Searching for GOD...

[Gordon]

All life is God's creation, and as such there may be many aspects of both human and animal life which are beyond human understanding.  The most fundamental difference between us and other animals is our ability to invoke acts of consciously driven free will which are not pre determined by pre programmed instinct and learnt experience.  There are many similarities in the physical workings of humans and other animals, and these similarities can make it easy to jump to conclusions about similar perceptions of reality between them.  The point I have been trying to make is that conscious perception is essential to invoking acts of consciously driven free will, but it is not essential to acts driven by instinct and learnt experience.

Put more simply: you are creating a gap into which you can insert your version of 'God'.

Kinda obvious, Alan.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

All life is God's creation, and as such there may be many aspects of both human and animal life which are beyond human understanding.  The most fundamental difference between us and other animals is our ability to invoke acts of consciously driven free will which are not pre determined by pre programmed instinct and learnt experience.  There are many similarities in the physical workings of humans and other animals, and these similarities can make it easy to jump to conclusions about similar perceptions of reality between them.  The point I have been trying to make is that conscious perception is essential to invoking acts of consciously driven free will, but it is not essential to acts driven by instinct and learnt experience.

"It is my personal faith belief that, despite all the evidence that undermines me and despite having no evidence whatsoever to support me, All life is God's creation, and as such there may be many aspects of both human and animal life which are beyond human understanding.  The most fundamental difference between us and other animals is our ability to invoke acts of consciously driven free will which are not pre determined by pre programmed instinct and learnt experience.  There are many similarities in the physical workings of humans and other animals, and these similarities can make it easy to jump to conclusions about similar perceptions of reality between them.  The point I have been trying to make is that conscious perception is essential to invoking acts of consciously driven free will, but it is not essential to acts driven by instinct and learnt experience."

FIFY

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Try doing some research into emergent computing to see where you've gone wrong there. It's an active field, and it concerns computers (ie, algorithms) that produce effects that no programmer wrote into the code.

You are wrong in this.  Any observed effects from computer activity are entirely derived from the the computer code.  The simulation of apparent "free thinking" within software is just that - simulation.  Computers do not think for themselves.

[Alan Burns]

Without getting into the mind of a lion, how would you know that it is not perceiving the beauty of a sunset?

I admit that I would not know for certain.

But in all the nature programs I have seen concerning lions and other animals, I have never come across any of them gazing into the sunset, or at any other aspects of nature's beauty which are apparent to human beings.  So the evidence points to the fact that animals do not perceive beauty in the way humans do.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You are wrong in this.  Any observed effects from computer activity are entirely derived from the the computer code.  The simulation of apparent "free thinking" within software is just that - simulation.  Computers do not think for themselves.

No, you are – both in principle and in terminology. Emergent computing is the interaction of relatively simple computational entities to form a system that exhibits emergent properties (generally with three aspects: self-organisation, aggregative behaviour, and co-operative behaviour). None of the component parts of the system (eg, lines of codes) exhibit these things, and nor is there any need for a supervening design (eg, by a programmer) to make it so. Rather these properties emerge bottom-up, unplanned and often unpredictably.

ERCIM (the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics) has some very good papers on the subject if you care to look them up.

Second, no-one says that computers “think for themselves”, or at least not yet. That’s just your misapplication of terminology. Rather what’s actually being said is that “computers” (ie, interacting code) already exhibit emergent properties and are likely increasingly to do so as they become more complex despite being by magnitudes much simpler still than brains. What’s also understood from neuroscience is that consciousness shows all the characteristics of an emergent property, albeit one that requires far more computational power than we can currently construct artificially. Conceptually though there’s no reason to think that at some point computers won’t cross the threshold into self-awareness – ie, “thinking”.

I’ve asked you several times now why you think this couldn’t happen but – so far at least – all you’ve done is to repeat your un-argued assertions on the matter.

Should we conclude therefore that these assertIons are just more expressions of your personal faith?

And if we should, can you suggest any reason at all for anyone to take them seriously?

[Alan Burns]

Perception in humans is poor, however most other animals depend on it for survival....

Once more you are confusing perception with programmed reaction.

It is a well known fact that dogs have a sense of smell which is many magnitudes greater than that of humans.  When I was young, we had a pet dog which occasionally would emit such a smelly fart that everyone but the dog left the room.  But our dog, despite its extreme sensitivity to smells, would show no reaction whatever to this odious smell.  If the dog was equipped with conscious perception of the intensity and odour of this smell, I feel certain it would have shown some reaction.  But despite its extreme sensitivity, the dog will only react in an instinctive or trained way to the sensory input of the odour.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I admit that I would not know for certain.

Your problem here isn’t not knowing something for certain (no-one knows anything for certain), but rather that – so far at least – you’ve given no reason to suggest you know anything much at all. And to illustrate the point…

But in all the nature programs I have seen concerning lions and other animals, I have never come across any of them gazing into the sunset, or at any other aspects of nature's beauty which are apparent to human beings.  So the evidence points to the fact that animals do not perceive beauty in the way humans do.

So the basis of your countless asertions about a fundamental, qualitative difference between human brains and those of other animals is that you haven’t seen any nature documentaries showing lions staring at sunsets (even though they do by the way). And that’s it. Never mind basic logic and reasoning, never mind the academic disciplines of neuroscience, psychology, anatomy, zoology, anthropology, you name it that tell us the consciousness is widespread through the animal kingdom. Never mind all of that. You Alan have decided that “consciousness” actually means “looking at sunsets” and, because the documentaries you happen to have seen haven’t shown you lions doing it, then all the evidence that contradicts you must be wrong?   

Seriously?

Seriously seriously though?

Alan, if I can give you some well-meant advice: please, stop. Just stop. You’re embarrassing yourself now and it’s getting quite difficult to watch.

[Gordon]

So the evidence points to the fact that animals do not perceive beauty in the way humans do.

Some humans don't perceive beauty the same way as other humans do - how to you account for this?

[Gordon]

Once more you are confusing perception with programmed reaction.

It is a well known fact that dogs have a sense of smell which is many magnitudes greater than that of humans.  When I was young, we had a pet dog which occasionally would emit such a smelly fart that everyone but the dog left the room.  But our dog, despite its extreme sensitivity to smells, would show no reaction whatever to this odious smell.  If the dog was equipped with conscious perception of the intensity and odour of this smell, I feel certain it would have shown some reaction.  But despite its extreme sensitivity, the dog will only react in an instinctive or trained way to the sensory input of the odour.

Good heavens, Alan, do you not realise how pointlessly banal your 'dog fart' anecdote is: some people like the smell of petrol but others don't - so what?

[torridon]

All life is God's creation, and as such there may be many aspects of both human and animal life which are beyond human understanding.  The most fundamental difference between us and other animals is our ability to invoke acts of consciously driven free will which are not pre determined by pre programmed instinct and learnt experience.  There are many similarities in the physical workings of humans and other animals, and these similarities can make it easy to jump to conclusions about similar perceptions of reality between them.  The point I have been trying to make is that conscious perception is essential to invoking acts of consciously driven free will, but it is not essential to acts driven by instinct and learnt experience.

Perception is the precursor to most behavioural responses.  First comes perception, perception of need, perception of change, of opportunity, of danger; then comes our reaction to perception - flight or fight etc.  this happens with learned behaviours as well as instinctive behaviours.  An Alaskan brown bear will not dive into the icy river to catch a salmon (a learned behaviour) if it has not first perceived the fish in the first place.  An eagle dives down from a mile high in the sky because it has seen a vulnerable rabbit on the ground way below.   Such phenomenal abilities require high order conscious perception.  The eagle could not hunt with such accuracy if its perceptual systems were compromised as in the case of blindsight, which reduces an individual to near total blindness.  This is what it would mean to lack conscious perception.

[torridon]

I admit that I would not know for certain.

But in all the nature programs I have seen concerning lions and other animals, I have never come across any of them gazing into the sunset, or at any other aspects of nature's beauty which are apparent to human beings.  So the evidence points to the fact that animals do not perceive beauty in the way humans do.

The ability to enjoy a sunset does not define conscious perception.  Seeing a sunset is perception; enjoying it aesthetic sense.  What differentiates us from other animals here is aesthetic sense, not perception.  Likewise, humans will get up and dance to music or be riveted by a good movie or laugh at a good joke.  These things characterise humans; they are aspects of our phenotype just like prickliness is characteristic of hedgehogs and porcupines.   Each species surely has its own defining characteristics, or we would all be the same.

[Alan Burns]

I’ve asked you several times now why you think this couldn’t happen but – so far at least – all you’ve done is to repeat your un-argued assertions on the matter.

Should we conclude therefore that these assertIons are just more expressions of your personal faith?

And if we should, can you suggest any reason at all for anyone to take them seriously?

My so called "assertions" about the limitations of man made computer software are based upon a working lifetime of programming computers, which began in 1968 and continues to this day.

I have always had a fascination of programming and have never just looked upon it as a job.  I pride myself in building fully automated systems which require little or no manual input.  My current system involves four servers working in parallel, pulling information from several thousand web pages every day, then processing and formatting this information which then gets passed on to my business colleague who then sells it to our clients.  And all I have to do (apart from checking that it is all working) is to ensure that the servers are all switched on and logged in.

You are quite correct in observing that software can be used to produce the emergent properties you mention.  But this emergence is entirely intended by the programmer, even though the results may be unexpected.  The root causation is always in the mind and implementation of the programmer.

[Enki]

Once more you are confusing perception with programmed reaction.

It is a well known fact that dogs have a sense of smell which is many magnitudes greater than that of humans.  When I was young, we had a pet dog which occasionally would emit such a smelly fart that everyone but the dog left the room.  But our dog, despite its extreme sensitivity to smells, would show no reaction whatever to this odious smell.  If the dog was equipped with conscious perception of the intensity and odour of this smell, I feel certain it would have shown some reaction.  But despite its extreme sensitivity, the dog will only react in an instinctive or trained way to the sensory input of the odour.

We humans don't go around(normally) smelling each other's backsides. Dogs do, almost certainly not for the olfactory delight of the anal glands, but because, with their heightened sense of smell, they receive useful information about a particular dog, such as its gender, its health, its maturity, its mood state. In other words this is one way in which dogs perceive the world around them.

[Sebastian Toe]

Once more you are confusing perception with programmed reaction.

It is a well known fact that dogs have a sense of smell which is many magnitudes greater than that of humans.  When I was young, we had a pet dog which occasionally would emit such a smelly fart that everyone but the dog left the room.  But our dog, despite its extreme sensitivity to smells, would show no reaction whatever to this odious smell.  If the dog was equipped with conscious perception of the intensity and odour of this smell, I feel certain it would have shown some reaction.  But despite its extreme sensitivity, the dog will only react in an instinctive or trained way to the sensory input of the odour.

In a nutshell......dogs don't react to farts, therefore souls!

If only you had stated that several thousands posts ago Alan.

We should call that Burns' law.

Well, I don't know about anyone else but that has me convinced beyond all doubt and we can wrap up this thread and all toddle off down to chapel.........
...........
...........
............not.

[Rhiannon]

In a nutshell......dogs don't react to farts, therefore souls!

If only you had stated that several thousands posts ago Alan.

We should call that Burns' law.

Well, I don't know about anyone else but that has me convinced beyond all doubt and we can wrap up this thread and all toddle off down to chapel.........
...........
...........
............not.

I’m trying to figure this one out. When my old lab rolled in fox shit did she do that because didn’t have a soul or because she did?

[Alan Burns]

Perception is the precursor to most behavioural responses.  First comes perception, perception of need, perception of change, of opportunity, of danger; then comes our reaction to perception - flight or fight etc.  this happens with learned behaviours as well as instinctive behaviours.  An Alaskan brown bear will not dive into the icy river to catch a salmon (a learned behaviour) if it has not first perceived the fish in the first place.  An eagle dives down from a mile high in the sky because it has seen a vulnerable rabbit on the ground way below.   Such phenomenal abilities require high order conscious perception.  The eagle could not hunt with such accuracy if its perceptual systems were compromised as in the case of blindsight, which reduces an individual to near total blindness.  This is what it would mean to lack conscious perception.

In all this you are presuming that animals must perceive and process information in the same way that humans do.  It is natural to assume this, but you can't presume it to be a fact.  My lifetime of programming automated systems shows me that the predictable behaviour of animals can be driven entirely from their sensory data without the need for conscious perception.  Computerised game playing software can record the history of previous games and use this to avoid making the same mistakes in the future - all done through computerised logic without the need for conscious perception.  Of course, animal brains have far more complexity and functionality than any man made software, but the underlying principle still applies that conscious perception is only needed to facilitate consciously driven choices - it is not needed to drive instinctive and learnt behaviour.

[Rhiannon]

Alan,

1.  Animals are not computers.

2. Humans are animals.

3.  I find your attitude to non-human animals pretty disgusting.

[Alan Burns]

I’m trying to figure this one out. When my old lab rolled in fox shit did she do that because didn’t have a soul or because she did?

My dog used to roll in cow pats.  I presume it was some sort of instinctive behaviour in which neither my dog nor I could see any purpose.  Given time I am sure I could have trained my dog not to roll in cow pats, but the training would be driven by my conscious choice - not the dog's.

[Rhiannon]

My dog used to roll in cow pats.  I presume it was some sort of instinctive behaviour in which neither my dog nor I could see any purpose.  Given time I am sure I could have trained my dog not to roll in cow pats, but the training would be driven by my conscious choice - not the dog's.

There are several possible reasons why dogs - and wolves - roll in strongly scented shit. It could be to mask their own smell while hunting - but dogs and their prey tend to both rely more on sight and sound than scent. It could be to advertise themselves to other dogs in some way. But we don’t know what is in the mind of a dog and some behaviourists think they do it purely for pleasure, hence the way some dogs roll immediately after having a bath - they prefer to stink rather than smell of shampoo.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

My so called "assertions" about the limitations of man made computer software are based upon a working lifetime of programming computers, which began in 1968 and continues to this day.

Whoosh! Your assertions aren’t “so called”, they’re just assertions. Specifically you assert that it’s “physically impossible” for a computing device ever to be self-aware. You rely for this assertion though on your knowledge of machines that are hugely simpler than brains – and yet for reasons you never feel like sharing you somehow jump from that knowledge to a statement of un-argued and un-evidenced certainty about what could never be.

Is there any point in asking you yet again to explain why you think that no computing device – even one as astonishingly complex as a human brain – could be self-aware, or should we assume that that’s just another of your statements of personal faith?   

I have always had a fascination of programming and have never just looked upon it as a job.  I pride myself in building fully automated systems which require little or no manual input.  My current system involves four servers working in parallel, pulling information from several thousand web pages every day, then processing and formatting this information which then gets passed on to my business colleague who then sells it to our clients.  And all I have to do (apart from checking that it is all working) is to ensure that the servers are all switched on and logged in.

That’s nice. And how complex would you say that system is compared with a human brain with around 100 billion neurons and roughly 100 trillion synapses? Your set up will do calculations more quickly than any human can, and will store more data than any human can. What it can’t do though - at least not yet – is come anywhere near close to the parallel processing complexity of a brain. And yet somehow you extrapolate from that a “never”?

How so? How could you possibly know what artificial intelligence will be capable if in ten years, 30 years, 100 years etc as it gets more complex, and as we continue to understand better and better the architecture of brain processing?   

Just say, “that’s an article of faith I happen to have” if you want to but assertions aren’t facts no matter how often you make them.   

You are quite correct in observing that software can be used to produce the emergent properties you mention.  But this emergence is entirely intended by the programmer, even though the results may be unexpected.  The root causation is always in the mind and implementation of the programmer.

That’s fundamentally wrong – all sots of unexpected outcomes arise when “computers” interact with each other. Imagine you could design a computer that mimicked precisely the functionality of an ant. And then that you made lots of them. Each “ant” would be programmed to follow certain simple rules (“lay down a strong pheromone trail if you find food”, “follow a strong pheromone trail if your role is to forage for food” etc) but that’s all. Guess what though? Yup, you’d end up nonetheless with ant “societies” that built complex structures aligned to prevailing weather conditions, farmed, evicted rival colonies and did all sorts of things that not one part of their programming intended.

Is any of this sinking in yet?     

[torridon]

In all this you are presuming that animals must perceive and process information in the same way that humans do.  It is natural to assume this, but you can't presume it to be a fact.  My lifetime of programming automated systems shows me that the predictable behaviour of animals can be driven entirely from their sensory data without the need for conscious perception.  Computerised game playing software can record the history of previous games and use this to avoid making the same mistakes in the future - all done through computerised logic without the need for conscious perception.  Of course, animal brains have far more complexity and functionality than any man made software, but the underlying principle still applies that conscious perception is only needed to facilitate consciously driven choices - it is not needed to drive instinctive and learnt behaviour.

Aaargh, after all this time you still confusing perception with cognition.  All creatures with external senses have conscious perception, this is a phenomenon of nature, it is ubiquitous and it is 500 million years old.  We humans enjoy this phenomenon also because we have mammalian brains and processing of perception is a fundamental function of mammalian brains.  There is no reason to suppose that this phenomenon somehow switched off in all other creatures when humans evolved; added to which we know from medical science what the debilitating symptoms of losing conscious perception are like and we do not observe this in creatures in the wild.

Human brains and cognitive function have built on and extended that which we inherited from our ancestors.  The real differences with humans lie in the range of cognitive functioning that we have developed and this is reflected the neuroanatomical differences from between human brains and others, in particular, the layers of neocortex and frontal cortex that support our higher specialised congitive functioning are areas of new cortex added to the mammalian base model. Older parts of the brain support older, more fundamental processing such as perception, homeostasis, motor response, consciousness. These are all fundamental processes common to all higher life forms.

[Alan Burns]

Aaargh, after all this time you still confusing perception with cognition.  All creatures with external senses have conscious perception, ..,.

Sorry, but this is not a verifiable fact.
All creatures have some form of sensory input to their brains which can be processed into reactions - but this is not conscious perception.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Whoosh! Your assertions aren’t “so called”, they’re just assertions. Specifically you assert that it’s “physically impossible” for a computing device ever to be self-aware. You rely for this assertion though on your knowledge of machines that are hugely simpler than brains – and yet for reasons you never feel like sharing you somehow jump from that knowledge to a statement of un-argued and un-evidenced certainty about what could never be.

Is there any point in asking you yet again to explain why you think that no computing device – even one as astonishingly complex as a human brain – could be self-aware, or should we assume that that’s just another of your statements of personal faith?   

That’s nice. And how complex would you say that system is compared with a human brain with around 100 billion neurons and roughly 100 trillion synapses? Your set up will do calculations more quickly than any human can, and will store more data than any human can. What it can’t do though - at least not yet – is come anywhere near close to the parallel processing complexity of a brain. And yet somehow you extrapolate from that a “never”?

How so? How could you possibly know what artificial intelligence will be capable if in ten years, 30 years, 100 years etc as it gets more complex, and as we continue to understand better and better the architecture of brain processing?   

Just say, “that’s an article of faith I happen to have” if you want to but assertions aren’t facts no matter how often you make them.   

That’s fundamentally wrong – all sots of unexpected outcomes arise when “computers” interact with each other. Imagine you could design a computer that mimicked precisely the functionality of an ant. And then that you made lots of them. Each “ant” would be programmed to follow certain simple rules (“lay down a strong pheromone trail if you find food”, “follow a strong pheromone trail if your role is to forage for food” etc) but that’s all. Guess what though? Yup, you’d end up nonetheless with ant “societies” that built complex structures aligned to prevailing weather conditions, farmed, evicted rival colonies and did all sorts of things that not one part of their programming intended.

Is any of this sinking in yet?   

You seem to be under the illusion that increased physical complexity can somehow generate conscious self awareness.  But without any verifiable mechanism to show that conscious self awareness can be defined purely by physical material properties, this is a gross assumption. 

[Rhiannon]

This is worth a read, Alan.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982213013869

[torridon]

Sorry, but this is not a verifiable fact.
All creatures have some form of sensory input to their brains which can be processed into reactions - but this is not conscious perception.

It is verifiable, we know the symptoms that characterise the loss of conscious perception - an individual thus afflicted behaves as someone deaf dumb and blind; or as someone sleepwalking perhaps.  We can study this condition when it occurs in humans, I don't know if it has ever been diagnosed in wild animals, presumably such creatures would be dead meat if they suffered some brain impairment leading to such functional loss.  The way that brains construct an internal representation of the external world is both sophisticated and ancient, and we have acquired that base brain functioning through inheritance. What we didn't acquire from our ancestors are an array of upper cognitive functions that allow us to develop language, music and extended capacities for abstraction etc - for these we had to 'grow' novel cortical structures.  These are the things that distinguish humans from other animals, not conscious perception, which is fundamental to all higher organisms.