Can a man-made computer become conscious?

[happyhappy]

On 1/31/2022 at 3:19 PM, Tim R said:

@Someone here

Not to come across condescending, but at this point I am rather surprised that you'd ask this question. You think consciousness is this, that or the other, but it doesn't matter what you think consciousness is. Consciousness cannot be thought. You're wasting your time thinking about these matters. Not per se because you're asking the question, that is no problem - but because you constantly ask these sort of questions without seeming to truly try to come to an answer. Philosophizing is good, but after a certain point, philosophy becomes frustrated. 

 +1 true

@Someone here  ik one thing for sure, i hv been trying to beat my computer in chess for years and this ass*ole always wins!

computer is also consciousness. go ahead and see the episode on bashar where he dealt with ur specified question!

Edited February 5, 2022 by happyhappy

[Someone here]

@happyhappy

[Ramu]

@Someone here not consciousness in the sense that the computer will become self realized as God.

[Ramu]

@Someone here it almost sounds like you're drawing an analogy between brains and computers.  A materialist might think so.  The computer is something held within the bubble of consciousness, but only functions with instructions from the human ego.  In short, no.

[Ramu]

@Someone here the question itself is a sign that you are not Awake.  It's ok...most people on this forum are clueless.

[Ramu]

@Gesundheit2 the secret behind consciousness is that you ARE consciousness.  It's all there is and is First Order.  Why do we keep rehashing this shit?

[Mahyar]

5 hours ago, Someone here said:

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.

@Someone here Thank you for sharing the information. I indeed enjoyed the read. Just to add on top of what you mentioned, it is important to note that all the things you mentioned fall under the category of science. Leo has talked about the difference of Science and Religion (Spirituality - Consciousness) and the individual importance of each of them. The problem here is that, the so called researchers are pushing themselves to solve this problem of intelligence and consciousness within the territory of science. It is THE problem. Like I mentioned, all these things would be possible, if and only if we are willing to give up our old paradigms of thinking only in terms of either Science or Spirituality, and accept that to have breakthrough in either of them, these two need to come together. If you have noticed, those key words that I listed, they were all consciousness-related topics not scientific.

This is not a matter of more research and more discovery. It is the matter of going meta and shifting paradigms. It is the matter of allowing ourselves to think outside the box. Have you ever had an awakening/enlightenment experience? Have you noticed that you ARE THE experience (Consciousness) not the body, not the brain, not the neurons? I would suggest, if you want to find the answer to your question, try to work on these, instead of reading more and going deeper into scientific interpretations of how intelligence works. Although, knowing that is of great benefit.

[LastThursday]

7 hours ago, Someone here said:

I believe our view of intelligence should shift from being based on behavior to being based on memory and prediction.

How would you know that someone or something possesed memory and prediction?

[Gesundheit2]

7 hours ago, Ramu said:

@Gesundheit2 the secret behind consciousness is that you ARE consciousness.  It's all there is and is First Order.

Lol.

[Someone here]

19 hours ago, Ramu said:

@Someone here the question itself is a sign that you are not Awake.  It's ok...most people on this forum are clueless.

Lol. 

[Someone here]

13 hours ago, LastThursday said:

How would you know that someone or something possesed memory and prediction?

It's a three-part question. What is consciousness? Can you put it in a machine? And if you did, how could you ever know for sure?

Consciousness — AWARENESS — is truly in the eye of the beholder. I know I am conscious. But how do I know that you are?

This is the primary problem.

Could it be that my colleagues, my friends, all the people I see on the streets are actually just mindless automatons who merely act as if they were conscious human beings?

That would make this question moot.

Through logical analogy — I am a conscious human being, and therefore you as a human being are also likely to be conscious — I conclude I am PROBABLY not the only conscious being in a world of biological puppets. Extend the question of consciousness to other creatures, and uncertainty grows. Is a dog conscious? A turtle? A fly? An elm? A rock?

We don't have the mythical consciousness meter. All we have directly to go on is behavior.

[Someone here]

15 hours ago, Mahyar said:

@Someone here Thank you for sharing the information. I indeed enjoyed the read. Just to add on top of what you mentioned, it is important to note that all the things you mentioned fall under the category of science. Leo has talked about the difference of Science and Religion (Spirituality - Consciousness) and the individual importance of each of them. The problem here is that, the so called researchers are pushing themselves to solve this problem of intelligence and consciousness within the territory of science. It is THE problem. Like I mentioned, all these things would be possible, if and only if we are willing to give up our old paradigms of thinking only in terms of either Science or Spirituality, and accept that to have breakthrough in either of them, these two need to come together. If you have noticed, those key words that I listed, they were all consciousness-related topics not scientific.

This is not a matter of more research and more discovery. It is the matter of going meta and shifting paradigms. It is the matter of allowing ourselves to think outside the box. Have you ever had an awakening/enlightenment experience? Have you noticed that you ARE THE experience (Consciousness) not the body, not the brain, not the neurons? I would suggest, if you want to find the answer to your question, try to work on these, instead of reading more and going deeper into scientific interpretations of how intelligence works. Although, knowing that is of great benefit.

 It's all a matter of what concsiousness is, is consciousness the ability to take in and proccess information then spew out new in formation in responce to the original information fed in.

if so then yes,

or is it a matter of us being so called "alive", where our information processing is a matter of natural evolution. because when you break it down, all consciousness is is cause and effect, all we as humans are is complex chemcials combined to a point where we can precieve the reactions taking place and we delude our selves that we're something special, that our reactions so much more complicated and impressive than any other but its not, we are simply apply one chemical to another and get a reaction,

so on that principal even atoms and molecule are conscious on a base level, we're just a little bit more involved in our consciousness, we're just a little bit more aware, but not by much, we just run on survival instincts like and animals, just collecting more chemicals to keep the reaction going,

to keep this chemical "consciousness" ticking over,

but i digress, in short, yes machines can be conscious, for really deep down on a base atomic level, they already are

[LastThursday]

15 hours ago, LastThursday said:

23 hours ago, Someone here said:

I believe our view of intelligence should shift from being based on behavior to being based on memory and prediction.

How would you know that someone or something possesed memory and prediction?

 

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

All we have directly to go on is behavior.

 

[Someone here]

@LastThursday there is no contradiction. 

because feelings are something unique for a biological organism, they require biological tools to be experienced and to be created, we are talking about something mechanical here, you can only program it to express feelings with words under certain conditions, like if you increase the its voltage , it can say - oh , it hurts.  That's far from real feelings though....

I agree that the only agents we know of today that possess feelings are biological agents - but does it follow from this fact that all feelings are necessarily unique to biological organisms? I don't think so. I see no reason in principle why (suitably configured) machines could not possess feelings too. Perhaps we firstly need to agree just what a "feeling" is?

[Adamq8]

That depends on what worldview you are coming from.

If you view conciousness as a emergent phenomena caused by neurons in the brain, then i would say that it is possible if we just map the brain and learn how it is working then in theory we could create sentient beings.

If you are conciousness only worldview i feel that the matter would be different, sure, some conciousness only proponents believe that we could create concious robots since everything is conciousness, but I would disagree with that, there is still a difference between us and robots, that is conciousness imo, its Life, we can map and produce the human being but we can not create the spark of life in an artificial manner.

It is the spirit or breath of life that the robot would lack.

[Someone here]

24 minutes ago, Adamq8 said:

If you are conciousness only worldview i feel that the matter would be different, sure, some conciousness only proponents believe that we could create concious robots since everything is conciousness, but I would disagree with that, there is still a difference between us and robots, that is conciousness imo, its Life, we can map and produce the human being but we can not create the spark of life in an artificial manner.

It is the spirit or breath of life that the robot would lack.

Isn't that just because we have a prejudicial anthropocentric view of what a "life" is? Before the invention of the aeroplane humans could not fly and we could have argued that flying is something that birds and insects do but not humans or machines - if humans or machines are ever to take to the air then that cannot be called "flying", it must be something else? I agree that (today) feelings are associated only with biological agents (just as 100 years ago flying was associated only with birds and insects), but who knows what might be possible tomorrow? With all due respect, saying simply that "feelings are just something that machines cannot have" is hardly a logical or sound argument (at best its a definition of "feeling" as something unique to biological organisms, hence argument by definition).

[LastThursday]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

I agree that the only agents we know of today that possess feelings are biological agents

I'll keep going till you get bored with me. How do you know that only biological agents possess feelings?

[Adamq8]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

Isn't that just because we have a prejudicial anthropocentric view of what a "life" is? Before the invention of the aeroplane humans could not fly and we could have argued that flying is something that birds and insects do but not humans or machines - if humans or machines are ever to take to the air then that cannot be called "flying", it must be something else? I agree that (today) feelings are associated only with biological agents (just as 100 years ago flying was associated only with birds and insects), but who knows what might be possible tomorrow? With all due respect, saying simply that "feelings are just something that machines cannot have" is hardly a logical or sound argument (at best its a definition of "feeling" as something unique to biological organisms, hence argument by definition).

Didn’t really expect a philosophy discussion either ?? so my answer was more based on my feelings then through logical reasoning. 

I agree that the possibility for all kinds of life is more or less infinite, and there can be life forms which we could not even understand, atleast it is possible.

But I would not put awareness in the same category as flying, it is the feeling of the be itself, existence, life force or whatever you want to name it, without life there is nothing, but life can be without wings and still be life, it is like it is on a deeper level then how the form takes shape, like essence and energy distinction. 

Essence = conciousness 

Energy : body/action etc.

as it seems to be, we can use and shape energy and replicate and build a super computer but we can't create the essence, , not artificially atleast, thats how it seems to me, we need male - female and a living body to create a baby etc.

BUT it is possible for God etc, to create a concious AI if he would choose so.

We humans can create insanely powerful stuff, we can invent new amazing things, but what we learn from is studying nature, we are not responsible for nature in that way, it acts according to laws and do have patterns and predictability, which points to an underlying Mind, a Logos, the difference between that Mind and our mind is that, that Mind has designed the entire universe, and has created nature which we are inspired from and from which we create stuff, since we are made in God's image we can create and mimic nature, but to actually give it LIFE, that's the difference between little mind and Big Mind.

Because, we don't create a living being with an airplane, we create something useful our intellect can master and make it a part of our selves, as an extension of our body,  but we have not been able to create a living bird for example.

We are born creators with a powerful mind and an immensly rich creative gift , but we are just mimicking nature which comes from God, we can create video games with seemingly living character's, whole worlds, but we never create it as an physical reality because we are limited in our powers compared to the INFINITE, but we are a fractal of that, as I said previously, we are made in the image of God.

But I do presuppose God, you might not accept the premise of God but i am not doing serious philosophy atm so I just share my point of view ?

 

 

 

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, Adamq8 said:

Didn’t really expect a philosophy discussion either ?? so my answer was more based on my feelings then through logical reasoning. 

I agree that the possibility for all kinds of life is more or less infinite, and there can be life forms which we could not even understand, atleast it is possible.

But I would not put awareness in the same category as flying, it is the feeling of the be itself, existence, life force or whatever you want to name it, without life there is nothing, but life can be without wings and still be life, it is like it is on a deeper level then how the form takes shape, like essence and energy distinction. 

Essence = conciousness 

Energy : body/action etc.

as it seems to be, we can use and shape energy and replicate and build a super computer but we can't create the essence, , not artificially atleast, thats how it seems to me, we need male - female and a living body to create a baby etc.

BUT it is possible for God etc, to create a concious AI if he would choose so.

We humans can create insanely powerful stuff, we can invent new amazing things, but what we learn from is studying nature, we are not responsible for nature in that way, it acts according to laws and do have patterns and predictability, which points to an underlying Mind, a Logos, the difference between that Mind and our mind is that, that Mind has designed the entire universe, and has created nature which we are inspired from and from which we create stuff, since we are made in God's image we can create and mimic nature, but to actually give it LIFE, that's the difference between little mind and Big Mind.

Because, we don't create a living being with an airplane, we create something useful our intellect can master and make it a part of our selves, as an extension of our body,  but we have not been able to create a living bird for example.

We are born creators with a powerful mind and an immensly rich creative gift , but we are just mimicking nature which comes from God, we can create video games with seemingly living character's, whole worlds, but we never create it as an physical reality because we are limited in our powers compared to the INFINITE, but we are a fractal of that, as I said previously, we are made in the image of God.

But I do presuppose God, you might not accept the premise of God but i am not doing serious philosophy atm so I just share my point of view ?

 

 

 

I have always asked myself this question:

It is (should be) Technically possible to acurately model a human brain, taking any human brain as a blueprint. That would mean modelling any neural connection, modelling the neural cells, and giving them the correct facilities to interact.

Now when you turn that on, what happens? I mean it technically is a computer without any software on it. The question begins at how you even turn it on? You would have to start giving it input of some sort, I guess. But would it just start working, creating a constant stream of interactions like our brain seemingly does?

It can probably be said that the "Software" in our brain is some kind of hard-wired system of connected nodes, that work like registers on an actual computer, giving the right output when receiving an input. But it still seems strange that that artificial "brain" would start doing things without receiving any instructions.

We know very very little of how our brain really works, I believe that we are many many years away of getting a blueprint.

and switched on, it might work , why not....but the complete replication of our brain is the absurd part here, I don't even think that we'll ever know how the brain really works with all the needed details to replicate it.
On the other hand even if we fully copy the brain from what we see from a functioning brain we still won't know how our brain generates thoughts, it's clear that the neurons light up during tought process but what generates thoughts, are thoughts made from matter or.... ? What are thoughts? What is the mechanism that turns these electrical impulses in what we call thoughts.  

If computers can through their programming create virtual realities then why shouldn't they be able through even more complex programming - in which man is no longer the dominant agent - create a virtual reality of consciousness which, in a computer, could be a equivalent to a functioning reality, that is, an actual reality. How would we recognize the difference since we also operate in a kind of Virtual Reality field!

[Someone here]

2 hours ago, LastThursday said:

I'll keep going till you get bored with me. How do you know that only biological agents possess feelings?

I told you I don't know that. I'm only assuming.