Searching for GOD...

[Andy]

I know it is labelled as personal incredulity, but I am quite certain that a godless universe would be incapable of producing complex life forms with conscious awareness, regardless of its size and age.

What's the point of complex life forms when this god of yours can just make it so conscious awareness can inhabit a single atom?

[wigginhall]

Chocolate-flavoured neurons!   I knew it would happen one day.

[Sebastian Toe]

Chocolate-flavoured neurons!   I knew it would happen one day.

..never heard of Malteasers? 

[wigginhall]

..never heard of Malteasers? 

I thought they were molecules, blessed by God.

[torridon]

I know it is labelled as personal incredulity, but I am quite certain that a godless universe would be incapable of producing complex life forms with conscious awareness, regardless of its size and age.

And I thought you were claiming to be an enquiring mind. A mind that so unequivocally dismisses entire realms of knowledge and enquiry that admittedly might be way above your intellectual pay grade is not an enquiring mind; it is a closed mind; shut, padlocked, closed to new business.  That's no way to be.

[Leonard James]

This just demonstrates the normal reactions you would expect from a biological machine generated by an evolutionary process based on survival. Reactions are not the same thing as awareness.  Awareness can't be demonstrated by outwardly observed reactions.  It is an internal experience.

Awareness is an internal experience that demostrates itself by observable actions. How else could you recognise it?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I know it is labelled as personal incredulity, but I am quite certain that a godless universe would be incapable of producing complex life forms with conscious awareness, regardless of its size and age.

Yes it is called personal incredulity, and for good reason: because you personally cannot imagine something says nothing to whether or not it's factually true. You may well be as "certain" about the objective truth of your personal opinion on this matter as the Norse chap was certain about his personal opinion about Thor, but neither of you have any basis whatever to assert your personal opinions as facts for the rest of us.

Odd isn't it that the most religiously certain here also have the least enquiring minds?   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Awareness is an internal experience that demostrates itself by observable actions. How else could you recognise it?

But a machine can produce observable reactions without the necessity of awareness.

Observable reactions actually tell us nothing about awareness.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,



Odd isn't it that the most religiously certain here also have the least enquiring minds?

This sounds like clichéd arsepull.

[Shaker]

But a machine can produce observable reactions without the necessity of awareness.

Observable reactions actually tell us nothing about awareness.

I'm afraid your would-be argument falls on one crucial point. It's perfectly true that machines produce observable reactions without the necessity of awareness, but that doesn't hold in reverse - in other words, in normal circumstances we assume (and we have to assume, because we can never step into somebody else's mind) that in sentient creatures awareness creates observable reactions. Theory of mind has it that, although we can never definitively prove beyond all and any doubt that it's the case, the sorts of things that give rise to pleasure and pain in ourselves do exactly the same in others who are not us. Mirror neurons seem to be implicated in this. If we stub our toe, it hurts; if we see somebody else stub their toe, they act as we do when we do it, therefore we conclude that the sensation is the same (indeed, we wince when we see somebody do it even though we're not in any pain ourselves).

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I'm afraid your would-be argument falls on one crucial point. It's perfectly true that machines produce observable reactions without the necessity of awareness, but that doesn't hold in reverse - in other words, in normal circumstances we assume (and we have to assume, because we can never step into somebody else's mind) that in sentient creatures awareness creates observable reactions. Theory of mind has it that, although we can never definitively prove beyond all and any doubt that it's the case, the sorts of things that give rise to pleasure and pain in ourselves do exactly the same in others who are not us. Mirror neurons seem to be implicated in this. If we stub our toe, it hurts; if we see somebody else stub their toe, they act as we do when we do it, therefore we conclude that the sensation is the same (indeed, we wince when we see somebody do it even though we're not in any pain ourselves).

I'm sorry you said there was a point where my argument failed and then forgot to say how.

Any human activity could be produced by something without awareness of doing it.

[Shaker]

I'm sorry you said there was a point where my argument failed and then forgot to say how.

I did, I guess you just didn't get it.

[Leonard James]

But a machine can produce observable reactions without the necessity of awareness.

We are talking about living organisms, not machines.

Observable reactions actually tell us nothing about awareness.

I see, then ignoring the reactions of an organism, how can you tell whether it is aware or not?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

We are talking about living organisms, not machines.

I see, then ignoring the reactions of an organism, how can you tell whether it is aware or not?

That is an excellent question..........................
Next question please.

[Leonard James]

That is an excellent question..........................
Next question please.

 

[Alan Burns]

Amazing how AB is certain about complex life forms,  but ask him how the soul connects to the brain?  Ah, a holy silence reigns.

You may recall from an earlier post when I quoted from the book "How the Self Controls the Brain" by Nobel Prise winner, Sir John Eccles and nuclear physicist Friedrich Beck, it contained a reference to quantum tunnelling activity in the brain which was linked to willed actions, thoughts and perception.  Perhaps this could be the gateway to the human soul.

[Khatru]

..never heard of Malteasers? 

Yesterday I had a packet of sweets.

When I opened the bag they were all monogrammed with the initials of Mary Magdalene.

Was that a miracle?

[torridon]

You may recall from an earlier post when I quoted from the book "How the Self Controls the Brain" by Nobel Prise winner, Sir John Eccles and nuclear physicist Friedrich Beck, it contained a reference to quantum tunnelling activity in the brain which was linked to willed actions, thoughts and perception.  Perhaps this could be the gateway to the human soul.

Well that was decades ago, and noone working in neuroscience today takes Eccles' work seriously AFAIK.  His work now is seen more as a curiosity in the history of neuroscience, a dead end, a one-off, an example of a scientist trying to integrate his faith beliefs into science, not usually a good strategy.  A good scientist will start with evidence and observation and see where it leads; if it turns out to validate some pre-existing cultural or religious belief then fine and good.  The concept of a 'soul' has no purchase whatsoever in modern neuroscience.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yesterday I had a packet of sweets.

When I opened the bag they were all monogrammed with the initials of Mary Magdalene.

Was thar a miracle?

Miracle? It's not even funny.

[torridon]

I see, then ignoring the reactions of an organism, how can you tell whether it is aware or not?

This is the domain of the Turing test.

The test strategy envisaged by Alan Turing is not really good enough now, there are already machines that can almost pass as sentient in blinded conversations.    Here is Eliza, a virtual therapist you can chat to if you have problems :

http://nlp-addiction.com/eliza/

Testing for awareness needs to become far better in the future because we will need to know if the machines we build based on neural architecture models really do develop inner sentience or just give the outward appearance of being conscious. The testing for consciousness is likely to be based on a combination of machine learning and imaging technologies. We are already started down this road, programming computers to learn recognise tell tale patterns in activity in brain imaging scans that correspond to various arousal states - vegetative, coma, asleep, awake, just waking up, just going to sleep and so forth. By developing and adapting such technologies we hope to be able to develop a reliable test for genuine inner experience in a machine.

[Leonard James]

This is the domain of the Turing test.

The test strategy envisaged by Alan Turing is not really good enough now, there are already machines that can almost pass as sentient in blinded conversations.    Here is Eliza, a virtual therapist you can chat to if you have problems :

http://nlp-addiction.com/eliza/

Testing for awareness needs to become far better in the future because we will need to know if the machines we build based on neural architecture models really do develop inner sentience or just give the outward appearance of being conscious. The testing for consciousness is likely to be based on a combination of machine learning and imaging technologies. We are already started down this road, programming computers to learn recognise tell tale patterns in activity in brain imaging scans that correspond to various arousal states - vegetative, coma, asleep, awake, just waking up, just going to sleep and so forth. By developing and adapting such technologies we hope to be able to develop a reliable test for genuine inner experience in a machine.

But we are not talking about machines, but living organisms.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

This is the domain of the Turing test.

The test strategy envisaged by Alan Turing is not really good enough now, there are already machines that can almost pass as sentient in blinded conversations.    Here is Eliza, a virtual therapist you can chat to if you have problems :

http://nlp-addiction.com/eliza/

Testing for awareness needs to become far better in the future because we will need to know if the machines we build based on neural architecture models really do develop inner sentience or just give the outward appearance of being conscious. The testing for consciousness is likely to be based on a combination of machine learning and imaging technologies. We are already started down this road, programming computers to learn recognise tell tale patterns in activity in brain imaging scans that correspond to various arousal states - vegetative, coma, asleep, awake, just waking up, just going to sleep and so forth. By developing and adapting such technologies we hope to be able to develop a reliable test for genuine inner experience in a machine.

great post.
I can't help thinking though that no observational method is going to establish awareness in the observed.

The only line I can see is if experiences or even the sense of self are transmitable to multiple observers........and then even then there might be a suspiscion that what others see is not the real deal.

[torridon]

But we are not talking about machines, but living organisms.

Consciousness is about information flow, ultimately. Consciousness evolved in living creatures though natural selection using organic compounds as its substrate, but information can be transcribed on any media in principle. So if we can develop external observation technologies to diagnose particular patterns of information flow in an organic brain, there is no technological bar to prevent us from applying the same imaging technique to a silicon based machine.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Consciousness is about information flow,

Isn't everything?

[torridon]

Consciousness is about information flow,

Isn't everything?

Well, yes, thats right; consciousness however is a particularly curated form of information flow, curated within a brain to produce optimal decision making and outcomes for the body it serves, traditionally.