“we must assume behind this force the existence of conscious and intelligent mind” max planck

[Amorphos]

“we must assume behind this force the existence of conscious and intelligent mind” max planck

at first i would think that we may assume an intellect or something that acts like one, yet i cannot imagine that intelligence can exist without consciousness. i don’t think any kind of AI would be real intelligence, it would simply be a machine that acts like it is conscious. we could say that we are like that also ~ chemical robots with a chemically programmed intellect, yet i think this denies a rather obvious truth, that beyond the machine we are conscious.

how do you see it?

[Ummagumma]

We have just never made a machine even half a percent as complex as us. I can't see us making one for a very, very long time to come either.

[Amorphos]

indeed, it would be facinating to talk to one, could we tell do you think? i like to think it would be most apparent to us even if a 100% copy of us in our actions and linguistics etc.

[Poach]

If something as complex as the brain can be artificially created, I doubt you'd notice the difference. They'd seem odd, perhaps, as they may be more logical than your average human, but if they were given a human looking body I doubt you'd notice.

All that seperates us from machine is our complexity, the brain is so complex that even today we don't fully understand it. Being made of flesh and blood doesn't give us some magical level of conscienceness that something of metal could not achieve.

[Maverick]

“we must assume behind this force the existence of conscious and intelligent mind” max planck

at first i would think that we may assume an intellect or something that acts like one, yet i cannot imagine that intelligence can exist without consciousness. i don’t think any kind of AI would be real intelligence, it would simply be a machine that acts like it is conscious. we could say that we are like that also ~ chemical robots with a chemically programmed intellect, yet i think this denies a rather obvious truth, that beyond the machine we are conscious.

how do you see it?

I see it exactly the same way. People are very liberal with the word intelligence, a $5 Texas Instruments calculator can do a lot of things I can't do but it's not intelligent, it's a machine that executes commands, even a hypothetical machine that we endow with "real intelligence" is still a tool while we humans develop (relative) intelligence organically, many great thinkers like Tesla for instance have described natural "sources of inspiration" in their mind from dreams and visions etc. Will machines ever dream or become inspired? And what about emotional intelligence? We venerate people that "move" us and call them geniuses, take John Lennon for example, even a hypothetical super intelligent and conscious machine can't relate emotional intelligence because it can't have emotions as we experience them.

[Ummon]

Mind is, like Buddhists say, a property of matter. More precisely, a property of the universe.

[Ummagumma]

Mind is ... a property of the universe.

That is either so profound it would take more than a lifetime to fully understand all of it's nuances, or so self apparent to not even require stating.

[Javierfv1212]

sounds like the whole Chinese room argument

[Ummon]

That is either so profound it would take more than a lifetime to fully understand all of it's nuances, or so self apparent to not even require stating.

It may be both, if we are lucky.

In any case, to be more specific, consciousness is a special case of a kind of information processing which takes place at every level in nature, including that of inanimate objects.

[Amorphos]

poach

Being made of flesh and blood doesn’t give us some magical level of conscienceness that something of metal could not achieve.

oh i think it does, it makes us part of the grand engineering project that is existence. a robot would be the same as a rock or given other inanimate object, no matter how we mould it. i think we would notice just as we can tell if someone is sleepwalking.

maverick

Will machines ever dream or become inspired?

quit so! however we define the physics of the brain, there is a fundamental thing there call it consciousness, mind, spirit or whatever it is present and it is what we are. for me the physics describes the mechanism, not what it is there for ~ i.e. the user.

even if a machine could mimic emotion i think we would see through it.

ummon

Mind is, like Buddhists say, a property of matter. More precisely, a property of the universe.

yes to the latter, ...or an expression of infinity. i would say that the matter [brain] is the instrument for utilising mind, rather than mind being the product of it.

consciousness can of course be still as well as utilised for info processing. this for me is the most intriguing aspect, the nature of mind that reflects or is an expression of an inner universal stillness or transparency.

[dwringer]

In any case, to be more specific, consciousness is a special case of a kind of information processing which takes place at every level in nature, including that of inanimate objects.

I agree, if perhaps conditionally . . . but I'm not sure exactly what those conditions are, and that's mainly because your statement requires that all the other laws of physics to be taken into consideration, and I unfortunately do not know all the laws of physics

[Poach]

Quetzal, I'm going to guess from your answer that you are a religious individual, and thus believe the brain is the work of God and not something man can match. If said assumption is correct I won't even bother debating, it will be pointless.

If you are not religious then think of it, once we understand the brain we will eventually create the technology to replicate it. Experiments are already under way with the aim of fusing biology with technology, who are we to assume that this technology will never be perfected?

[Ummon]

Currently, recreating a brain is impossible. In one hundred years though, this isn't sure.

[Amorphos]

poach

Quetzal, I’m going to guess from your answer that you are a religious individual, and thus believe the brain is the work of God and not something man can match. If said assumption is correct I won’t even bother debating, it will be pointless.

agnostic anarchist. the more i look the more meaning i see, there isn’t much other than meaning ~ so what does that mean. i see the brain and the entire human form as a tool which we utilise, hence a robot, no matter how advanced is just a tool.

i think the tech can be perfected, perhaps by bio technology ~ which would raise a few questions.

ps. i have written many damning threads concerning religion, i am not against all the ideas in it though, i just think people should have at least a vague idea of what they are going on about. thankfully if we wade through the mire there are some very worthy intellectuals that are religious...

ummon

In any case, to be more specific, consciousness is a special case of a kind of information processing which takes place at every level in nature, including that of inanimate objects.

indeed, and that’s the crux of the matter! then i would ask what is behind the universal consciousness? i see in my mind that consciousness is secondary ~ an expression of mind which itself can be made utility of. the way i see it all now is that every element does not belong to anything but is borrowed in its use, and ‘occupied’ by all. then that we are mirrors of infinity as everything.

[Chaigidel]

as soon as you introduce enough information and learning ability ; plus memory you will have a mind like any human; hopefully they will develop their own ways of thinking; but we are finding out more every day about the smallest parts of organic machinery;

I think the eventuality of a silicon based AI is inevitable; so to speak a new intelligence from machine alone

but yes for infinity to be a factor in our lives it would be necessary for every tiny bit of reality to have an infinite proposition within it; so to speak it would be necessary for infinite reflections of the greater infinity I think for it to really fit the definition.

[Valentin the II]

We are an indipendent machine.
A computer that can think, act, change and adapt as time progreses, without interfierence from the outside world.

Anything with these mental capabilities can be considerd concious (even a PC).

[Amorphos]

Anything with these mental capabilities can be considerd concious (even a PC).

my pc is conscious? no way is it, it is just a machine with lots of switches ~ 0’s and 1’s it doesn’t think! a robot with a quantum processor could be the same as us ~ perhaps.

if the universe is conscious and infinity thinks, then we have to reinstate the most obvious truths e.g. we think! a machine isn’t a being it is just an animated object.

hmm i am going to have to think about this one more, its a little difficult tosay what it all means...

[Valentin the II]

my pc is conscious? no way is it, it is just a machine with lots of switches ~ 0’s and 1’s it doesn’t think! a robot with a quantum processor could be the same as us ~ perhaps.

I meant, when your PC learns to think, act, and change by itself it could be considerd concious.

[dwringer]

But it wouldn't be "alive". Can something be "conscious" that is not "alive?"

[Valentin the II]

But it wouldn't be "alive". Can something be "conscious" that is not "alive?"

Define "alive"

The so called Turing Test for AI's I think reveals a fundamental point in this discussion, for if something can act as if it is conscious does that not necessarilly imply that it is somehow conscious? The crux here ofcourse is not a one off single example of behaviour, but a stage of continued and complete conscious like reaction to environment and situation. When this is achieved, by whatever means, does the capability to act so not imply consciousness itself?

Yes, yes it does.