[ExI] Is Artificial Life Conscious?

[Brent Allsop]

On Wed, Apr 27, 2022 at 9:47 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

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

Yes, the amount of parallel computational binding going on is a measure of
the level of intelligence.  For example, if you just have a set of pixels
that are only spatially computationally bound to each other, you will be
missing all the higher level cognitive functions like names, and which
pixels are the strawberry.  Even this alone is very complex, as each pixel
must be informationally related to all the other pixels.  You know the
difference in quality of all of them.  Something must be doing this
relational meaning for all of this situational visual knowledge.  In
addition to that, you must be aware of higher level cognitive knowledge,
like a particular set of pixels make up the strawberry, and a different set
make up the leaves, and the relationship between these two entities.
something must be doing each and every one of these kinds of
meaningful binding.  Additionally, there is your knowledge of yourself
being aware of this.  Some additional binding knowledge is required for
that also.  Each of these different relationships must be programmed
differently.  Tononi only seems to focus on the amount of binding, but one
must also include the fact that each particular type of computational
binding must be differently programmed to provide the many different types
of computational meaning.

For example, In cases like the Hogan Twins who can see out of each other's
eyes
<https://www.cbc.ca/cbcdocspov/features/the-hogan-twins-share-a-brain-and-see-out-of-each-others-eyes>,
not everything may be computationally bound.  Each of their brains may be
computationally bound to the conscious knowledge being rendered based on
what is being seen out of each other's eyes.  But, their individual
knowledge of each of their spirits may not be computationally bound to each
other.  So while both of their conscious experiences may be bound into the
same visual conscious knowledge.  Each of their knowledge of their spirits
bound, giving them higher order knowledge of them perceiving the
knowledge.  They may not have computational binding in a way that they are
aware of the other's spirits being aware of the same knowledge.  That kind
of awareness would require even more computational binding.  So
computational binding is at least an Order(n^2) problem.  Every piece of
knowledge in conscious awareness must be computationally bound to all the
other pieces of information.  That's why CPUs wouldn't be considered
conscious, as there is not enough CPU hardware to do any more computation
than binding a handful of registers.  Instead, everything is achieved with
very little computational binding being done in long yet rapid sequences.
We touch on this in the "Computational Binding" chapter of our video
<https://canonizer.com/videos/consciousness/?chapter=computational_binding>.
Surely the type of wave computation being done in the brain is far more
capable than the discrete logic gates we use in CPUs.
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