X-Message-Number: 8045
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 21:22:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: Consciousness and fast machines
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In #8038 On Thu, 10 Apr 1997 Wrote:
>John Clark (#8024) says "Consciousness must be a subset of
>information processing..." Again, the desired conclusion is used as
>a premise or axiom.
What is the unique, indispensable, part of my consciousness, the part that
makes me different than you? I can only conceive of 3 things existing in the
universe, matter, energy, and information. Atoms are interchangeable, energy
is generic, so it must be information, assuming of course that I don't have
a soul.
>He also says, "I can never experience your consciousness directly."
>With some kind of (electromagnetic?) telepathy, maybe you could
>indeed "share" my consciousness.
Three problems:
1) You and I are connected to a ESP machine, I feel various emotions, how do
I know that these feelings came from you and not from the machine, or came
from my own mind stimulated by the machine? The machine must operate
according to some theory of consciousness, but how do I know if that
theory is correct?
2) If I could by some black magic prove that the feelings came from you then
I would know how I interpret your feelings, but I still wouldn't know how
you interpret your feelings.
3) If every thought I had you had and every thought you had I had then there
would not be two conscious beings there would be only one.
>He also asks, in effect, whether I question my own survival from
>hour to hour in the ordinary course of events. Yes, I question it.
>It is easy to be deceived.
In this matter I don't mind being deceived. If I have not survived then
survival is not important to me, and I need to invent a new word because if
not survival then certainly SOMETHING has continued from yesterday to today.
I have klogneed from yesterday and I want to continue to klognee into
the future.
>One more thing: There is no "paradox" in determinism. We have free
>will on the conscious level; that is all that is possible, and all
>that is necessary.
Of that at least we are in 100% agreement.
In #8040 On Thu, 10 Apr 1997 Olaf Henny <> Wrote:
>I might also argue, that I do not *know* that the above was said by
>someone who purports to be John K. Clark made the above statement
Quite true. As a matter of fact I an not conscious and never have been, I just
have the ability to put ASCII characters in a sequence that can fool people
into thinking I am. Other people seem to understand what I write, but not me,
I have not the smallest understanding of what anything on Cryonet means, It's
all just a bunch of meaningless letters, you send me some ASCII characters
and I send you some different ones in return, and that's all it is to me.
Don't feel bad if you didn't guess this, the Turing Test doesn't work so you
had absolutely no way of knowing that I have no more consciousness than a
can opener.
>It would be extremely impressive in a computer, if it was not
>specifically programmed behavior.
That would indeed be impressive behavior, I wish I could do it.
>Programming by others does NOT indicate *self*-awareness.
The ability of the conscious mind to change itself is small, we can do
NOTHING to improve the hardware, at least not yet, and even our self
programming ability is poor. Are you as smart as you'd like to be? Are you
as happy as you'd like to be? I'm not, I don't know anybody who is.
>A programmed response is a long way from a self-conceived protective
>reaction.
Do you think that an ant decides all on its own that life is worth living
and then determines what actions he can take that have the best chance of
preserving it?
>cryonics is simply a life extending procedure, similar to-, but more
>extensive than CPR. It neither proves, nor disproves the existence of
>a soul, or the validity of religion for that matter.
Yes I know, that's the standard line to tell people when you want to get them
interested in Cryonics, and I wouldn't dream of saying this anyplace except
Cryonet, but it's nonsense. If we have soul then Cryonics is pointless, and
so is CPR, and so are doctors, and so are seat belts, and so are ...
>>Me:
>>do you have a burning desire to be King of the earthworms?
>Olaf:
>I would think, that the conflict would start long before they are
>*that* superior to us.
Things would happen fast in a world that contained a mind a billion times
faster than ours, one second to us would be like 30 years to it.
Even today some electronic switches work 100 million times faster than neural
synapses, and nanoelectronic switches would be far faster. The fastest
signals in the brain move at 100 meters per second, and many are much, much,
slower. Light moves at 300,000,000 meters per second, and Nano computers
would be far smaller than neurons, further increasing the speed advantage.
At breakfast a researcher makes the first very primitive, stone age,
Nanotechnology based AI, by lunch it's master of the Universe. The moral,
if you can't beat them join them.
>Steve Harris (#8029):
>People who want to argue a third alternative need to be reminded,
>as Minski does, that there isn't one.
>
>a third alternative to what?
Everything, including our behavior, happens because of cause and effect or
it does not, and if it does not then it is by definition random, there is no
third alternative.
John K Clark
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