Will machines become conscious someday?

Is that supposed to be 3d fractals? Math is not my best point so hard to understand. Would appreciate if you could elaborate in simple words what you're talking about

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

If you try to say that fractals can somehow associate with creativity I am very opposite. Fractals is rather using output as input in an infinite loop to create a nice image. My definition of creativity was about putting together things like how you would in a photo-collage. You have a picture of a car(object 1) for example and a picture of an apple(object 2). If you replace the wheels of the car with apples then you have creativity.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

the formulas themselves are irrelevant to the discussion.
you mentioned that you couldn't see how consciousnes could be emulated in a very defined environment.
my post was to show highly complex objects can be generated by well defined formulas.
there are other "objects"* of this type, mandelbox for one.
there is video of a "flythrough" through a mandelbox on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-cSqG0kpGg
after seeing the video you will start to wonder if somehow it could work with present technology.

* these things probably do not and maybe even can not exist in reality.
they are basically math models.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Awesome link!

Not sure if this is pertinent, but this little demonstration came to mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKqt6e7EcCs
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7d13SgqUXg

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Can someone please explain to my why a simulation of something causes an exact replica of the thing being simulated. If it's an exact simulation, it's no longer a simulation, but rather a replica. Why would simulating the human brain bring about subjective consciousness? Many of you talk about it like it's a no brainer, so would someone care to explain how a simulation can result in a near perfect replica of subjective consciouss experience?

 

Do you think consciousness is derived from 'something' outside of the brain?

 

a simulation is not an exact copy of what's being simulated.
a simulation can not react to the unknown.

 

No, I don´t but the brain is more than a physical network of nerves. It is a dynamic information system. To fully simulate it you need information on the location of every neurotransmitter and its current velocity within the synaptic cliff plus same data on other molecules that may collide with it as it diffuses across the synaptic cliff and whether or not its possible target site on the distal dendrite is occupied, etc.

In my 1994 paper I pointed out that any attempt to collect this detailed level of REQUIRED information would greatly change it. I.e. I postulated that for neural systems as complex as a human brain, there was an "uncertainty principle" operating, which prevents making a duplicate of me, in either electronic devices or tissue.

 

But we are not addressing duplication are we? Is the goal not to create a simulation of the structure and thought process of the human brain, including the necessary "uncertainty" as exists in the consciousness of every individual human.
IMO, it does not need to be a duplication, just an approximation. IMO, consciousness will emerge with the accumulation of data explaining the environment to the AI. Fuzzy logic may well be an asset in bypassing detail to find a actionable environment. Our mirror neural network seems to employ fuzzy logic. That why we are fallible.

 

I was commenting on those posts concerned with simulation. I think it quite possible that man may someday make p-zombies. If one were actually conscious, we could never know as consciousness is not an observable but subjective thing only experienced. Just as you cannot be sure I am conscious instead of just a p-zombie.

 

we aren't talking about duplicating some particular persons conscious.
it's consciousness in general.
it seems so tantalizingly possible.
computers are very good at storing data, and retrieving data from an ordered list.
fantastic speed is another advantage, who cares if it takes 10 steps to add 2 bits.
the major drawback with computers is that it's not analog.
word length is set at manufacture and cannot be changed.
word length is also tied to memory storage so it too is set at manufacture.
few, if any, processors include "operator defined opcodes".

 

exactly.
and most of that uncertainty comes from reason against instinct or intuition.

 

The human brain is based on biology in water and makes use of liquid state physics. Liquid state physics is different from solid and gas state physics, on which machines are based on. Liquid state allows the micro to act in the opposite way of the macro. For example, open glass of water has air pressure pushing down with the surface in tension due to surface tension. While in osmosis, the micro state is based on water increasing entropy. At the macro=state there is a directed force. Osmosis is an experimental example of order from chaos, due to liquid state physics. In solid and gas state physics, this is not possible, until you pull in concepts like virtual particles which can act apart from the matrix.

The organic brain, which is mostly water, will make use of liquid state effects than can turn random into order. In the case of osmosis, the shape of the container will determine the direction of the entropic force. In the case of the brain, the memory are containers that allows molecular entropy to become directed into macro-order; creativity. The bias of solid and gas state physics only sees chaos.

Life is mostly water but this contribution is weighed much less, in favor of the organics. Water does the random to order thing, since it is the primary basis for the liquid state affects that exist within life. The organic provides the containers.

This is true when consciousness is out of calibration. Instinct has had millions of years of evolution that have integrated them with the hard cause and effect of physical reality. This is not the same as the theoretical fad stuff that have been around for a couple of years. It comes down to liquid versus solid state perception, with solid state seeing random while liquid state sees this random funneled into an order.

Say we took an instinctive container that is connected to reality. Instead of the normal routine, we use this container for perception. It may not be perfect but you will still get random becoming more and more ordered.

 

I guess what I was really trying to get at is this; why do people think we can recreate the subjective conscious experience via a computer simulation? Who's to say that consciousness arises because of the electrical activity in the brain? There is evidence that when electrical activity stops in a dying brain the person may undergo intense hallucinations. Hallucinations that are thought to be the result of chemical activity still taking place in the brain. This last conclusion is the next best understanding for how the brain works, there could be many other levels of activity we either overlook or are unaware of. It's for the reasons I mentioned that I think a mere computer simulation will never be able to recreate the conscious experience, what we are doing is attributing to the simulation values and attributes which are not inherent within. Unless of course consciousness can arise from means which nature hasn't already tapped in to, but that's just luck.

 

Bohm disagrees with you.

http://fusionanomaly.net/davidbohm.html

 

This link does state:
"Bohm found, to his amazement, that the subatomic sea he created was conscious.* By extension, the vast sub-atomic reality that is material creation may also be said to be conscious."
but it is a comment by some unidentified person, not Bohm! Bohm is a very clever physicist with a different POV, but can calculate the observable quantum event results correctly.

Bohm has little to say about consciousness and certainly does NOT believe material is "conscious." He does hold the view that the future and the past are all mixed in the present and postulates the existence of "guiding waves" which control the particles (make the interference patterns etc.)

I bought and read one of his later books, but gave it away some years ago so don´t have it title. (As I recall, consciousness is never mentioned in it.) I believe Bohm´s QM & guiding waves theory is in conflict with the fact all electrons are identical. (I exchanged about a dozen Emails with the Bohm Society based in Denmark or Netherlands?) more than 5 years ago, but neither side convinced the other. Briefly my point was that if each electron has its own unique guiding wave, then in cases where both election waves over lap, each electron must have some unique idenity so its guiding wave would act only on it. - I.e. electrons could not all be identical, but each in the universe must have its own "name."

* BTW that is nonsense as well as not a statement by Bohm. Never can consciousness be observed in another person even, much less a plasma or machine or atom. Consciousness can only be experienced, not in any way measured or observed.

 

****************************************************************
This dialogue between Renee Weber and David Bohm is from Weber's book
_Dialogues with Scientists and Sages: The Search for Unity_

http://fusionanomaly.net/davidbohm.html

 

Really? Observe this consciousness.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=brainless-slime-molds

 

What I observe after reading your link is:
(1) you and you alone have called the intelligence shown by some very simple creatures "consciousness."
AND
(2) that your link never even uses the word "consciousness."

How do you defined consciousness - clearly not in the standard way as having experiences like feeling pain, holding beliefs, including a self image.

 

The link does uses the words intelligence, smart, memory, sense of time,

from wiki

IMO, the term consciousness is ageneric term that covers a lot of ground. I believe it is clear that the slimemold exhibits consciousness. It may not be able to fashion a symphony, but it can draw very efficient maps.
If not consciousness, how would you define the behavior of the slime mold? Don't forget it is one of the oldest organisms on earth. (+600 million years) and has had a lot of time to refine its admittedly spare assets. Apparently it has found a way whereby it can "relate" to its environment.

 

IMO there is nothing mysterious about the notion of consciousness. Awareness of one's environment it a qualifying property of consciousness.

If you start associating consciousness exclusively with large and sophisticated brain activity, then how can we define the conscious god? Does god need a brain? Obviously god does not possess an organic brain, yet it presented as an all pervasive, sentient, consciousness. How does it do that then?