Intelligence is pattern recognition and pattern matching. Look at an IQ test ...

Amen!

Correct. There is nothing in an AI but routed electricity. There is no internal meaning or understanding .. both of which derive from symbolic interpretations of the inputs and outputs by humans. AI's do not and cannot know anything.

So here we have a complete misunderstanding by philosophers of what an AI system is, compounded in error by the ridiculous philosophical Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and its fanciful science fictional offshoots like "Skynet has become self-aware"

As I just commented above, Consciousness -- sentience, feeling -- is BIOLOGICAL. There are zero reasons to believe consciousness can be instantiated in another substrate.

I suggest Philosophy turn its attention to the disturbing moral possibility that the Three Laws of Robotics are "racist" or, rather species-ist. Should we ever be allowed to let a robot come to harm?

Consciousness -- sentience, feeling -- is BIOLOGICAL. There are zero reasons to believe consciousness can be instantiated in another substrate.

If we ever determine how it works the easiest (and most morally perilous) approach would be to maintain a conscious biological cell cluster ... but to what purpose?

Sentience means 'feeling' ...

It's easier than that ... government might initially subsidize Employee-Owned Corporations. I would suggest, for starters one that produces generic drugs.

The problem with capitalism is the concentration of capital ownership. EOC's can help distribute that ownership to the workers who produce the goods. An EOC grocery chain named Winco Foods in Southern California is a great example.

Profits would be controlled at a level that allows for expansion so "price gouging" would be difficult to implement. In addition, the employee-owners would be more likely to attend responsibly to societal concerns.

How is it not obvious? Awareness can most certainly be tested for ... I prefer the "sharp stick in the eye" test. It requires minimal equipment and the results can be observed by an amateur.

RE your remark: "... I saw no proposal behind the physical *mechanism* of awareness ..."

That's what scientific research is for. Just because the research hasn't been done, in this case largely because no one is looking in the right place and the technology doesn't exist yet, is no reason to lurch into a hypothesis like Panpsychism, that, as you'll notice, is also lacking in *mechanism* and is, additionally *completely untestable*.

My hypothesis, ".. that consciousness is equivalent to a pattern of activation and connectivity involving a brainstem neuronal cluster (and/or other related cells), such that a conscious feeling IS that structure" fits in well with the brainstem consciousness hypothesis. Contrasted with your own initial proposal, that " ... awareness might be an inherent property of matter", my physical consciousness hypothesis seems perfectly reasonable and testable, given the development of the necessary technology. Sort of like gravity waves, that had to await the development of laser technology before they could be detected.

Yes, as you noticed, "... awareness is based in the older section of the brain, and not the newer cortex ..." seems like an evolutionary no-brainer. And if consciousness developed as a brainstem function, it's extremely unlikely that evolution would favor an additional brain structure developing consciousness because, like developing a second set of lungs, it's more in keeping with the style of evolution for the brainstem to evolve viable representations of additional sensory tracks. The massively parallel processing cortex then evolved (from a bit of early cortex-like brainstem tissue) to resolve more complex, predictive representations -- as pre-conscious "images" -- that are passed back to the brainstem for integration into it's more limited "display".

Makes a lot of sense, I believe, and Merker's experimental and observational evidence is very supportive. When you've absorbed Merker and Damasio, maybe you can email me at last for "Einstein's Breadcrumbs" and we can move our conversations out of slashdot's unread bit bucket into something more useful.

I'm pretty sure none of my posts ever get read -- they're all still at '1', mostly, I suspect because I'm always late to the commenting party.

Enjoy!

Here's a link to Merker's "Consciousness without a cerebral cortex"

http://www.summer12.isc.uqam.c...

Note the evidence cited. Try some Damasio too: "The Feeling of What Happens" is most interesting, but you should be able to locate some articles of his about brainstem consciousness. Here's one:

http://www.federaljack.com/ebo...

The Philosophers of Consciousness have decided that consciousness is created by the cortex, a completely evidence-free proposition ... (philosophy and evidence don't get along, hence Hawking's remark that, "Philosophy is dead.") Contrast that gaseous guess with the brainstem (the "reptilian brain") consciousness hypothesis that is supported by a great deal of evolutionary, experimental, and observational evidence.

Cortical consciousness hypotheses have created all sorts of confusion and nonsense "problems," like "back-dating", for instance, the fact that a cortical stimulation of a touch done prior to a physical touch is nevertheless experienced *after* the physical touch. Duh! Look at the wiring - everything that happens to and within the body reaches the brainstem first.

Merker reasonably proposes that the brainstem complex creates the relatively low bandwidth conscious experience and the cortex (which is suggestively "activated" by the brainstem), with its vast parallel processing elaborates the content of consciousness in a way specific to a particular species. In my hypothesis, resolved cortical pre-conscious "images" are transmitted to the brainstem for "display".

Of course, almost all of consciousness research and funding are focused on the cortex, which is always illustrated with numerous "blinkenlights" and is probably shiny too ... ;-) Your cited "manipulate individual neurons" is one example - those are cortical neurons. So it may be awhile before brainstem consciousness is examined with the same rigor and intensity. My own theory is that consciousness is equivalent to a pattern of activation and connectivity involving a brainstem neuronal cluster (and/or other related cells), such that a conscious feeling IS that structure. In that view, consciousness remains completely physical - there's nothing else to it - so it'll likely take a nanotechnological level of examination (and a singular lapse of ethics) to see if a feeling of the color blue might be changed to a feeling of the color red with a tiny brainstem tweak..

Just because we haven't yet achieved that level of experimental capability is no reason to turn to religious/spiritual suggestions like Panpsychism, which seems to lead to a belief in a consciousness that's some ghostly infinity. Don't give up on science so easily ... it's the best thing humanity has going for itself. Aside from empathy.

I have a whole shelf full of books I've read about consciousness and neuroscience. NOTHING? I've spent weeks of my life reading NOTHING?

I beg to disagree ... note that the word 'science' is embedded in the word 'neuroscience'. The "philosophers" of consciousness are by and large full of shiite, but that's to be expected from vocabulary wranglers. For some science and an evidence-based approach, google Bjorn Merker's work for instance.

Actually, Immerman, your entire position seems very "iffy" ---> If this, if that.

"If we were telepathic ...", "If it's a fundamental property ...", "Suppose for one whimsical moment ...", "We have no idea if 'feelings' are also something that atoms have", etc. Of the rock, you correctly state, "we would have no way to recognize its awareness, but that would not make it any less aware" ...

Just what is it that allows us to recognize awareness in anything? What is it that allows us to rule it out?

You correctly said, "... we cannot make sound extrapolations from a position of ignorance," but that seems to be what you're doing and that's exactly what Panpsychists are doing. If "we can't know, we can't tell, we have no way to communicate with a rock ...", then what's the point of your argument?

No, a rock has no eyes and no vocal ability. Like I said, though, "Just stick Data with a sharp stick in the eye" ... Commander Data isn't completely deprived of android-specific sensory data like Ensign Rock is, and Data even has a computational analog of human eyes -- a place to put your sharp stick. So what happens in Data's case? Does Its response, whatever it is, inform us of Data's consciousness? Fer damn sure It won't say "Ow!". Data cannot "feel" ... the very definition of sentience! Nobody bothers to look it up.

I'm trying to understand what our science tells us. Perhaps we have a language difficulty here. Please define 'consciousness' in a way conformant with neuroscience. If it's not a science-based definition, then how can we have any discussion about consciousness at all? This is not a religious topic.

Go brave, Immerman! Email me and I'll send you "Einstein's Breadcrumbs" ...

Yo! ... iggymanz! Physics degree, eh? You might enjoy this:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.ed...

Click on the PDF download on that page. Turns out physics is moving right along with GR-QFT reconciliation, although I have no idea how many are paying attention. Dr. Mark Stuckey, et al, have a book due out soon, "Beyond the Dynamical Universe", that I've been reading the Kindle version of ... the physics is great, but McDevitt's "neutral monism" philosophy is ridiculous (not a Philosophy precedent, by any means). Just Google-Scholar "Stuckey Silberstein" for heaps and gobs of papers.

Of course, neither STR nor QFT explain a perceived "now" ... what's needed for an explanation requires a cross-discipline investigation ... physics + neuroscience. All 100% science, no emotive urges anywhere.

Your "known phenomenon" is essentially Presentism, which is most compelling until you realize that the Block Universe of STR via RoS (Stuckey's Blockworld) has no flowing present time, no "now" and certainly no dynamical behavior at all. It seems a minor logical exercise to note that, if something doesn't exist in the universe, it must be an artifact of consciousness, so both the illusion of a flowing present time and the feeling of "now" are rooted in the stream of consciousness. Note that the illusion and the reality feel exactly the same.

"Einstein's Breadcrumbs" (EB) specifically addresses this alternative:

"Indeed, the reality of our experience of the flow of consciousness and the perception of change within that flow perfectly explain the illusory feeling of the flow of time as well as explaining its stubborn persistence. Coupled with the illusion of “now” it's obvious why the illusory feeling of the flow of time gives rise to a belief in Presentism – Presentism is the way it feels. Note, however, that an actual, biological feeling of flowing time is impossible because we cannot feel it – we have no sensory inputs attuned to flowing time, a most reasonable arrangement considering that it doesn't exist."

The "now", of course, is simply a feeling of the immediacy of conscious experience. I don't currently have EB posted somewhere that I can provide you a link to ... the "ERLTalk @ outlook.com" email allows me to send you a PDF copy. I believe you'd benefit from reading it, so please reconsider your email reluctance -- lots of substantiating quotations from physicists and sources identified, as well as a wealth of explanation that's simply impossible to post. EB is 25 pages long, including footnotes. I'd much enjoy and surely benefit from your thoughts about it.

Consciousness in the Block Universe also looks very much like a most impressive simulation architecture and I've discussed that idea in a separate section. I hope to see your email ... I won't do anything but email you the EB PDF. Should you decide to exchange views after reading EB, simply let me know and we could continue emailing.

Just like here:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.o... [semanticscholar.org]

BTW, email me at ERLTalk @ outlook.com, sans spaces. I'll send you my paper "Einstein's Breadcrumbs" expanding on Einstein's hypothesis about what he called "the eternity of life". Turns out that, in the block universe, you are immortal.

Cheers!

Take a look at this:

"The Relational Blockworld Interpretation of Non-relativistic Quantum Mechanics"

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.o...

Happy learning! ;-)

Not any more:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/r...