Getting from cause effect to awareness

[idav]

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?

With awareness there are chain reactions of cause and effect. Lets take a plant for example, it moves with the sunlight and I find that remarkable and I believe it shows awareness. If we never moved but our hand moved following the warmth of the sun that is the same thing. It doesnt take an extremely complex process. Some argue that plants only exhibit chemical reactions but it is alive with cells and dna like us and we work in very similar ways via chemical reactions. Our brains our simply detecting physical changes in our biological system which we experience as sensory.

 

[idav]

What the rock is missing is any chain reaction or detection so it is no cause for alarm. Although no atoms are inanimate and even a rock is packed with life and energy. All matter could have the potential to be part of something more than simple cause and effect

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

The brain doesnt start with a blank slate so it doesnt make sense to start a robot off with no programming.

There is all the difference in the world between not having a blank slate and being programmed. The brain isn't a computer. The differences are so vast any similarities are undercut by them.
“no formal system is able to generate anything even remotely mind-like. The asymmetry between the brain and the computer is complete, all comparisons are flawed, and the idea of a computer-generated consciousness is nonsense.”
Torey, Z. (2009). The crucible of consciousness: An integrated theory of mind and brain. MIT press.

"The biological “hardware” on which the brain is based is extremely slow. A typical interval between the spikes of an individual neuron is about 50 ms and the time needed to propagate a signal from one neuron to another is not much shorter than such an interval. This corresponds to a characteristic frequency of merely 100 Hz. Recalling that modern digital computers should operate at a frequency of 10^9 Hz and yet are not able to reproduce its main functions, we are lead to conclude that the brain should work in a way fundamentally different from digital information processing." (emphasis added)

Manrubia et al. (2004). Emergence of Dynamical Order : Synchronization Phenomena in Complex Systems. World Scientific Publishing Co., p 312

"Why would the mind work like a computer? This book is aimed—like some other recent books (e.g., Kelso, 1995; Port & van Gelder, 1995; see also Fodor, 2000)—at responding to that question with the following answer: “It doesn’t.”"

Spivey, M. (2007). The continuity of mind. New York: Oxford University Press.

How much awareness does a brain have without outside stimuli?

Kind of a leading question. Awareness is defined by being conscious of one's environment.

but even a human brain doesnt process meaning right away without learning about the environment first.

The difference is that computers are not capable of processing meaning or learning it.

 

[Looncall]

What the rock is missing is any chain reaction or detection so it is no cause for alarm. Although no atoms are inanimate and even a rock is packed with life and energy. All matter could have the potential to be part of something more than simple cause and effect

Please define life. I do not see any way that word can be meaningfully applied to a rock. You must be using it in some unusual way.

Ditto for atoms.

 

[idav]

Kind of a leading question. Awareness is defined by being conscious of one's environment.


The difference is that computers are not capable of processing meaning or learning it.

Those differences dont solve the issue of awareness. How is the brain something more than information processing. Wheres the "soul" at.

There are already super computers that can process meaning. Computers will be fundamentally different but will get the results much more efficiently.

 

[idav]

Please define life. I do not see any way that word can be meaningfully applied to a rock. You must be using it in some unusual way.

Ditto for atoms.

I used the term loosely. I meant animate, in that all matter is animate in the micro scale.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Those differences dont solve the issue of awareness.

They help. Trying to understand the brain as a computer gets us nowhere and has impeded progress for decades.

How is the brain something more than information processing

Because it does more than process. You feed processors data and they give specified output that they are not aware of and they cannot change the way they process. Slugs, snails, plants, computers, calculators, ants, cells, all process information. Computers do so according to highly specific and necessarily determined rules. Living systems as a rule do not, but many are still more or less information processors. Brains are not, or at least they are not only this (they certainly process information).

Wheres the "soul" at.

McDonalds.

There are already super computers that can process meaning.

There aren't and we aren't even close to any that can.

 

[Me Myself]

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.

That we know of.

 

[Me Myself]

With awareness there are chain reactions of cause and effect. Lets take a plant for example, it moves with the sunlight and I find that remarkable and I believe it shows awareness. If we never moved but our hand moved following the warmth of the sun that is the same thing. It doesnt take an extremely complex process. Some argue that plants only exhibit chemical reactions but it is alive with cells and dna like us and we work in very similar ways via chemical reactions. Our brains our simply detecting physical changes in our biological system which we experience as sensory.

The rock can be directly affected by the enviroment. A rock breaking could very well be a way of a rock sensing an impact.

We know what we experience as sensory, but we can only guess if other ways of experiencing as sensory exist.

 

[PolyHedral]

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.

The only distinction there is that computers are not manfactured with programs built into their hardware.

 

[PolyHedral]

There is all the difference in the world between not having a blank slate and being programmed. The brain isn't a computer. The differences are so vast any similarities are undercut by them.
“no formal system is able to generate anything even remotely mind-like. The asymmetry between the brain and the computer is complete, all comparisons are flawed, and the idea of a computer-generated consciousness is nonsense.”
Torey, Z. (2009). The crucible of consciousness: An integrated theory of mind and brain. MIT press.

"The biological “hardware” on which the brain is based is extremely slow. A typical interval between the spikes of an individual neuron is about 50 ms and the time needed to propagate a signal from one neuron to another is not much shorter than such an interval. This corresponds to a characteristic frequency of merely 100 Hz. Recalling that modern digital computers should operate at a frequency of 10^9 Hz and yet are not able to reproduce its main functions, we are lead to conclude that the brain should work in a way fundamentally different from digital information processing." (emphasis added)

Manrubia et al. (2004). Emergence of Dynamical Order : Synchronization Phenomena in Complex Systems. World Scientific Publishing Co., p 312

"Why would the mind work like a computer? This book is aimed—like some other recent books (e.g., Kelso, 1995; Port & van Gelder, 1995; see also Fodor, 2000)—at responding to that question with the following answer: “It doesn’t.”"

Spivey, M. (2007). The continuity of mind. New York: Oxford University Press

I don't agree with any of that. The second one especially is drawing far too strong a conclusion from its argument.

 

[Sleeppy]

Consciousness results from the interactions within, and across the brain.. The flow of ignorance and information across the varying regions.

IMO.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I don't agree with any of that.

I know that. But the brain isn't a computer. It doesn't work like a computer, it differs fundamentally from an architectural/design point of view, and 60+ years of comparisons and trying to make the two more alike have always failed. One of the most cited works on neural networks is from the 40s. That's how much we've progressed- more of the same for 60+ years. Only the work that has really challenged the idea that brains and computers are comparable has really led to important strides. One of these was taking neural networks seriously, but ANNs quickly became more about algorithms and applications and as a result ANNs went the way of most computational intelligence work- used more for things other than models of brains or brain function. It is crucial to the way the brain works to understanding it not as hardware or software as there is no such distinction and comparing either to the brain is problematic at a fundamental level. Hardware does not re-write itself, and software is encoded by hardware. The distinction between them is central to computer sciences. The lack of such a distinction is central to brain functionality. Information is processed, encoded, decoded, acted on, and related by a constantly active set of patterns in billions of connections. There is nothing like computer "memory" because computers are built for permanent, safe storage- everything is represented nicely and neatly in various compartments. It's nothing like the brain. Nonlocal network connectivity is vital to conceptual processing but such network connectivity runs counter to everything computers are built to do.

 

[idav]

I know that. But the brain isn't a computer.

It doesnt need to be. Is the brain the only thing with any form of awareness.

It is crucial to the way the brain works to understanding it not as hardware or software as there is no such distinction and comparing either to the brain is problematic at a fundamental level. Hardware does not re-write itself, and software is encoded by hardware. The distinction between them is central to computer sciences. The lack of such a distinction is central to brain functionality. Information is processed, encoded, decoded, acted on, and related by a constantly active set of patterns in billions of connections. There is nothing like computer "memory" because computers are built for permanent, safe storage- everything is represented nicely and neatly in various compartments. It's nothing like the brain. Nonlocal network connectivity is vital to conceptual processing but such network connectivity runs counter to everything computers are built to do.

What is the problem with processing memory and such differently and more efficiently than brains? How does this address the awareness of the brain vs the robot? The consciousness of a human is obviously advanced, it is an emergence of a combination of many things and some of those things are shared with other species. Breaking it down into aspects of awareness and consciousness, machines are able to tap into some of those aspects but it doesn't solve whether a machine is capable of subjective experience. We cant even tell the level of awareness a plant has.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It doesnt need to be. Is the brain the only thing with any form of awareness.

If you define awareness as conscious knowledge of one's environment, yes. If you define awareness as the capacity to react to one's environment, no.

What is the problem with processing memory and such differently and more efficiently than brains?

There's no problem with it. Computers are great for cranking out numbers. They suck at learning and they are incapable of processing concepts, but they weren't built for that. They are very good at storing data and necessarily incapable of understanding it. Nothing beats the human brain at this because it is so connected and has no hardware/software distinction. It's all about one whishes something to be efficient at. Learning? Nothing beats brains. Calculating? Nothing beats computers.

How does this address the awareness of the brain vs the robot?

Consciousness requires conceptual processing. Concepts, however, are never singular and are always abstract. To understand the idea of tree requires understanding an abstract entity. Humans do this by representing "tree" in multiple patterns constantly active and changing in the brain. Turn this into a reliable, stable storage and you kill this ability.

We cant even tell the level of awareness a plant has.

We can. Easily. It's utterly and entirely non-conscious and completely reactionary. We can make computers react like plants.

 

[apophenia]

We can. Easily. It's utterly and entirely non-conscious and completely reactionary. We can make computers react like plants

Let's build it, and call it PROLETARIAC

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Let's build it, and call it PROLETARIAC

So long as it can be a mechanized, giant Venus flytrap that runs on plutonium and eats people who publish bad research

 

[PolyHedral]

I know that. But the brain isn't a computer. It doesn't work like a computer, it differs fundamentally from an architectural/design point of view, and 60+ years of comparisons and trying to make the two more alike have always failed. One of the most cited works on neural networks is from the 40s. That's how much we've progressed- more of the same for 60+ years.

Oi, misleading statistic. Older papers are going to be cited more by virtue of both being older, but also more basic.

Only the work that has really challenged the idea that brains and computers are comparable has really led to important strides. One of these was taking neural networks seriously, but ANNs quickly became more about algorithms and applications and as a result ANNs went the way of most computational intelligence work- used more for things other than models of brains or brain function.

Yes, this is both to be expected and very cool. It's a logical consequence of humans not being the only possible intelligence.

It is crucial to the way the brain works to understanding it not as hardware or software as there is no such distinction and comparing either to the brain is problematic at a fundamental level. Hardware does not re-write itself, and software is encoded by hardware. The distinction between them is central to computer sciences. The lack of such a distinction is central to brain functionality.

Psssst. FPGAs.

Whether or not hardware re-writes itself depends on what you mean by "hardware." On the most basic, mechanical level, the whole machine works by the hardware causing mechanical processes that leave the hardware in another state. (Hopefully one that's meaningful within the logic that the hardware is modelling.)

If we step up the abstraction a bit to include the notion of software, then the brain is strictly less flexible than a modern computer. The brain implements its ability to adapt and change its programming by hardware quirks and nanotechnology - however, I'm fairly sure that that adaptation is limited, leaving certain aspects of the mind invariant. (e.g. how we learn.) A modern computer, OTOH, can rewrite any aspect of its software into any configuration - all computers are universal, unlike the brain.

There's no distinction "central to computer science" here - the brain's software is implemented a level of abstraction down compared to a normal computer's. Unlike a normal computer's hardware, it retains the ability to be self-modifying, but that's not particularly surprising, given that the brain is built of von Neumann replicators.

Information is processed, encoded, decoded, acted on, and related by a constantly active set of patterns in billions of connections. There is nothing like computer "memory" because computers are built for permanent, safe storage- everything is represented nicely and neatly in various compartments. It's nothing like the brain.

How "permanent" do you mean? You can have computers that'll only store data so long as they have power. You can probably build hardware that'll store it as something "constantly active," although obviously nobody's bothered for lack of incentive.

Nonlocal network connectivity is vital to conceptual processing but such network connectivity runs counter to everything computers are built to do.

Have you looked at agent-based programming?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Oi, misleading statistic. Older papers are going to be cited more by virtue of both being older, but also more basic.

It's still cited. It's still the basic model of ANN learning. We've gotten better at more of the same.

Yes, this is both to be expected and very cool

It's very cool. Not expected. What was expected was something closer to human intelligence. Instead, we get slug learning.

It's a logical consequence of humans not being the only possible intelligence.

Mice are vastly smarter than our best computers.

Psssst. FPGAs.

Not remotely similar.

Whether or not hardware re-writes itself depends on what you mean by "hardware."

No, it doesn't.

On the most basic, mechanical level, the whole machine works by the hardware causing mechanical processes that leave the hardware in another state.

Part of it, yes. But these states are built in. They are not flexible and necessarily so.

If we step up the abstraction a bit to include the notion of software, then the brain is strictly less flexible than a modern computer.

This is so far from true it would be funny if you meant it as a joke. A neuron is more flexible than a modern computer. Computers are designed from the ground up to be rigid, neat, and compartmentalized. That's why they're such great calculators.

The brain implements its ability to adapt and change its programming by hardware

It doesn't and to think of it this way is incredibly misleading. The brain has no programming it "implements" and "it" can't change "it's hardware" because there is nothing in the brain but "it".

however, I'm fairly sure that that adaptation is limited, leaving certain aspects of the mind invariant. (e.g. how we learn.)

We learn through adaption. That's what ANNs try to imitate. Adaption.

A modern computer, OTOH, can rewrite any aspect of its software into any configuration - all computers are universal, unlike the brain.

All computers are universal because they are universally limited. They cannot implement any configuration because they are limited by a universal hardware set-up: a physical implementation of Boolean algebra. All software must be very strictly designed because computers are so incredibly limited. Mice learn faster and better.

There's no distinction "central to computer science" here

There is. Computers are finite state machines. They must have some permanent implementation that is compatible with a basic turing machine. Making the hardware "re-configurable" changes the entirety of computer science.

the brain's software is implemented a level of abstraction down compared to a normal computer's

It isn't. At all.

given that the brain is built of von Neumann replicators.

It isn't.

How "permanent" do you mean?

Memory is stored separately and compartmentalized until it is changed according to specific routines. The software/hardware separation is absolutely fundamental to data integrity. The brain doesn't have some special "memory" storage that remains until it is accessed. Memory and processing necessarily go hand-in-hand. This makes human memory less reliable but is essential for conceptual processing. It means memories are literally connected to constant thought processes as well as other memories (they are not ever completely distinct from either). That connectivity is vital to understanding. It's terrible for exact recall. There's a trade-off. When computers can't recall data it's because something went wrong.

You can probably build hardware that'll store it as something "constantly active,"

You can build it to delete data too. The point isn't that it is stored as active connections per se, but how it is. It is so vastly different than computers the comparison between the too is utterly flawed and continues, alas, to mislead.

Have you looked at agent-based programming?

Yes. It's not particularly impressive. I work a great deal with computational intelligence paradigms, soft computing, machine learning, etc. Some to understand the brain but often because these are key for high dimensional data analysis quite frequently as well as programming interactive surveys, tasks, etc. for studies.

 

[lunamoth]

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.

This sounds something like Process Theology: Process theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.