What does 'form meaning' mean? — Wayfarer

Well in the formal sense meaning is just a knowing a problem and knowing the solution to that problem.
And formally knowing is just a set of data.

I would argue that this algorithm does not simply compute syntax but is able to understand semantic relationships of that syntax.
It is able to derive semantics by learning what the problem is, and learning what is the solution to that problem.
The process of learning may be syntactical, but when the algorithm learns the problem and that problems solution it understands both.

I suspect you will not be satisfied with this definition of meaning...if so feel free to describe how you think the term meaning should be defined.

The nature of meaning is far from obvious. — Wayfarer

I disagree.
I think formally meaning is knowing a problem and the solution to that problem and the logical relationships between the two is the semantics.

I don't believe computers understand anything, they process information according to algorithms and provide outputs. — Wayfarer

Suppose your previous posts are right..and we don't have any good idea of what meaning and understanding is, if that were so you could not be sure that computers are capable in that capacity.
That is to say if we don't know what meaning and understanding is then we can't know if computers have these things.
You seem to want it both ways here.
You know computers can't understand or know meaning...but at the same time meaning and understanding is mysterious.

That is a bit of a contradiction don't you think?

only those who get pregnant ought to be empowered to decide whether or not to have an abortion, — jamalrob

Those who are pregnant do not have to inform any one that they are pregnant, can self terminate an unwanted pregnancy if they so choose, and also not disclose that they have done so. Literally, it is the woman's choice, and literally, there is nothing that can change that fact.

Abortion exists because this happens, and self termination of an unwanted pregnancy can be dangerous for the women that decides this course of action.

All pro-life legislation would accomplish is the prevention of women making that choice from legally seeking healthcare from professionals. So, in essence, the pro-life argument is to deny women any legal right to healthcare for their procreation choice in order that these self proclaimed pro-lifers may pat themselves on the back and delude themselves that they are moral for having done so.

There is no legislation that would be able to prevent a woman's right to choose, only legislation that would prevent women from seeking out medical assistance for her choice.

I don't get it?

I am not sure what you are saying here.

Are ought statements moral statements, and if they are, does that mean that ought statements that are facts are moral facts?

I'm not sure if this answers your question, as you have not in fact provided a counter example by way of an argument... — unenlightened

Maybe I am not wording it very well.

I was not making an argument, I was asking a question.

Why does the is statement "logic is a slave to passion" qualify as a fact, whereas the statement "logic ought to be a slave to passion" is not a fact? Why does the is/ought problem apply here.

To me it is interesting, because in order for the ought statement in this example to be a fact. then the is statement would also have to be a fact.

That, to me at least, seems to imply there is some connection between the is and ought statements.I thought it might be a counter example in the sense that in some cases, this example, there is a clear connection between is and ought.

One might argue that the is statement is not a fact and that therefore the ought statement is not a fact either, but that would also imply that the ought statement is dependent upon the is statement.

Or one might argue that the is statement is a fact, but the ought statement is not fact. And to me, that is the most curious option, for there seems to be no reason why the ought statement should not be a fact as well, again implying a connection between is and ought. This is also the question I am asking: if the is statement is fact, then why is the ought statement not also a fact?

The last option is to argue that the is statement is not a fact, but the ought statement is a fact. That is probably an example of when the is/ought problem is deployed and argued that there is no readily apparent explanation as how the ought was derived from the is.

I hope that makes more sense.

You are right bitter.

Thorongil I apologize.

There is no reason we cannot hold different opinions and be civil.

And it seems you're an ignoramus who's trying way too hard to sound clever and ironic. I don't like conversing with you, as I said before, because it's utterly unproductive. So don't expect to see any more replies from me. — Thorongil

Lol...so you can dish it out but you can't take it.

They already are. People in the region have demanded military assistance to drive out ISIS and Assad for a long time now. — Thorongil

To my understanding the syrian rebels expected to be armed...I was not aware that they expect boots on the ground and for the west to occupy syria and establish a new government. I also don't see how that would be possible considering that russia and iran supports the current regime.

So are you saying the west should risk triggering war with those nations in order that that people like yourself can comfort themselves that you are killing the bad guys? I thought you were supposed to be an authority on this issue...or at least far more informed than I.

It seems to me you are just shooting from the hip talking about how you feel and not suggesting any realistic course of action.

You cannot. It is a matter of logic. However, this does not preclude telling folks what they ought to do, fortunately. It merely precludes telling them that the facts (the is-ness of things) prove it.

His 'ought' here is a recommendation in order to avoid error. If one is in the business of proving conclusions from premises, one cannot get an 'ought' conclusion from 'is' premises. If one is in the bullshit trade, other considerations apply. — unenlightened

Consider the counter example anonymous66 made.

The fact that "logic is a slave to passion" is not contradicted by the ought of "logic ought to be passion's slave."

If it is a fact that logic is the slave of passion why is it not a fact that logic ought to be passion's slave?

It looks to me like we have no other options. Now that I've read Holbo, I see "Oughts" all over the place. — anonymous66

What do you think is an example of a moral fact?

I think there are some tautological moral facts.
For example "There is such thing as morals" might be a moral fact.

refresh?

Hume said "you can't get an Ought from an is, so that means...."
If you're right, what does it mean? — anonymous66

Maybe you can get ought from is?

Does it only reveal for the person that posted it?

works for me...I just clicked reveal.

As I said, until it can be demonstrated that a past event can be prevented, or produced, like a future one can be, then the evidence, and consequent inductive principle is overwhelming. We have to start any logical proceeding from some fundamental assumptions. If we cannot assume something which all evidence indicates is the case, what can we assume?

Without any evidence that the past and future are not substantially different, as all the evidence indicates that they are, any such debate seems pointless. That the past and future "could be" essentially the same, is an unsupported myth. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think presentism is a myth, I think it is a conjecture about the nature of time.

To me it the evidence does not seem to be conclusive one way or the other.

Sure it is possible that objects exist in the past, in the present, and in the future and all sates of nature are unchanging.
It is also possible that the only things that exist are present things that move through the dimension of time.and states of nature are changing.

Intuitively the evidence suggest that eternalism is wrong because humans experience change as something that is quite real.

But as we learn about the laws of nature it might be that this is just some trick of the mind and in reality all of time is extended.

It is not as cut and dry as you suggest I am afraid.

Good idea. But there is already Philosophy Tube in this niche, and he's drawn subs of $1400 a month. Maybe we could link up. Anyone know him? — mcdoodle

Maybe some one could contact them through the channel and see if they are interested.
Might be mutually beneficial create traffic back for forth for both?

How about a joke I made up?

what to do in case of a zombie attack

And I'm saying Hume can't have it both ways.... either you can get an Ought from an is, or you can't. — anonymous66

If you can't have it both ways, then that just means that only the "is" part of the statement is true and not the "ought" part.

Or are you suggesting that there is some greater contradiction inherent in the is/ought problem?

I apologise if I didn't make my position abundantly clear: an Artificial General Intelligence would *be* a person. It could certainly be endowed with capabilities far beyond humans, but whether one of those is problem solving or "growth of knowledge" can't be understood until we humans solve that puzzle ourselves. — tom

My concern is that people are too quick to black box "the problem" and that is not productive for discussing the issue.
I don't think the mind or the how the mind is formed is a black box...I think it can be understood and I see no reason why we should not assume that it is an algorithm.

Take for the sake of argument that knowledge grows via the Popperian paradigm (if you'll pardon the phrase). i.e. Popper's epistemology is correct. There are two parts to this: the Logic of Scientific Discovery, and the mysterious "conjecture". I'm not convinced that the Logic can be performed by a non self-aware entity, if it could, then why has no one programmed it? — tom

If you don't mind could you elaborate on this.

Do you believe an agent would have to be fully self aware at a human level to perform logically for instance?

AlphaGo does something very interesting - it conjectures. However, the conjectures it makes are nothing more than random trials. — tom

I see it a bit differently.

AlphaGo does not play randomly it uses randomness to learn how to play efficiently.

It is no surprise, then, that the contextual coherence of things — how things hold together in fluid, immediately accessible, interpenetrating patterns of significance rather than in precisely framed logical relationships — remains to this day the defining problem for AI.

It is the problem of meaning. — Wayfarer

Meaning for who?

Are you suggesting that a computer could not form meanings?

How would meaning be possible without logical relationships?

Having watched these lectures I believe that one could argue quite reasonably that deepmind is equipped with common sense.

I would also argue that common sense is not something that we are born with...people and dogs have to learn that they cannot jump over a house.

The reason we do not form nonsense solutions to problems has to do from learned experienced so I don't know why it should be a problem for a learning computer to accomplish.

I believe that IBM is working on AI projects which will make Deep Mind look rather insignificant. In fact, some argue that Watson already makes Deep Mind look insignificant. — Metaphysician Undercover

Watson is distinctly different than deepmind they use different techniques...I believe deepmind is more flexible in that it can learn to do different tasks from scratch where as watson is programed to perform a specific task.

No problem...I just would rather that you not assume I have some inability and explain how you can know eternalism is true and presentism is false?

As far as I am abreast of this subject it is still very much open for debate.

Actually, the future has become the past, that's what the passing of time does. We can designate a point in time, such as August 21, 2016, 12:00 noon GMT, and that point in time will change from being in the future, to being in the past, as it changes at the present.

Once it has become the past, all changes which will occur have already occurred, as they occur at the present, when the future becomes the past. Therefore it is impossible that the past can change. — Metaphysician Undercover

Another unresolved question in physics eternalisim vs growing block universe theory.

You seem to be an eternalist.

Again I should make it the point that this is currently an unresolved issue.

As for your model, which employs randomness, I suggest that the randomness is simply a reflection of your inability to comprehend what it means for the future to become the past (for time to be passing). — Metaphysician Undercover

Great...talk down to me...that is always a good way to get people to listen to your point of view.
:-}

And as regards 'creating a mind', think about the role of the unconscious in the operations of mind. The unconscious contains all manner of influences, traits, abilities, and so on - racial, linguistic and cultural heritage, autonomic features, the archetypes, heaven knows what else: — Wayfarer

I think the unconscious mind is more about the brain than the psyche.
You personally do not know how your own brain does what it does...but that does not particularly limit your mind from solving problems.

So if you were to create an actual artificial intelligence, how would you create the unconscious? How would you write a specification for it? 'The conscious mind' would be a big enough challenge, I suspect 'the unconscious' would be orders of magnitude larger, and impossible to specify, for obvious reasons, if you think about it. — Wayfarer

The particulars of the computer hardware and algorithms being used would simply not be known to the agent in question...that would be it's subconscious.

So, of course, we couldn't do that - we would have to endow a network with characteristics, and let it evolve over time. Build up karma, so to speak, or gain an identity and in so doing, the equivalent of a culture, an unconscious, archetypes, and the rest. But how would you know what it was you were creating? And would it be 'a being', or would it still be billions of switches? — Wayfarer

That is, the some argue, most disturbing part....A.I. is approaching a level where it can learn exponentially which would mean it might be able to learn such things much more quickly than we would expect from a human.

The past is a relative term that depends of the frame of reference of the observer.
Whatever it means by "the past cannot be changed" is unclear to me.
If you are suggesting that the past is strictly determined...again that is not clear and remains an open question in science.

I don't know if the past can change or what that means....somehow the past has become the present and I don't see how that is possible without change and I know you can't model it without using randomness.

Again I want to address this notion that what the term mind should mean is exclusively an individual person.

I am seeking to explore the philosophical implications of what it means if general purpose A.I. can learn to solve any problem a human might solve.

That is an open question concerning the methods employed by the example I have...will the new techniques demonstrated by deepmind be able to adapt to as wide a range of problems as a person could?

If you believe you know that these techniques are not general purpose and cannot adapt to any problem a human could adapt to you should focus your criticism by addressing why you believe that is so.

I did not come here to argue that deepmind is, at this point, a fully self aware computer system.
So you can stop beating that dead strawman with your alphago and tensorflow banter.

I came here to ask if the techniques that are employed in my example will be able to eventually converge on that outcome....
if so what are the philosophical implications...
if not...why?

I did skim over that link you provided...thanks for that reference...I will review it more in depth later.

When you say 'in the sense that a human is a being' - what other sense is there? Pick up a dictionary or an encyclopedia, and look up 'being' as a noun - how many instances are there? How many things are called 'beings'? As far as I know, the only things commonly referred to by that term, are humans.

None of that is to say that Deepmind is not amazing technology with many applications etc etc. But it is to call into question the sense in which it is actually a mind. — Wayfarer

Well deepmind is not modeled after a full human brain...it is modeled from a part of the mammalian brain.

I think the goal of one to one human to computer modeling is very far off from now and I am not so sure it is necessary in order to refer to a computer as having a mind.
That is not the criterion that interests me when asking if a computer has a mind.

To me the question is if a computer can demonstrate the ability to solve any problem a human can...be that walking or playing the game of go.

If deepmind can adapt to as wide a range of problem sets as any human can then I think we are forced to consider it a mind in the general sense of that term.

Often I see the objection that a mind is something that is personal and has an autonomous agenda...that is not how I am using the term mind.
I am using the term mind to indicate a general intelligence capable of adapting to any problem a human can adapt to.
Not an individual person...but a general way of thinking.

Of course computers will always be different than humans because humans and computers do not share the same needs.
A computer does not have to solve the problem of hunger a human does for example.
So in some ways comparing a human to computer there is always going to be a fundamental difference...apokrisis touched on this.

I don't necessarily agree that because a computer's needs and a human's needs are necessarily different that therefor a computer cannot be said to have a mind.
That to me is a semantic distinction that misses the philosophical point of A.I.

So my question is more accurately what that would mean about human problem solving if a computer can solve all the same problems as efficiently or even better than humans?

Deepmind is at the very least a peek of what that would look like.

Thanks for pointing this out...I did not realize the rhetoric of BLM had shifted to such a divisive tone.
That to me is tragic not only because it is nonproductive to my mind but also because I believe the only hope for addressing these issues is greater unity and cooperation among communities.

The "us" verses "them" mentality is a step backward not forward.

I believe there is still some racism in our society to be sure...but I do not agree that racism permeates all of our societies institutions and policies.
So I don't agree with that message.

The fact of the matter is most of our society is white, that is true, but that in and of itself does not mean that our policies and institutions are necessarily intolerant of other minority ethnicities.
Starting from that assumption does not address the issue...there are problems on both sides of this issue.
Within black communities there needs to be some change of culture...and within law enforcement there needs to be a change of culture.
There should be a common goal that each side is helping one another to achieve in my opinion.

Simply laying off all the responsibility onto a racists system is a cop out and promotes a culture of victimization that only serves to diminish the possibility of living with dignity.

There is historical precedent for humanitarian intervention, and I've already given you one example. You may not know much about these things, and I suspect you don't given the content of your posts, but international law mandates that certain action, including military actions, be taken to stop crimes against humanity.

There is a historical precedent demonstrating that simply installing a democracy in the middle of war is not mission accomplished as well.

You may not realize engaging in conflict for the "right" reasons does not insure that your goal will be accomplished...and seeking revenge for the innocents sounds like a great story to tell yourself...but it is not a military strategy

I am curious how long do you think it would take to "fix" syria if the west did invade?

And why you believe that the people there would be eager for the west to come in and "fix" it?

You may be right...this machine is not a being in the sense that a human is a being..at least not yet...I cannot say if it might be possible for it to learn to do so as you do though...and I am fascinated because I believe deepmind is the closest a machine has come in approaching that possibility.

I still argue that this machine does have a state of being and a concept of self that it experiences along side its experience of its environment...it models itself and learns about itself from its environment and learns about its environment from its model of self.

Deepmind is a major step forward towards A.I. that can adapt to a wider range of problems than any other attempt thus far...the question of whether it can adapt to as wide range as humans can adapt to is still very much an open one.

So the myth of chance permeates through physics as well as biology. There is a chance that past events could be changed? — Metaphysician Undercover

The past has already changed to become the present???
Part of how that is possible is because of probability, chance, randomness.

Why do you insist that physics treats past events, events which have already occurred, as probabilistic? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because of the principle of relativity.
Why do you believe the laws of physics for the past are different from the laws of the present and/or future?

Do you think that a random event, or stochastic system, could exist without being designed? — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course not...humans designed these concepts in order to model reality.


It may be that the laws of nature are deterministic...it may be they are not...and it may be that we cannot know.

I am willing to admit that determinism is not possible to prove with our current state of scientific knowledge...if you are unwilling to accept that...that is your issue not mine...why should I be bothered to continue and point out all the reason why we cannot be sure of this?

It is not my problem if you can't be bothered to take probability, chance, and randomness seriously.
Science does take it seriously because it is necessary to do so in order to further our knowledge and understanding.

But then a neural network is (ideally) in dynamical feedback interaction with the world. It is embodied in the way of a brain. And this is a non-algorithmic aspect of its being. You can't write out the program that is the system's forward model of the world. The forward model emerges rather than being represented by a-priori routines.

I am not sure I understand this.
Can you elaborate further on this point?
I fear that you are suggesting that computers must be able to operate in a continuous and analog fashion and that digitization is something that will prevent computers from having minds...is that what you are saying?

So sure, you can ask about the algorithm of the mind. But this is equivocal if you then seem to think you are talking about some kind of programmable computer and not giving due weight to the non-algorithmic aspects of a neural net which are the actual basis of its biological realism.

It was my understanding, apokrisis, that an algorithm is simply a set of steps or operations that get processed in a particular order depending upon logical conditions of the computational architecture.
My understanding of neural nets is that their architecture is different from a programmable computer, yes, but that term algorithm still applies in the neural network cases because algorithms can be adapted to account for the additional logical conditions of that architecture.
If I was mistaken about that I apologize, I did admit that I did not understand the distinction you are making though and I still don't

It seems to me you may be suggesting that biology is not algorithmic and/or cannot be algorithmic?

The idea of an algorithm in itself completely fails to have biological realism. Sure we can mathematically simulate the dynamical bistability of molecular machine. We can model what is going on in brains and cells in terms of a sequence of rules. But algorithms can't push matter about or regulate dissipative processes.

That is the whole point of Turing machine - to disconnect the software actions from the hardware mechanics. And the whole point of biology is the opposite - to have a dynamical interaction between the symbols and the matter. At every level of the biological organisation, matter needs to get pushed about for anything to be happening.

So in philosophy of mind terms, Turing computation is quite unlike biological semiosis in a completely fundamental way.

If the criterion is achieving nano-scale biological realism, then yes...deepmind falls well short of this measure.
That is still quite a ways off indeed.
To me you seemed to be suggesting...it may be necessary to simulate all of the brains mechanisms and only then can we begin to probe the question of whether that computer simulations has a mind.

Are you saying that it is necessary to digitize the brain and maybe even the body at a nano scale?

At any rate you have raised some good points and have given me quite a bit to think about.

But all you need to do (on the 3rd time of asking) is to demonstrate that a physical theory is undecidable. How many opportunities do you need to present a counter-example?

Why?
I already conceded the point...you win.
It does not matter so I do not care and it does not change my argument if we say undecidability is physical or nonphysical.
The same argument applies either way.

To repeat: It is utterly improbable that, in trying to solve the computational problem "how to win at go" will also solve the hard problem. Of course, it is possible that in trying to solve the problem "how to win at space-invaders" the problem of qualia is also solved, but what use is that? If we have solved the problem of qualia without an explanatory theory of qualia,

First the people that engineered deepmind were not trying to solve the problem of "how to win at go"...that is a very silly thing to say....they were trying to solve the problem of general purpose A.I..
Go is just one task their algorithm has learned to preform.
Second the game of go has long been considered a major milestone in A.I. because it is all but impossible to use brute force calculating to win at go.
Deepmind is not a brute force go engine, and it plays intuitively just as do humans (technically better than humans)...guess you missed that somehow?

The explanation of qualia is that it is algorithmic.
If the mind/consciousness is decidable then the hard problem is solved with an algorithm.
The hard problem should not be too hard at all...especially considering we already have examples (our own minds and brains) that we reverse engineer.

I disagree that it is improbable that we might discover that algorithm for general consciousness/minds.
That is not a very well thought out rebuttal in light of the fact that we are modeling the mechanism of our own psyches and brains.

To discover the algorithm for a particular mind...sure I might grant you that it is highly unlikely.

But I believe there is a general template upon which particular minds are formed and it is not all that unlikely that we might discover what that general template is, considering we are modeling from neurology and psychology.
To me it seems improbable that we won't discover the proper algorithm.

The reason you cannot give an example of an undecidable problem in physics is because there aren't any. The reason for that, is that only the class of computable functions (and computable numbers) is required to express any physical law, or any problem in physics. No physical process relies on the the unphysical aspects of undecidability, which either involve the liar paradox or infinity.

Sigh...honestly I don't care.
OK fine...have it your way...you are right and undecidibility is "nonphysical."
It is unimportant to my argument either way.

Simply calling undecidability nonphysical does not make that problem go away though, you are still left with the problem of whether or not the mind is decidable or undecidable.

So again I will ask you...do you think the term mind/consciousness should mean something that is decidable or undecidable?

And again I will remind you that if you believe you can answer the question "do I have a mind/consciousness" correctly with a yes or no everytime you ask then at a fundamental level the consequence is that the mind/consciousness is something that is decidable.

It just so happens that the famous Bekenstien Bound guarantees that Reality is a finite-state machine. Every calculation which you have carried out, every calculation any computer has carried out, and any calculation that any finite-state machine ever will carry out is expressible in Presburger arithmetic.

.
Not sure how this proves the mind/consciousness cannot be decidable?
Perhaps you could elaborate further on how this is relevant or how it eliminates the possibility that the mind/consciousness could be expressed algorithmically?

As for your fantasy that any current computer program experiences qualia etc, well you had better be wrong. If you are not, then what exists is an artificial person who can suffer and who should be protected by rights like the rest of us.

Again you state that it is fantasy and still you have not demonstrated why that is so.

Should I just take your word for it?

Is it something you know that i, or others, cannot know?

Don't be shy...share your wisdom with us...I am quite eager to hear how you know it is mere fantasy that deepmind has no mind at all.

Steven Pinker has written on the subject of human violence and I take solace in fact that over the course of history violence seems to be trending towards the decline.

It is a small comfort perhaps...but it suits me better than these bitter words of yours.

Well said by the way.

There are no physics problems in your list. The undecidable problems of mathematics are irrelevant to physics,

This is simply false.
These problems are physically impossible to solve.
You are woefully ignorant in this subject area it seems.
In reality all of the problems I have listed are physical problems in the sense that there can be no mechanical solutions to them.

None the less here is a search result for a google of the terms undecidable problems in physics with About 108,000 results (0.33 seconds).
Undecidability is not simply some abstraction that does not apply to physics which you can brush off so lightly.
Undecidability is an important discovery about mathematics and mechanical systems.

That is simply a fantasy. But you seem to have decided the undecidable problem nevertheless.

Perhaps you could explain how you know it is a fantasy...for some one so uninformed you are rather quick to doll out proclamations as though they are simply true.
If you can't explain yourself you should probably not bother with this site.
Just saying stating things baldly is not how our community operates...you need to be more in depth with your replies.

First let me ask do you believe it is or ever will be possible for machines to think in similar ways that humans do such that they can or could form minds and consciousness.
If you don't even believe it is possible then of course this breakthrough will seem unimportant and inconsequential.
If you do, however, believe that such a thing is possible then this breakthrough is quite different as it represent a crucial milestone towards that path.

So, it should be no problem for you to give a few examples of these undecidable problems in physics?

The halting problem has no mechanical or physical solution.
It cannot be decided by any physical means.
Here is a list of more.

Why do you believe the computer program possesses qualia?

First I don't simply assume that computers cannot possess qualia.
My definition of the term does not automatically exclude computers and their programs from having qualia because I don't believe the term qualia refers to something that is undecidable.
That is to say I think the question of "Is this qualia" can be answered yes or no.

Deepmind experiences things and forms a concept of its own existence as an acting agent within an environment that responds to the actions that deepmind performs.

If deepmind was unable to model itself it would not be able to achieve what it has.

I can understand people being skeptical that deepmind is general purpose A.I. and I will admit there is still a long way to go before we have to worry about whether not deepmind or systems like it are minds/consciousness in similar ways that humans are (most computer science experts believe this is still 50 years away) but I don't agree that you can simply dismiss the philosophical implications of this A.I. breakthrough as you have done.

I also believe it is important to take this breakthrough seriously now rather than wait until it is at a human level consciousness.

People should stop simply dismissing the idea because it makes them uncomfortable and start asking themselves what if it is possible and what does it mean if it is possible?

But there is no such thing as an undecidable problem in physics.

Yes there is.
Perhaps you failed to understand.
Algorithms are mechanical physical things.
They are not just mere abstractions...many problems exist for which there is no mechanical solution and can be no mechanical solution or algorithm.
This statement is very uninformed.
Any undecidable problem is literally a physically undecidable problem.

It is inconceivable that a "mind" could be programmed by accident i.e. that's not going to happen until we understand what constitutes a mind.

The mind in this case is no accident...it was very deliberately created by modeling psychology and neurology.
As well I pointed out before that we are not ever going to understand the mind if we define that term as something that is undecidable.
Again if you believe you can answer the question "do I have a mind/consciousness" with a yes or a no definitively and correctly...then you fundamentally believe that the mind/consciousness is a computable thing that an algorithm determines.

If you believe that the question "do I have a mind/consciousness" cannot be answered with an algorithm...then you believe fundamentally that it is an undecidable question.

Properties that the artificial mind will possess include consciousness, qualia, creativity, and dare I say it, free will. AlphaGo possesses none of these. It is not a mind.

Alpha go is just one iteration of deepmind.
I disagree with you on many of these points.
I believe the deepmind system does posses qualia, creativity and free will, and even some level of consciousness.
But of course that is just my opinion, I have argued in other posts why I hold that opinion.

What concerns me here, about this remark, is you simply assert this statement as though it is true without providing any justification as to why it actually is true.
Simply stating flat out that "it has none of these" is not particularly convincing if you don't bother to explain how you can know that it is true.

You do realize that during war US forces and our allies have also had collateral damage that injured, and even killed, innocent civilians?

Does that make the US a bad guy as well?

Never mind, no need to answer those questions.

Let me ask another instead...

Who do you think the good guys are in syria?
If the US did invade and occupy syria who would we place in charge that was not a bad guy?

I guess I should've have said it is not really clear who the good guys are.

I don't think we can just kill the problems away in syria and of course I don't agree that the US or west should intervene in syrai with military force.
That is obviously not going to happen and it is an unrealistic expectation.

I can understand being upset that innocents are caught in the cross fire...but when violence offers no solution to the problems faced in syria, simply being outraged about the tragedies is not a good reason for a military invasion and occupation.
Even if it would make you feel better.