Getting from cause effect to awareness

[idav]

A similar problem occurs when determining if strong AI is possible. How do we get from atoms to awareness? We intuitively would reject the idea of a lego turing machine just needing complexity to become aware. Fundamentally awareness is due to cause and effect and our brains are simpy aware of the change in chemisry and other physical elements. That is how atoms are in a sense aware of the environment as the interactions become like footprints that can later be percieved. This would be how simple physics and chemistry can eventually evolve and emerge to complex biology and even sentience. I think memory is a key component of awareness and if the mark doesnt hold it is as if it never happened but doesnt mean the experience doesnt happen. We have all experienced the entire univverse just cant recall but we also gather clues as to wa happened which counts in our overall awareness of our environment. The universe just doing its thing but because of its fundamental properties also changing and learning in the process.

 

[PolyHedral]

Talking about this coherently requires paying very careful attention to your abstractions and how they relate to each other.

Awareness of our environment exists because we receive data from our environment, process it, react to it, and remember it.

In physical terms, what that means is that the environment affects the collection of atoms that is us in such a way that this causes the brain's atoms to encode what happened in a way that can be recalled later.

Individual atoms can't be aware, because they aren't sophisticated enough.

 

[idav]

Talking about this coherently requires paying very careful attention to your abstractions and how they relate to each other.

Awareness of our environment exists because we receive data from our environment, process it, react to it, and remember it.

In physical terms, what that means is that the environment affects the collection of atoms that is us in such a way that this causes the brain's atoms to encode what happened in a way that can be recalled later.

Individual atoms can't be aware, because they aren't sophisticated enough.

I agree atoms arent aware in a way that they are conscious l Iike humans. That is an emergent property but what makes it possible? Im suggesting that all matter can satisfy a crucial first step in the process you named. With any interaction a change has to occur to even make your first step of reading a change in the environment a possibility. Thus every "footprint" is a possible memory that can be read as something. Then a chain reaction of change and read is done from one atom to another which satisfies a processing of a change that occurred due to simpler interactions with the environment.

 

[Mycroft]

A similar problem occurs when determining if strong AI is possible.

I think AI is possible. However. It should be noted that any awareness it would seem to exhibit would only be a simulation of awareness. It wouldn't be true awareness.

 

[idav]

I think AI is possible. However. It should be noted that any awareness it would seem to exhibit would only be a simulation of awareness. It wouldn't be true awareness.

Why? I should think that if awareness is possible just from an atom as a building block then we should be able to do more than just simulate awareness. Afterall atoms arent aware?

 

[Mycroft]

Why? I should think that if awareness is possible just from an atom as a building block then we should be able to do more than just simulate awareness. Afterall atoms arent aware?

Well awareness is made up of many things. Some things are more aware of others by the range of sensory inputs they have. An AI could only sense heat, for example, if it was given a heat-sensor and the necessary programming to run the sensor. If you then took the sensor away, it would not longer be able to sense heat. It would not be able to 'see' without some sort of camera. Nor able to hear without a microphone and so on. So in that way an AI could only simulate awareness and never be truly 'aware' as it were.

 

[idav]

Well awareness is made up of many things. Some things are more aware of others by the range of sensory inputs they have. An AI could only sense heat, for example, if it was given a heat-sensor and the necessary programming to run the sensor. If you then took the sensor away, it would not longer be able to sense heat. It would not be able to 'see' without some sort of camera. Nor able to hear without a microphone and so on. So in that way an AI could only simulate awareness and never be truly 'aware' as it were.

Ok and we cant see without eyes and cant hear without ears. We too need sensory for our environment. Any sensory we add just gives a different way of percieving. Every object has multiple properties, height, weight, mass temperature etc. And each sense we have just gives more of the picture.

 

[Mycroft]

Ok and we cant see without eyes and cant hear without ears.

Not strictly true because we don't see with our eyes or hear with our ears. We see and hear with our brain. All eyes do is absorb light in various wavelengths and the brain does the rest. The ear simply picks up vibrations in the ear and the brain does the rest. We are now beginning to develop devices that restore sight and hearing on this principle.

We too need sensory for our environment. Any sensory we add just gives a different way of perceiving. Every object has multiple properties, height, weight, mass temperature etc. And each sense we have just gives more of the picture.

Correct. The difference really lies in associative memory. If you put an AI into a black box and it feels two walls. It would simply extrapolate that there are two obstacles at certain coordinates perpendicular to each other. That's it. But if you put a human into a box, and it felt two surfaces perpendicular to each other, our associative memory would automatically fill in the blanks and make us aware of being in a box.

 

[PolyHedral]

Not strictly true because we don't see with our eyes or hear with our ears. We see and hear with our brain. All eyes do is absorb light in various wavelengths and the brain does the rest. The ear simply picks up vibrations in the ear and the brain does the rest. We are now beginning to develop devices that restore sight and hearing on this principle.



Correct. The difference really lies in associative memory. If you put an AI into a black box and it feels two walls. It would simply extrapolate that there are two obstacles at certain coordinates perpendicular to each other. That's it. But if you put a human into a box, and it felt two surfaces perpendicular to each other, our associative memory would automatically fill in the blanks and make us aware of being in a box.

I'm not seeing the distinction you're talking about, beyond humans being better at inference than computers.

 

[idav]

Not strictly true because we don't see with our eyes or hear with our ears. We see and hear with our brain. All eyes do is absorb light in various wavelengths and the brain does the rest. The ear simply picks up vibrations in the ear and the brain does the rest. We are now beginning to develop devices that restore sight and hearing on this principle.



Correct. The difference really lies in associative memory. If you put an AI into a black box and it feels two walls. It would simply extrapolate that there are two obstacles at certain coordinates perpendicular to each other. That's it. But if you put a human into a box, and it felt two surfaces perpendicular to each other, our associative memory would automatically fill in the blanks and make us aware of being in a box.

Give the AI enough knowledge and experience then it wont have a problem referencing a box. Even to compare to a small child requires an enormous amount of experience and symbolic language referencing.

 

[Twilight Hue]

A similar problem occurs when determining if strong AI is possible. How do we get from atoms to awareness? We intuitively would reject the idea of a lego turing machine just needing complexity to become aware. Fundamentally awareness is due to cause and effect and our brains are simpy aware of the change in chemisry and other physical elements. That is how atoms are in a sense aware of the environment as the interactions become like footprints that can later be percieved. This would be how simple physics and chemistry can eventually evolve and emerge to complex biology and even sentience. I think memory is a key component of awareness and if the mark doesnt hold it is as if it never happened but doesnt mean the experience doesnt happen. We have all experienced the entire univverse just cant recall but we also gather clues as to wa happened which counts in our overall awareness of our environment. The universe just doing its thing but because of its fundamental properties also changing and learning in the process.

Keep in mind the awareness and sentience that we allude to will never be constant. We will lose everything that is ponfificated over completely as much as has been gained for the moment. I agree in that this is an emergent phenomenon brought about through interactions of molecular chemistry by way of atoms.

 

[Mycroft]

I'm not seeing the distinction you're talking about, beyond humans being better at inference than computers.

Yeah sorry. This is why I shouldn't post when I'm tired.

The distinction is thus: If a human being is born, it's brain can already begin to make associations without any encouragement from anyone or anything else.

An AI could not begin to make associations unless it was programmed to. In that way it's 'awareness' would only be a simulation.

 

[Mycroft]

Give the AI enough knowledge and experience then it wont have a problem referencing a box. Even to compare to a small child requires an enormous amount of experience and symbolic language referencing.

But that knowledge and experience would have to be programmed into it by someone. Where a human being would be able to make that association without any programming. Even if they had been born and never encountered a box, their brains would come up with labels for the box by itself where an AI would need a framework of programming to work from.

 

[idav]

But that knowledge and experience would have to be programmed into it by someone. Where a human being would be able to make that association without any programming. Even if they had been born and never encountered a box, their brains would come up with labels for the box by itself where an AI would need a framework of programming to work from.

That isn't fair since humans come preprogrammed via DNA and then their inborn instincts passed down from parents.

 

[s2a]

A similar problem occurs when determining if strong AI is possible. How do we get from atoms to awareness? We intuitively would reject the idea of a lego turing machine just needing complexity to become aware. Fundamentally awareness is due to cause and effect and our brains are simpy aware of the change in chemisry and other physical elements. That is how atoms are in a sense aware of the environment as the interactions become like footprints that can later be percieved. This would be how simple physics and chemistry can eventually evolve and emerge to complex biology and even sentience. I think memory is a key component of awareness and if the mark doesnt hold it is as if it never happened but doesnt mean the experience doesnt happen. We have all experienced the entire univverse just cant recall but we also gather clues as to wa happened which counts in our overall awareness of our environment. The universe just doing its thing but because of its fundamental properties also changing and learning in the process.

I confess that I have found this a most fascinating concept, and honestly, one we may yet have to confront most realistically even within my own lifetime.

No doubt you have read of an impending "singularity" of sorts, in which humans need decide whether to "pull the plug" upon AI capacities minutes before machines may actually become so vastly "intelligent" as to emulate humans in thinking, or worse (*gasp*), evolve to some higher order of compassion and awareness that surpasses our own...and then what?

The capacity to "think" is really just a mathematical equation of trillions of calculations in any given second of time, and we are now knowledgeable enough to calculate those numbers as very definition of "higher order" thinking.

And the "robots" are catching up, even faster than imagined.

What the canary in the coal mine warns of, re: "AI, " is not a potential mimicry of humanity as described by intellect and self-evaluations..., but instead an utterly unique and new, and terrifyingly incomprehensible "intelligence" that we may not only fail to recognize, but may also have no capacity to subjugate or control.

Within our own species, this "moment" occurs often enough...when we see that moment when our progeny are in fact are "smarter" than we are...

,,,but at least those superior qualities are managed and held in check by the life-long projections of experience, and the resident wisdom garnered by such events, regulated and kept in perspective by measures of success vs failure.

In one sense, perhaps the most valued one, our capacities to learn from our own failures/mistakes over many years of life, lend us our own unique insights in decision making as to how to act in moments of crisis or doubt or uncertainty in confrontation of future events.

But then consider the "AI", the intelligence that is so fast, so "smart", so "wise"...that may exhibit the collective abilities of wisdom/experience not over the course of 70 years, but in only one or two years.

An "artificial intelligence" that has the ability to "calculate" virtually all and any outcomes of any decision allowed to individualistic "choice"?. That quality defines how humans choose "leaders" to best chart a path to continued hope to a more prosperous and cherished "future".

Soon enough, machines will not only match our own human capacities as regards "intellect", but may even match or exceed anyone's exercise of "wisdom"...absent any of those added human attachments of greed, power, doubt, or vanity.

By then of course, it will be too late.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

And the "robots" are catching up, even faster than imagined

50 years ago, it was expected that robots would have caught up decades ago.

 

[Me Myself]

I believe awareness is all at is.

The problem is we are wired to just identify it from some patterns.

For example. We didnt know commma patients were aware until we knew how their brain responded to some stimuli. We didnt know because we couldnt see a response.

Are rocks aware? We dont see a response, but does that mean they are not aware? Hw would we recognise their patterns as to be aware or not? Do you need patterns for awareness?

The problem with this is that we have just assumed that if you seem to be aware of my and react to me on a social level then you are aware and if you dont, then you are not. This is arbitrary though.

How can we really know what is aware?

 

[Looncall]

I believe awareness is all at is.

The problem is we are wired to just identify it from some patterns.

For example. We didnt know commma patients were aware until we knew how their brain responded to some stimuli. We didnt know because we couldnt see a response.

Are rocks aware? We dont see a response, but does that mean they are not aware? Hw would we recognise their patterns as to be aware or not? Do you need patterns for awareness?


The problem with this is that we have just assumed that if you seem to be aware of my and react to me on a social level then you are aware and if you dont, then you are not. This is arbitrary though.

How can we really know what is aware?

By gaining some knowledge of how things work in the universe.

Talking of rocks being aware is poppycock. Rocks have nothing to be aware with.

 

[Mycroft]

That isn't fair since humans come preprogrammed via DNA and then their inborn instincts passed down from parents.

Quite so. And an AI must have such things programmed into it by a human, and therefore is merely the simulation of awareness.

 

[idav]

Quite so. And an AI must have such things programmed into it by a human, and therefore is merely the simulation of awareness.

Im not expecting robotos to procreate as that says little as to whether they are aware. For our purposes, receiving preprogrammed dna is the same as being programmed directly. The brain doesnt start with a blank slate so it doesnt make sense to start a robot off with no programming. How much awareness does a brain have without outside stimuli? A robot just needs to be able take in and process its environment with some sort of meaning, but even a human brain doesnt process meaning right away without learning about the environment first.