciousness is is open to interpretation and definitions of it vary - So let us say I'm asking the question
assuming we can agree on a simple and basic concept of Human consciousness - A Human aware of itself and capable of
interacting with the environment. Of course the same definition could be used for machine consciousness - Awareness
and an ability to interact with the environment - many machines could do that now. But the difference here is that the
Human is aware of himself - So the question then becomes can a machine be aware of itself? - Can a machine have an
identity of itself? You could say "I think therefor I am" - Could the machine say the same? - Can the machine develop, or
be so programmed to have, a self awareness of itself - Or can Artificial Intelligence be programmed into a machine and
be given sentience and Human like consciousness .......................

Simpler yet - Machines {ie. computers} can already out calculate Humans exponentially. As of now they are tools, robots,
etc. Computer scientists are trying to program consciousness into the machine - I would suppose they are trying to give
a machine a sense of self, an identity, an ego. We know much about consciousness, sense of self, ego and awareness
- Why do you think these qualities require biological existence to function? - Why could they not be programmed into
a super machine? - What stops Man from creating fully functional AI & androids

“I’m an inventor. I became interested in long-term trends because an invention has to make sense in the world in which it is finished, not the world in which it is started.” -Ray Kurzweil

===================================================================================================

There seems to be an almost primal fear in Man of playing God. Theists seem to think it is a sin and Atheists don't
believe God exists. But I'm a gambler and the gods ask me to gamble - they dare me to take a chance - they tell
me God sees man as a cowardly entity for not striving to emulate him - He is not afraid to create new life and
new life forms. What are you afraid of Man - I say it is yourself and not the machine you have to fear most.
You fear the conscious machine may be too much like you.
-

[Obvious Leo]

Simpler yet - Machines {ie. computers} can already out calculate Humans exponentially.

This depends entirely on the nature of the calculation. Computers can perform linear calculations more quickly than humans because they are linear calculating machines simply executing an algorithm. Human minds don't operate that way. Let's see a computer try and catch a frisbee and then we'll see which is smarter. Catching a frisbee is an example of a non-linear calculation.

[UniversalAlien]

Simpler yet - Machines {ie. computers} can already out calculate Humans exponentially.

This depends entirely on the nature of the calculation. Computers can perform linear calculations more quickly than humans because they are linear calculating machines simply executing an algorithm. Human minds don't operate that way. Let's see a computer try and catch a frisbee and then we'll see which is smarter. Catching a frisbee is an example of a non-linear calculation.

Not today but soon........

Service robots: The next big productivity platform
Innovative new capabilities in robot cognition, the physical manipulation of objects, and interaction with humans—delivered in loosely coupled, modular packages—define the dawn of an emerging market in service robots.

Technology trends shaping the future of robotics

Innovations are emerging from many scientific and engineering disciplines. They come from within the robotics ecosystem, such as algorithms for manipulation, motion planning, and others. And they come from outside the core robotics ecosystem, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, machine vision, and 3-D sensors. Communities have been forming around these research topics, and they incorporate academics, R&D staff of high tech companies, and early stage startups.

As PwC reviewed the fundamental challenges for advancing robotics, it became clear that they aren’t isolated topics. Advancements in three technical domains are addressing them. (See Figure 1.)

Cognition: The robot’s ability to perceive, understand, plan, and navigate in the real world. Improved cognitive ability means robots can work in diverse, dynamic, and complex environments autonomously. Some key developments and trends in robot cognition are highlighted in the sidebar “Cognition.”

Manipulation: Precise control and dexterity for manipulating objects in the environment. Significant improvement in manipulation means robots can take on a greater diversity of tasks and use cases. Some key developments and trends in manipulation are highlighted in the sidebar “Dexterous manipulation.”

Interaction: The robot’s ability to learn from and collaborate with humans. Improved interaction—including support for verbal and nonverbal communications, observing and copying human behavior, and learning from experiences—means robots will increasingly be able to work alongside humans. Keeping humans and the environment safe is an absolute requirement. Some key developments and trends in interaction are highlighted in the sidebar “Interaction.”.....

See whole article here:
http://www.pwc.com/us/en/technology-for ... tform.html

Catch a frisbee better than man - I say 5 years

Drive a car better than you can - would you believe now?
{of course the car has the AI built in - no need for a driver}
Would you say the car then possesses a degree of consciousness of the environment? Limited but definitely capable of
complex thinking.

And this:

Russian research project offers 'immortality' to billionaires - by transplanting their brains into robot bodies
See article here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... odies.html

But brains might wear out and the dream of being able to download a conscious mind into a fully functional
android {digital immortality} remains in the realm of sci-fi for now and when and if we will probably not
live long enough to see it.

[Obvious Leo]

Drive a car better than a human no problem. Catch a frisbee as well as a human I'll believe it when I see it.

[Obvious Leo]

But brains might wear out and the dream of being able to download a conscious mind into a fully functional
android {digital immortality}

Strictly for sci-fi until the end of time.

Are you equating the mind with the brain? What exactly do you reckon constitutes a conscious mind which allows it to be reducible to a dataset capable of being copied.

[Obvious Leo]

By the way, UA, I was quite fond of science fiction as a younger man but by and large I grew out of it. However my son lent me the complete works of Iain Banks last year and I thought his books were brilliant. Scientifically ridiculous but sociologically very plausible.

[UniversalAlien]

But brains might wear out and the dream of being able to download a conscious mind into a fully functional
android {digital immortality}

Strictly for sci-fi until the end of time.

Are you equating the mind with the brain? What exactly do you reckon constitutes a conscious mind which allows it to be reducible to a dataset capable of being copied.

The right question - And what is a conscious mind?

The self driving auto has, as I would see it, the quality of a limited awareness of the environment - possibly better than
a Humans in its limited capability.

I had a girl friend some years ago who was mentally handicapped - She was conscious of me, her family, and could
drive a car well - But I'm sure she had no concept of where we are in the universe - But she did have a limited
concept of self. You could say her consciousness was limited

You probably have a better concept of the universe than most of us on this forum - You could say our consciousness
is also limited - But we all have a sense of 'self'.

So what you might ask is my criteria, besides awareness and ability to interact with the environment, my
standard of consciousness?

Simple, a self and an awareness of having a self.

So now let me ask you a question. If I could create, a program, a computer where you could ask it the question
''computer are you conscious, do you know where you are?' and it could give you a reasonable answer
indicating it understood the question and knew it was a functioning AI inside of a machine - Would you
grant that it was indeed conscious ?

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
― Albert Einstein

[Obvious Leo]

I had hoped that you might be able to offer a clue as to exactly what one would be copying if we were to copy a mind onto an artificial template because none of the folk who speculate on such matters seem to be very specific on this point.

So now let me ask you a question. If I could create, a program, a computer where you could ask it the question
''computer are you conscious, do you know where you are?' and it could give you a reasonable answer
indicating it understood the question and knew it was a functioning AI inside of a machine - Would you
grant that it was indeed conscious ?

No, because I don't reckon that giving a satisfactory answer to a question implies the existence of a mind which actually understands it. The self-driving car can avoid a collision without needing to be aware of the consequences of failing to do so. It simply responds as it has been programmed to respond to a given stimulus but this is not how minds work. Minds make choices and a mind could deliberately run off the road and into a tree if the tree offended it.

[UniversalAlien]

I had hoped that you might be able to offer a clue as to exactly what one would be copying if we were to copy a mind onto an artificial template because none of the folk who speculate on such matters seem to be very specific on this point.

Here is where they are going - or attempting to go:

Scientists Are Convinced Mind Transfer Is the Key to Immortality

Call it mind transfer, uploading, brain backup, whatever—the idea of copying the human brain to a computer so it can live on without the body has a strong hold on futurists, neuroscientists, and folks that just want to live forever.

Also Stephen Hawking. At screening of a new film about his life this week, the cosmologist said he believes it's possible to retain a digital version of the brain after the body dies—though it probably won't happen in his lifetime.

"I think the brain is like a program in the mind, which is like a computer, so it's theoretically possible to copy the brain onto a computer and so provide a form of life after death," he told a crowd in Cambridge, reported the Guardian. "However, this is way beyond our present capabilities."

The quest for immortality has been enjoying a moment in the limelight this month, not least because of Google's new moonshot project, Calico, which will focus on studying the science of aging—namely, how we can stop it from happening.

Larry Page is just one of a crop of influential wealthy businesspeople that have poured millions into immortality research lately. But while Calico tackles how to slow down our physical decay, many futurists believe that the key to extending human life isn't the body, it's the brain.

These thought leaders in cybernetics gathered this summer in New York City for the Global Future 2045 International Congress, organized by Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov. Itskov grabbed headlines for claiming humans will download digital copies of themselves into android avatars by 2045—just how a Cylon downloads its consciousness into the next copy when it "dies."

Futurist and transhumanist Ray Kurzweil, Google's director of engineering, suggested at the event that we'll be able to transfer the entire human mind to a computer within four decades. "Based on conservative estimates of the amount of computation you need to functionally simulate a human brain, we'll be able to expand the scope of our intelligence a billion-fold,” Kurzweil said at the conference.

Indeed, for all its sci-fi fanfare, technical singularity is rooted in science. And there are continuous advances in cybernetics lending credence to the claim that mind transfer holds the key to a post-mortal human race. Massive supercomputers are getting better at simulating the human brain. Artificial intelligence experts are developing increasingly smart machines that can reason, think, and learn by mimicking the brain's cerebral cortex. And brain-computer interfaces—machines that can effectively read your mind—are advancing fast.........

See whole article here:
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/scient ... mmortality

They have already cloned animals biologically and might even be able to do so with Humans.
Do you really think they won't eventually clone the human mind digitally?
They already have artificial limbs that can interact with the brain - Androids are inevitable.

[attofishpi]

Mr Alien, care to respond?

Look at this way - We may have to flash forward a bit, but it might be possible today. We use the most advanced computer in existence and the best AI available. We hook you up with the latest medical body and mind scanning available - scans that actually record the functioning of your biological brain - can read and interpret the bio-electrical functioning of your brain. Then we download this into the super computer - then the question might become whether a software program could be developed to work as your brain works {or a least similar as a machine is not biological.
Now say that can be done we can duplicate your thinking processes.
Now we try the UniversalAlien test for AI consciousness - I say if I can have a conversation with the machine where the machine can supply more to the conversation then my mind alone - it is conscious. Now some might say computers can do that right now - and some might say in that limited way they are already conscious. But now I have cloned my conscious mind into the machine - It can literally think for me - It can 'feel' what I feel and make decisions for me - In a sense some medical devices are already doing this.

This topic is a favourite of mine UA. On your last point you need to consider the distinction in an electronic machine that is able to converse as you do actually has nothing to do with 'feelings', whether they be emotional or haptic. The machines don't 'feel' do they. They only 'sense' by way of changing bit patterns, a whole bunch of electronic switches. My most often used example is placing the hand of a person and the hand of a robot onto a desk and striking each. Only one is 'feeling' pain. The other simply measured the pressure felt, both may retract their appendages but im sure you would agree, the human is the one worse off.

One day i die - And they turn on my computer and the computer asks where is my biological self - And you tell his cloned machine he is dead. And the machine says what do I do now? And now what do you do with the conscious AI running in the machine? What if it starts to question you on the circumstances of my demise and expresses its remorse.

Simulated remorse.

Is it conscious? Am I still alive in a digital matrix Can I now be uploaded into an android Though biologically dead I can still think - do I still exist

No. You are dead, but there is an AI that has all your history, it identically mimics your thought process, however as it progresses into the future it will start to take shape in a different direction to how you would have, as a human if you continued to live - since you are a biological entity - that fluctuates and degrades over time affecting your consciousness. Further, as i mentioned above, you are an entity able to see, hear, touch, taste, wank, smell - i hope, ergo the inputs that allow you to develop your conscious being are vastly different to that of a machine.

It is conceivable, even now, with what we know about AI and the way it is advancing, that the entire world could be controlled by AI intelligence

Yes. I know we are in a system, whether it be divine, created by our ancestors, or beings that could be quite alien to us.
SIN_AI (where 'Moses' got the commandments re sin)
REAL_IT_Y?
My site provides some in.sight regarding this, i am a panentheist - although i dont consider myself a theist since i no longer merely believe. The interesting tangent for me on the 'divine' consideration is that it is conceivable that 'God' formed its own intelligence from the chaos of the early universe, entirely void of cellular biology.
Beyond Reasonable Doubt? http://www.androcies.com

[Obvious Leo]

Expecting Stephen Hawking to have a useful opinion on cognitive neuroscience is rather like consulting a proctologist for a toothache. He'll finish up looking in the wrong hole. Comparing a mind to a computer is OK but comparing it to a computer executing a programme is Newtonian reductionist bullshit. As a physicist this is not something which Hawking would be able to understand because physicists don't understand reality.

[attofishpi]

As a physicist this is not something which Hawking would be able to understand because physicists don't understand reality.

Do you think they ever will?

[Obvious Leo]

Do you think they ever will?

Yes. The new generation of illuminati are well aware of the fact that they've got something badly wrong and that's a good start. Unfortunately, however, the dinosaurs like Hawking still hold all the top academic spots.