[ExI] Searle and AI

[Aware]

On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 9:19 AM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
>
> Yes, and this is what his more careless disciples (and foes) seem to
> overlook. It's why John Clark's repeated wailing about Darwin misses the
> point.

This is why I said they argue in terms of functionalism which needs no defense.


> Searle knows perfectly well that consciousness is a feature of
> evolved systems (and so far only of them); he is arguing that current
> computational designs lack some critical feature of evolved intentional
> systems.

While "feature" isn't wrong, it may convey connotations of inherency.
A better term might be "attribute" with its emphasis on the role of
the observer.


> We don't know that this is wrong.

Not that it's wrong, but that it's unnecessary.  It's like adding
another layer of support for the *possibility* of the existence of
God, when the relevant observations (e.g. professed belief in God) are
already explained in terms coherent with a broad base of understanding
(e.g. evolutionary psychology, sociology.)

> The wonderfully named Dr. Johnjoe
> McFadden, professor of molecular genetics at the University of Surrey and
> author of Quantum Evolution, argues ( http://www.surrey.ac.uk/qe/ ) that
> certain quantum fields and interactions are crucial to the function of mind.
> If that turns out to be right, it's possible that only entirely novel kinds
> of AIs will experience initiative and qualia, etc. And if that is the case,
> the standard reply to the Chinese Room asserting that the room as a whole
> has consciousness will be falsified, since such an arrangement would lack
> the requisite entanglements, etc, that have been installed in human embodied
> brains by... yes, Mr. Darwin's friend, evolution by natural selection of
> gene variants.

To paraphrase our friend Eliezer (as irksome as that can sometimes
be), mysterious questions don't require mysterious answers.
Observations of "consciousness", "qualia", and "meaning", are
adequately and coherently explained in terms of the relationship of
the observer to the observed, even when the subject is identified with
the observer, given that any observer, adapted to its environment of
interaction, cannot but attribute "meaning" in terms of its nature.

In other words, a hypothetical advanced thermostat, with the necessary
functionality to observe and report (even to itself) its values
("good" temperature set point, acceptable operating range, ...) within
its environment will necessarily report "meaningfully" about its
"self."

- Jef