[ExI] Fwd: Is Artificial Life Conscious?

Tue Apr 26 00:03:13 UTC 2022

On Mon, Apr 25, 2022 at 6:33 PM Colin Hales <col.hales at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 6:19 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi Brent,
>>
>> I appreciate your quick response and for getting to the heart of the
>> issue. My replies are in-line below:
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 25, 2022 at 1:43 PM Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Hi Jason,
>>> Yes, Stathis and I have gone over these same arguments, in a gazillion
>>> different ways, for years, still unable to convince the other.  I agree
>>> with most everything you say, but it is all entirely missing the point.
>>>
>>> I think you get to the core of the issue with your:
>>> "First, I would like you to deeply consider for a moment the question
>>> 'What is matter?'"
>>>
>>>
>> I am curious what your intuition says on this? Do you think that there
>> are intrinsic properties of matter (beyond its third-person observable
>> behavior) which is somehow necessary for consciousness or quale such as red?
>>
>>
>>> The issue is with one of these assumptions:
>>> "1. Given the Church-Turing Thesis, any finitely describable process
>>> can be perfectly replicated by an appropriately programmed Turing Machine
>>> "
>>>
>>> The isus is that any description of redness (our claim that something is
>>> redness) tells you nothing of the nature of redness, without a dictionary
>>> pointing to an example of redness.
>>>
>>
>> Yes this is the "symbol grounding problem". All communication, of
>> anything (even so-called objective properties like mass, distance, time
>> durations, etc.) require ostensive (pointing to) definitions. Since no two
>> minds can ever share that common reference frame, and point out to the same
>> quale, ostensive definitions of these quale, and hence meaningful
>> communication concerning them, is impossible (since there can never be a
>> verifiable common foundation).
>>
> ============================
>
> Ok. Can I suggest rethinking things along these lines:
> Kitchener, P.D., and Hales, C.G. (2022). What Neuroscientists Think, and
> Don’t Think, About Consciousness. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 16.
>  https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2022.767612
>
> In terms of 'material' or 'matter' or 'physical' in our biosphere (all of
> it rocks to humans), fundamental physics (the standard model) says it is,
> effectively, entirely electromagnetic fields from the atomic level up. To
> quote the article:
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> *"The standard model of particle physics is about twice the age ofthe
> modern “correlates-of ” form of the science of consciousness(Cottingham and
> Greenwood, 2007; Rich, 2010). In it, physicshas already determined what our
> biosphere and everythingin it is made of. It is effectively entirely
> electromagnetism(electromagnetic fields). This idea applies to anything
> made ofatoms from the table of the elements at a spatiotemporal scaleabove
> that of the atomic particles comprising atoms (electronsand nuclei). At the
> atomic level and above, we and our hostenvironment are defined by three
> things: space, an EM fieldsystem impressed on space (due to subatomic
> charge and spincontent tightly bound up with the subatomic mass), and
> agravitational field impressed on space (due to sub-atomic
> mass,functionally inert in context because it is more than 16 ordersof
> magnitude weaker in force transmission than EM). In roughterms, at the
> intra-atomic scale, EM fields occupy the spaceoccupied by an atom to the
> extent of at least 14,999 parts in15,000. The remaining “1 part” is the
> interior of electrons andnuclei. When you add in the space between atoms,
> the proportionof overall spatial occupancy by EM fields is far higher.
> Wehumans are nearly entirely EM field objects. In our context ofthe brain,
> when we use the words “material” or “physical,” thesewords (abstractions)
> refer to EM phenomena."*
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> Then, in terms of implications .....
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> *"The EM field system impressed on space by brain tissue is*
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> *therefore not a side effect of cells made of something else. Theentire
> tissue is a single, unitary EM field system impressed onspace with
> atomic-level resolution. For example, there is nospecial substance that is
> a neuron. A neuron is a collectionof EM fields “behaving neuron-ly” to an
> observer made ofEM fields. “Chemical” or “chemical reaction,” or
> “chemicalpathway” is a reference toEM field activity. “Mechanical” (such
> assound propagation/transduction/phonons, or cell deformation)is also an EM
> phenomenon. “Electro-chemical” is also selectingphenomena entirely
> comprised of EM. “Quantum mechanics” isnot a substance. It is a set of
> (wave-equation-based) quantizingconstraints on EM field expression (such as
> that determiningthe electron orbitals in an atom). “Chemical potential” is
> apopulation statistic depicting average EM field properties forparticular
> collections of atoms in relation to each other. “Actionpotentials” are a
> system of EM field dynamics propagatingslowly through space longitudinally
> following neuronal cellmembrane (also an EM field construct). Synapse
> activity(“electrical” and “chemical”) is an EM field phenomenon.
> Thefamiliar electrophysiological measurements made in brain tissuedetect
> “total field” in the brain that is a result of the vector
> fieldsuperposition of myriad individual atomic/molecular fieldsources that
> superpose to dominate (spatially, temporally, andin intensity) the
> underlying atomic/molecular EM field “noise”found at any point in space.
> “Electrical current” is a transitof an EM field system through space.
> Ultraweak biophotonand thermal (heat) radiation is also an EM field
> phenomenonoriginating in the same system of atomic sources. Diffusionis a
> collection of randomly colliding atomic EM field systemsbouncing off each
> other due to EM field-based repulsion. To“touch something” with your finger
> is to engage in an interactionbetween the EM field system of a finger
> surface and the EM fieldof the touched entity."*
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> From the point of view of accounting for a brain (1st- or 3rd- person),
> there is only 1 substrate (substrate independence is a myth): it is EM
> fields. If you talk about any XYZ-ism at all, then the brain actually
> implements it with EM fields. A computer is also 100% EM fields. The
> difference is in how the EM is organized. There is no necessary
> relationship between the field system organization of a computer and its
> function. The chip designers spend a lot of time eliminating field
> cross-talk effects (treated as functional errors), confining EM fields to
> individual devices. In the brain, nature has created a unique signature in
> its EM field expression and the bulk EM field has a functional role.
> Field-effect cross talk is so pronounced, that it is possible to regard the
> brain as a single, unitary 100% solid EM field object so spatially large
> and strong that it spills out into the surrounding tissue (EEG/MEG see it).
>

But a computer can be built without EM fields, such as in a "Game of Life"
universe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My8AsV7bA94

 Such computers would produce identical behavior to any EM computer.
Therefore that an EM field is used in the construction of a computer is of
no importance to what the computer is capable of computing.

>
> In the end I predict that it will be found that the brain will not be
> Turing-computable.
>

It could be, and we can't rule it out, but physicists have yet to find any
physical law that is not Turing computable, nor any indication that our
brain function depends on infinite amounts of information.

> But to explore that you have to stop using general-purpose computers alone
> to explore artificial brains. Something that is not in the AI play-book
> .... and is a prospect that never gets countenanced in lists like these,
> where the great cargo cult of 'to do AGI is to use a
> general-purpose-computer' reigns without question.
>
>
There is a reason for that though, it has to do with the universality of
computers. From the outside, I understand why it can seem irrational to
believe these simple devices will be able to do everything a human can do,
all it needs is the right software. But for those that are inside this
"cargo cult", those on the outside that say it cannot be done appear like
someone claiming to have found a musical instrument that no speaker can
replicate. Speakers are universal sound generators. Any sound a human ear
can hear, a speaker can generate. To believe in the existence of finite
processes that computers cannot perfectly emulate then seems as mad (for
those in this cult) as those who proclaim to have a musical instrument
whose sound can't be replicated by any speaker.

Jason
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