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 redshift13 rated 9 months ago - An article on the perennially fascinating and, at this point anyway, insoluble question of defining consciousness.
Philosopher John Searle holds that artificial intelligence cannot be experienced by a computer. He uses this famous thought experiment:
"...imagine you find yourself in a ...
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10 Reviews
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- redshift13 rated 9 months ago
- An article on the perennially fascinating and, at this point anyway, insoluble question of defining consciousness.
Philosopher John Searle holds that artificial intelligence cannot be experienced by a computer. He uses this famous thought experiment:
"...imagine you find yourself in a room containing an enormous rule book, which allows you to look up Chinese sentences and tells you how to reply to them in Chinese. Through a hole in the wall you are handed a piece of paper with a question written on it in Chinese. Using the rule book, you look up the answer to this question which you write on another piece of paper, in Chinese, and pass through another hole. To the people outside the room you appear to have thorough understanding of the Chinese language, whereas in fact you could perform the required task without understanding a word of it."
I've read him argue on this basis in other contexts and I remain unconvinced. All that he seems to be arguing is that we currently can't make a computer that could replicate human subjective conscious experience. Toss in Moore's law, continued advances in brain science and software, and we might very well witness the emergence of a fully artificial consciousness by the end of this century.
The reductive materialist view of the human mind profoundly disturbs many people. Knowledge of it, I have no doubt, causes some to flee from it into the arms of more consoling philosophical or religious accounts of consciousness. But this only delays the day of social and cultural reckoning when the implications of a maturing brain science can no longer be ignored by the educated public.
Better instead it seems to me to prepare ourselves for the full implications of this view now (unsettling conclusions about free will or our lack thereof, the final refutation of the dualistic notion of the "soul", and the fatal undermining of the idea of a self), lest the dangerous gulf between what we know and what the rest of society wants to believe is true grows any wider.
- mokkikunta rated 9 months ago
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In some way artificial intelligence is superior to human intelligence: quicker, more precise, clearer and so the sooner we become humbots, the better.(...)What is never mentioned, or is considered superseded in this kind of reductionism, are the ideas of mind and soul, very well know to the ancients as integral characteristics of human beings.
- Daoloth rated 9 months ago
- From the page: "Some have seen biological naturalism as a form of dualism since micro-level properties can be objectively studied by a brain surgeon. But the brain surgeon cannot in the same way access macro-level properties such as pain, desire, joy. Searle rejects this suggestion. He stresses that consciousness is a type of physical property; it is not something separate like a kind of juice that is squirted out by the neurons, it is the state that the system is in, part of that system and inseparable from it. How it works-how micro-level behavior creates consciousness at the macro level-is a question for the neuroscientists. But as a problem for philosophers, Searle regards it as solved."This is pants-on-head retarded. I may not be a philosophy major, but I know what happens when you transcranially magnetically stimulate (TMS) the primary visual cortex (or Brodman Area 17, for you nitpickers/evolutionary biologists): you see crazy shit.This, plus other effects that TMS can achieve, forces me to consider the brain as a large series of specialized areas which, when properly working in concert, create 'consciousness', which is completely subjective and unprovable anyway. C'mon, there's not even a logical argument for believing in the existence of OTHER minds - the only reason this argument cannot be extended into our own heads is some wishy-washy weenies who claim that they can 'feel' their own 'minds'. Here, put this TMS cap on. You'll be trying to kill the nearest person or having a continuous orgasm in no time.
- xineann rated 9 months ago
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What is Intelligence Anyway?
The basic ingredient that distinguishes human minds from computers, according to Searle, is intentionality. Computers are defined syntactically, in terms of formal symbol manipulation, and that, he argues, is insufficient to imply consciousness.
So if consciousness is not something that can be experienced by a computer, what is it exactly and how does it emerge? In his theories about the mind and consciousness, Searle rejects Cartesian dualism--that the mind is something non-physical and separate from the body. He also rejects the reductionism of thinkers such as Daniel Dennet, who believe that consciousness can be reduced to a series of physical processes in the brain similar to a software program.
- chrysallis rated 9 months ago
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John Searle on the Human Mind
and the Nature of Intelligence
by Emanuel L. Paparella
A computer model of the mind is not actually conscious, just as a computer model of the digestive system cannot actually eat pizza. A computer model of falling in love or reading a novel or getting drunk does not actually experience these things, but simply produces a simulation of these processes. The basic ingredient that distinguishes human minds from computers, according to Searle, is intentionality. Computers are defined syntactically, in terms of formal symbol manipulation, and that, he argues, is insufficient to imply consciousness.
So if consciousness is not something that can be experienced by a computer, what is it exactly and how does it emerge?
- bdarbs rated 9 months ago
- From the page: "the Human Mind and the Nature of Intelligence"
- SketchSepahi rated 9 months ago
- Interesting read but the Chinese Room argument is not valid. Oh, and Danial Dennett is not strictly speaking a reductionist.
- WordsnCollision rated 9 months ago
- As technology progresses, are we in danger of losing our humanity?
- remixboy rated 9 months ago
- From the page: "Searle counters what he dubs strong AIť (Artificial Intelligence) with a famous thought experiment, which he calls the Chinese Room argument. This is how it goes: imagine you find yourself in a room containing an enormous rule book, which allows you to look up Chinese sentences and tells you how to reply to them in Chinese. Through a hole in the wall you are handed a piece of paper with a question written on it in Chinese. Using the rule book, you look up the answer to this question which you write on another piece of paper, in Chinese, and pass through another hole. To the people outside the room you appear to have thorough understanding of the Chinese language, whereas in fact you could perform the required task without understanding a word of it."
- SophiesUniverse rated 9 months ago
- "So if consciousness is not something that can be experienced by a computer, what is it exactly and how does it emerge? In his theories about the mind and consciousness, Searle rejects Cartesian dualism--that the mind is something non-physical and separate from the body. He also rejects the reductionism of thinkers such as Daniel Dennet, who believe that consciousness can be reduced to a series of physical processes in the brain similar to a software program."
Definitely worth a read; it's short and illuminating.
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