Weird Science: The Ghost in the Machine

[Ack]

Then maybe existence is an open system?

If I use Newtonian physics I can accurately predict what will happen when I kick a ball. I can know the trajectory, velocity, the landing point, when it will roll to a stop, etc. However, when I kick a human, things become much more unpredictable. Will they cry? Will they laugh? Will they turn around and kick my ass? It becomes much more probabilistic than deterministic. Maybe there is a degree of determinism, but its boundaries are more fuzzy.

If we lived in a closed system, then everything would dissolve into the entropy of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, but then why, as one professor used to ask me, are there no Toyota mines? These incredibly complex machines didn't exist in the past, and don't seem to be getting simpler, in fact increasing complexity seems to be readily observable in human society. How are we not just fading away in entropy? Maybe the entropy of closed systems doesn't apply to us because we actually live in an open system.

Or we live in a system so large that it only appears to be an open system, as far as we can understand based upon our cognitive limits.

If you kick someone, he may laugh, cry, fight you, complain, etc. Yes, the results may seem almost random, but the truth is that the reaction you get will be based on several factors: upbringing, current events in the individual's life, physical stature and prior physical training, tolerance toward pain, current level of fatigue, emotional level, perhaps even factors such as weather, time of year, time of day, etc. While it may be more data points than you can potentially consider, it isn't necessarily an infinite number of data points.

Now is it possible that there are elements which break this? Yes. Random number generators could break such a chain, if they are truly random. Random behavior in quantum particles, if they are truly random as well. Anything that can randomize those data points and make even a single factor unpredictable will disrupt a closed system and potentially lead to radically different results.

[MrPopo]

If we lived in a closed system, then everything would dissolve into the entropy of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, but then why, as one professor used to ask me, are there no Toyota mines? These incredibly complex machines didn't exist in the past, and don't seem to be getting simpler, in fact increasing complexity seems to be readily observable in human society. How are we not just fading away in entropy? Maybe the entropy of closed systems doesn't apply to us because we actually live in an open system.

This is a misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy in a closed system goes up over time. However, that does not preclude localized decrease of entropy in the system. In order to build a car there is a ton of energy expended to refine the metal, shape it, put it together, and that's where you get the increase in total entropy.

[Key-Glyph]

This is another reminder that I need to continue reading Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. I just haven't had the proper amount of time of effort to put into it yet. It's a book from 1979 about intelligence, memory, and machines that is apparently famous, but that I hadn't heard of until a few years back.

What I liked about Hofstadter's theory about sentience is the concept that it's a sliding scale, not a boolean yes/no situation, and that he related it to a thing's ability to self-reflect. If I understood the first chapter or so correctly, he was claiming that the more something can self-reflect in self-referencing loops, the more "aware" it is, and that he believed the only reason why machines have not begun rivaling the human brain is simply because we haven't been able to build a computer complex enough to handle a human's share of loops.

I can't find the quotation at the moment, but along those lines, Hofstadter proposed that the belief that the organic brain has some kind of magic faculty unattainable by hardware and software was a form of "biological chauvinism."

Again, I only read a few chapters, so this is all a gross generalization of a much deeper theory.

I personally am not bothered by the idea that I am running on programming, but I'm also aware that this is also because I fit well enough into society. When you start thinking about what the "programming" angle means for folks who were born, or later afflicted with, serious issues, things get really difficult from a societal point of view. If we come to believe that no one can truly help what they do, the entire concept of justice falls apart -- and humans put a lot of stock in that. It also starts leading into the territory of "Well, if that person doesn't behave the way society has predetermined is correct, let's just condition them otherwise," which gets creepy very quickly.

[J T]

Bah, more of my writings were deleted by the boards recent weirdness.

The central question I posed that was deleted was... if you create an accurate computer model of the brain, does that digital neural network then have consciousness? In other words, if we accept that the mind and body are not truly separate, and if the 'mind' is an emergent property of our neural networks activities, does this mean that a digital brain could have a "spirit"?

There is a huge NIH funded project called The B.R.A.I.N. Initiative whose aim is essentially to recreate a map or working model of every neuron in the human brain, so that they can better understand how the human brain works. If they achieve this, will it be a living, sentient organism on hard drives?

There is also the Google Brain project, which is getting better and better at programming machines that can learn. Might this one day lead to sentient A.I., possibly even one that can become smarter than us?

[Nemoide]

I personally don't find the subject of computer-based consciousness/artificial intelligence interesting. This is mostly because I'm unaware of anything seriously interesting coming as a result of it and I predict a future in which computers capable of running such programs are in short supply. The energy that allowed computers to become as widespread as they have become is based in nonrenewable resources. Some of those resources have peaked and others will peak in the future... either way it means trends cannot continue as they have been forever. It may be possible, but I think it's a dead end.

Artificial intelligence aside, I generally find the notion of discarnate consciousness to be extremely interesting. To use an example I once read in a periodical called Abraxas Journal, there is something called the "Library Angel" which guides readers to titles that are exactly what they need but were previously completely unaware of. Another example might be profound works of art and literature which the human author disavows authorship and instead credits a non-human consciousness. An example of this might be when Hesiod was visited by the Muses, which inspired Theogony.
Another type of discarnate consciousness popular among is an egregore, which typically something a group of people think of as conscious and over time it theoretically transcends that group and behave on its own. To get REALLY controversial, one can ascribe distinct consciousness to the huge variety of deities, spirits, angels, etc that have existed throughout human history. If someone is used to working with chi/nwyfre/orgone/astral light, one might be inclined to associate it with life. In which case even stones and streams could be classified as having a consciousness.
I don't know if any of these consciousnesses are really real (in the Rene Descartes-philosophical sense), but they certainly seem to have a history of people treating them as such and I'll acknowledge the possibility.
This then makes me wonder about AI. Perhaps "machine consciousness" is not necessarily "creating a program that can talk like a person" but something profoundly DIFFERENT. Taking a pantheistic attitude, one could say that the earliest analog computers had a consciousness. Or the raw materials from which they were made... the copper slumbering in veins below the surface until it is mined and processed and shaped into electrical wiring...

For me all these thoughts just represent models of observing the world that may or may not have any definite philosophical validity. (I'm too agnostic for anything else.)

[Key-Glyph]

The central question I posed that was deleted was... if you create an accurate computer model of the brain, does that digital neural network then have consciousness?

Yes. It's sentient. In my opinion.

I'm going to assume most people will disagree with that idea because I think most people believe in souls -- or "spirit," as you put it. I don't believe in souls, so I don't see a fundamental difference that makes humans drastically dissimilar from "lower animals," or a difference that would disqualify a thinking machine from being considered conscious. I think your brain is what makes you "you" (regardless of what materials or degree of complexity it's made of), not a spiritual essence lying underneath that.

Discussing this can get confusing because some people equate the terms "sentient" and "alive," and some people don't. Along these lines, something that I love about The Doctor, the Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) in Stak Trek: Voyager, is that his only interest in becoming biologically alive stems from his belief that it will make him more accepted among the biological beings he has befriended. He doesn't feel he needs to become flesh and blood to become "truly alive," like thinking robots often do in other sci-fi stories. He's confident in the fact that he's an individual with a consciousness who deserves respect and care as a fellow being, and he focuses on developing his skills, experiences, and identity through his unique lens of holographic existence.

When robots in sci-fi stories yearn to be human in order to be "fully alive" for no discernible reason, I find it both funny and odd. The only reason for the robot in a story to think that, in my opinion, is because the writers' subconscious assumption that only biological beings can have souls is being projected onto their character. Whenever conscious computers angst over the supposed existential horror not being classified as an organism, I want to shake them and say, "No! You're fine just the way you are!"

Now, if a computer straight-up said, "I want to be a human so I can experience the world in that way," or even, "I have concluded that humans have souls, and have decided I want one," that would be believable in a story. This is why Data from Star Trek: Next Generation works for me. He's just obsessed with becoming more human, period. It's his hobby, his research, his biggest curiosity. That's legitimate -- although I admit I too often want to shake him and say, "You're fine just the way you are!"

I was going to write a thing about how this is related to why I loved the early Borg stuff and then liked them less and less as time went on, but this is already too long. I'm going to stop here.

[MrPopo]

Speaking of, Chappie comes out this weekend.

[J T]

Nemoide, you might be interested to know that there is an up-and-coming theory in physics and neuroscience that suggests that consciousness is a state of matter, similar to how matter can be solid, liquid, or gas. Just as there are many kinds of liquids, according to this theory, there could also be many kinds of consciousness.

"Consciousness as a State Matter" by Max Tegmark
http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.1219

When robots in sci-fi stories yearn to be human in order to be "fully alive" for no discernible reason, I find it both funny and odd. The only reason for the robot in a story to think that, in my opinion, is because the writers' subconscious assumption that only biological beings can have souls is being projected onto their character.

I have heard some describe this tendency to assume consciousness can only be like ours as a form of biological chauvinism. I think it's akin to the ancient thinking that the Earth was the center of the universe. We see humans as being of prime importance, so we want to imagine ourselves in the center with the sun rotating around us, not the other way around. In reality, not even our sun is the center of the universe, just our solar system. Likewise, we want to believe there is something so special about our biology that human life should be the standard against which all other forms of consciousness are measured. It's possible that our machines will one day 'wake up' and it might be a very different manifestation of consciousness than we can even imagine.

[Nemoide]

I'm going to assume most people will disagree with that idea because I think most people believe in souls -- or "spirit," as you put it. I don't believe in souls, so I don't see a fundamental difference that makes humans drastically dissimilar from "lower animals," or a difference that would disqualify a thinking machine from being considered conscious. I think your brain is what makes you "you" (regardless of what materials or degree of complexity it's made of), not a spiritual essence lying underneath that.

Assuming that consciousness is strictly the domain of the brain, how can "brain" be defined as non-biological? The operation of an organ is pretty different from the operation of an electronic device. I'm also hesitant to declare brainless lifeforms (eg. jellyfish, starfish, clams) as completely devoid of consciousness.
I think "soul" or "spirit" can be a useful term in certain contexts. I like that the word "psychology" because it refers to the "study of the soul" and the discipline typically encompasses more than either just the conscious mind or just chemical/biological responses to stimuli.

Nemoide, you might be interested to know that there is an up-and-coming theory in physics and neuroscience that suggests that consciousness is a state of matter, similar to how matter can be solid, liquid, or gas. Just as there are many kinds of liquids, according to this theory, there could also be many kinds of consciousness.

"Consciousness as a State Matter" by Max Tegmark
http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.1219

It's an interesting premise although my PROFOUNDLY limited knowledge of physics makes most of that paper go right over my head! Still, I'll be curious if the idea is built upon in the future.

I have heard some describe this tendency to assume consciousness can only be like ours as a form of biological chauvinism. I think it's akin to the ancient thinking that the Earth was the center of the universe. We see humans as being of prime importance, so we want to imagine ourselves in the center with the sun rotating around us, not the other way around.

This is tangential but, because I read a decent amount of early-Renaissance-era-and-earlier stuff, I want to defend those ancient thinkers from an inaccurate representation. In most western thought, the Earth, while being the center, was also seen as being the absolute "bottom" and only a step above chaos and hell - the celestial spheres were thought of as being a lot better, being closer to the divine. It's still an inaccurate representation of the solar system but the reasoning was *not* people making the assumption that the Earth is just SO GREAT that it must be the center. Instead I believe that it was mostly a result of the Earth being the only viewpoint available to people! The Ptolemaic system worked well enough for most people.

This blog-post by a Druid writer I'm a fan of is pretty relevant. The themes of biophobia and noophobia could be pretty easily linked to "biological chauvinism."

[J T]

Fair enough Nemoide. I was thinking largely of the eventual controversy between the Catholic church and the Copernican idea of heliocentrism, which challenged the Ptolemaic idea of geocentrism. I'm not a history expert though, so you're probably right that I have not accurately represented the thinking of people in that time period.