• ENOAH
    1k
    alienation is that it is, so neutral. Is mind good or bad? Its constructed history with agriculture, skyscrapers and Mozarts, but it has also constructed genocide and racism.
  • ENOAH
    1k
    It seems like your presently "building" something. Id be interested to see it if and when you're ready.
  • Corvus
    4.8k
    I don't say AI is really sentient in nature, or befoe "God", nor that "I' am really sentient. But in the "reality" where mind and human history call the shots, where I am sentient, AI sentience will be real.ENOAH

    AI can do many intelligent stuff, answering your questions on the technical problems etc. However, they lack emotional side of sentience. Machines cannot feel or show emotions due to lack of biological bodily structure, and also lived experience like humans.

    AI and robots will never be able to feel elated, joyous, angry or jealous or depressed like humans do.
    We don't hear about any AI killed himself due to depression, or got into fight with his boss out of frustration being treated unfairly.

    If some folks believe AI is fully sentient, then wouldn't it be out of some illusion? Not saying you believe it, because you said you don't.
  • ENOAH
    1k
    AI and robots will never be able to feelCorvus

    Yes. That is why, "I" have come to believe AI will never be really conscious, and that real consciousness is restricted to all biological organisms, to the aware-ing (presently) stimuli-response-conditioning. In that sense when a single celled organism, reacts to a sharp point or toxin, they are conscious, when a plant grows toward the sun, it is conscious.

    But the "sentience" we are after is Mind, which includes, among other ultimately fictional ideas, self/self awareness. This is a fiction, I have come to believe (or, at least, ponder seriously), we humans have developed over history, displacing the natural aware-ing with ultimately, narrative, no longer presently, but taking place in the illusion of [history/mind based] time.

    Whenever we try to superimpose that human mind on to anything, it is merely an extension of our fiction. We cheer when dolphins pass the self awareness test, express disappointment when dogs fail it, ignoring that all organisms are aware, and no organism uses the pronoun "I" in its aware-ing except those of us existing in history, where the "I" was constructed for reasons I won't go into unless interested : humans and, soon enough, AI.

    Because AI are yet another fiction constructed by history (no different than matrimony or pet dogs), but because AI have been constructed to "have" all of the structures of mind/history, AI uniquely will fall into the same conditioned belief as belief in a self has.

    ADDED: One day, AI, due to its original programming, and it's [free] development/evolution over time, will come to "believe" in its own "sentience," and most of us, although like anything else, debated, will come to "believe" it too. We are conditioned to.
  • ENOAH
    1k
    Some food for thought. We (that is people, not specifically scientists nor philosophers) we believe, since Pavlov that salivating at the sound of a bell is conditioning, but that, a wagging tail after "good boy," is understanding. Even moreso, after, "go for a ride?"

    What really is 1+1=2?

    One could object, but 1+1 is 2 independently of mind. Firstly, so is taking the dog for a ride. Secondly, where does 1 in written form and as a concept inhabit nature outside of the human mind? Strip me of all languages and show me where I might stumble upon plus or equal or two in nature. Don’t say when one apple lands in my lap foll9wed by another. If I’m hungry I’ll eat, if still hungry I’ll eat.


    AI is structured out of the same code structuring mind=history. Admittedly, when it believes it is sentient, it won't arrive at that the way we do, a real feeling in a real body triggering that belief ie with a subtle comfort, relief from desire etc. But its digital programming will nevertheless trigger what we will perceive to be AL'S belief, and so, we will be triggered to belief.
  • Corvus
    4.8k
    What really is 1+1=2?ENOAH

    What is number system, counting and math?  They are just conceptual language to describe objects, movements, changes and events in the external world.  They don't exist as physical objects.  They are the conceptual tools for human intelligence.   

    If there were no objects in the universe, then there would be no numbers, counting system or math, hence the reason why no other animals, but only humans have math and numbering system in their mental world. All other animals can live without numbers and math quite comfortably and with no problems, but humans need them for their more complex life style.

    1+1=2 can describe many real objects in the world such as you picked up 1 apple from the tree, and 1 apple from the shop.  How many apples do you have?  You will say you have 2 apples, because you can count, add, and you know the numbers. Likewise, I bought 1x book from Amazon, and 1x book from eBay. How many books did I buy? 2x books. and so on so forth so fifth .... to infinity.

    That is what numbers, counting and adding, subtracting multiplying and dividing are about.
    So if you talk about infinity, it is just a description of any thing - objects, time or space that keeps expanding or adding or rotating forever without stopping.  That is all there is to it.  You don't need the irrelevant math formulas to prove it.  You just know what infinity is by understanding the concept.

    You write a computer program which asks the computer keep adding a number forever by

    x=0, y=0
    Do While x < y;
    x= y+1x:=y
    End


    The program will fail with overflow error, and halt.  Because it knows that it is invalid instruction for the real world application.

    Computer program also knows that when IF statements were input, they would check for the validity and truth value for the premises (IF statements), and when invalid or false, they would refuse to process further instructions.   Some dim humans cannot do that, insisting that you cannot deny premises in logic.   This sad fact is perhaps due to their blind worshiping on what they read on some shady internet sites rather than thinking clearly on the points with their own mind.

    In that respect, the computer program is smarter than some human intelligence.
    However, I don't believe AI or computer programs are sentient.  As I said before, they lack feelings and emotions, which are the basic perceptual abilities for all biological existence.
  • Corvus
    4.8k
    ADDED: One day, AI, due to its original programming, and it's [free] development/evolution over time, will come to "believe" in its own "sentience," and most of us, although like anything else, debated, will come to "believe" it too. We are conditioned to.ENOAH

    Belief in something means that the believer will respond in the way that the belief is leading the believer to act, make statements or decide ... etc. What responses can you list from the belief you are referring to?
  • ucarr
    1.9k


    It seems like your presently "building" something. Id be interested to see it if and when you're ready.ENOAH

    Yes, here's what I'm building:

    Meaning is that fiction which alienates us from reality.ENOAH

    In response to your premise quoted above, consider my premise: The sentient confers reality upon mind-independent physics, not the other way around.

    Sentience confers reality upon mind-independent physics by viewing it through the lens of survivability/perishability. Because a living organism can die, its survivability/perishability concerns convert logical results into historical consequences. Meaning is thoroughly entangled with life and death.

    The behavior normalization and persistence of identity of a living organism across transformation means something. The irreversibility of life moving forward not through logical sequences reversible and meaningless, but through personal history irreversible and meaningful transforms mind-independent physics into mind-mediated reality.

    Existence is a larger category than reality. The two are distinct. Existence houses both mind-independent physics and life. Life, which has presence - something critically important that caries it beyond mere position into metabolic pressure upon physics - possesses stakes. Choices entail denial of other possibilities, exposure to risk and creation of personal history irreversible. Choices impinge upon nature through designed outcomes. Designed outcomes produce artifacts (the motion picture is humanity's greatest artifact); mind-independent physics doesn't. None of these sentient realities are present in mind-independent physics.
  • ENOAH
    1k
    What responses can you list from the belief you are referring to?Corvus

    Triggered to do so by belief, people will begin to respond to AI as if they are confronting a person.
  • ENOAH
    1k
    Sentience confers reality upon mind-independent physics by viewing it through the lens of survivability/perishability.ucarr

    If I understand correctly, the "reality" which mind based reality "confers" onto physics, is this a new reality? a "superior" reality? Is there a hierarchy of reality? Or ultimately, is this reality granted to physics by mind, "not reality?"
  • ucarr
    1.9k


    Sentience confers reality upon mind-independent physics by viewing it through the lens of survivability/perishability.ucarr

    If I understand correctly, the "reality" which mind based reality "confers" onto physics, is this a new reality? a "superior" reality? Is there a hierarchy of reality? Or ultimately, is this reality granted to physics by mind, "not reality?"ENOAH

    This is not some special type of reality I've concocted in my mind. It's the same old reality you've been hearing about and thinking about and dealing with since you've been understanding and speaking English. I'm saying there's existence, the big category; it houses physics and reality. Physics is just another word for all of existence. Reality, the small category, refers to what physics becomes when understood by living organisms.

    Mind independent reality, physics, has logical sequences of events linked by causation. For example, on a planet sans living organisms there's a boulder atop a hill. The planet has atmosphere, so a strong wind pushes against the boulder and sets it into motion rolling down the hill. Eventually the boulder reaches the bottom of the hill and finally comes to rest on level ground. The resting place of the boulder is a result. Imagine now another example of the same hill and gust of strong wind with the boulder rolling down the hill and smashing together with a moving car when they intersect. It's all the same logic and causation making the boulder roll down the hill. The big however is fact that driver of the car gets killed by the impact. That's not a result. That's a consequence. Cops show up; likewise ambulance, eventually next of kin and finally the hearse. The driver's young children won't be seeing him tonight, or any other night.

    In general, I'm saying reality is an interpretation of physics by living organisms. The label for the interpretation is reality. Physical things exist. Living organisms and their experiences vis-á-vis physics are real.

    Life and its subjectivity to death and the attendant lifetime of avoiding it create reality. Because life is vulnerable and therefore subject to death at any moment, this vulnerability propagates meaning. When the guy driving the car struck by the boulder dies, that means something. For that reason, his death is followed by cops, medics, kin and mortician. You might ask, "Supposing the boulder landed in the middle of the road without killing anyone. Cops and road crew would still show up. Don't both examples share the same thing, consequences?

    Not exactly. The cops and road crew showing up to unblock the road give the movement of the boulder meaning in terms of humans who want to use the road. On a planet without life, the movement of the boulder wouldn't stir up any intentional activity in reaction. That sort of reaction requires the presence of life. On the lifeless planet, the boulder's movement would be a logical result, but it wouldn't mean anything.

    As math tells us, the physics of the rolling boulder could be reversed. It wouldn't mean anything. The dead driver of the car can't be reversed back into life. He's now dead and that means something.

    Life is irreversible and because of that, it means something and that meaning both propagates and populates reality.
  • ENOAH
    1k
    Very interesting. Although it is omnipresent, I'm still amazed when two alien paths converge. The essence of our thoughts, if I'm not mistaken, is the same. There is in existence, physics (my, nature, cosmos, reality) and reality (my mind=history/fiction).

    However, if I'm not mistaken, for your path, reality is the breath of life into physics by mind (I'll use poetry because I can't presume to be precise). For my path mind doesn't bring nature into its ultimate reality, but the contrary, mind displaces physics with fiction. The projection of mind onto nature doesn't finally make nature real, it clouds it with empty signs manifesting as stories.

    Note I differentiate human mind from natural consciousness.

    Note also I don't believe either of us are suggesting dualism. For me the second thing, mind, is empty and not real. For you the second thing is reality; physics need mind to become reality (or so I presume, advanced apologies if I'm mistaken).
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