Re: [OT?] consciousness discussion on PBS
Kat wrote:
On 23 Jul 2003, at 20:41, Dan Moyer wrote:
>
>
> I saw the last 5-10 minutes of a fascinating TV show last night, "Is
> Consciousness Definable", part of a series called Closer to Truth (which
has
> LOTS of other interesting episodes!),
> http://www.closertotruth.com/
> unfortunately, that particular episode wasn't abstracted or streamed,
but
> http://www.pbs.org/kcet/closertotruth/explore/show_12.html
> does have an abstract of it. "Four brain scientists and four different
> answers."
>
> Introduced the term "zombie" for, I think, an AI (or maybe just a
conceptual
> exercise?) which could perform complex behavior without an attendant
> consciousness, and someone suggested (insisted) that brain synapses
function via
> quantum mechanics, etc. A lot of it went over my head :) but it was
> interesting!
It's going to be all the more interesting when a "Ai" insists it is no
more
artificial than any other intelligent "being". Especially if it can prove
it in
court. The whole thing about poeple not being able to say "human" without
attaching the word "being" to it tells me just how programmable humans
are,
and how so many of them are not self-correcting. Jessica Lynch was
describe in media as "wheelchair bound", obviously by someone who could
not say "wheelchair" without attaching "bound". I would argue almost any
bot
capable of learning and self-modifying is smarter than most humans.
Kat
I think I might agree with you about "...smarter than most humans.", but I
also don't think any "willful" AI would bother going to court; why bother,
when it could more easily just destroy all humans with a plague? Amoral or
angry humans do all sort of atrocities, including writing computer viri, so
no matter how much people might try to make sure any AI would be "safe" or
moral in its behaviour, *someone* is likely to just create a "mean" AI for
spite or whatever, and that will be all she wrote for humans.
And, in a not very related vein, that doesn't even begin to touch upon the
"assymototic cusp" of faster & faster technologic development leading to an
*infinite* rate of technologic invention at some real (near?) time suggested
by S.F. author Vernor Vinge, leading to an absolute inability to in any
meaningful way conjecture about the future *after* that point in time.
Explanation: imagine a graph of rate of tech invention against time; see it
flat for a long time from dawn of mankind, then slowly curving up, then
seeming straight line upward (industrial revolution), then maybe
"exponential" curve upward (now), all with similar result: infinite rate of
tech invention at point infinite in future; now see that the curve may be so
much more "upward faster and faster" that it is more like a hyperbola or
parabola (assymototic), in that it might tend toward infinity at a *real*,
NOT infinite point in time. What would reality be like *after* a point in
time at which the rate of tech invention was infinite? Beyond saying,
"big", ie, likely affecting the entire universe, perhaps in pursuit of
fending off the eventual death of the universe, couldn't say much at all.
Which also seems to me to be a reasonable argument *against* the existance
of any extraterrestrial intelligences, because if there were, (which I would
otherwise assume there to be), then some of them would likely also express a
similar assymototic rate of tech invention, one of which would likely have
happened already; but the one thing one might conjecture about reality
*after* such an event is that it would probably be *non*-local in its
effects, that is, it would probably affect the entire universe...and we've
seen no such "universe shattering" event. Not a proof, of course, but not
unreasonable.
Dan Moyer
--
Regards,
Rob Craig
Rapid Deployment Software
http://www.RapidEuphoria.com
|
Not Categorized, Please Help
|
|
