Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Discussion in 'Alternative Theories' started by Steve Klinko, Mar 27, 2021.

  1. Steve Klinko Registered Senior Member

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    You were doing good until you just felt like you had to throw insults in the final sentence. The Dismissal is based on 100 years of Scientific effort to fail to show how Neural Activity produces anything like Conscious Experience. Not only have they failed to show how it happens, but they really have not even got the first Clue as to what Conscious Experience could be. Yes, they have measured all kinds of Neural Correlates of Consciousness. But knowing what Neural Activity is happening sheds no light on the Conscious Experience itself. For example, here's what we know about the Experience of Redness:

    1) Neural activity for Redness happens in the Brain.
    2) A Conscious Experience of Redness Happens in the Mind.

    The question becomes: How does 1 Logically lead to 2? If you just want to say that Science does not know and assume that it is all some sort of Neural Activity then that is ok. It was the first Speculation that they made 100 years ago. But in view of the fact that Science has made Zero progress in explaining this after a Hundred years leads any Technical Minded person to think that there must be something wrong with the 100 year old Speculation. I have come to the conclusion after 25 years of studying and thinking about this that this first Speculation might be wrong. I believe that the Connection Perspective offers a new way to think about this: https://TheInterMind.com/#ConnectionPerspective
     
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  3. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Apologies if the truth hurts, but denial without substance behind the denial is the behaviour of a troll. And since you offered nothing... apologies if I called a spade a spade.



    So you dismiss the logic supporting the existence of the black box because the intricate workings of the inside of the black box are not known? And you have issue that science is unable to yet understand the most complex thing in the universe that we are aware of in a mere 100 years, when it took 2000+ years to understand the relative simplicity of flight, for example? I get it! You want simple and quick answers! How dare science take this long to fathom anything! It therefore can't be what science thinks it is!
    3. The mind is a pattern of activity carried out by the neural network within a functioning brain.

    Voila. Logic linking the conscious experience to neural activity.
    Oh, that's right: noone yet knows the specific detail of how... 'cos you know, it should be simple for science to have worked it out by now... given the simplicity of the brain. 2,000 years for flight... so what's a mere 100 years for understanding the most complex organ we know of in the universe.

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    You are of course free to believe what you want, and I look forward to your peer reviewed papers on the matter. Blog waffle not so much.
    Maybe you want to summarise, and provide supporting evidence?
     
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  5. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    I turn on my TV

    Suddenly I get a colour screen of a TV program

    I have yet to connect the colour pictures on the screen with the electricity flowing through the TV

    My refrigerator does not show me pretty pictures. I'm fairly sure it is the same type of electricity as going to the TV as it comes from the same place

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  7. Steve Klinko Registered Senior Member

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    Truth and Insults don't hurt. Truth is essential but Insults are unnecessary.

    Science has been been thinking about it far too long to have Zero Explanations for Consciousness. I'll say the important part again: "Zero Explanations for Consciousness". They have made Zero progress. All they ever do is say Oh Look, there was Neural Activity here, and there was this Conscious Experience Correlated with it. They are just measuring the Neural Correlates of Consciousness. They have Zero Explanations for how that Neural Activity could produce something like the Experience of Redness. There is not even an infinitesimal increment in understanding how the Redness Experience comes from any kind Neural Activity. This is an Embarrassment for Science. Science is clinging on to the Physicalist Doctrine that anything new Must be explained by things that Science already Knows. This is Incoherent and not very Scientific. But it is the Physicalist Doctrine. You need to get out of your Black Box.

    For the Light and Color Experience: All we know is that Neural Activity happens and then a Visual Light Experience happens. It all seemed so simple 100 years ago when Science became aware of the Neural Correlates of Consciousness. But we have Learned more, Matured more, and began Thinking Deeper about the Visual Experience. Even though we knew it was the Neurons, most technical minded people were eventually driven to ask the question: "How does this Visual Light Experience actually happen from the Neural Activity"? It became clear that new ways of Thinking about the problem needed to be developed. This is what Science is supposed to do. This is how Science progresses. But instead, a lot of Scientists are still trying to push the Visual Light Experience back into the Neurons, but the Visual Light Experience refuses to be pushed into the Neurons. The Visual Light Experience seems to be something separate from the Neurons, even though we know it is probably connected to the Neural Activity in some way. The Visual Light Experience simply hovers and is embedded in the front of our faces. We sense that it must be some kind of Conscious Experience concept that happens in some kind of Conscious Mind concept. But we cannot know that for sure. It just seems to be our best Speculation for progressing forward.

    All I'm ever asking is that people start to Introspectively be aware of their own Conscious Experiences, especially the Redness, Greenness, Blueness, and in general the Light Experience. Look out into the World with your Eyes and your Conscious Mind and See the World with new Awareness. Then try to push that Experience into the Neurons using known Scientific Phenomenon.
     
  8. Steve Klinko Registered Senior Member

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    But the point is that you can in detail understand how the Electronics puts the picture on the TV. However, there is no Explanation for how we look at the Picture and See it in our Conscious Minds.
     
  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    We can explain electronics because we designed the electronic "network patterns" that yield specific electronic data, plus a "language" that translates the electronic data into visual or auditory signals.

    We did not design the brain, nor did we design the processing language of the brain and body. It is a result of 4 billion years of sensory evolution at the molecular level involving perhaps some two trillion individual neural switches .

    Evolved biological neural networks also process EM data and the various patterns yield specific electronic data that yield emergent sentient (a degree of self-awareness) sensory experiences.

    I particularly like Tegmark's perspective.

    As a physicist, Max Tegmark sees people as "food, rearranged." That makes his answer to complicated questions like "What is consciousness?" simple: It's just math. Why? Because it's the patterns, not the particles, that matter

    There is no "invisible man in the sky that watches and tells you what to do".

    btw: Do you have an explanation how god does that? What is the mechanism that god uses to communicate with humans and all other sentient animals? See, you are just as ignorant of the spiritual mechanics as science is of the physical mechanics. You just have made it mysterious as if that explains anything.

    Your answer of an external operator does not add to any knowledge we are acquiring from our studies of the neural patterns that yield a specific visual or auditory data "inside" the brain's "consciousness" (self-awareness).

    "God did it" is a utterly meaningless statement as to how God did it and leaves us as ignorant of the physical facts as before.

    Can you explain "wetness". Does God imbue H2O molecules with wetness, or is wetness an emergent result of large numbers of H2O molecules arranged in a specific pattern? Many people think water has magical properties and contains a divine language. Zeuss!

    Well yeah...it is called "potential" (that which may become reality), also identified as emergent abilities.
     
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2021
  10. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Unfortunately for you it is the truth by which you are insulted: you are displaying trollish behaviour. It really doesn't bother me that such truth insults you. Nor could I care less whether you are hurt by it or not. I simply speak what I see as the truth.

    Thankfully the first 1,000+ years of the investigation into flight didn't stop us eventually discovering, through science, how it was achieved. Despite zero progress. Despite zero explanation for it. Your fallacy here is equating what you see as zero progress as evidence that the direction is wrong.
    Unfortunately the only ones who think it an embarassment for science are those who have an anti-science agenda as far as consciousness is concerned. Actual scientists consider it a confirmation of just how complex the issue is. If consciousness was that simple that it could be explained quicker than it took mathematicians to prove Fermat's last theorem, you are simply deluded as to the complexity of the issue, and how that complexity affects how long resolution of such matters takes.
    Your fallacy here is thinking that science "must be explained" by things that science already knows. If that was truly the case, nothing new would ever have been discovered by science. Ever. No, scientific understanding progresses with technological advances, with new methodologies, techniques, ideas etc. You are again looking to hold science to a standard that it never aspires to, and calling it a failure because it hasn't achieved that which you alone believe it should be achieving. That is your failing. And it is due to the agenda you hold, not because of any evidence you actually have.
    Just as flight refused to be pushed into our understanding of the physical world until... well... until it was. Until the nature of atoms was not understood until... well... until it was.
    Yet you now expect the most complex organism in the universe that we are aware of to be fully understood in the 21st century, just 100 years after we created the television. Or at least understood sufficiently to answer the question of how consciousness arises, and what it thus is. We're still dealing with Reality TV for &^%$'s sake. But no, you think if it is ultimately explainable by science then it must explainable now! How absurd you are.
    Our best speculation for understanding how it arises is to look at what gives rise to it - not at the individual neuron level, but at the level of complexity of interactions that give rise to it. That is what science is doing. Not quick enough for you, it seems. But then science honestly doesn't care about you until you submit something for peer review.
    People do that all the time. I do it. Scientists all over the globe do it. You don't have exclusive right to it, and it's certainly not your idea. But while science has its ideas of how it arises, and are investigating it and, well, you know, looking for evidence of it, you are... what? positing something for which no evidence exists? How, for example, would you suggest we prove your "theory" (and I'm being generous in this label).
    Again with the fallacy of expecting the property of the whole to be apparent in the individual elements. Again with the failure to comprehend what an emergent property is. Again with the failure to comprehend both science and scientists.

    So, what evidence do you have to support your "theory"?
    How is your "theory" falsifiable?

    What I think you, and perhaps numerous others, fail to comprehend is that while it can be beneficial to look at emergent properties at a level no lower no than that at which they arise, that is not to say that they don't arise from, and are fully explained by, those lower levels. We can look at the physics of waves on the sea at the level at which they arise without needing to look at the interactions of individual molecules of H2O. So while it might be beneficial to consider a duality (brain / mind) that is not in itself a reason to believe that they are separate things, that one is not derived from the other. We can understand the basics of that which gives rise (the inputs) and we can understand matters pertaining to the higher order of activity (the output such as mind, emotion, experience) without needing to understand the link between the two, yet still accept logically and rationally that the lower order inputs give rise to the higher order ourputs.
    Only those with a naive agenda would seem to claim "science" (or at least their understanding of it) inadquate simply because they have not yet bridged the gap.
     
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  11. Steve Klinko Registered Senior Member

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    You are wrong, there was never Zero Progress with Flight. Ancient people had made gliders and prototype Flying Machine designs. They just didn't have the Thrust to push an Airplane forward. However, Conscious Experience on the other hand was being contemplated far before Flight was contemplated, and there is Zero Progress to show.

    There you go again inserting your Belief that the whole problem of Consciousness is about Complexity. It is incoherent to think that the answer to Consciousness is Complexity. What chain of Logic takes you from the Experience of Redness to Complexity?

    I said and have always said that it is the Physicalist Doctrine that demands that any new Phenomenon must be Explained in currently known Scientific Phenomena..

    The Glaring and Embarrassing subtle point about Conscious Experience is not that it is not totally understood, but rather that it is Completely and Utterly not Understood. Zero Progress and Zero Insight. No Clue.

    See :
    https://theintermind.com/#Conceivability
    https://www.theintermind.com/MachConExperiment/MachConExperiment.asp
    https://www.theintermind.com/MachConExperiment/MachConExperimentLegacy.asp
    https://www.theintermind.com/ScientificMethodsForTheStudyOfTheInterMind.asp

    Of course it is possible that it will all be shown to be in the Neurons someday. That's fine, and I welcome that Explanation. But it is equally possible that Conscious Experience will be found to be some new Phenomenon of Science that Science refuses to acknowledge. The Physicalists will not even try to let any new Perspective be studied. The Physicalists are stuck inside the Box of their Doctrine. On the other hand I spent 25 years trying to make the Physicalist Perspective understandable but ultimately decided to look at new Perspectives on the Problem. I am open to all Explanations. The only requirement I have is that the Explanation has to Explain.
     
  12. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    At some point, and for a long while, there was indeed zero progress. But then they started to make progress. You're simply looking at the entire history of flight as the analogy when it is that first period of zero progress that is the analogous part. The fact that we made progress (over several thousand years to the current position) on something as relatively simple as flight should give you pause for thought before jumping on the lack of progress for what is the most complex thing in the universe that we are aware of.
    If you continue to ignore what I write, why should I continue to repeat myself?
    Not "must" but that is certainly where the initial inquiries should surely focus. If it was only ever must then no advancements would ever be made. You'd start with a single phenomenon and that would be it. So please don't talk garbage.
    It's only thought to be embarrassing to science by those who have an agenda against science in this regard. Science is not embarrassed by the lack of progress at all. It is one of the most important questions ever, and indeed we may never have an answer. That's not embarrassing other than to those who want to be able to claim knowledge they don't have.
    Links 1 to 3 - you'll have to parse the detail in those, I'm afraid, and remove anything that isn't simply a claim on your part. For example, please highlight some evidence... actual evidence. Please detail how you think your "theory" is falsifiable. Merely quoting links really isn't going to get you far.
    Link 4 - still no evidence nor support: you simply insert an intermediary, and instead of explaining how A leads to C you leave yourself needing to show how A leads to B, and how B then leads to C. You are adding layers without first showing that the additional layers are necessary.
    If it is found to be some new phenomena then science will not only acknowledge it but adopt it and run with it whole-heartedly. That is what science does. It is how science progresses. And if someone can come up with a theory that not only requires such an as-yet unknown phenomenon but can be used to predict (e.g. the phenomenon is a black box, much like dark matter, dark energy) then the phenomenon will again be acknowledged in much the same way. But what you are proposing doesn't do that. Doesn't even come close, from what I can see. It is just a case of providing a "theory" that isn't supported by evidence, makes no predictions, isn't falsifiable, and ultimately doesn't explain but rather just pushes the question from A -> C to one of A -> B -> C. If you want to claim something explains then you do actually have to make sure it explains.
    If you want to bash Physicalists then take that agenda to a different thread.
     
  13. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    How's this. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary it is reasonable to assume that the brain and neural network provide all the necessary properties for an emergent consciousness, including the processing and visually replicating the color red. That is pure functional physicalism

    There is abundant evidence that brained organisms do have higher levels of sensory awareness and sensory data processing abilities. The problem of how lies in the ability to observe brain function in brained organisms without killing the subject. Invasive procedures at extremely small nano scale levels are problematic when you're dealing with dynamical processes among trillions of nano scale neural processors at quantum energy levels.

    That is the problem physicalists are dealing with . A daunting task, yet great strides have been made in the past twenty years with the advance of electron microscopy and and other extremely sensitive monitoring devices.

    The mapping of large numbers of thought states in different individuals is progressing as we speak. We know a lot about brain function. We know that no brain is exactly the same and can only be studied with large number of test subjects to arrive at a general data concensus. There is a lot more to know before we can make any authoritative pronouncements.

    To date three major hypotheses are emerging, which show promise in their conceptualization. These ARE new perspectives and physical science. In your 25 years of in depth studies of brain function, have you studied these hypotheses? I have listed them elsewhere.

    If not how can you declare that there has been "No progress of any kind for thousands of years" by the physicalist's approach?.
    If we look at the blossoming programming languages in AI, like AlphaGo and GPT3, complexity and number of neural switches are extremely important in making orchestrated logical responses to incoming data. Pure physicalism. What else is there?

    Your have repeatedly asked how the brain produces the experience of seeing red. Some brains instead of experiencing red, perceive an olfactory experience when exposed to red wavelengths. and vice versa. Some scents produce an experience of color. Riddle me that sensory experience if not as an aberrant brain based associative process.

    To question the advantage of complexity is just refusing to look at known data. We know that all animals with extraordinary abilities possess relatively complex brains allowing for a range of exterior data processing, avoiding danger and taking advantage of opportunity, whereas organisms with very simple brains and/or neural systems are primarily concerned with very limited specialized direct survival skills and rely on exoskeletons for protection

    Compare the behavior of a common garden slug with the astounding abilities of a cuttlefish. They are both evolutionary expressions of mollusks. The difference is in adaption to the environment and the required brain power.

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    Snail

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    http://tolweb.org/Cephalopoda/19386

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    A cuttlefish swims in an aquarium at the Scientific Center of Kuwait in 2016. Cuttlefish showed impressive self-control in an adaptation of the classic "marshmallow test."
    Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP via Getty Images

    https://www.npr.org/2021/03/07/974465853/why-cuttlefish-are-smarter-than-we-thought#

    So what's you got that is not physicalist? You cannot bypass the brain as the data translator, that is a hard fact.
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2021
  14. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Watch this remarkable interview;


    Emergent self-aware intelligence?
     
  15. Steve Klinko Registered Senior Member

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    As far as Flight goes you are the one that said 1000 years, so I pointed out that there was certainly progress 1000 years ago. Now you want to go back farther in time.

    The Physicalists say Must.

    The Links describe Experiments that have been performed to connect to Conscious Space. If you don't like the links then there is little more I can say to you.

    I have always said that Science should be open to new Ideas. The problem is that most Scientists are Physicalists so they are stuck with the Physicalist Dogma with respect to Conscious Experience, that it must all be in the Neurons. I say it could all be in the Neurons, but I also look at other possibilities. If it is all in the Neurons there must be at least some Clue that this is true. But nobody has discovered that Clue yet. It's always just the Neural Correlates of Conscious Experience.
     
  16. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    What other possibilities? I'd sure be interested to hear them.
     
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    What other possibilities? I'd sure be interested in alternative theories.
    There is an entire thread (96 pages) devoted to direct and indirect evidence that suggest what part of the brain and its neurons are responsible for emergent consciousness. AFAIC the subject warrants copious quotes of peer reviewed papers and links to in-depth discussions on the mechanics of consciousness.

    Unfortunately instead of being categorized as true science it has been prematurely relegated to the pseudo-science sub-forum and I am being censored for spamming every time I refer to this thread and its content.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2021
  18. Steve Klinko Registered Senior Member

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    435
    You say Emergent Consciousness, as if you know what the Consciousness thing is. So what are the Necessary Properties for this Emergent Consciousness?
    You say Visually Replicating the Color Red, as if you know anything about the Experience of Redness. You and Science are completely ignorant of any of the things you are making believe you know.

    I have always said that Science has made great Progress with the Neural Correlates of Conscious Experience. It has become relatively routine now to be able to show areas of the Brain that Activate for the various Conscious Sensory Experiences. This does nothing to Explain the Conscious Experience itself. There is Zero Explanation for why, when certain Neurons fire, that there are certain Conscious Experiences. And furthermore, there is still no Explanation for what the Conscious Experience itself is. Researchers discovered this Correlation between Neural Activity and Conscious Experience over a Hundred years ago, and still there is Zero Explanation of this Correlation.

    Refresh my memory on the three Hypotheses that you are talking about.

    It is easy to understand how more and more layers in the Neural Net will produce better and better performing Pattern Recognition. But more and more Complicated Electronics and Software do not get us any closer to understanding Conscious Experiences.

    Degenerate cases are interesting but irrelevant at this stage of our understanding and discussion. Let's understand what normal Human Conscious Experience is first.

    I don't question that more Complicated Computers can be more useful devices but when you imply that this has anything to do with Emerging Conscious Experiences then you are entering into the Land of Belief.
     
  19. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    No, I said 2,000 years to understand flight, not to merely to make progress. I have no idea how long it took from looking at birds and first contemplating flight to make progress on the matter. So if your issue is with the lack of progress, you need to look at that part of the history of flight: when people saw the phenomenon and had zero idea about it, and made no progress.
    No, they don't. They merely say that all phenomena that exist are nothing more than their physical properties, and that everything derives from matter. Now, if their understanding of what constitutes physical property, or matter, change over time (e.g. the inclusion of energy)...? Or do you think that physicalists are still using the same understanding of matter, and of what is physical, as they did when physicalism was first labelled?
    There's little you've said so far, so nothing new. But if you're serious about your investigation and wanting to promote it, you really have to do better in supporting it. If people can't be bothered to read through your waffle, then try to parse it for them. Take them slowly through the steps of your thinking. If all you're going to do is brain-dump into some links and throw those around then you're not going to get very far.

    But I look forward to your peer reviewed paper on the matter. Shouldn't be difficult to achieve given your confidence.
    And I've always said that cats should have four legs. Oh, look, they do.

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    Science IS open to new ideas. That is how science progresses. Show the current understanding to be wrong, introduce new ideas that fit better, demonstrate those new ideas to be better predictors etc.
    Oh! I get it! You're having a go at science for looking at things in a scientific way, and with scientific understanding! When you think science should choose not to look at things in a scientific manner, and without the confines of what makes it science.
    So basically you're just whingeing that science is science.
    Got it. Thanks.
    So does science. Just come up with a testable hypothesis or two that show it to be something else. Get it tested scientifically, and you'll be on to something.
    Again, you're complaining about a lack of progress on the most complex thing we are aware of in the universe. It isn't just slightly more complex, but orders of magnitude more complex. Your expectations, and your whingeing, are simply appeals to ignorance. Fortunately science doesn't progress by whingeing about lack of progress.
     
  20. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    New ideas. Tick✓

    Guesses? Na X

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  21. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    OK here we go. I have at the ready
    • Tarot cards
    • Crystal Ball
    • Ouija board
    • Astrology charts
    Please advise what I have missed with which I can manifest these new ideas I should be open to

    When and where can we set up a magic circle to try out these new ideas?

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  22. Steve Klinko Registered Senior Member

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    Well I think you are wrong about the Physicalists. They are not open to new ideas that actually do propose new Phenomena because the new Phenomena are not in their Box of Phenomena. But keeping things within the Known Phenomena of Science is a good first assumption. All I'm saying is after a Hundred years it's time to think outside the Box. Science needs to stop banging it's head on the Brick Wall of Conscious Experiences and climb over that wall.

    I really don't understand your complaint about the Machine Consciousness Experiments.
     
  23. Steve Klinko Registered Senior Member

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    So you think these are new Ideas?
     

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