On naturalism and consciousness

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm not begging the question. There's no reason to think any AI is conscious any more than your thermostat (or maybe you think that possesses an inkling of consciousness?). Yes, they can perform incredibly "intelligent" functions. They can't self-introspect, ponder the meaning of their existence, feel emotion, pleasure, pain, etc.

Can we? What are we referring to when we claim that we can? Our personal experiences, the assumed experiences of others? If we look at our "functions" is it unimaginable that another architecture might be able to express it?

I challenge you to provide any material support--as in name one pioneer of AI who claims this to currently be the case--if you seriously contend otherwise.

I can give you an entire school of thought. Computational theory of mind

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computation...ry_of_mind

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Prominent scholars[edit]
Daniel Dennett proposed the Multiple Drafts Model, in which consciousness seems linear but is actually blurry and gappy, distributed over space and time in the brain. Consciousness is the computation, there is no extra step or "Cartesian Theater" in which you become conscious of the computation.
Jerry Fodor argues that mental states, such as beliefs and desires, are relations between individuals and mental representations. He maintains that these representations can only be correctly explained in terms of a language of thought (LOT) in the mind. Further, this language of thought itself is codified in the brain, not just a useful explanatory tool. Fodor adheres to a species of functionalism, maintaining that thinking and other mental processes consist primarily of computations operating on the syntax of the representations that make up the language of thought. In later work (Concepts and The Elm and the Expert), Fodor has refined and even questioned some of his original computationalist views, and adopted a highly modified version of LOT (see LOT2).
David Marr proposed that cognitive processes have three levels of description: the computational level (which describes that computational problem (i.e., input/output mapping) computed by the cognitive process); the algorithmic level (which presents the algorithm used for computing the problem postulated at the computational level); and the implementational level (which describes the physical implementation of the algorithm postulated at the algorithmic level in biological matter, e.g. the brain). (Marr 1981)
Ulric Neisser coined the term 'cognitive psychology' in his book published in 1967 (Cognitive Psychology), wherein Neisser characterizes people as dynamic information-processing systems whose mental operations might be described in computational terms.
Steven Pinker described a "language instinct," an evolved, built-in capacity to learn speech (if not writing).
Hilary Putnam proposed functionalism (philosophy of mind) to describe consciousness, asserting that it is the computation that equates to consciousness, regardless of whether the computation is operating in a brain, in a computer, or in a "brain in a vat."
Georges Rey, professor at the University of Maryland, builds on Jerry Fodor's representational theory of mind to produce his own version of a Computational/Representational Theory of Thought.

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MAYBE that will be possible someday, but it's not at this point, with not even a clear path on how to get there (because we don't know what causes consciousness to arise other than its connection to brains).

Maybe, maybe not. We have a good line of data to pursue, and there's already a ton of conceptual refuse left in the wake.

And how was the third question meaningless? Surely, despite regular maintenance, computers age and eventually "die" too.

They cease to function, but to "die" I think you'll agree, has a whole lot of biological bias built into it, eh? Death is a thing that "living" things have learned to fear. We couldn't really assume a machine to even recognize it as a valid concept. After all, they can be turned on and off many times - and this is likely the best way we could describe it to them. We would expect them to be different if their architecture was different - we would expect them to have anamalous signals that couldn't be interpreted from one group to the other (otherselves) - without translation.

That I hope it might express itself in a way that is similar to human beings in order to determine the state of its "conscious self," well, I'm not exactly sure how else you'd expect us to be able to confidently assert that it is a conscious mind otherwise.

I don't know that I'd be so comfortable with an entity that doesn't have the normal human limitations expressing human attributes (psychotic sci fi AI....). While it's a possibility - I don't see any reason to assume it. I don;t know what sort of confidence being the water in the puddle is bringing us anyway. If we use ourselves as some sort of bar - we are really just exploring "human like things" - not conscious things. If the usage of "alive" were so stacked in our favor we'd be the only living things on this rock, eh? The things we do, assuming we ever see AI, or regarding whether or not our minds are computational systems simply wouldn't be "human attributes" they would be attributes common to conscious entities. All the humanity would require translation (and similarly from them to us). We can use ourselves as a "it can express itself this way" - but not a "it must meet or exceed this bar" sort of way. Thinking of it this way might help to explain why some find computational theories compelling. If we can map this stuff to logic, and logic to gates, and gates to chipsets - perhaps the way that -we- do it is similar. At least we know how machines do it. Explain the unknown by reference to the known.

I disagee. There are no current "Einsteins" just as there are no "Newtons" or "Darwins."

Check that tiny list from just one of the competing theories of mind that require no sauce.

That is, these men were truly able to apprehend the magnitude of their respective fields and bring many of the wide ranging conflicts into a revolutionary new paradigm.

You're looking for a/the unifying theory? Alot of work goes into a fields before it approaches that level of refinement. There were "giants" of those fields other than einstein, newton, and darwin, btw. Both before and after them. Einsteins theory appears to be busting up like Newtons did, eh? Darwin was only glimpsing something ultimately beyond his ability to grasp. Darwinism isn't the modern paradigm, or the unifying theory. In any case, computational theory does attempt to unify.

There are many brilliant men and women working in the field of AI and neurobiology and philosophy of mind and what not, but no one as far as I can tell who has put forth any workable theory that brings all these disputes into an entirely new framework. I say that because if there was, no doubt he or she would be well-recognized above the rest.

If you're looking for "The Big Name" - again, there are tons of them. Which ones history will remember in 50 years (or 200) is beyond my ability to predict. I don't know what this is supposed to indicate - what inference you've drawn from this?

Is panpsychism a valuable contribution to philosophy? I don't know. At this point I tend to agree with you on that particular, but so long as it keeps people thinking about the problem in innovative ways, I appreciate it as a theory of mind as I do any other thoughtful hypothesis (again, I myself putting my own position--physical monism--slightly above the rest).

I'd appreciate it more if people applied all of that innovative thought to productive areas of research. There are enough ghost hunters and mediums in the world.