RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (Full Version)

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hellohellohi -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 12:32:34 AM)

essentialsaltes,
yeah...
but, why are we conscious? is my question. please don't tell me that (passing the Turing Test) is your definition of consciousness, because if you refuse a normal definition of a word (that is, if you disregard out of hand the understanding of consciousness as the lived experience of being a subject), then I find it hard to believe you are interested in dialogue. To be more charitable, if you wold like to have the word consciousness, TAKE IT! My question then is, Why is there an observer? I am looking for scientific speculation, and I am very earnest about this. Don't assume I am merely trying to promote Christianity. I am actually interested in science asking this question. If you don't have any reasonable scientific speculation, just say so. If you would like, you may speak as a philosopher and question whether I as a scientist can ask this question I suppose. Quit being clever, though, and think!



swan42 -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 12:51:27 AM)

quote:


I was asking why evolution didn't create organic bio-machines that could pass the Turing Test, rather than subjects like you and me.

Thanks for the clarification, in the meantime it will be very difficult to determine if evolution created subjects like you and me rather than really good Turing Test candidates. I doubt science is equipped to handle the question; at least anytime soon.

quote:

But what's the obsession with the Turing Test?

Passing the Turing Test is nowhere near feasible today, but it would be the first step towards simulating "conscious" and might determine if we are "conscious" or not. Maybe this is all a big organic illusion. Unfortunately we do not have an external perspective.

quote:

I am actually interested in science asking this question.

Science does not have answer today and does not have the tools to ask the question.
Until then, this is the domain of theology and philosophy.



hellohellohi -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 8:32:33 AM)

swan42,
That's an honest response.

However, I am still confused about what the Turing Test has to do with consciousness. I agree it's an important milestone for AI, an excellent measure for intelligence, but I believe it has been conflated with the notion of testing for consciousness, as the only way to overcome solipsism for instance.

I don't deny that it would be hard to say whether a certain class of advanced machines attained consiousness eventually, but not merely because they appear so.

It will be an incredible acheivement if a programmer develops an algorithm clever enough to pass the Turing Test, but it will be just that, an algorithm. The Turing Test will be a convincing indication of the machine's consciousness to all except those who are directly involved in its development. Why would they claim, just because their algorithm is so impressive thaht is also apparently magical since it can do what no one has yet figured out is acheived by the only things we KNOW (well, it sure seems like it's true) to exhibit interiority, ourselves, our own brains.

If computers were designed with the ability to self-replicate and with a built-in possiblity for inaccuracy in that replication (mutation) then we would have a case where the abilities of the machine would be out of the designers hands. It is interesting to consider how we would treat such a machine if it became apparently intelligent as we.

At that time, I still say the Turing Test would be nothing more than saying "If it quacks like a duck..." -- it is no more than stating the incredibly obvious. This makes the Turing Test all the more suspicious when people claim that it is some innovative way of investigating consiousness. It is simply an affirmation of pragmatism, of which there is nothing wrong in-itself.

Thank you for indirectly admitting that you don't have any idea why consciousness might have evolved, which was my real question. I'm not even asking how it is produced by the brain. I just want to speculate on its USEFULNESS to reproductive success. I think some deduction and speculation is not undue; such might even suggest lines of inquiry for inductive science to take over.



Jhud -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 10:23:07 AM)

quote:

Evolution did create organic bio-machines that can pass the Turing test.


That may be the most unadulterated religious statement about evolution I have seen in some time.



Jhud -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 10:58:35 AM)

quote:

Do you know any languages other than English? French and many others make a distinction between two kinds of knowing. In French the relevant terms are savoir and connaitre. Savoir is used for objective knowledge, for what one can establish among several observers as fact e.g I know that 2 + 2 = 4, that the Mona Lisa is displayed in the Louvre, prices rise when demand exceeds supply, etc. Connaitre is used for personal knowledge, what we may call personal acquaintance with a person or place. One cannot say in French that one knows (connaitre) a person by having read a biography about him/her or through having seen/heard him/her in the media, or through a common friend. The only situation in which one can say "I know (connaitre) Jhud" is through establishing a personal acquaintance built on personal meetings and conversations.

The "objective" knowledge you are describing above is savoir knowledge. It is what one can glean in terms of knowing about God indirectly through, as you say, a common text, a common history, a common witness. It is the sort of knowledge Job spoke of when he said "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear..."

This is not and can never be actually knowing God. Knowing God directly, personally, experientially, existentially, means knowing in the sense of connaitre. It is the knowing that came to Job when he could say: "...but now my eye sees you."

The objective knowledge you speak of can give us knowledge of the reputation of God, but it is not the same thing as knowing God like one knows a personal friend. The first is a pale shadow of the second. One can have all those things--common text, common witness, etc. and still be among those to whom Jesus in the last day will say "I never knew you".

When I spoke of only being able to know God subjectively, it was in the sense of connaitre. The savoir sense of knowledge is at best knowing stuff about God. And we should not deceive ourselves into thinking that because we know a lot about God through the scriptures and the teaching of the church, we thereby know God.

To know God, subjectivity is essential and without it there is no knowledge of God worth having.


Yes, I understand the difference in sorts of knowledge (and just for the record, I know French, Spanish, and a smattering of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew).

The difference is rather like the knowledge of an oceanographer versus the knowledge of a lifelong seaman. One may know ‘about’ the sea, the relevant facts and theories, about currents and undersea structures – the other knows her as a product of his relationship to her, his dependence on her, his interaction with her in stormy seas and calm ones.

Nothing of what I have said denies the importance of the ‘Connaitre’ form of knowledge, indeed, one could not rightly call himself a Christian apart from such knowledge – but this also does not deny the importance of objectively acknowledging God’s existence – in fact, I think Scripture clearly relates the two:

Hebrews 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Not to mention the passages that make it clear that God has made himself known to all mankind through ‘what is made’ and through the human conscience.



Method -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 11:06:04 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: hellohellohi
In general...
Isn't the question "Why is there something instead of nothing?" conflated with or the same as the question "Why is anyone around to observe any of it?"


I think those are the same question. The two questions that are incorrectly conflated are "How does the universe work?" and "What is the meaning of all this?". I think this is the division between science and theology/philosophy.

quote:

For agnostics/scientists...
Let me get you started, why aren't animals and humans super-flexible "robots" with presumably nothing that can be called an "inner life" (in the sense that one might presume robots don't have an inner life)? Why couldn't a completely "non-conscious", "non-sentient," "non-subjective", "non-intentional", "non-[substitute any acceptable term for what is colloquially known as consciousness]" neural-net be the decision maker (rather than what seems subjectively to be the case, that an individual or agency is)?


The act of making a decision indicates the presence of consciousness. Water does not make the decision to flow downhill. The Earth does not make a decision to keep orbitting the Sun. Coscious beings make decisions.

quote:

For philosophers (please don't respond to the science question)...
why not stay true to philosophy's foundations by questioning people (philosophers and others)? Specifically, why don't you use the language of your audience? My question is, wasn't it the "first cause" of philosophy to question supposed wisdom rather than to establish it?


I think it is the public at large that establishes a common philosophy, not the philosophers.



essentialsaltes -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 11:53:25 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: hellohellohi

essentialsaltes,
yeah...
but, why are we conscious? is my question. please don't tell me that (passing the Turing Test) is your definition of consciousness, because if you refuse a normal definition of a word (that is, if you disregard out of hand the understanding of consciousness as the lived experience of being a subject), then I find it hard to believe you are interested in dialogue. To be more charitable, if you wold like to have the word consciousness, TAKE IT! My question then is, Why is there an observer? I am looking for scientific speculation, and I am very earnest about this.


An organism that can sense its surroundings has access to better information about its world.

An organism that can perform reflex actions has more choices on how to behave than an organism that is entirely passive.

An organism that can perform actions only when certain sensory criteria are met has more choices than an organism that acts purely reflexively.

An organism that can distinguish itself from the universe at large can make decisions that protect itself.

An organism with a more sophisticated sensory system can deduce the existence of predators or prey even when they are not directly visible. I.e. if a tiger goes behind some grass, a simple sensor would say 'there's no tiger there', while a more sophisticated system 'understands' that the tiger is still there, just invisible.

An organism with a more complicated decision-making process has more choices than an organism that acts purely on stimulus-response.

In a world of eat or be eaten, more and more complicated sensory systems, decision systems, representations of the world, and representations of the self is one important dimension along which creatures can vary. They could get faster, or have stronger claws and teeth, or get bigger, or get 'smarter', or have more introspective selves. As giraffes have evolved the longest necks, humans have evolved the most developed consciousness.

I deny that consciousness is an on-off property that you either have fully, or don't have at all. It is tied to cognitive abilities, and humans are by far the most introspective observers or selves, but other animals have smaller or less developed selves.

Why are there observers? Because being an observer is a useful trick to learn.



essentialsaltes -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 12:04:05 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud

quote:

Evolution did create organic bio-machines that can pass the Turing test.


That may be the most unadulterated religious statement about evolution I have seen in some time.


Humans pass the Turing test by default, are clearly organic, clearly 'bio' and I've heard we're entirely composed of 'information driven nanomachinery'. If you put a bunch of tiny machines together, all you get is a bigger machine.

What's the objectionably religious part of my statement?



Jhud -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 12:17:16 PM)

quote:

Humans pass the Turing test by default, are clearly organic, clearly 'bio' and I've heard we're entirely composed of 'information driven nanomachinery'. If you put a bunch of tiny machines together, all you get is a bigger machine.

What's the objectionably religious part of my statement?


Well, I think the obviously religious aspect of your statement is that evolution ‘created’ us. I know that it is a matter of phraseology, but evolution doesn’t create anything – evolution is ultimately an incidental process that simply accepts or rejects whatever happens to exist based on whether that which exists fits certain selective requirements. It didn’t create anything anymore than a sifter creates flour.

But, by way of understanding, your statement is typical of evolutionary viewpoints – evolutionists frequently ascribe to evolution the ability to create, anticipate, choose, tinker, etc – much as they would any creator.



essentialsaltes -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 12:24:29 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud

quote:

Humans pass the Turing test by default, are clearly organic, clearly 'bio' and I've heard we're entirely composed of 'information driven nanomachinery'. If you put a bunch of tiny machines together, all you get is a bigger machine.

What's the objectionably religious part of my statement?


Well, I think the obviously religious aspect of your statement is that evolution ‘created’ us. I know that it is a matter of phraseology, but evolution doesn’t create anything – evolution is ultimately an incidental process that simply accepts or rejects whatever happens to exist based on whether that which exists fits certain selective requirements. It didn’t create anything anymore than a sifter creates flour.

But, by way of understanding, your statement is typical of evolutionary viewpoints – evolutionists frequently ascribe to evolution the ability to create, anticipate, choose, tinker, etc – much as they would any creator.


Oh please, I was just copying the complete phrase used by hellohellohi.



swan42 -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 1:16:38 PM)

quote:


However, I am still confused about what the Turing Test has to do with consciousness.

The Turing Test is one of many small steps toward understanding human intelligence and the human mind in general. The Turing Test is reductionist in nature; and like all things involving reductionism, it does not jive well with a theistic world view. This is also about the limit of my own understanding of the topic so this about all I can comment on.

quote:


Thank you for indirectly admitting that you don't have any idea why consciousness might have evolved, which was my real question.

Not do I have no idea, but nobody has any idea what consciousness actually is from a non-experiential point of view, from which to begin studying its evolution. Clearly the brain has something to do with consciousness; and you would argue that there is "more" to consciousness than the construction of a brain.

Fundamentally, this topic is as difficult if not more so to address today by scientists as television would be to a 1st century AD audience.

P.S. Alan Turing was a homosexual.



Jhud -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 1:50:42 PM)

quote:

P.S. Alan Turing was a homosexual.


Again swan, and I don't know if it is congenital or a product of some unfortunate education, you introduce nonsensical aspects to a conversation that really have nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

Do you even know why?



hellohellohi -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 2:03:53 PM)

quote:

An organism that can sense its surroundings has access to better information about its world. ...


Yes, I was trying to describe an organism without consciousness that has all of those things that are so obviously beneficial such as monitoring of the environment and self-monitoring. Those can be understood from a purely informational point of view.

I suppose I'm not trying to pose a "trick" question to science with "why are there observers" (i.e.: rather than non-sentient information processors)? I think its an interesting one for science to consider. I don't think science is very close which is why I invite speculation.

Incidentally, sorry for lowering the quality of discussion for my puns about Alan Turing!

Oh yes, I didn't mean to say that evolution creates things (even if I said just that) but that is the unfortunate figure of speech often adopted in Darwinist discourse!

Whatever...



hellohellohi -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 2:12:51 PM)

Anyway!


Attempt #2 at "breaking the stalemate"!

Consider the following two opints:

1) ID is not science. If you contend that it is, please formulate an experiment under which it could be tested or a line of inquiry that it suggests a scientist ought to pursue.

2) Scientists are sometimes guilty of overstating what is known. Basically, I say in the interests of speaking simply to non-scientists, scientists mispeak badly and gloss over the details which are truly what science is about: asking FURTHER questions. While there is no sense in challenging scientific findings from other than a scientific perspective, it should be considered negligent for scientists to use their perceived position of expertise to say things they do not know to be true, or, if they are not guilty of that, to get testy when the public is found to misunderstand scientific truths, as it is the burden of the scientist to explain and express such since scientific knowledge is, in general, novel. An excellent example is when all scientists and pundits say that solving consiousness is an inevitability. That is not a scientific statement. Rather, let's try to think of how it might be approached. I think the theory of evolution is a powerful deductive tool (really, natural selection is a syllogism anyway) with which to develop possible questions for experiment.

Stuff like that.



hellohellohi -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 2:18:22 PM)

Method,

This is an interesting start to me:

quote:

The act of making a decision indicates the presence of consciousness. Water does not make the decision to flow downhill. The Earth does not make a decision to keep orbitting the Sun. Coscious beings make decisions.


Perhaps agency is always associated with consciousness, or often enough? What then is agency, from the point of view of evolution, and how is it different from a complex series of, not water, but chemicals flowing downhill?

I'm not challenging you. I think this is very interesting to think about. I'm not one who is trying to embarrass science and chalk that up as a victory for Christianity. I don't think science can really be embarrassed since all it is is inquiry.



hellohellohi -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 2:23:36 PM)

quote:

I think it is the public at large that establishes a common philosophy, not the philosophers.


Yes, I agree. And it is the philosophers job, or ought to be, to challenge that.

There is a theory in democracy that there may be sense to statements that one doesn't agree with. I think there is also a possibility that there is a nonsense to much of what people say, even if they do so following normal rules of discourse. On the other hand, there may not be a "sense" to the Truth in another sense. For instance, if Christianity is the truth and also a paradox, which I would contend, it could be understood as non-rational. (Jesus dies for us, how is that rational?)



gluadys -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 3:59:59 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud
Nothing of what I have said denies the importance of the ‘Connaitre’ form of knowledge, indeed, one could not rightly call himself a Christian apart from such knowledge – but this also does not deny the importance of objectively acknowledging God’s existence – in fact, I think Scripture clearly relates the two:

Hebrews 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Not to mention the passages that make it clear that God has made himself known to all mankind through ‘what is made’ and through the human conscience.



Yes, both kinds of knowing are important, but it is still essential not to conflate them. IMO the various objective paths you pointed to are limited to providing knowledge about God. Such knowledge may stimulate a desire to know God, just as knowing God may stimulate a desire to know more about God. So they feed into each other. But when all is said and done, no amount of knowing about God is the same thing as knowing God.



Method -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 4:01:43 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: hellohellohi
And it is the philosophers job, or ought to be, to challenge that.


I agree with that as well.

quote:

For instance, if Christianity is the truth and also a paradox, which I would contend, it could be understood as non-rational. (Jesus dies for us, how is that rational?)


Rational and paradoxical are two different things. Jumping out of an airplane without a parachute is irrational, but it can be done. A square circle is a paradox and a square circle can not exist.



Jhud -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/13/2008 4:06:55 PM)

quote:

Yes, both kinds of knowing are important, but it is still essential not to conflate them. IMO the various objective paths you pointed to are limited to providing knowledge about God. Such knowledge may stimulate a desire to know God, just as knowing God may stimulate a desire to know more about God. So they feed into each other. But when all is said and done, no amount of knowing about God is the same thing as knowing God.


I am not conflating them – I am simply claiming both exist, and both have their place and importance.



hellohellohi -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/16/2008 10:54:30 AM)

JHud,

But would you agree or disagree that one can only know God in the same way that one can know a subjectivity or that one might know Him in an objective sense? That is to say, I don't question that one can be sure of His existence but not in the same way that one is sure that the sky is typically blue. You see, one can deny that the sky is blue, but one doesn't have the option of shutting out one's ability to perceive blueness at will. God's voice, on the other hand, might be stifled by ears that do not hear! The "proof" may be there, but the fact remains that it is still "deniable"! This is the same, I say, as the situation with our interpersonal knowing. We know another person only based on what they tell us and on what we can simulate of their minds in our own. Indeed, we might find reasons for disbelieving what they say. The objective fact of a corporeal body walking around is "the sky is blue," (who they ARE is a matter of faith), but we do not have this case with God (except in contemplating contemporaneity with Jesus). Rather, all we have is His voice and His thoughts for us -- all we have is acquaintance with a consciousness. Now, one might say that instead of a locus for this subjectivity, we have the whole of the Universe to consider as evidence for His objective existence. But then the question arises, are we to listen to the Universe as we are to listen to a living person? Why not listen to the flesh as well? At any rate, just as we can wonder whether "there is anybody home" within a given corporeal body, we are not given to know whether God is real merely because the Universe might suggest it. Further, even if we accept His existence, we have all the freedom to be skeptical that He is who He says He is.

I suppose I am not completely aware if you profess Christianity or simply theism? Maybe I have missed that. I should look back. Not trying to be mean if you do profess Christianity though, just occurred to me that I may have been assuming too much.



hellohellohi -> RE: Breaking the Stalemate? (6/16/2008 11:10:32 AM)

Method,

quote:

A square circle is a paradox and a square circle can not exist.


That's not a paradox as I understand the word. That's an oxymoron. Though, perhaps there is such a thing in non-Euclidean geometry for all I know.

I don't really disagree with what you were saying, but let's be more precise about "rational," "nonrational," "irrational," perhaps. I say a paradox is a circular logical statement or situation which nonetheless seems to be true. An example would be the thirst for righteousness or "the good" faced with the corruptibility of the will. Seeking a synthesis within oneself between these two forces might be as possible as a snake to consume itself. It is rational to acknowledge the quandary but not to solve it. I'm not sure I have a useful definition of irrational though -- perhaps as the human commiseration with absurdity. Such as, if one observes that "everything is permitted," and then chooses either to live righteously or to commit suicide, either decision would have a non-logical and arbitrary component. Christianity, then, would be the refusal to bridge the absurd on one's own power, the abdication of the will to a higher soverignty -- the claim that God rescues one from this existential pickle. (I don't say such an existential situation is inevitible though.) Irrationality would be the non-Christian "leap." What else could it be?

I am interested to hear what you have to say.



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