[ExI] Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Giulio Prisco]

On 2022. Apr 27., Wed at 16:57, Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 9:54 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Apr 27, 2022 at 3:42 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
>> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 6:12 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On 2022. Apr 24., Sun at 7:56, Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> I recently posted this question recently to the everything list, but
>> I know many here are also deeply interested in the topic of consciousness
>> so, I thought I should post it to this group too. My question was:
>> >>>
>> >>> These "artificial life" forms, (seen here), have neural networks that
>> evolved through natural selection, can adapt to a changing environment, and
>> can learn to distinguish between "food" and "poison" in their environment.
>> >>>
>> >>> If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because
>> they have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms
>> be conscious for the same reasons?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> I think whether ALife forms are conscious or not depends on their
>> physical implementation.
>> >
>> >
>> > Hi Giulio,
>> >
>> > What do you think are the necessary aspects of a physical
>> implementation for there to be a consciousness?
>> >
>>
>> Print an algorithm in a big book, then put the book on a shelf and
>> leave it there. The idea that the book is "conscious" seems very
>> unlikely to me.
>
>
> I agree it doesn't seem like passive/idle information is conscious. Any
> string of information could be interpreted in any of an infinite number of
> ways.
>
> This shows that something must *happen* in physical
>> reality for consciousness to exist.
>>
>
> I think while something must happen, I am open to viewing it more
> generally: there must be counterfactual relations: "if this, then that,"
> but also: "if not this, then not that." This is something all recordings
> lack but all live instances of information processing possess.
>
>
>> > Is the physical implementation relevant for simulated rather than
>> robotic Alife forms?
>> >
>>
>> Yes, I think. A conventional algorithm running on a computer like
>> those we know how to build wouldn't be conscious, I think. But new
>> "algorithms" (for want of a better term) "running" on new devices
>> could.
>>
>
> Do you have any intuition it theories for what our current devices lack
> that they would need?
>

Perhaps integrated information (Tononi), or some quantum thing (Penrose),
or some combination of the two.


> Given Turing universality, I find it difficult to imagine anything that
> current hardware devices need (the right software sure), but with Turing
> universality any general purpose computer could implement any
> non-infinity-involving function, and therefore replicate any outwardly
> visible human behavior.
>
> If you grant that worms are conscious, why not these bots:
>
> https://github.com/jasonkresch/bots ?
>
>
> Jason
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