[ExI] Do digital computers feel?

[Colin Hales]

On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 4:02 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 5:58 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> ​> ​
>> The single binding neuron, like glutamate, is just a simplified
>> theoretical (i.e. testable) theory that will surely can be easily proven
>> wrong.
>>
>> ​How? Explain how a theory that glutamate produces a subjective state at
> all in somebody other than me can ever be proven or disproven; let alone
> that it is identical to a specific qualia like mine, such as greenness.  ​
>
>
>> ​> ​
>> It simply represents a required functional part of consciousness,
>>
>> ​If it's not a functional ​part of consciousness then it's not a part of
> consciousness, and if it is not a part of intelligent behavior then
> Evolution could not have produced it. And yet I have that part because I am
> unquestionably conscious, and perhaps you are too. Therefore you must
> either conclude that consciousness is a byproduct of intelligent behavior
> or explain how this consciousness producing but not intelligent behaving
> part came into existence, because I know for fact it did at least once and
> probably did so trillions of times.
>
>> ​> ​
>> When people do a traditional neural substitution, they end up removing
>> this required critical functionality, causing all the hard problems.
>>
>> ​If at the end of the day the neuron ​ends up functioning identically in
> the way it treats other neurons then what on earth was so "critical" about
> the "functionality" that was removed?
>
> ​What function did it have and why should other neurons or anybody else
> miss it?​  And I still want to know why you remain the same person you were
> last year even though all the atoms in your neurons have been substituted.
>
>> ​> ​
>> everyone will know, via subjective and objective observation what is
>> going on at every step of the neuro substitution.
>>
>
> ​The only subjective observation I have ever done or ​will ever do is on
> myself, and if you are conscious then the
> only subjective observation
> ​you ​
> have ever done or ​will
> ​ever​
>  do is on
> ​yourself; if you are not conscious then you have never even done that,
> you have never observed subjectivity in anything.​ Other than your word I
> have no evidence that you are conscious even if I somehow knew you were not
> trying to deceive me. Maybe you sincerely believe you are conscious but
> what you think of as "consciousness" has little relationship to the grand
> and glorious consciousness of John K Clark. Or maybe it's the other way
> around, your consciousness is like a supernova while mine is like a pale
> firefly. Maybe maybe maybe.... nobody knows and nobody will ever know so
> let's move on to something that, with a lot of effort, we actually can
> know, like how intelligent behavior works.
>
>  John K Clark
>
>
>
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>

..... and once again .... here we go ....

"ever know so let's move on to something that, with a lot of effort, we
actually can know, like how intelligent behavior works."

.... in the eyes of a presupposed observer utterly dependent on subjective
experience to be an observer, while assuming that a 100% grip on
'intelligent behaviour' can occur without dealing with subjectivity while
using it to sort out how intelligent behaviour works! ... while
subjectivity is clearly and obviously deeply involved in any ability to be
intelligent at all and to observe anything at all and the whole of science
is critically dependent on it in a verifiable way.

And around we go......

Until we move and discuss our ideas on what science is, and start to
systematise the difference between "observing something with subjectivity
(scientific observation)" and "having scientific evidence of
subjectivity", this
discussion will still be going in another 70 years.

Something has to change! That something is SCIENCE. Science has to realise
the difference between (a) characterising what the universe is made of and
(b) characterising how that universe appears to work when you are made of
that something (a scientific observer inside it). If the solution to the
problem of consciousness is in (a) and all you ever do is (b) "...like how
intelligent behaviour works" you are royally screwed forever!

We have to deal with subjectivity. It's real. It's central to everything in
science and arguably presupposed while being an explanandum .... and
thereby runs rings around a science that presuppposes it.

The time for this endless bullshit to stop is now.

colin
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