Loligo Blog - Distraction

Alfred Russel Wallace

nospam@example.com (John R) — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 00:15:00 +0000

"There is, I conceive, no contradiction in believing that mind is at once the cause of matter and of the development of individualised human minds through the agency of matter. "
— Alfred Russel Wallace

Moving us to a machine-based platform: A less obvious advantage?

nospam@example.com (John R) — Sat, 11 Mar 2023 18:13:00 +0000

There are many easy-to-guess advantages to moving consciousness to a machine platform. If/when "we" as a society become machine-based beings:

We will be able to move from one body to another with the same ease we biology-based beings now change vehicles.
We will be able to live and work in the vacuum of space without having to take along a very-hard-to-maintain bubble of pressurized air.
We will be able to travel on a beam of electro-magnetic energy to far-away worlds where spare bodies have been shipped.
- And those faraway worlds will not need to have a biosphere, or have bubbles of biosphere constructed/cultivated.
- In like fashion, we will be able to move to and from orbits and Lagrange points where bodies have been previously placed.
Our sustenance will not be limited to carbohydrates that require a biosphere in which to grow. Most sources will be harvestable directly from light, heat, and kinetics, which all exist in the vacuum of space.

While this is not by any means a complete list, there are likely to be many less obvious advantages, too. This one for example:

We will be able to have multiple independent bodies, each with its own short-term situational memories, working off of a single set of long-term experiential memories that have been accumulated over time.

Consider multiple bodies working in a manufacturing environment, each working off of a single experienced individual's learning and acquired expertise in manufacturing processes. Each maintaining its own short-term memories which will form and decay quickly to respond to the fine-grained details of its immediate individual situation

It may even be possible that the single individual's long-term experiential memory may be able to continue to gain learning from each body's short-term situational connections as they form and decay in response to their own current situations.

-djr

Intelligent Design (jmo)

nospam@example.com (John R) — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 15:52:00 +0000

The Catholic (i.e., "Universal") church used to teach its children that the sun orbited the earth, long after everybody knew the truth. The truth would have sent the whole intricate house of cards that was the Church belief system crashing down upon itself.

Today, they are teaching children that DNA is a self-replicating molecule, even though everybody knows the truth. Their reasons for averting their eyes (and their children's eyes) from the truth are identical. Church people, whether they call themselves the Universal Church or the University, have not changed. They are first and foremost about self, and anything that threatens that must be defended against.

Even if the enemy at the gate is truth.

disclaimer: I don't know the explanation, or if I.D. covers it, only that the current dogma no longer does.

The Selfish Gene?

nospam@example.com (John R) — Fri, 18 May 2018 14:49:49 +0000

Those who hold out the possibility of Machine Consciousness* ask: What if it is not the gene that is selfish, but the information stored within it?

*Also known as: strong AI

Resources

The Knowledge Argument Against Physicalism

Macro QM

nospam@example.com (John R) — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 12:00:05 +0000

Imagine a universe in which it is impossible for one man to take the credit for another man's contributions (work, ideas, actions).

For some this would be heaven, for others, it would be hell; . . . the exact same place.

Optimism and mediocrity were chatting one day

nospam@example.com (John R) — Thu, 04 Jan 2018 11:58:34 +0000

The abyss of mediocrity looks into the eyes of the optimist and declares: "mediocrity always wins."

The optimist, realizing the truth of the assertion, stares back into the abyss and says: "that's an excellent record."

The optimist cracks a little smile. Mediocrity shrugs.

Peer Review - I

nospam@example.com (John R) — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 11:47:16 +0000

Any claim that asserts credibility based on peer review, should be held to the same level of trustworthiness as claims made by cheerleaders in support of their team.

Learning Is Ubiquitous

nospam@example.com (John R) — Fri, 04 Nov 2016 12:05:00 +0000

From the book:

“On a hot summer day a dog relieves itself on the lawn outside Pavlov's lab. In a few days, all but the hardiest blades of grass have turned brown and died. Learning has occurred in Pavlov's lawn. The dogs have their revenge.”

Hint On!

nospam@example.com (John R) — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 12:08:00 +0000

Hint On!

You coulda
You shoulda
but you're vinegar and woulda

You slept through it.
Didn't get to it
Now you're stealing all your self esteem

from real creative men.

—a poem by John Repici. (with help from Chuck Lorre)

. . . jes' havin' some fun.

Long-Term Vs Short-Term - Yet Another Explanatory Device

nospam@example.com (John R) — Mon, 02 May 2016 17:36:00 +0000

Long-term memory vs short-term memory:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Over the short-term: might-makes-right
Over the long-term: right-makes-might

Consciousness: If It's Easy, You May Be Doing It Wrong.

nospam@example.com (John R) — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 12:30:00 +0000

There have been many studies and articles like these lately:

This (imo) is why every good scientist should take the time to read and understand a little bit of philosophy.

May I suggest Chalmers, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness.

Semantically, as described by Chalmers in this paper, it is helpful to understand that there are many connotations, or types, of consciousness. First and foremost, there is phenomenological (a.k.a. "hard problem") consciousness. This is the one we all have a front row seat to, but have not been able to describe in a non-subjective way.

There are other types of consciousness as well. These are what Chalmers refers to as the "easy problem" forms of consciousness. These are the ones that often trip us up when talking about consciousness. Chalmers lists some examples of these:

the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli;
the integration of information by a cognitive system;
the reportability of mental states;
the ability of a system to access its own internal states;
the focus of attention;
the deliberate control of behavior;
the difference between wakefulness and sleep.

Reading philosophy doesn't make one any less of a scientist. After all, science is —itself— a philosophy.

Revolutionary. . .

nospam@example.com (John R) — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 12:22:00 +0000

New revolutionary model theorizes that brains use efferent (i.e., "top down") signalling to help filter and interpret incoming stimuli.

Marvin Gaye's family have their people looking into it.

Computer Model Developed to Explain how the Brain Learns to Categorize

Seems Plausible

nospam@example.com (John R) — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 23:03:00 +0000

New fMRI imaging reveals exactly what Pavlov's dogs were thinking during the experiments.

Phenomenal Consciousness vs AI -- Yet another explanatory device

nospam@example.com (John R) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 16:38:00 +0000

Developing an A.I. robot?:

Program it to cry when it detects something very bad or very good.

Developing a conscious robot?:

Program it to want to cry when it detects something very bad or very good.

^[top]

Sources and Resources

Related Background
- What is it like to be a bat?
  This classic discussion by Thomas Nagel is one of the best known "explanatory devices." It begins to move us away from Turing's flawed (but necessary, at the time) kludge for explaining what consciousness is.
- The Chinese Room
  A clarifying paper on the Chinese Room Argument, written by John Searle.
- [pdf] Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness
  This is an introductory level explanation of consciousness and where we are in dealing with the hard problem of explaining it. It is authored by one of the premier thinkers in the field David Chalmers
- Time In Three Parts, Temporality
- "Through Other Eyes" — A short story from a collection of short stories called Nine Hundred Grandmothers by R. A. Lafferty, 1970
  This is a fictional treatment of the concept of first person knowledge (see below).

Related Glossary Entries

AI - Time for a New Name?

nospam@example.com (John R) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:33:00 +0000

Linguists have recently discovered [1] that almost all words are metaphorical at their base, and some people (e.g., me) posit that they all are. Though speculative, it is at least conceivable that even the sub-language signaling in the brain, which eventually leads to language, is also metaphorical. Consider that the bell may become a metaphor for food in the mind of Pavlov's dog.

Language is also able to relate ambiguity about the concepts it conveys. The word “life,” for example, can mean life-biology, or life-consciousness. Up until now, it has been perfectly acceptable to use these two meanings interchangeably. There simply has never been an instance of consciousness that existed outside of a biological body — at least none that we could directly experience with our physical senses.

Things may be changing now. . .

Continue reading "AI - Time for a New Name?"