On Fri, 29 Jun 2007 20:48:43 -0400, "You Too"

<ut2_...@removeyahoo.com> wrote:

Well, I'm not right all of the time.

You misspelled "any"...
--

"O Sybilli, si ergo
Fortibus es in ero
O Nobili! Themis trux
Sivat sinem? Causen Dux"

On Jun 30, 3:25?am, someone2 <glenn.spig...@btinternet.com> wrote:

On Jun 30, 1:55 am, James Norris <JimNorri...@aol.com> wrote:

Design for a Conscious Mechanoid

[Just to deter the predictable 'define what you mean by conscious'
posting: 'Conscious' means 'aware of reality' - a human being is
conscious, but a piece of paper is not conscious. If there is still a
problem with understanding the word 'conscious', try using a
dictionary.]

Start off with millions of identical ordinary (non-conscious) robots.
Each robot is pre-programmed to collect things from the environment at
random (twigs, elastic bands, teadcups, wheels, orange peel etc), and
incorporate them into itself, gradually replacing all its original
component parts as it does so. Now let the robots free to interact
with the environment, and watch what happens.

Most of the robots would cease to function quite rapidly, of course.
They might replace one of their vital components (the computer
program, for example), with a piece of orange peel and immediately
stop working permanently. Some might continue to function for quite a
while, making meaningless minor alterations to their original
structure, without affecting their basic operation as a programmed
mechanical device, which we knew to be non-conscious. We can ignore
robots which have replaced themselves with biological material which
was already conscious, because that is obviously not what we are
interested in.

The robots we are interested in are those which manage to replace all
their constituent components, including their original computer
hardware and software, but are still functioning. They, like
ourselves, have been created out of material from the environment, so
they might be conscious, as we are.

A certain amount of complexity is required for consciousness, and this
could be provided, for example, by using the twigs to twang the
elastic bands - the vibrational properties of the elastic bands could
easily carry any complexity necessary for the occurrence of thought.
For that to happen by chance is extremely unlikely of course, as is
the likelihood of millions of monkeys randomly operating typewriters
producing the occasional Shakespeare sonnet by chance, but if you left
them long enough, they would eventually do it!

Consciousness is a subjective experience, so there is no way of
determining whether or not anything or anybody is conscious. In the
design above, the construction allows the possibility that
consciousness might occur in a device which was originally non-
conscious. The random self-modifying behaviour may have led to a
wheeled mechanism made out of orange peel, teacups and elastic bands
held together with bits of wood, with its understanding of reality
contained in the vibrational processes occurring in the twig-twanged
elastic bands, which wanders around in the natural environment
apparently decorating itself with the bits of garbage it picks up.
Perhaps the device has improved on its original design and is now
conscious? At any rate, it certainly wouldn't be less conscious than
it was to begin with.

James Norris

I read your thread. Was it a satirical portrayal of atheist
"reasoning"?

No, it was a design for a conscious entity, neither biological nor
computer-based.

I especially liked the bit:

"A certain amount of complexity is required for consciousness, and
this could be provided, for example, by using the twigs to twang the
elastic bands - the vibrational properties of the elastic bands could
easily carry any complexity necessary for the occurrence of thought."

You could imagine atheists setting themselves up as authorities on
which tunes played on a guitar gave rise to consciousness, and whether
one string, or all the strings, or the whole guitar had the
experiences. They could debate on to what extent they could
anthropomorphise the conscious experience a certain song gave.

The notion of vibrations carrying information was an example of how
the necessary complexity for 'thoughts' might arise in the mechanism.
I understand from your earlier postings that you believe that human
beings have a non-physical 'soul', so I'm not sure why you think my
suggestion is so laughable.

Though the part where you said, "consciousness is a subjective
experience, so there is no way of determining whether or not anything
or anybody is conscious", did illustrate that from an atheist
perspective there would be no experimental difference expected whether
something was or wasn't consciously experiencing, which is something a
few of them here are having problems coming to terms with.

I don't know why you pick on atheists in particular as having a
problem with the unverifiability of subjective experiences, but
anyway, perhaps many of us do - I personally don't.

Still, very amusing, assuming of course you weren't being serious, and
an absolute nutter.

An absolute nutter in your opinion might be someone who believed that
they had four souls, rather than just the one, I suppose.

The Design for a Conscious Mechanoid is quite serious - a hypothetical
example of how a constructed 'mechanical' (ie non-biological) being
might be conscious. I'm not suggesting that it would ever work in
reality, any more than that a million monkeys typing on a million
typewriters for a million years to produce the works of Shakespeare
would ever work in reality. The example draws attention to the
salient aspects of an interesting question. I'm glad you found it
amusing though. I always try to make my postings interesting and
memorable, and humour is a well-known didactic tool.

The problem with no experimental difference expected whether something
was or wasn't consciously experiencing, is that it means whether it
was or wasn't, couldn't be thought to influence behaviour. If that was
the case, it would have to be a coincidence that our behaviour
expressed the conscious experiences we actually have (it couldn't have
been influenced by their existance).

You are trying to discuss consciousness using behavioural concepts.
The behavioural understanding of the psyche has little to say about
consciousness - the brain reacts to external stimuli and produces
behaviour in the organism, which is studied to give an understanding
of the workings of the brain. Cognitive models of consciousness,
which you should look into as they might help you express your
argument, are inside-out compared to the behavioural viewpoint. The
'mind' (which is believed to exist because of processes occurring in
the brain) is considered as an Ego, with Superego, Id and various
other paraphernalia, and these all contribute to goal-directed
behaviour caused by subjective 'needs' which the conscious being tries
to satisfy.

Anyway, interesting post. So have you any thoughts on which tunes
played on a guitar might be give rise to, the string(s) or the guitar
thinking? Any thoughts on what those thoughts might be? I ask you, as
I guess you would be the closest thing to a world authority on the
concept, or have you got competition?

No, you haven't really grasped the point about the vibrations in the
example. I was just pointing out that a certain amount of complexity
is required for consciousness, so complexity is needed somewhere in
the mechanoid. Vibrating systems can contain information of arbitrary
complexity - they don't have to be made out of physical elastic
bands. Vibrations occur in strings in general, these could be the
theoretical strings of string-theory, or hair-like cilia made from
millions of tiny pinheads all oscillating in a plasma field, if you
think elastic bands are too primitive a device to be worth
considering. Some people think that Mobius strips are weirdly clever
- perhaps if millions of elastic bands were Mobius strips interacting
in a complex 3-d lattice, with carefully placed twigs and twiglets to
provide the necessary resonance and feedback effects, it would be
rather more likely to have the necessary complexity for conscious
awareness of reality, than using just the one guitar string that you
suggest?