On Monday, January 27, 2014 5:57:55 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 27 Jan 2014, at 06:07, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > > On Saturday, January 25, 2014 11:36:11 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: >> >> >> >> On 26 January 2014 01:35, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> But that doesn't answer the question: do you think (or understand, or >> >> whatever you think the appropriate term is) that the Chinese Room >> >> COULD POSSIBLY be conscious or do you think that it COULD NOT POSSIBLY >> >> be conscious? >> > >> > >> > NO ROOM CAN BE CONSCIOUS. NO BODY CAN BE CONSCIOUS. NO FORM CAN BE >> > CONSCIOUS.* >> > >> > *Except within the fictional narrative of a conscious experience. >> Puppets >> > can seem conscious. Doors, door-knobs, and Chinese rooms can SEEM to be >> > conscious. >> >> Do you think Barack Obama is conscious? If you do, then in whatever sense >> you understand that, can the Chinese Room also be conscious? Or do you >> think that is impossible? >> > > Yes, I think that Barack Obama is conscious, because he is different from > a building or machine. Buildings and machines cannot be conscious, just as > pictures of people drinking pictures of water do no experience relief from > thirst. > > > To compare a brain with a machine can make sense. > To compare a brain with a picture cannot. >
It depends what the picture is doing. If you have a collection of detailed pictures of brains, and you organize them so that they are shown in different sequences according to some computation, isn't that a simulation of a brain? In either case, consciousness makes no more sense as part of a brain or a machine than a picture. Machines are like 4D pictures. One picture or form leads to another and another, and if there were some interpreter they could infer a logic to those transitions, but there is nothing in the machine which would itself lead from unconsciousness to awareness. Craig > Bruno > > > > > >> >> >> Or do you claim that the question is meaningless, a >> >> category error (which ironically is a term beloved of positivists)? If >> >> the latter, how is it that the question can be meaningfully asked >> >> about humans but not the Chinese Room? >> > >> > >> > Because humans are not human bodies. We don't have to doubt that humans >> are >> > conscious, as to do so would be to admit that we humans are the ones >> > choosing to do the doubting and therefore are a priori certainly >> conscious. >> > Bodies do not deserve the benefit of the doubt, since they remain when >> we >> > are personally unconscious or dear. That does not mean, however, that >> our >> > body is not itself composed on lower and lower levels by microphenomenal >> > experiences which only seem to us at the macro level to be forms and >> > functions....they are forms and functions relative to our >> > perceptual-relativistic distance from their level of description. Since >> > there is no distance between our experience and ourselves, we experience >> > ourselves in every way that it can be experienced without being outside >> of >> > itself, and are therefore not limited to mathematical descriptions. The >> sole >> > purpose of mathematical descriptions are to generalize measurements - to >> > make phenomena distant and quantified. >> >> Wouldn't the Chinese Room also say the same things, i.e. "We Chinese >> Rooms don't have to doubt that we are >> conscious, as to do so would be to admit that we are the ones >> choosing to do the doubting and therefore are a priori certainly >> conscious." >> > > Why would the things a doll says things make any difference? If a puppet > moves its mouth and you hear words that seem to be coming out of it, does > that mean that the words are true, and that they are the true words of a > puppet? > > >> >> >> > I like my examples better than the Chinese Room, because they are >> >> > simpler: >> >> > >> >> > 1. I can type a password based on the keystrokes instead of the >> letters >> >> > on >> >> > the keys. This way no part of the "system" needs to know the letters, >> >> > indeed, they could be removed altogether, thereby showing that data >> >> > processing does not require all of the qualia that can be associated >> >> > with >> >> > it, and therefore it follows that data processing does not >> necessarily >> >> > produce any or all qualia. >> >> > >> >> > 2. The functional aspects of playing cards are unrelated to the >> suits, >> >> > their >> >> > colors, the pictures of the royal cards, and the participation of the >> >> > players. No digital simulation of playing card games requires any >> >> > aesthetic >> >> > qualities to simulate any card game. >> >> > >> >> > 3. The difference between a game like chess and a sport like >> basketball >> >> > is >> >> > that in chess, the game has only to do with the difficulty for the >> human >> >> > intellect to compute all of the possibilities and prioritize them >> >> > logically. >> >> > Sports have strategy as well, but they differ fundamentally in that >> the >> >> > real >> >> > challenge of the game is the physical execution of the moves. A >> machine >> >> > has >> >> > no feeling so it can never participate meaningfully in a sport. It >> >> > doesn't >> >> > get tired or feel pain, it need not attempt to accomplish something >> that >> >> > it >> >> > cannot accomplish, etc. If chess were a sport, completing each move >> >> > would be >> >> > subject to the possibility of failure and surprise, and the end can >> >> > never >> >> > result in checkmate, since there is always the chance of weaker >> pieces >> >> > getting lucky and overpowering the strong. There is no Cinderella >> Story >> >> > in >> >> > real chess, the winning strategy always wins because there can be no >> >> > difference between theory and reality in an information-theoretic >> >> > universe. >> >> >> >> How can you start a sentence "a machine has no feeling so..." and >> >> purport to discuss the question of whether a machine can have feeling? >> >> >> >> > So no, I do not "believe" this, I understand it. I do not think that >> the >> >> > Chinese Room is valid because wholes must be identical to their >> parts. >> >> > The >> >> > Chinese Room is valid because it can (if you let it) illustrate that >> the >> >> > difference between understanding and processing is a difference in >> kind >> >> > rather than a difference in degree. Technically, it is a difference >> in >> >> > kind >> >> > going one way (from the quantitative to the qualitative) and a >> >> > difference in >> >> > degree going the other way. You can reduce a sport to a game (as in >> >> > computer >> >> > basketball) but you can't turn a video game into a sport unless you >> >> > bring in >> >> > hardware that is physical/aesthetic rather than programmatic. Which >> >> > leads me >> >> > to: >> >> >> >> The Chinese Room argument is valid if it follows that if the parts of >> >> the system have no understanding then the system can have no >> >> understanding. >> > >> > >> > You aren't listening to me - which may not be your fault. Your >> psychological >> > specialization may not permit you to see any other possibility than the >> > mereological argument that you keep turning to. Of course the whole can >> have >> > properties that the parts do not have, that is not what I am denying at >> all. >> > I am saying that there is no explanation of the Chinese Room which >> requires >> > that it understands anything except one in which understanding itself is >> > smuggled in from the real world and attached to it arbitrarily on blind >> > faith. >> >> Then you don't consider the Chinese Room argument valid. You agree with >> the conclusion and premises but you don't agree that the conclusion follows >> from the premises in the way Searle claims. >> > > The Chinese Room is not important. You are missing the whole point. > Consciousness is beyond reason and cannot be discovered through evidence or > argument, but sensory experience alone. > > >> >> >> It is pointed out (correctly) by Searle that the person >> >> in the room does not understand Chinese, from which he CONCLUDES that >> >> the room does not understand Chinese, >> > >> > >> > Rooms don't understand anything. Rooms are walls with a roof. Walls and >> > roofs are planed matter. Matter is bonded molecules. Molecules are >> sensory >> > experiences frozen in some externalized perceptual gap. >> >> The claim is that the consciousness of the room stands in relation to the >> physical room as the consciousness of a person stands in relation to the >> physical person. >> > > There is no 'physical person', there is a public facing body. A person is > not a body. On one level of an animal's body there are organs which cannot > survive independently of the body as a whole, but on another level all of > those organs are composed of living cells which have more autonomy. > Understanding this theme of coexisting but contrasting levels of > description suggests that a room need not be comparable to the body of a > living organism. Since the room is not something which naturally evolves of > its own motives and sense, we need not assume that the level at which it > appears to us as a room or machine is in fact the relevant level of > description when considering its autonomy and coherence. In my view, the > machine expresses only the lowest levels of immediate thermodynamic > sensitivity according to the substance which is actually reacting, and the > most distant levels of theoretical design, but with nothing in between. We > do not have to pretend that there is no way to guess whether a doll or a > cadaver might be conscious. With an adequate model of qualitative nesting > and its relation to quantitative scale, we can be freed from sophism and > pathetic fallacy. > > >> >> >> and uses this conclusion to >> >> support the idea that the difference between understanding and >> >> processing is a difference in kind, so no matter how clever the >> >> computer or how convincing its behaviour it will never have >> >> understanding. >> > >> > >> > The conclusion is just the same if you use the room as a whole instead >> of >> > the person. You could have the book be a simulation of John Wayne >> talking >> > instead. No matter how great the collection of John Wayne quotes, and >> how >> > great a job the book does at imitating what John Wayne would say, the >> > room/computer/simulation cannot ever become John Wayne. >> >> It could not become John Wayne physically, and it could not become John >> Wayne mentally if the actual matter in John Wayne is required to reproduce >> John Wayne's mind, but you have not proved that the latter is the case. >> > > It has nothing to do with matter. There can only ever be one John Wayne. A > person is like a composite snapshot of a unique human lifetime, and the > nesting of that lifetime within a unique cultural zeitgeist. It's all made > of the expression of experience through time. The matter is just the story > told to us by the experiences of eyeballs and fingertips, microscopes, etc. > > >> >> I don't think your example with the typing is as good as the Chinese >> >> Room, because by changing the keys around a bit it would be obvious >> >> that there is no real understanding, while with the Chinese Room would >> >> be able to pass any test that a Chinese speaker could pass. >> > >> > >> > Tests are irrelevant, since the pass/fail standard can only be >> subjective. >> > There can never be a Turing test or a Voight-Kampff test which is >> objective, >> > but there will always be tests which designers of AI can use to >> identify the >> > signature of their design. >> >> That's what Searle claims, which is why he makes the Room pass a Turing >> test in Chinese and then purports to prove (invalidly, according to what >> you've said) that despite passing the test it isn't conscious. >> > > The question of whether or not a Turing test is possible is beyond the > scope of the the Chinese Room. The Room assumes, for the sake of argument, > that Computationalist assumptions are true, and that a Turing type test > would be useful, and that anything which could pass such a test would have > to be conscious. Searle rightly identifies the futility of looking for > outward appearances to reveal the quality of interior awareness. He > successfully demonstrates that blind syntactic approaches to producing > symbols of consciousness could indeed match any blind semantic approach of > expecting consciousness. My hypotheses go further into the ontology of > awareness, so that we are not limited to the blindness of measurable > communication in our empathy, and that our senses extend beyond their own > accounts of each other. Our intuitive capacities can be more fallible than > empirical views can measure, but they can also be more veridical than > information based methods can ever dream of. Intuition, serendipity, and > imagination are required to generate the perpetual denationalization of > creators ahead of the created. This doesn't mean that some people cannot be > fooled all of the time or that all of the people can't be fooled some of > the time, only that all of the people cannot be fooled all of the time. > > Craig > > >> -- >> Stathis Papaioannou >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> > . > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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