Borachio
Way past lunacy
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2012
- Messages
- 26,698
You may be right. But how would we know one way or another?
Is John human?
- Thread starter Zack
- Start date
You may be right. But how would we know one way or another?
I don't think it really matters, since there's no way (that I can think of) that they prevent the discontinuity in our consciousness anyway
warpus
In pork I trust
But our "consciousness" includes both the conscious part and the subconscious and probably a lot more. Doesn't it? It's probably a plethora of 'threads' doing computations - only one or a couple of them (or whatever) being the ones "we see through". When we sleep, the conscious ones might be disrupted, but there's a lot more going on there than just that.
Narz
keeping it real
They're entitled to their subjective opinions.
Sure, when we flit our consciousness back to a region that was doing subconscious processing, we get the new calculations incorporated into our thinking.
Midnight-Blue766
The filidh that cam frae Skye
John's a cyborg.
madviking
north american scum
well, uh, yea. it's also called philosophy.
aelf
Ashen One
Don't say that. AFAIK, Narz is allergic to that term.
Philosophy is often at odds with what people call "common sense." People who claim to be prophets of the latter tend not to like or understand philosophy. I think it's simply down to their inability to think beyond what personal experience has taught them.
Borachio
Way past lunacy
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2012
- Messages
- 26,698
Philosophy is certainly hard work, that's true. And the brain is very energy hungry, so maybe what you're witnessing when people say they don't like or understand philosophy is someone who isn't rich enough to afford the calories for it.
Spoiler :
Ayatollah So
the spoof'll set you free
Me too, but look how different that is from the usual and straightforward path to AI and robotics. When we design AI, we don't try to copy every feature of the human brain - only those which pay off in intelligent behavior. I suspect that the easier technological path to designing a human-like Data, is not to copy the brain. It's to develop a general purpose AI, then give it human-like goals and "personality" traits.
I suspect there will be a long time between human-like AI behavior which is driven by radically different "neural" architecture, vs. the arrival of truly human-style neural architecture in artificial devices. And by "a long time", I mean that the latter never happens.
Ayatollah So
the spoof'll set you free
That's true and, in the normal world, important. But in the sci-fi world, the death of "you" is not important - it's a mere technicality. In the sci-fi world, people will use broader concepts than your current concept of personal identity. And they'll get more of what they want as a result.
Well said.
warpus
In pork I trust
You're right. The reason is that evolution took billions of years to build our brains. When we look at them, it seems so chaotic.. So many neural connections, not many obvious patterns, and it all seems to somehow work? Order out of chaos is not easy to reproduce and make work. We can do it to an extent using things like neural nets, other AI methods, and evolutionary programming, but compared to the brain it's all very very rudimentary. You can't compare it.
It's far easier for us to design systems using ordered systems instead - data structures and algorithms - and to build up the system from the ground up not out of chaos but out of order. That's why most people stick to that approach, while for the most part only those experimenting with new techniques are using those other.. "stranger" approaches.
madviking
north american scum
Narz
keeping it real
And a trolly afternoon to you too.
It's a bit ironic that you claim I cannot think for yourself yet are offended that I don't buy into your favorite philosopher. Chrip. Aelf want a cracker?
Assuming that because someone doesn't agree with you means they don't understand your argument is arrogant & dumb.
Narz
keeping it real
The amount of time I could spend reading random rants & raves by eccentric Europeans who lived in scientific dark ages I could actually learn something real about the brain/human behavior, based on, you know, actual studies.
I understand there's probably some value to reading every esoteric philosopher's opinion about life & if my lifetime was 1,000 years maybe I'd devote six months to such an endeavor. I've read a bit of Plato & Aristotle (and read some psychology books that reference ancient philosophers & their various fallacies & occasional insights) & that's enough for me for now.
Narz
keeping it real
The idea that within our lifetimes we'll be able to recreate the human brain is absurdly optimistic. If we are even able to simulate the brain of a fruit fly or earthworm I'll be shocked.
I'd love to be wrong. It would be cool to converse with true AI, even customize my own but I don't see any realistic hope of that becoming a reality anytime soon.
aelf
Ashen One
I'm not trolling at all. I think it's patently true, and though you may be offended, I note that you offer no real rebuttal.
Sometimes, I don't understand someone's argument and I disagree with their position. That's no surprise, since I can disagree with someone's conclusions without necessarily having to understand all their arguments. And disagreeing doesn't mean I'm offended either. That you seem to fail to see this solidifies what I said in my previous post - you simply aren't used to thinking about things abstractly and outside of your personal/immediate experience. This isn't just you. A whole lot of people are like that too.
Narz
keeping it real
No rebuttal needed to a random barb with no substance.
If you carefully reread you can see I never said you were offended. Though clearly your feathers are ruffled otherwise why harp on not being offended?
Do you babble meritless insults at people in real life too or just online?
Maybe it's easier to think solely abstractly when you have no life whatsoever. Feel free to share.
Personally I think I judge reality based on a blend of personal experience, experiences of acquiantances & my reading. The fact that I don't share your library in particular speaks nothing as to my ablility to think abstractly. The fact that you'd just snottily accuse me of ignorance in a condesending manner is ironic & strange for a self proclaimed philosophy expert. Isn't one of the cardinal rules of philosophy to avoid ignorance? What you know about me is extremely limited so making sweeping generalizations about my character is pretty stupid, no?
aelf
Ashen One
You're quite right. Knowledge is obtained from experience, but the human mind is also capable of abstracting from pure experience alone. However, as you inadvertently suggested, I'm not entirely ignorant of your motivations - experience has taught me something about them. And it continues to teach me through this vehement post of yours.
madviking
north american scum
though it should be said that the importance of a priori and a posteriori knowledge varies wildly between different schools of thought. how this distinction plays into the topic, i don't know.
