Someone here

I already know that. That doesn't answer the question.

Ok thanks for the recommendation. I will read it and tell you what I think in a few days.

Hello Mahyar The idea I'm about to tell you I did not come up with. I watched a video of a neurologist who made these arguments. I would recommend you watch it too, it is very interesting: Jeff Hawkins' talk on how brain science will change computing, on TED's website. Our idea of intelligence has been, in the fields of psychology and neurology, mainly based on behavior. This, in my opinion, is the wrong way to look at it. If you look at an alligator, which as a reptile has an "old" evolutionary brain, and study its behavior you would have to conclude it is a very complex being intellectually. It has survived very well for millions of years. It has complex behaviors, however we would never consider an alligator as having anywhere close to human intelligence. Indeed compared to most other animals alligators are rather stupid. More relevantly, a computer could mimic, to a tee, the exact behavior that a human has, but we wouldn't necessarily consider that intelligence as it would not necessarily have understanding. I believe our view of intelligence should shift from being based on behavior to being based on memory and prediction. Mammals' brains are more sophisticated than reptiles' brains because mammals have what is called the cortex added on top of the "old" brain. Humans have a frontal cortex, which came about because evolution copied one cortex and added on another, giving us our complex social nature, linguistic capability, and highly advanced motor performance capability. What happens is all sensory information coming into the brain pass through the old brain and become compartmentalized in the newer portions that humans have. The cortex basically works on memorizing all that comes in through the senses, with great detail and distinction. Then, from moment to moment, our brain is constantly making predictions based on these memories. Let's say someone were to move the door handle on the front door of your house just a few inches to the right while you were away. The next time you go to the door, you will immediately know that something is wrong with the door. This is not because you saw the door and went through, in your head, all the possible things about the door that could be amiss, and eventually in the long list contemplated where the handle was supposed to be. No, your brain has stored memories of entering the doorway, and as you approached the door, your brain was making predictions about what was going to happen this time based on those memories. This way of thinking about the brain is by no means all-inclusive, but I think it is a more accurate framework when thinking about intelligence. NOW, to get back on topic: Keeping this in mind, I think it is entirely reasonable to believe we will be able to create an artificially intelligent thing in the near future (meaning within say a hundred years). I think it would be a simple question of how soon we will have the technology capable of such a huge memory-based system that can then intuitively make live, constant predictions. There is a team of biological computer scientists (I can't remember the actual title for their field) which is currently working with the most capable, vast computer in the world to recreate a part of a rat brain. They have actually accomplished this with a very small portion of the brain, in its neurological behavior when given life-like stimuluses. If their research and progress continues at the pace it is right now, then they will have been able to recreate in digital form the entire rat brain within the next decade. From there they would attempt to attach the computer brain to a robot that is very similar in function to a real rat brain, to study its behavior and nature. This does not prove or disprove the idea that an artificial being would have consciousness or a soul, but helps put into perspective how close we are to having to start answering our questions of rights of the beings we create.

Some say living creatures must be able to adapt to the environment, that they must have a will to survive. This will to live can be programed into a computer. But no living creature is able to adapt perfectly to their environment so that they live forever - they are instead bound by their physical constitution and genetic endowment as to how well they can survive. So some beings are able to survive for longer, some shorter, and some don't make it from birth.

True, we succumb to our base undertones of curiosity and therefore harbor the propensity for "pervasive creation". What we are should not be vilified or negated. However, it is important to approximate our understanding that while we are inventors by nature, it is the nafarity of the system that has and will continue to influence and fuel our desire to create. This is dangerous you see. When we trek on a path to excessive aquirement and acheivement, we overlook the problems that it causes. The needs of man have always been, food, water and shelter. Technology has devalued those nessesities into nothing more than triviality. Moreover, we have been given "artificial activities" to pursue and further immerse ourselves in, which manufactures our lives into exactly what we are discussing-machines. If we allow ourselves to become enamored by this artificial species we will have reliquished our individuality completely and we will have no connection whatsoever to our intrinsic nature.

Then I would say AI is a part of infinite consciousness, Not an other to it. But then how do you explain consciousness? How do you explain the arise of consciousness and conscious beings out of dumb matter? This is known as the hard problem of consciousness or the mind/body problem. It's a classic philosophical problem that goes back at least 400 years. Is It that Computers are made of consciousness already, since atoms are made of consciousness. Everything is always made of consciousness. The only question is, How is the consciousness behaving? And you can make it behave however you want. I think humans count as self-aware robots tbh. I wouldn't be surprised if it's possible to create a new conscious experience out of consciousness. I mean, that's what humans are. The duality between robot and non-robot starts to collapse because it seems to be a superficial duality in the first place.

I stopped smoking for few months now. But I still feel burning sensation in my chest (lungs) and heart area... Especially after eating spicy food. I'm not sure if its because of my smoking habit or what.

@Nahm so can you give me a brief description of what you think about this topic (AI and consciousness). And the conflict between materialism and nonduality in Regards to explaining the origin of consciousness and how it works. Materialism basically says that reality is unconscious in it's "essence" .. It's made up of atoms and molecules.. And those are not what you think they are lol. They are not the phenomenon of course or those pictures that you see in science books (because the phenomenon is Consciousness =qualia lol ).. They are hidden metaphysical aspects which are the essence of reality that no one has ever seen or can ever see lol ..and they are unconscious. And SOMEHOW those unconscious elements developed consciousness lol. Of course this is absurdly funny. It's like saying I have put some rocks together.. And those rocks somehow turned into a unicorn lol. It doesn't make sense how inherently unconscious reality developed consciousness. On the other side there is a problem with artificial intelligence. I'm not aware if science created self-aware robots (robots that have perception) (i guess not) .. But if they did.. Wouldn't that be actually suggesting that this phenomenon that we call consciousness (Color sound smell taste touch thought) are actually being generated from a basic underlying "matter" that is inherently not "conscious". Or at least not in the ordinary sense of what we understand from the word consciousness (the opposite of the blankness of deep sleep ). What would creating self-aware robots mean to our understanding of consciousness?

Yes. I don't know what consciousness IS. can you enlighten me?

It is not unrealistic to imagine a world populated by machanical oganisms and robotic lifeforms. What is unrealistic, is that we anthropomorphosize the elements of technology. If we have reached an age when we attribute human virtues and characteristics to machines we have obviously forgotten and altogether dismissed any and all residual logic we have not already given up to the technological systems. Granted, the likelihood of machines dictating societies to a mass degree is not only possible but imminent. However, I find it shameful and repugnant that we waste our time mulling over whether or not non-biological entities can be examined as artificial human beings.

I don't believe its nearly that simple, and my response was Concerning the Assumption that making Assumptions is an aspect of sentience, and not simply a by-product of the human mind...

@Nahm intersting that you say this because you are agreeing with me that consciousness is a byproduct of brain activity and not a mystical facet fundamental to existence itself as Leo said. For me personally I am not sure. I think that if we put the energy we put in to electronics in to biology we would get where we want to go much faster as biology is far more advanced than our current technology all our newest technology mimics biology. why make the extra step for ourselves? oh right, cause if you can grow it you can get it for free and that would help everyone. not just the rich that will use it to fatten their wallets

I believe that the capability exists for an artificial equivalent of the human mind, although not necessarily that we as humans have the ability to create it. Consciousness is, in my belief, simply an illusion conjured by the mind.. a result of chemical reactions in just another bodily organ. A digital emulation of these behaviors = AI think that the only way a computer could have a consciousness and a soul would be to be made to work in conjunction with a brain of any animal (a dual processor) attached. naturally, I assume the most practical would be a human brain. this brain could be built from synthetic origins in a lab or from a young but dead human. I think only the one from the dead would have at least some remnants of the first owners soul.

The reason why artificial intelligence has not been created before now is because the sheer implementation complexity of the project described above is, without the very best cleanliness of code, insight, and ceaseless diligence, more than a lifetime project, maybe even with today's massive collection of support source code libraries, like those dedicated to language parsing and decision trees, and-of course-the invention of the internal representation known as object oriented. In conclusion: the above project is capable of knowing about itself, what it is doing, and why. Given time, it is capable of independently collecting enough information to choose to act independently in order to better service it's purpose. (And emotion through random mutation (which does occur inside computers) lol).

Since Leo is not posting new videos for a while.. I thought let's re-watch some of the old content. And of course the best stuff. -what is Truth? https://youtu.be/rWEpP8ro-Mg Understanding infinite intelligence. https://youtu.be/bQSUu2CRRBE Why reality cannot be a simulation because it leads to the infinite regress problem. All juicy episodes I've been rewatching full of metaphysical golden nuggets. Feel free to suggest your favorite episodes to rewatch of course. Peace,

Why shouldn't it be possible? I don't think that it's improbable; as long as technology is capable of emulating the behavior of neurons, the interactions of said neurons is consciousness, is it not? As I stated before, I don't believe definitively that humans are capable of such technology, but I do believe that it can be done. Of course, it's always possible that there is much more to humanity than we are capable of perceiving and inferring

I was talking about what's required for artificial intelligence to become conscious or to be considered conscious. For example... A child walks into the room holding a knife in one hand and a teddy bear in the other. The mother screams 'put that down.' The child drops the knife - but you can't teach that kind of thing to a computer because it processes data in a linear manner as a result of the physical properties of electrical circuits - and because there are a potentially infinite number of variables on this theme. There may be a way around it, but processing power is not the question or the answer Of course I can't give a very accurate response since I (like everyone else) don't know what exactly consciousness or a "soul" is. My intuition tells me that consciousness requires at the very least a sense of self awareness. Surely consciousness constitutes much more than this, but even if we break it down to the very small puzzle piece of "self awareness", I don't see it happening in a computer simply because I don't think that the sense of self is learned. Computers can be programmed to learn, and that is all. If there is some component to consciousness that is inherent, then I don't believe computers could obtain it. Of course it's miracle that there is something. Anything at all. And I'm very happy with the fact that I exist and this amazing universe exists. Thank you for pointing that out.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. The human brain has a raw computational power of 0.1 quadrillion processes/second. Yes, I said quadrilion. This is, for those who are lazy, basically.... 100,000,000,000,000... half of Bill Gate's bank statement pretty much. I have a computer sitting in my floor that processes a total of 9,700,000,000 processes per second, and a super computer has roughly two to five thousand processors better than mine. Mine has two dinky ones, comparitivly. So, lets say at the low end this super computer has... two thousand processors, all 200Gb(can buy these as a civilian). (1Gb = 1,000,000,000 processes per second, basically) It is already sitting at 400,000,000,000,000Gb, or processes, per second. Wait a moment, we passed ourselves. Random thought, as we all know, is not random, it is a mixture of chemicals inside of our brain inwhich fires certain neurons in certain patterns, and voila, randomized thought process. Incidently, this chemical process can be controlled with medication, much like programming. So yes, if we truly set our minds and pocket books to the task, AI would not be overly difficult, it would be like raising a child. We already have computers that learn on their own, all they lack is that little spark of... well, patterning. You must remember, we are aware of our surroundings via five senses, without them we'd know nothing and be nothing. Unfortunately, we have yet to figure out how to send data into a computer that replicates a conscious individuals ability to... feel the world. To have emotions, a tightness in your, well processor, when you see something sad, etc. We are learning how to give humans their feelings (such as Touch, Taste, Sight, Hearing and Smell) using machines, its only the next logical step to simply do the same in reverse. Give human sensation to machine, as the individual machines -already- do it on their own. We ask why we are here because we know we will one day be gone, and unfortunately a computer only knows the time you tell it. We have never attempted to build a computer that, quite litterally, attempted to replicate a human brain as far as function. If we studied a mind for say, a year, we could likely then (As we already have computers that can turn human processes into code) simply allow the computer to learn how the mind reacts to in myriad of stimuli. From this, as we have found with our current 'Learning Computer' technology, they can base other experiences off of previous ones, simply not well. This is because these computers are in small, light, weaponized machines, and in vehicles. Neither of which can handle simply the weight of the processors, let alone the rest of a mainframe. We have even built Quantum Computers... which litterally, by themselves, blow the figures for human thought out of the water. Thought being meerly variables, and technology advancing at a pace of two times per day... well, it may not be all that long.

What is consciouseness? I believe it is a form of self awareness. To be specific, at least a basic understanding of who you are, what you are doing, and why you are doing it. Each of these things can be taught to a computer program, it's name, purpose and it's actions. But unless software can evolve to the point where it can parse and apply this knoledge, it is not self-awareness. At first, it is impossible to see how one might write software to the express purpose of being self aware. Nothing, however can be created to fulfill this purpose and nothing else. What is the necessary prerequisite functioning?

------------------------- I just realized that I did not answer the thread's question. I believe that, if enough fundamental programming is entered into the machine, it could replicate life easily. The human mind, on average, processes 1 terrabyte of information per second. Our computer technology already is beginning to come close to this speed, and certain mainframe computers have the processing power and vastly surpasses it.

Not just my intuition, but everyone's intuition is the most reliable source of information on this planet. We are programmed beings. Instincts tell us more about the outside world than our abstract thought does. Allowing that abstract thought led to a myriad of discoveries. Intuition has kept us alive and for that I think it is stronger than any other source of "evidenc

I know disembodied spirits exist through indirect observation and personal accounts. Probably even in the same methods ( although not the same context) as how physicists proof the existence of atoms. I think if people would open their minds and stop waiting for science to tell them when to jump they would see that there is more to this world than what we perceive through "evidence" and "facts". Not that I think science is bad, or wrong, or a waste, but there are some people who would eat rat poison if a scientist said it had antioxidants in it!

Some points to consider: 1. Whether or not a computer is created artificially by human beings has no relevance to whether it could be conscious. Some human genes have already been synthesized: no physical principle would prevent the eventual artificial creation of human chromosomes, which could become a baby through cloning and surrogate mothers. 2. Whether or not a computer is a tool has no relevance to whether it could be conscious. People have been used as tools for centuries. A rickshaw driver works as a motor and a front wheel drive. A cashier works as a dispenser or a vending machine. A flagger works as a traffic signal. 3. The very existence of God and the human soul is a matter of controversy. Notwithstanding fake mediums and the unending sophistries of religious apologists, there is no empirical evidence for the existence of any disembodied spirit. What is more, even if we grant the existence of disembodied spirits, we would still have nothing but arbitrary and baseless religious proclamations to support the contention that God would never ensoul a sufficiently sophisticated computer.

@Knowledge Hoarder good job. Keep going man. ?

Porn specifically is extremely unhealthy and this has been proven recently. of course there is a distinction between what kind of porn you watch (vanilla stuff vs fucked up shit) and how often do you watch Yada Yada Yada.. The issue I see is it's so easy to become an addiction. Because it's extremely pleasant unlike video games or fast food. Especially for young boys with you know with an explosion of hormones during puberty age. the thing is.. exposure to porn results in dopamine spikes in the brains of the porn-users.. However.. after being exposed to many graphic images.. the brain becomes de-sensitised and unable to be satisfied by ordinary sexual encounters. now what is needed is sexually extreme experiences and hardcore pornography to become sexually aroused. You get how this works? What wasn't so popular and known untill recently as I mentioned in OP that watching porn causes physical damage in the brain.. Researchers found less grey matter in the brains of men who watched large amounts of sexually explicit material relative to those who watch it casually or were not exposed to it at all. So I am actually building a case here that porn is harmful and should be avoided. Watch video below for more information..