I'm surprised at how many people here seem to think there is something fundamentally special about the brain. It is marvelously complex, yes. Our understanding of how consciousness is derived from its processes is not understood at all. But it's just a thing made of atoms; there's nothing magical about it. Just 110 years ago, there was no way to explain how the sun had been radiating all the energy it does for as long as it had. Until E = MC^2, there was no known process that could account for it. Now, it's pretty mundane as far as physics is concerned. I see no reason why it won't be the same with the brain and how consciousness arises from it. In the end, it's just a chunk of matter operating in accordance to physical laws. Won't we figure it out, given enough time?

(April 22, 2015 at 9:28 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: I'm surprised at how many people here seem to think there is something fundamentally special about the brain. It is marvelously complex, yes. Our understanding of how consciousness is derived from its processes is not understood at all. But it's just a thing made of atoms; there's nothing magical about it. Just 110 years ago, there was no way to explain how the sun had been radiating all the energy it does for as long as it had. Until E = MC^2, there was no known process that could account for it. Now, it's pretty mundane as far as physics is concerned. I see no reason why it won't be the same with the brain and how consciousness arises from it. In the end, it's just a chunk of matter operating in accordance to physical laws. Won't we figure it out, given enough time?

Well we are now and we are trying to figure out how to upload our current consciousness into a computers. When we do we would have solved the problem with morality and death.
Now the down side of this would be religious groups getting upset by it because they would no longer have a platform to really stand on anymore when people well become immortal.

(April 22, 2015 at 9:28 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: I'm surprised at how many people here seem to think there is something fundamentally special about the brain. It is marvelously complex, yes. Our understanding of how consciousness is derived from its processes is not understood at all. But it's just a thing made of atoms; there's nothing magical about it. Just 110 years ago, there was no way to explain how the sun had been radiating all the energy it does for as long as it had. Until E = MC^2, there was no known process that could account for it. Now, it's pretty mundane as far as physics is concerned. I see no reason why it won't be the same with the brain and how consciousness arises from it. In the end, it's just a chunk of matter operating in accordance to physical laws. Won't we figure it out, given enough time?

There is something fundamentally special about the brain in the sense that everything you experience as objects in existence, including space and time, require a mind to take on anything like intelligibility or meaning. I don't understand how one can say there's "nothing magical about it" because "it's just a thing made of atoms," as if our conception of matter is completely understood and known to be this dull "stuff" arranged to a confounding degree and that just exists for no reason whatsoever. Rather, everything we know about biology is that matter at some level is something potentially or actually alive and able to produce awareness of itself, regardless if it's nothing but a result of random chance occurrences moved by the hand of necessity or a feature that is much deeper and even bullt-in to the fabric of universes like ours, as a first or secondary principle. While the discoveries of physics and astronomy have broadened our perspective of matter and have proven mankind's collective genius to be quite extraordinary, these accomplishments start and end with the mind, as everything must, which is why getting to the bottom of what the mind really is poses such a bigger problem---it must inevitably take this unknown phenomenon, the mind, for granted.

It hasn't been established yet that our brains are supercomputers (like those in laboratories). AI hasn't been able to mimic brains.

Robert

Yep but that needn't persuade anyone it won't some day get done.

I just can't begin to imagine how electronic circuitry could possibly establish a nexus of caring and identity.

Sure, I can't explain how organic processes in our brain do it either. But clearly brains do it. Every day, ubiquitously. That we can't explain how bags of chemicals do it makes it even less likely that computers will be able to do it. They pretty much depend on us to design and program them, and we don't know how it works.

(April 22, 2015 at 5:14 pm)bennyboy Wrote: My question is this. Is it safe therefore to ASSUME that something which behaves like an emotional human therefore has an actual mind and actual feelings? How do you tell the difference between an actually sentient being and one that might seem to be sentient, but really isn't? Should robots that can pass the Turing test be given human rights? Should disabling one count as murder?

The Turing test, no. Allow me to introduce the Dostoevsky test. When an entire dictionary is uploaded into a computer's language program, and pressed to take some time to express its "emotions" and "thoughts," if it can return with a work that approaches The Brothers Karamazov, perhaps writing notes about the process and how it came up with the ideas or subplots on the side, it will have sufficiently convinced me. Shit, I'd be happy if it produced something akin to Genesis 1 or even Dr. Seuss. Come to think of it, has anyone tried to write a book via a computer that formulates from its own software meaningful and/or artful syntax?

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Well, this is interesting:
http://singularityhub.com/2014/11/09/com...read-them/

Actually I think they have. I believe there are programs which will generate musical scores akin to that of a particular composer too.

Of course this only depends on a programmer to decide on a schema that will generalize in a way which will evoke what is wanted. No small feat, but really the accomplishment of a programmer.

(April 23, 2015 at 12:30 am)whateverist Wrote: Yep but that needn't persuade anyone it won't some day get done.
I just can't begin to imagine how electronic circuitry could possibly establish a nexus of caring and identity.
Sure, I can't explain how organic processes in our brain do it either. But clearly brains do it. Every day, ubiquitously. That we can't explain how bags of chemicals do it makes it even less likely that computers will be able to do it. They pretty much depend on us to design and program them, and we don't know how it works.

Knowing how it works is a whole different problem.
I find it plausible that we will reproduce it artificially without understanding how it works. At the risk of sounding like a broken record - even with todays simple AI, it can happen that you provide an infrastructure and you train it to do something, but you won't understand how it accomplishes what it has been trained to do microscopically. Because you didn't program it to do these things, you trained it.

(April 23, 2015 at 12:33 am)Nestor Wrote:

(April 22, 2015 at 5:14 pm)bennyboy Wrote: My question is this. Is it safe therefore to ASSUME that something which behaves like an emotional human therefore has an actual mind and actual feelings? How do you tell the difference between an actually sentient being and one that might seem to be sentient, but really isn't? Should robots that can pass the Turing test be given human rights? Should disabling one count as murder?

The Turing test, no. Allow me to introduce the Dostoevsky test. When an entire dictionary is uploaded into a computer's language program, and pressed to take some time to express its "emotions" and "thoughts," if it can return with a work that approaches The Brothers Karamazov, perhaps writing notes about the process and how it came up with the ideas or subplots on the side, it will have sufficiently convinced me. Shit, I'd be happy if it produced something akin to Genesis 1 or even Dr. Seuss. Come to think of it, has anyone tried to write a book via a computer that formulates from its own software meaningful and/or artful syntax?

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Well, this is interesting:
http://singularityhub.com/2014/11/09/com...read-them/

You presume you can pass the Dostoevsky test?

Perhaps the big gap is not between your mind and computer, but between your mind and your concept of Dostoevsky.

Well Nestor is a writer.  Who's to say?