X-Message-Number: 3807
From: 
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 12:58:08 -0500
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS self circuit etc.

Certainly I have not interpreted any of John Clark's posts as rude, even
though some of mine
may have sounded a bit testy. It's really mainly myself I become exasperated
with when the
point seems so clear and yet I can't put it across. (No doubt he feels the
same way--but one of
us is wrong.)

All right, let me try still again, in response specifically this time to Mr.
Clark's post #3800.
Perhaps it is worth the time if I can finally find some language formula for
getting past these
sticking points. 

1. In response to my suggestion (just as a hypothetical possibility) that
particular kinds of matter,
e.g. iron atoms, might be necessary to produce feeling, Mr. Clark's essential
response was that
mind is non-material; "...a lot of things can be fast and a lot of things can
generate you and
me." Doesn't he recognize that this "argument" is merely a restatement of his
premise? It is
equivalent to saying, "If mind is only logic gates and algorithms, then mind
is only logic gates
and algorithms."

2. He says that, although it's difficult to prove a negative, there isn't the
slightest reason to think
magnetic fields (or various other physical phenomena) have anything to do
with feeling. But
there IS reason to suspect that feeling is not something that just magically
appears when your
algorithm becomes complicated enough. That reason is the known fact that we
NOW have
algorithms without feeling but that nevertheless can do wonderful things,
some of them much
better than a human mind. In fact, some pretty low forms of life almost
surely have feeling, yet
are in almost all respects less "intelligent" than some algorithms or
collections of algorithms.
Doesn't this tell you that "intelligence" could exist without feeling?  

3. He warns against confusing absurdity with oddity. I think I am one of the
least likely people
to do that! Weizenbaum's toilet paper computer emulating Einstein is absurd
not because it is
funny, but because there isn't the slightest reason to think the toilet
paper--moving or not--has
any feelings.

4. He mentions 3 reasons for thinking that the essence of a person is in
information processing
in a computer algorithm:

(a) He says the genetic code is digital and amazingly computer-like. But he
is focusing only on
the similarities, not on the differences. DNA depends on CHEMISTRY.
Presumably he thinks
that a computer analog of DNA could generate a computer analog of a person,
which would BE
a person with feeling--but again, this is not a demonstrated fact, only a
restatement of his
premise.

(b) He says mind does not need new physics, just correct organization of
ordinary matter. I
agree entirely, and I don't know where he got the notion that I am looking
for new physics. (I
don't even think we need quantum mechanics to explain mind--just ordinary
physics.) But I take
exception to the implication that the KIND of matter doesn't matter. Once
more, he says that
all you need is information--falling back, as usual, on the mantra, offering
as a conclusion what
in reality is just his original unfounded assumption.

(c) He says Turing proved there is no scientific reason why information
processing can't
duplicate the behavior of an intelligent person--but concedes nothing was
proven about
consciousness (or feeling). He thinks it is entirely reasonable to believe
that sufficiently complex
information porocessing will produce subjectivity. It is certainly reasonable
as a POSSIBILITY,
and I don't rule it out--but it is NOT reasonable to ASSUME it, given the
fact that we know
virtually nothing about the anatomy/physiology of feeling. 

He also asks how I could ever be convinced that some system had feeling, if
intelligent behavior
alone wouldn't convince me. The answer is that one day we will understand the
anatomy and
physiology of feeling in humans and other animals; that will tell us at least
sufficient conditions
for feeling, and perhaps even necessary conditions. 

5. He says evolution found subjective states indispensable for intelligence.
How does he know
that? Aren't some present-day computers intelligent in some degree, although
they have no
feeling? Aren't ant and bee colonies intelligent in some degree, although the
presence of feeling
is unproven? 

6. After saying that evolution found subjective states indispensable for
intelligence, he says the
"self circuit" would be no use to evolution if it did nothing except produce
a feeling of self. He
doesn't appear to have a clear distnction in mind between these various
terms.

I use "self circuit" to mean whatever portion(s) or aspect(s) or function(s)
of the brain are
responsible for feeling. Feeling is the ground of being and the basis of
subjectivity and
consciousness. Consciousness is the integration of feeling and computing; it
gives what
psychologists call "affect" to the data, or helps organize the data in an
egocentric system.

Once more, the possible evolutionary basis for a self circuit is that it
provides an organized and
flexible system for responses to stimuli. This might be vaguely similar to
the difference between
a brute-force chess computer on the one hand, that works by analyzing every
possible move as
far out as its speed and memory permit, and on the other hand an algorithm
that recognizes
general patterns, hence might be more error-prone but much faster and more
efficient.

No--I am not thereby admitting that the self circuit is necessarily
essentially an algorithm. My
previous remarks on this point hold. I am just saying that a self circuit,
starting out perhaps with
just a good/bad judgment and producing approach/avoid responses, and then
developing greater
complexity and flexibility, might well have proven much more efficient than
the "robot"
approach.  

R.C.W. Ettinger

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