[ExI] Possible seat of consciousness found

[William Flynn Wallace]

I still have not heard from anyone (Will?) that all they were doing was
stimulating the ascending reticular formation.  Long known to activate the
cortex in a broad manner (and improve learning).

bill w

On Sat, Feb 15, 2020 at 11:41 AM John Clark via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 15, 2020 at 11:30 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> *I first realized it was important to distinguish between reality and
>> knowledge of reality in an AI class as an undergraduate.  We were trying to
>> program a vision system for a robot that could manipulate blocks on a
>> table. They were instructing us how to build 3D models of the blocks from
>> 2D camera data.  I was thinking this had to be the wrong way to do things,
>> since I was naively thinking we didn't need to do all that extra work since
>> we were just "directly aware of the blocks on the table.'*
>>
>
> So the "extra work" proved not to be extra at all, not if the robot was to
> behave in the way you wanted it to.
>
> *> As Representational Qualia theory defines: "Consiosness as
>> computationally bound elemental subjective qualities like redness and
>> greenness."*
>>
>
> I still don't know what "computationally bound" means, but I do know that
> red and green do not have "elemental subjective qualities" anymore than
> bigness or smallness does.
>
> > *John, this predicts there are two types of seeing.  The kind that is
>> done by robots, our subconscious, and blind sight, where there is no
>> conscios computational binding, and the conscious kind where there is
>> binding.  *
>>
>
> If these two types of seeing end up producing the same behavior then
> science can never distinguish between them, and Darwinian Evolution could
> never have created the type that produces not only intelligence but
> consciousness too; and yet here I am a conscious being. On the other hand
> if the two types of seeing end up producing different behaviors then any
> intelligent activity that would convince you that one of your fellow humans
> was conscious, and not sleeping or under anesthesia or dead, should if
> you're being logical convince you that a robot who behaved in the same
> intelligent way was just as conscious as the human.
>
> And as I keep emphasising, as a practical matter it's not really important
> if humans think an AI is conscious, but it is important that the AI think
> humans are conscious. If the AI thinks we're conscious like it is it
> might feel some empathy toward us, but if it thinks we're just primitive
> meat machines then the human race is in deep trouble.
>
> John K Clark
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