[FRIAM] Is consciousness a mystery? (used to be "mystery...deeper".T

Thu Jul 11 12:55:32 EDT 2024

I missed most of this (and related) threads but am surprised at where this
seems to be going. I always associated consciousness with subjective
experience and not necessarily with self awareness. The "hard problem of
consciousness" is qualia, not self-awareness. No? An AI agent cannot
understand language on anything other than a superficial basis because it
has no idea what, for example "wet," means. Nevertheless, it will be quite
good at stringing words together that say coherent things about wetness. An
AI agent has no *idea *about anything. At the same time, an AI agent will
be quite good at creating coherent statements about very many things. Just
because an AI agent is able to create coherent statements does not mean
that those statements reflect the agent's ideas--since it has no ideas.

-- Russ Abbott
Professor Emeritus, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

On Thu, Jul 11, 2024 at 9:30 AM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Glen,
>
> This is a test to illustrate somethiing about Gmail to Nick.
>
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2024 at 4:37 PM glen <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347215003085
>>
>>
>>
>> On July 9, 2024 2:04:29 PM PDT, Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Maybe I should not be replying, as I do believe my dogs (and your cat if
>>> you have one) are conscious.
>>>
>>> I have not experienced a Vulcan Mind-Meld with either of my dogs, so I
>>> cannot say with certainty they are conscious—I must infer it from
>>> observations:
>>> 1- interactions with other dogs would seem to indicate they "remember"
>>> past interactions and do not require the same butt-sniffing protocol with
>>> dogs they have met at the park frequently. Also they seem to remember who
>>> plays with who and who doesn't. "That ball is not mine, this one is."
>>> 2-they modify their behavior depending on the tenor, sharpness, and
>>> volume of barks, ear positions, tail wagging differences, by the other
>>> dogs; e.g., "that's enough."
>>> 3-They do not communicate to me in English, but seem to accept
>>> communication from me in that language—not trained responses to commands,
>>> but "listening to conversations" between myself and Mary and reacting to
>>> words (e.g., dog park) that are exchanged in those conversations. Mary and
>>> I are totally sedentary and speaking in conversational tone, so pretty sure
>>> there we are not sending 'signals' akin to training words, training tone of
>>> voice.
>>> 4-they seem to remember trauma, (one of our dogs spent three days with
>>> dead owner before anyone knew the owner was deceased and will bite if
>>> anyone tries to forcefully remove him from my (current bonded owner)
>>> presence.
>>> 5-seek "psychological comfort" by crawling into my bed and sleeping on
>>> my shoulder when the thunderstorm comes.
>>>
>>> *All of these are grounded in anthropomorphism—long considered a deadly
>>> error by ethologists.* (Some contemporary ethologists are exploring
>>> accepting and leveraging this "error" to extend our understanding of animal
>>> behavior.)
>>>
>>> davew
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jul 9, 2024, at 2:54 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>>>
>>> While I find all the  ancillary considerations raised on the original
>>> thread extremely interesting,  I would like to reopen the discussion of
>>> Conscious as a Mystery and ask that those that join it stay close to the
>>> question of what consciousness is and how we know it when we see it.  Baby
>>> Steps.
>>>
>>> Where were we?   I think I was asking Jochen, and perhaps Peitr and
>>> anybody else who thought that animals were not conscious (i.e., not aware
>>> of their own awareness)  what basis they had in experience for thinking
>>> that..  One offering for such an experience is the absence of language in
>>> animals.  Because my cat cannot  describe his experience in words, he
>>> cannot be  conscious.  This requires the following syllogism:
>>>
>>> Nothing that does not employ a language (or two?) is conscious.
>>> Animals (with ;the possible exception of signing apes) do not employ
>>> languages.
>>> Ergo, Animals are not conscious.
>>>
>>> But I was trying to find out the basis for the first premise.  How do we
>>> know that there are no non-linguistic beings that are not conscious.  I
>>> hope we could rule out the answer,"because they are non-linguistic",  both
>>> in its strictly  tautological or merely circular form.
>>>
>>> There is a closely related syllogism which we also need to explore:
>>>
>>> All language using beings are conscious.
>>> George Peter Tremblay IV is a language-using being.
>>> George Peter Tremblay IV is conscious.
>>>
>>> Both are valid syllogisms.  But where do the premises come from.
>>>
>>> Nick
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>
>
> --
> Frank Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 505 670-9918
>
> Research:  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
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