[FRIAM] The Possibility of Self Knowledgke

Mon Nov 8 11:41:45 EST 2021

Nick,

I have an image of a beautiful church in my mind.  I see many details.
What church is it?

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Mon, Nov 8, 2021, 7:40 AM Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Something like what Nick said. Of course people know things about
> themselves (in the casual sense of "know") - or - of course people have
> self-awareness (if you prefer that phrasing). The only thing to reject is
> the suggestion that people magically have infallible / unquestionable
> knowledge about themselves. That's part of generally rejecting that the
> world is magical. (Title of my eventual pop-culture book: Psychology
> without Magic.)
>
> That we most people don't tend to question people's claims about
> themselves is a social convention, not a fact about the nature of
> knowledge. Sometimes that social convention is very helpful, and other
> times it causes big problems.
>
> Why are we talking about this again? Something about computers?
>
> Ok... so... I run the diagnostic that checks my hard drive for bad
> sectors. The report comes back that sectors 101-103 are bad. Does that
> guarantee those sectors are bad? No. It's a pretty damn reliable indicator,
> but there's no guarantee it's perfect.  Maybe some birst of
> electromagneticness hit the right part of the motherboard at the right
> nanosecond to screw up the diagnostic. Maybe someone hacked the diagnostic
> program, and put in a routine that reports back 101-103 are bad every time.
> Maybe those sectors registered as bad during the diagnostic, but it was due
> to a ridiculously minor flaw in a ball bearing, and next time the
> diagnostic is run two completely different sectors will come back as
> problematic. No matter which of these options is the case, the computer
> blocks off those sectors, and will never write to them in the future. Is
> that "self-knowledge"? Is it equivalent to someone who decides "I am bad at
> tennis" after one bad experience and never tries it again?
>
> Why are we talking about this?
>
>
> <echarles at american.edu>
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 8, 2021 at 12:33 AM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Eric inter alia,
>>
>>
>>
>> The position I have taken concerning self knowledge is that all knowledge
>> is of the form of inferences made from evidence.  To the extent that some
>> sources of knowledge may lead to better inferences-- may better prepare the
>> organism for what follows--  some may be more privileged than others, but
>> that privilege needs to be demonstrated.  Being in the same body as the
>> knowing system does not grant  the  knowing system any *a priori*
>> privilege.  If you have followed me so far, then a self-knowing system is
>> using sensors to infer (fallibly) the state of itself.  So if Glen and
>> Marcus concede that this is the only knowledge we ever get about anything,
>> than I will eagerly concede that this is “self-knowledge”.  It’s only if
>> you claim that self-knowing is of a different character than other-knowing,
>> that we need to bicker further.  I stipulate that my point is trivial, but
>> not that it’s false.
>>
>>
>>
>> I have cc’d bits of the thread in below in case you all have forgotten.
>> I could not find any contribution from Eric in this subject within the
>> thread, although he did have something to say about poker, hence I am
>> rethreading.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick .
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick Thompson
>>
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>> 18
>>
>> uǝlƃ ☤>$ via <https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1311182?hl=en>
>> redfish.com
>>
>> Nov 1, 2021, 4:20 PM (6 days ago)
>>
>>
>>
>> to friam
>>
>> Literal self-awareness is possible. The flaw in your argument is that
>> "self" is ambiguous in the way you're using it. It's not ambiguous in the
>> way me or Marcus intend it. You can see this nicely if you elide "know"
>> from your argument.  We know nothing. The machine knows nothing. Just don't
>> use the word "know" or the concept it references.  There need not be a
>> model involved, either, only sensors and things to be sensed.
>>
>> Self-sensing means there is a feedback loop between the sensor and the
>> thing it senses. So, the sensor measures the sensed and the sensed measures
>> the sensor. That is self-awareness. There's no need for any of the
>> psychological hooha you often object to. There's no need for privileged
>> information *except* that there has to be a loop. If anything is
>> privileged, it's the causal loop.
>>
>> The real trick is composing multiple self-self loops into something
>> resembling what we call a conscious agent. We can get to the uncanny valley
>> with regular old self-sensing control theory and robotics. Getting beyond
>> the valley is difficult: https://youtu.be/D8_VmWWRJgE A similar
>> demonstration is here: https://youtu.be/7ncDPoa_n-8
>>
>> Attachments area
>>
>> Preview YouTube video Realistic and Interactive Robot Gaze
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8_VmWWRJgE&authuser=0>
>>
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8_VmWWRJgE&authuser=0>
>>
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8_VmWWRJgE&authuser=0>
>>
>>
>>
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8_VmWWRJgE&authuser=0>
>>
>> Preview YouTube video Mark Tilden explaining Walkman (VBug1.5) at the
>> 1995 BEAM Robot Games
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ncDPoa_n-8&authuser=0>
>>
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ncDPoa_n-8&authuser=0>
>>
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ncDPoa_n-8&authuser=0>
>>
>>
>>
>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ncDPoa_n-8&authuser=0>
>>
>>
>>
>> Marcus Daniels via <https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1311182?hl=en>
>>  redfish.com
>>
>> Nov 2, 2021, 8:37 AM (5 days ago)
>>
>>
>>
>> to The
>>
>> My point was that the cost to probe some memory address is low.   And all
>> there is, is I/O and memory.
>>
>>  It does become difficult to track thousands of addresses at once:  Think
>> of a debugger that has millions of watchpoints.   However, one could have
>> diagnostics compiled in to the code to check invariants from time to time.
>>  I don't know why Nick says there is no privilege.   There can be complete
>> privilege.   Extracting meaning from that access is rarely easy, of
>> course.  Just as debugging any given problem can be hard.
>>
>> uǝlƃ ☤>$ via <https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1311182?hl=en>
>> redfish.com
>>
>> Nov 2, 2021, 9:06 AM (5 days ago)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> to friam
>>
>> Well, I could be wrong. But both Nick and EricC seem to argue there's no
>> privilege "in the limit" ... i.e. with infeasibly extensible resources,
>> perfect observability, etc. It's just a reactionary position against those
>> who believe in souls or a cartesian cut. Ignore it. >8^D
>>
>> But I don't think there can be *complete* privilege. Every time we think
>> we come up with a way to keep the black hats out, they either find a way in
>> ... or find a way to infer what's happening like with power or audio
>> profiles.
>>
>> I don't think anyone's arguing that peeks are expensive. The argument
>> centers around the impact of that peek, how it's used. Your idea of
>> compiling in diagnostics would submit to Nick's allegation of a *model*. I
>> would argue we need even lower level self-organization. I vacillate between
>> thinking digital computers could [not] be conscious because of this
>> argument; the feedback loops may have to be very close to the metal, like
>> fpga close. Maybe consciousness has to be analog in order to realize
>> meta-programming at all scales?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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