X-Message-Number: 3816 Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 09:00:07 -0800 From: John K Clark <> Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Uploading -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Wrote: >one of us is wrong. Or both of us. >some pretty low forms of life almost surely have feeling I agree, but the only way we know that is because they act like they have feeling. >yet are in almost all respects less "intelligent" than some >algorithms or collections of algorithms. I strongly disagree. Current AI programs can be spectacularly good in one very narrow field but stray even slightly from there and performance drops rapidly, a superb chess program may not even know how to play checkers. In terms of general intelligence I think current computers are at about the insect level, a big improvement, less than 10 years ago I would put it at the ameba level. >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. No, DNA depends on information. With the help of enzymes, a kind of protein, DNA makes messenger RNA. With the help of transfer RNA and yet more enzymes, messenger RNA makes protein. Unless you insist on invoking new physics there is no way for the finished protein to know anything about it's DNA parent except it's information content. > I don't know where he got the notion that I am looking for >new physics. Let's assume your correct and the essence of mind is not information processing but works by some other mechanism unknown to us, we'll call it Process X . Turing proved information processing can produce intelligent behavior but so can Process X, and in addition Process X is what causes consciousness and a feeling of self. What Process X DOES is not simple so it's hard to avoid concluding that Process X itself is not simple. If its complex it can't be only one thing but must be made of parts. If Process X is not to act in a random, incoherent way some order must exist between the parts. A part must have some knowledge of what the other parts are doing and the only way to do that is with information. You could argue that communication among the parts was of only secondary importance and that the major work was done by the parts themselves, but then the parts must be very complex and have sub parts. The simplest possible sub part is one that can change in only one way, say, on to off. It's getting extremely difficult to tell the difference between Process X and information processing. The only way to avoid this conclusion is if there were some ethereal substance that was all one thing and had no parts and so was very simple yet acted in a complex, intelligent way ; and produced feeling and consciousness while it was at it. At the very least this would require radical, new, fundamental physics, but I think it would probably be more honest at that point if I were to just throw in the towel, call it a soul, and join the religious camp. > 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. I'm sure they'll come up with theories to explain the subjective states of animals and other people, I'm sure they'll come up with lots and lots of them. How will you ever test them to find which one is correct if you can't use behavior? I'm a big fan of feeling, it's what makes life worth living, but I think it's important to remember that it's not the defining characteristic of human beings, intelligence is. Nature seems to have found it much easier to come up with feeling than the ability to reason , it's certainly came up with it first. The most ancient part of the brain, the spinal cord, the medulla and the pons is similar to the brain of a fish or amphibian and first made an appearance on the earth about 400 million years ago. According to Paul MacLean of the National Institute of Mental Health it deals in aggressive behavior, territoriality and social hierarchies. The Limbic System is about 150 million years old and ours is similar to that found in other mammals. Some think the Limbic system is the source of awe and exhilaration because it is the active sight of many psychotropic drugs, there's little doubt that the amygdala, a part of the Limbic system has much to do with fear . After some animals developed a Limbic system they started to spend much more time taking care of their young, so it probably has something to do with love. It is our grossly enlarged neocortex that makes the human brain so unusual and so recent, it only started to get ridiculously large about 3 million years ago. It deals in deliberation, spatial perception, speaking, reading, writing and mathematics, the one new emotion we got is worry, probably because the neocortex is also the place where we plan for the future. If nature came up with feeling first and intelligence much later, I don't see why the opposite would be true for our computers. It's probably a hell of a lot easier to make something that feels but doesn't think than something that thinks but doesn't feel. >He says evolution found subjective states indispensable for >intelligence. How does he know that? Because I know for sure that evolution produced at least one subjective state (me) and I know that evolution doesn't bother to produce anything unless it aids in survival and I know the only way to increase my chances of surviving is to improve my external behavior, and I know that the only way to improve my external behavior is to develop more intelligence thus subjective states must be indispensable for intelligence. >Aren't some present-day computers intelligent in some degree No. >although they have no feeling? I don't think they have feelings, but then I think behavior is vital in determining such things, If I didn't I would have absolutely no way of telling if they had feelings or not. > a self circuit, starting out perhaps with just a >good/bad judgment and producing approach/avoid responses, You can't have judgment without memory and you can't have memory without information and information is of no use unless you process it. >developing greater complexity and flexibility, might well have >proven much more efficient than the "robot" approach. I don't understand what the "robot approach" is. Everything, EVERYTHING, happens because of cause and effect and is deterministic OR it doesn't happen because of cause and effect and is by definition random. I don't think either one of us believe randomness has much to do with feeling, consciousness, or intelligence. John K Clark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.i iQCzAgUBLzjybX03wfSpid95AQEoZwTvRKg5OyHhMn4LFxSiEiTkso9LtyDQFeu9 zPeA6U98vJKkpOm7oYOzOZy/r4UOLvecwwCgqu6Lcw8p+6unljwc2AZDXivb3w43 F/UcjulyELvnPoLY5xdegkduVq11l0w+2jnttoYochztzZHB35mlxW8unO2d0CLS nr37ZTF/peMFgYxvpvXFyIZrcFkaBeVbG43Gzsxey+W+n0oSatw= =ue7c -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3816