[ExI] Searle and AI

[John Clark]

On Dec 27, 2009,  Damien Broderick wrote:

> John Clark's repeated wailing about Darwin misses the point. Searle knows perfectly well that consciousness is a feature of evolved systems

That is just untrue. Granted Searle may say "I know perfectly well that consciousness is a feature of evolved systems" but when you read his stuff further it is bloody obvious that Searle does not know perfectly well that consciousness is a feature of evolved systems. To Searle those words are just a sound he likes to make with his mouth, or to put it in a way that he would understand, it's all syntax with no semantics. If Searle understood biology he would know that intelligent behavior is the coin of the realm not consciousness, but if I said that to the man I think he would look at me with a blank stare.  

> 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.

And he has just as much evidence to support his theory as I do to support my theory that consciousness is caused by my left foot.

> If that turns out to be right, it's possible that only entirely novel kinds of AIs will experience initiative and qualia, etc.

Even if it was true there is absolutely no way we could ever know it is true. So why waste valuable brain cells considering the matter?

> 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.

Even if all my other objections were not valid there is absolutely no doubt that Evolution managed to come up with consciousness, that means making a unconscious intelligence would be HARDER than making a conscious one. So if something is intelligent its a damn good bet its conscious too. And even if you're right and there is a consciousness gene why do we still have it? Why haven't we lost it through genetic drift as if has zero survival value?

 John K Clark 



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