What's a better adjective than "intelligent" to describe machines capable of doing certain tasks (e.g. calculations) that are analogous to those carried out using human intelligence and that distinguish these machines from those that cannot carry out such tasks? — Baden

Humans aren't pinned down by logic and calculations, or especially, predictions. We aren't a state determined system. We relax and stop using logic and reason, when we do, we dream enriching dreams with utterly illogical and perfectly meaningful insights to ourselves and our environment. When we dream, I believe we experience the inexperienceable (the Noumenon), which is a mostly non-representational state of mind that may be a challenge remembering; the Noumenon itself can't be represented, as any knowledge of it becomes a phenomenon.

Computer processing isn't really comparable to a creative human intelligence, perhaps only to that of computer scientists, who for some strange reason believe logic is essential to learning, or the only kind of learning. And if this is true, I wonder if computer scientists ever relax. Relaxing and dreaming is essential to ex nihilo imagination, which occurs anterior to logical operations or memory. Human have had rich imaginations long before the computer paradigm came to the scene. It's my belief human consciousness arose from non-patterned, non-symbolic lucid dream of a Noumenal plane of existence. The computer paradigm trend (as a model for human consciousness/intelligence) as synonymous with apophenia writ large. Everything a computer "sees" would be a pareidolia to a human, nothing more. Indeed, much of what is taken for the logical part of intelligence is akin to apophenia, seeing patterns that aren't really there to some other way of looking.

Honestly, if it can be admitted that our species at one time wasn't even conscious of itself, but through some slow universal process of self-organization, not entirely of our own making, came to instill metacognition within us, what sense does it make to believe it were anything resembling a computer's operations (entirely of human making)? Machines aren't self-emergent, they required human-beings to exist before they could exist. Human-beings aren't self emergent, they required a universe/world to exist before they could exist.

But we are just machines. We have inputs and outputs, memory and a CPU. It's just we are so much more complex than current computers that we class ourselves apart when we are basically the same. — Devans99

Does a computer have a relationship to ding an sich as a human does? Can it "see" anything outside of what its preexisting programming (implicit programming) tells it to look for? What humans see is influenced by input from the organism itself (similarly), however, what the eye sees is detected based on weird quantum mechanical physics, existing in the nature of light (which is not understood in toto; to the extent it's understood it is not subject to binary, either-or logic). Information from the eye is sent to the brain and transduced into mental imagery. Does a computer enter a state of mental imagery? No, because it doesn't have a mind. Mental imagery is not seen by the physical organism itself or the eyeball per se, it is seen by the mind.

More needless splitting and false dichotomies; the glass is both half empty and half full at once with being neither; a half empty and full glass is basically like yin-yang, the meaning of which explains the error of illusion of control and pigeonholing reality. Anicca would remind you of impermanence of the glass; dukkha of the prison of attaching to the fullness or emptiness concepts; anatta of no identity based on the glass dichotomy. Not seeing it is as an eventual polar shift, a precipitation of empty into full and full into empty, violates annica; fullness has a seed of emptiness at its pole as emptiness has a seed of fullness at its antipode.. Sunyata points out, as does yin-yang, the interdependent nature of conditioned things and the non existence of permanent identity or unchanging elements. The glass may as well be thought of as broken, or not there to begin with.

When reality is split and one side favored over the other, the repressed side becomes violent and instinct can deflect it back on the ego in a tumultuous, mercurial fashion. In the case of the glass, you might experience the wrath of emptiness if you choose to believe it is only half full. Then it's wise not to put too much weight into any one-sided, black and white view of reality, if every pole has the seed of its opposite pole; since they create each other, digging too far in one direction might trigger a polar shift, maybe even a literal bipolar disorder in internal world.

A Walden Pond experience may yet be in the cards for me. It isn't an all or nothing thing...so when mentioning peace of mind...it is kept up by spiritual practice. Nothing is perfect.

I'll say this, before allowing excessive ailments or death by a dangerous stress response, IBS, migraines, cancer, and all that goes with the common overachiever orientation and diseases of affluence/modernity, I would likely take a natural course of action (go to the forest) if it was appropriate to maintain what I felt was an adequately well-communicated mind. Would I go empty handed or without health provisions before dropping out, no.

Good question. If one lives in a developed country, it's probable he's never even experienced hunger unless he's chosen to by fasting. Sort of counterintuitive if you think about it, to have to choose to go hungry. Really starvation can only be triggered by the action or inaction we take...it's another one of those immovable natural laws. When asked whether the glass is half full or empty, a Buddhist would reply that it's broken.

Buddhists say to eat, sleep, and talk little.

As I see it, the twisted part is taught to children by bad examples from their parents, presidents, politicians, businessmen, lawyers, judges, CEOs, .... The neurosis of following these examples and blocking primal entelechy can derange the innocent, young mind. Authoritarianism is another system defective to the mind's ecology: the commercial chain of command, like military psychology, is steeped in sadomasochism.

There's a lot that goes wrong with the development process. Yes, Buddhism and mediation should be taught in kindergarten. There's a reason why Tibetan culture was/is one of the most peaceful and successful of all time.

The economy will collapse it's certain, so wouldn't we figure out why and try to introduce stability? I'm a proponent of slow, planned degrowth, actually. The current boom-bust cycle is a little nuts (e.g., what would the analog of a boom-bust cycle of capitalism be on the microcosm scale of an individual, psychally and behaviorally? a wise, reasoning individual would never intentionally cultivate a boom bust cycle in his life). Greedy businessmen call it a recession...which sounds a little better...too bad the whole enterprise is built on shifting sand and fundamentally unstable. An individual can never have a balanced psyche if market values are all he believes in. This is why I think Buddhism is so hard to practice successfully in the market society...there's so much aggression, achievement-orientation, reward seeking, and general behaviorism that keeps peace at bay. The individual can adjust and correct his mistakes in a way the runaway market forces can never do; the individual seeks sustainability in his personal sphere, the market society has meagre consideration for the long term. Again, the person with love of money and has economic and political fundamentalism for his every example, is almost always a violent, impulsive, compulsive personage (to a degree) for the above reasons. Nobody is all bad, though, so there are good examples, but I don't believe they're from fundamentalism or sectarian systems. Most would agree there are too many dark triad types in high places.

So, you have your own theory as to how the mind works? — Wallows

The short version answer to your question: the combination of psychoanalysis and eastern philosophy (Buddhism, especially) has made a lot of sense to me. In truth, Buddhism not watered down by western influence may be too strict for our times. Slowing down enough to meditate, contemplate, and still the "monkey mind" may be beyond the boundaries of smartphone culture; not to mention that so much about our culture is geared toward polishing a sense of identity and seeking rewards (both which are known defilements to an advanced Buddhist; yes, initially desire to improve your mind leads to trying out Buddhism, but then you detach from this desire effortlessly through practice). Still, despite the restless western culture, many of its tenets have appealed to me and helped to detach from defilement and violent states of mind (aggressiveness, achievement orientation, and craving are an unfortunate prodigious part of the market society).

Once peace is established and nothing is done by impulsiveness or compulsiveness, making spiritual practice of using various creative mediums to further investigate the subconscious is an additional element in dispelling worldly dharmas like obsession with gain and loss, honor and dishonor, praise and blame, reward and punishment, like and dislike......life and death. False spliiting or separating of reality into dichotomies obscures the monist orientation, which I think, is where Buddhism comes in to show a path back into pure potentiality or "the one" without need to take any action whatever when face to face with inner "demons."

Another of my personal perspectives: neurosis has increased to an all time high. Whatever can be done to mitigate this should be done. This is why creativity is so important, inasmuch as it gives some power back to our instinct (or oneness, what have you). It's known to psychoanalysis ego is made of instinct, which tells you instinct is impossible to escape. This is why repressions boomerang, too much blocking of instinct, which it doesn't like. Once it's had enough, it'll send a conniption fit your way. As I see it, instinct is like psychosis; creativity is like psychosis. But neurosis can be as bad or worse than psychosis, since as we've just seen, neurosis leads to loss of peace worse than peaceful application of divergent states of mind. Someone who has no peace of mind would get no benefit from allowing instinct its way, it could be dangerous. So it varies whether neurosis or psychosis is worse for any given individual. Obviously one without peace could be brought to a bad place if he followed his divergent mental states (is this bipolar?). But one who has peace and sits back and watches his mind like a movie, with no fear can use divergent states of mind for mental health. The key point here, that I'm not misunderstood, is to remember the mechanism of neurotic repression pissing off your soul or instinct, the whole ball of wax, which then precipitates repressive derivatives back at you in impulsive acts, and acting out and hurting others.

Has anyone else recognized this as a fundamental cognitive distortion and how does one combat it or not fall into its lure? — Wallows

No. The shortcoming of cognitive science as a vade mecum to human mental health is that it includes AI as part of its paradigm, as well as a extraneous focus on neuroscience. Not that cognitive science, like cybernetics, isn't useful for understanding up to an extent, it's just that the human mind works quite differently than these disciplines allow for. Unfortunately, it seems like the truth of the mind pendent to metaphysical pathos(as described by various other schools of thought going back in time a very long way), limned by allegory, mythopoesis, religion, literature in general (especially fiction), spirituality and mysticism, etc., is dimming next to the dominance of cognitive science.

distress, depression, and a whole host of other negative affective moods. — Wallows

The cause of unhappiness is the belief you should always be happy, clinging to or chasing after happiness. Further, projecting into the ego ideal (a target state of mind would be part ego ideal, e.g., something you'd like to be except aren't) is associated with most unhealthy and volatile manic states; identification with the ego ideal is like trying to trick yourself or hide from the true Self; we are taught from our parents and society's conditioning to do this in a variety of ways, so deconditioning from these insalubrious dynamics of extrinsic locus of control and motivation is requisite to establish peace and balance. E.g., feelings of humiliation and shame will hold one back from his highest potential and peace of mind. Where did one learn to feel ashamed?

Maybe simpletons can always be happy (some people are very unaware and unaware that they're very unaware), though I sincerely doubt anyone with enough intra-inter-personal awareness is always happy. Your moods are just what they are and attachment to happiness can lead to suffering just as much as attachment to unhappiness. Defining the word "negative" here would be necessary. Negative to whom? You? Me? Or any one of countless souls that are all different?

Identification with mental states of any kind can lead to violence. Western culture has insinuated a strong influence in making the average person believe they should have a strong personality and know what they stand for. Buddhism teaches anicca, dukkha, anatta: impermanent, unbearable, not self. These concepts are applicable to any and all mental states, not only ones that are disliked, but ones that are desired as well.

Understanding the spectrum of neurosis>>>>>>>>>>>psychosis is what helps to get a grasp on mental health. Too much repression of unwanted feelings/thoughts leads to an attack of those repressions at some later time in altered form (repression derivatives). Psychoanalysis is a far more correct description of the human mind than CBT or cognitive science, imo. When mental states change, there is a displacement into some other component of the mind. Emotional intelligence is also central to cultivation of balance and homeostasis of mind. Allowing some measure of peaceful insanity/psychosis goes a looong way toward quelling the intrusions of neurotic repression derivatives. Perhaps emotions seem like nothing but insanity to some...which would be very false. Violence, impulsiveness, and compulsion are the true harmful/negative emotions, and they tend to result from neurotic, controlling, repression....falsely believing you should always be happy and positive, e.g.

In my system, anger and acting out are considered non emotions, the sum total displacement of all the other repressed emotions. Yes, most consider anger an emotion, but it is the prime example of instinct returning to you all of your repressed emotions in an altered form you can't control. Thus, anger and acting out is the result of a lot of repression and displacement of normal emotion/moods.

Anger and impulse control disorder are much worse for the individual and the human system than depression or moods. Not in terms of usefulness or functioning, but in terms of cultivation of peace and overall eudaemonia.

Not complaining. If my tone is one of ill-humor, in my mind it is simply one of trying to raise awareness. There's nothing wrong with gravitas, which is not the same as complaining.

Surely you've seen the Disney movie Fantasia, with Mickey Mouse. Should we let the brooms lose the proper measure of things and flood us with disorder (all the while thinking we would have more and more order?; honestly we're already getting the wrong answer from AI, since people are somehow ignorant of the noxious effects of surveillance state-capitalism: this isn't a complaint, it's just a call for awareness).

To say I'm wanting to be a god-bee when I'm suggesting using nature as a biomimetic example for AI is to mistake me. It's the other way around. This planet, not us, is the measure of things. Not to begin with its example is lunacy. Should we not care about these things? We're an organism-environment, and the environment is partly made up of other people and their agendas.

Rather than get completely away from topic... While it may be true there's nothing outside the domain of metaphor, language is inherently metaphoric, it's also true we can't just call any object or phenomenon anything we want for that can lead to symbol drain and confusion. Metaphor/poetry is a personal, non-recitable (yes, poetry can be memorized, which is close to the opposite of writing it) language engaged in akin to mystic revelation, it's close to mentalese and phantasmata, very individual and imagistic, esoteric, your truth, unsharable. The more it is a popular nomenclature (the phrase, AI), the more I tend to feel it should be less metaphoric and unmistakable meaning, exoteric, recitable, literal, prosaic, etc (also, computers communicate in a similar mimetic manner, which couldn't be less poetic and shouldn't be dignified with a metaphorical denomination, social decay may result). Popular language can have a propaganda-like, mesmerizing affect and shouldn't be irresponsibly dispatched. Plus, it's obviously too confusing when the chosen word/analog, though perhaps a metaphor (i.e., AI), isn't even a good exercise of metonymy, rather a doggerel, since, again, the definitions of intelligence are precisely the opposite of what computing machines are capable of.

— Happenstance

Watched your link. Interesting how physiognomy made it our of the realm of pseudoscience after facial recognition computer applications came on the scene :chin: . Still not sure I believe in it, actually.

Go back to what I said. Your reply is like a bee complaining about how the bee hive influences their perception of reality. — Harry Hindu

Fair characterization. The AI obsession does make humans into the Borg or bees, what have you, a major cause of concern for awareness human-style. I can try to better incorporate your ideas, although the way in which our species is trying to create its own truth separate from the one truth has already addressed your last quoted post. We can't recreate nature, in other words, we can only be an extension of it.

Hopefully we are nothing like the mantid men, reptilians, or the Greys (archonic influence alert!). That said, my stance is against the mind numbing effects of AI and technological determinism in general (there have been a surprising few thinkers in history willing to take a full look at this ever increasing dependence: McCluhan, Mumford, Carr, Postman, et al.) Even automobiles can be thought of as AI (they are extensions of the mobility of feet, extensions of man), which tends to degrade the ability to stop and smell the roses or slow down and see them to begin with, ultimately which changes sense ratios and ratiocination (or if he does stop for the flowers, he can't resist the impulsive pic with his smartphone instead of simply drinking them in with his native and ephemeral aesthetic sense of seeing). Obviously technics define the human species, a Promethean mould, but the question silly not to ask, which is the same for every other venture of men: how much is enough? Fundamentalisms always runaway...people who say you can never have enough money are in the same category as those who believe more and more AI will have the right answer (tech and economics being fundamentalism). Adding to ever increasing complexity leads to instability (imbalances are created and structures fall): we're already acutely complex in our primal state. At what point do natural systems precede the mania of human ego ideal projected into technics (when does the cybernetic system actually include what includes it)? Never it would seem. It truly concerns me. This isn't complaining, it's an emergency (drama excluded); hark! (or maybe not lol), please see that awareness isn't the same as complaining. Bateson acknowledged this unending ignorance of the "supreme systemic network" (his locution).

Paul Stamets (an arch genius) has had the idea of being able to tap into the feedbacks-forwards of mycelium in the soil of forests creating a bio-computer interface. Until humans incorporate the supreme systemic network into their AI, biomimetically (solar panels copying photosynthesis, e.g.), it all seems a little too human centered for me (not grounded or sound). Tech. determinism, with AI in the van, is getting to be a little as water to the fish: the fish doesn't know what water is. Instead of enhancing the environment, by conforming to the mental processing of ecosystems (which we can thank for our lives, btw), we'll see folks getting BCI enhancements for the internet through retinal implants. There is a question of vitalism (or exuberance for life) vs tech determinism; after so much comfort and convenience, might one not ask whether unending need for more of it is a signal people don't want to be alive? Is it a necromanic enterprise ruled by death instinct (wishing for a return to inorganic matter) or desire for obliviion? What's up with video game addiction? Or that some would rather apply electric shocks to themselves than have a relationship with their own minds for 15 minutes (assuming most of you have heard of this experiment, if not I could post a link). Sometimes it can be up to 80 times a day smartphone users check their phone.

There's plenty of mystery to me why far more people aren't protesting against the status quo. No explanation how we are swimming in telecom and cool with giving over our privacy (or having it stolen), and then having it sold (is this a good example to follow?)... How is this possible? Archonic influence? mass hypnosis?... No idea. You tell me. This is a topic fertile and in need of original philosophy.

....but even they treat such things as mere tools — MindForged

Good statement. Technological determinism runs far deeper than just a "tool" as some would suppose.

If human beings are outcomes of natural processes, then it only makes sense to say that the things we've created are are natural as well. Separating human beings from nature would be an "anthropocentric activity". — Harry Hindu

Your meaning is clear; it isn't possible to escape the natural tempero-spatial order. There's always some displacement or other when technics are so dominant a part of human relations, usually into diminished mental health. However, is it not apparent our species is doing everything it can to supplant time and space with its own technological version of time and space? Mechanical clocks to transportation tech have subconsciously insinuated a belief that human order is indeed separate from the natural order.

Everyone must obey the technics, not time and space, when they scramble home for the holidays, experiencing immense stress of gridlock and the tightest schedule possible(never relaxing the moment). The speed of telecom creates a counterfeit sense of communion, which can be imagined as homologous to a seance (provided one puts zero value in face to face relations), and so on. Anyway, the convenience and speed of doing things doesn't really result in calmer, clearer, more peaceful, self-organized lives when we all are subject to the heteronomous, other-organization of technological determinism.

Computers perform actions - namely complex mathematical and logical calculations — MindForged

Hardly pointless, friend. The average Joe, utterly unlike a computer, does not do calculations when he understands, thinks, make judements, and uses his mind. . Making distinctions here is necessary. Nor is there a reason to depict logic and math as something only the more intelligent people can do. Anything that can only be used sheerly through memorization and application excludes interpretation and judgement and understanding. Which is why, if anything, I'd be tempted to say math and logic are mindless pursuits in themselves. Not that a computer scientist won't have axiological orientations, but to the extent he does, it won't derive from his involvement in math or logic. AI is an unmixed psychopath, right. There are reasons this may be true you'll never arrive at through logic and math.

There appears to be a lot of programmer/computer scientists on here, so I'm probably backing myself into a corner taking that into account. For me, wisdom/philosophy begins with the totality of known and unknowns...it's never as though what humans know is all there is to know. Not sure why science and computer science seem to be replacing natural philosophy. It isn't with me. Nor can I imagine how AI can ever be programmed to handle or calculate with the input of an infinite cosmos the way we humans with our minds have to, inasmuch as a mind has nonlocal information to it unlike an algorithm. A computer simulation is the opposite of a human mind. My mind is abstract in a way that can't be reified by AI.

Another thing, is it acceptable that machine learning (interconnected algorithms) spits out information that can't even be checked by a human mind? This doesn't seem wise or smart or intelligent by any means. It may even be stupid. Sorry if I do not admire how fast computers can process information if it's collateral to this kind of stupidity. Slow down and settle on the furniture of wisdom.

Take mass surveillance, which I'd hope we could all agree is decisively immoral. But this is something that fits into the wheelhouse of computer scientists, as they produce programs that are fed such unscrupulous panopticon spying data. The point is, it seems possible the unimpeachable immorality of mass surveillance would be lost on people who believe AI is really intelligent. Yet an android like Zuckerberg (he even resembles an android) calls for more and more AI to handle more and more private information. Not lucidly understanding that mass surveillance is deeply wrong is only possible when understanding fails to see that logic doesn't always precede the right answers, or that AI isn't intelligent. Very bad choice of diction...AI can be extremely stupid. Just because it can execute something, it will.

Also, the danger of AI doesn't lie in machines or robots taking over humans by force (though neurons that fire together wire together, and too much screen time no doubt changes the structure of the brain). It's in humans becoming like golems to the beck and call of their AI and losing wisdom, intelligence, and philosophy therein. In this sense, it's already begun.

Substitute anything else for "consciousness" in the above sentence and you'll realize how absurd it is. — SophistiCat

Simple question? Why would you think you could replace a word, here, without loss of meaning?

You obviously didn't check out evolutionary psychology so you're just not knowing what you're talking about here. — Harry Hindu

If it involves computational theory of mind, I'll have to choke it down. AI being anything like a mind, or genetic determinism, and such anthorpogenic conceptual projections are what I try to consistently argue against. There should be some kind of dialectic involved, to be sure, so perhaps there will be fuel to be found in your reading recommendations.

The idea the cosmos has to do computations for anything to happen is completely ridiculous to me. Nature obeys homeostatic setpoints and servomechanisms, which are more like measuring what comes through biological channels than doing computations; cybernetics is appealing, however, there is a difference between a homeostatic machine and nature; nature isn't a machine; cities are more like machines than the natural order treated by natural philosophy. Which is why it makes as much sense to look for a mind in natural cycles as it does in anything human exclusive. Whatever gave rise to us (abiogenesis, say) gave rise to all life on earth, why would we not want to focus on a hierarchic echelon above humans and what humans have made if it is the truth we are after? Perhaps abiogenesis would be the opposite of AI? Just raw primeval intelligence. A computer world would be made of metal and circuitry...which isn't what it is made up of. When you step outside your home into the original state of the natural order, you don't step on metal and silicon. Our species is attempting to establish its own truth over the only truth, its own time and space over the only time and space. Such attempts are doomed to fail.

Take the insidious device that preceded much other technics: the mechanical clock. It has no feedback system, it measures nothing...it's basically in a runaway mode all the time. This completely non homeostatic device is ruling our biologic world. It has no biological negative feedbacks whatever as it ticks away. Yet most people feel the organization it affords is a good thing. Even to the extent it coordinates anthropocentric activity, it does so irrespective of their biology. What a golem we have at the center of all human relations.

Excessive AI focus reminds me all too much of relilgious dogma of Genesis: "When God created man, in the likeness of God made he him....When man created AI, in the likeness of man made he it." The inflexible culture of anthropocentric, anthropogenic, narcissistic anthropolatry is definitely thick enough to cause delusional beliefs anent our place in nature, in the transmundane order . The ways in which religious dogma have shaped our world for the worse may be nothing compared to what AI myopia will do.

Computations are the hammer and nail of computer scientists, who used to be called "computers." Human computers no doubt believe their machine computers are like them.

Do plants have a nervous system? — chatterbears

Action potentials, yes. Plants have senses. Actually, they share genes with humans; mutated genes in deaf people mess up the hair cells in cochlea ; the same genes mutated in plants deforms their root hairs . All meat lovers should have to slaughter their own animal, if they continue to eat meat afterward, they're alright with me. The convenience of buying food off the shelf is unreal if we want to be self-sufficient: suffice it to say that that's not where your food came from. If people weren't so dependent on other people for alimentation, it might change their perspective entirely. In a way that makes sense. Some of the most self-sufficient animals are meat eaters or at least omnivores. Living from the earth clears up confusion as I see it. The point: when you are faced with ontological directness (sun and earth), you'd probably eat what you had to in case you might die otherwise (a dyed in the wool vegan would start frog gigging, I'm sure). Having so much choice at the market is a bit of a puerile dependence. Gardening is possibly my favorite activity because it feels right to be more self-sufficient in a market society of commercialized people as products and consumers. Haven't hunted yet, though it could still happen. Btw, factory farms are hideous and we likely agree if that's where you're coming from. Always take no more food than what you need. Mass production and industrialization are enormities. Surplus grain from cash cropping rots away in bunkers. Meat recalls. Diseases on factory farms leads to millions of animals' needless deaths with no food value, usually chickens. What a waste. There's a lot more going on than animal cruelty, here. We're all complicit in the market society.

Instincts, which is built-in (unconscious) knowledge thanks to natural selection.

Check out the field of evolutionary psychology. — Harry Hindu

Then there is a kind of knowing (distinct from knowledge, which must be recalled as memory) which spans across lifetimes. Intelligence = instinct in a preconscious way (do all individuals have equal amount of instinct, why or why not?). Memories are only memories if they can be recalled consciously. It's a stretch applying evolutionary psychology to AI. Our primal intelligence is quite different from AI are we not admitting here? Generally, human intelligence is far more complex and cryptic than AI, which always has implied programming as knowledge issuing from the head of the learned programmer. There's no knowing involved in carrying out instructions. When soldiers lose communication with their orders, they run amok, unintelligent.

Living things, including brains, don't just "restructure their hardware" randomly, or for no reason. Input is required to influence those changes (learning). Learning requires memory. Your input (experiences of the world) over your lifetime has influenced changes in your hardware and software. A robot with a computer brain could be programmed to update its own programming with new input. Actually, computers do this already to a degree. Input from the user changes the contents of the software (the variables) and how the hardware behaves. — Harry Hindu

If learning requires memory, and there's no other kind of learning which doesn't require memory, then how would an infant begin to learn in the first place? There is a chicken and egg problem. Young children have only a modicum of memory to navigate the infinitely complex world they live in (far more complex than could ever be remembered), yet they aren't completely helpless. Why? Imagination and intelligence. Imagination isn't learned or all that dependent on memory in the same way understanding, judgement, thinking, and mentation are unlearned and not dependent on memory (they're built into the mind as it becomes conscious) . Even though it is a bit of an enigma, the mind has its own organization to it prior to any memory; the organization is intelligence. Memories themselves are rather stuck the way they are with no ability to figure out how to combine themselves with other memories to make wholes or to divide into smaller fragments. What is it that creates these combinatorial contexts of memories and edits them? It's not the memories themselves. Memories aren't self emergent, they're combined or divided, emergently or reductively, by a preexisting manifold of mental organization.

When consciousness itself isn't entirely understood, in what way wouldn't it be prevaricating trying to assert a machine can be conscious? There appears to be some sort of dishonesty involved. When it isn't even known what human consciousness is, how on earth could anyone be mentally lazy enough to skip over this fact and project a half-baked conception of what it is into a machine? Indubitably, our species has formed a very, very close bond with computers, smartphones, so it may be possible such a close communication has changed the brain's wiring according to algorithms, which makes people believe mind/consciousness phenomena far simpler than what seems to be the case.

Do humans have dominion over animals? Macro animals, maybe, but not necessarily animalcules. My hackles go up anytime it's assumed humans have dominion over anything other than themselves. Actually, I tried to access the OP linked video and was asked to sign into youtube.
Plants could be considered sentient. Life eats life. Can't live off of air and saliva.

We are the masters of our language, not the the other way around; we create meanings. If we apply the word 'intelligent' to something other than a human being, then that is what the word means. And supposing that the origin of this meaning is anthropomorphic, as you seem to assume, so what? — SophistiCat

There's a difference between understanding oneself (not "we") and understanding the external world, of which other people are a part. If machines truly were sentient they would know that shared meanings tend toward mimesis and social decay (loss of truth; humans, in their primal nature, communicate with each other totally unlike computers communicate with each other; there's a reason why you don't automatically get other people's meaning). Synergy in human relationships is enhanced when each person is more individuated. Using the same criteria to judge different people creates a less synergistic human system; there is no universal code for individuated human beings . I understand and create meaning unlike you or anyone else (nor do I desire to have much in common with others), thankfully, inasmuch as shared meaning becomes a phenomenon of memory only, and not of reason or understanding.

— Happenstance

How, might I ask, would you go about the business of "dealing with" practical problems, or theoretical ones, without understanding them? What's more, intelligence isn't only what thinks in terms of problems or makes everything into a problem. Intelligence actively seeks aesthetical fulfillment and play and cultivates uncommon nonsense as the background to common sense. Living beings most all engage in play to learn because they are intelligent. Show me a processor (without implied programming) that depends on play to "learn" the way a primal human does? Sentience isn't something that "deals with" life...mentally healthy people tend to be mitigating the authority in their environment and in themselves. The authority a computer must follow - its implicit code - were it to be personified, would be the equivalent to the military orders of a commander (didn't Microsoft just agree to sell its tech to the military?..two peas in a pod). The Most High reasoning here is....obedience. Again, the perfect absence of reason.

"We solemnly believe that although humans have been around for a million years, you feel strongly that they had just the right amount of technology between 1835 and 1850. Not too little, not too much." — Marchesk

Why shouldn't there be a limit to people's desire for more technics? Not saying the Amish have it right ...inasmuch as they have there own internal politics and corruption...it's just that any system without a built in limiting factor is heading for a runaway wreck. Dependence on transportation tech and telecom to make the market society (commercialized relationships and commodification of life) work involves a shift of agency, handing over the keys (to technological determinism) as it were. As much as I wish I could say the human species has advanced beyond Genesis: "When God created man, in the likeness of God made he him" it is more relevant today than ever before. Today, through technics, man is attempting to supercede time and space with his own inventions; his inventions are an extension of himself and insofar as he identifies with them, his narcissism increases tenfold. To the extent individual narcissism can't exist without collective narcissism (through social media, filter bubbles, echo chambers, e.g), the internet has without a doubt led to a possible needless complexity of human psychology and in human relations.

The concept of appropriate technology is certainly lost: Appropriate Technology. Modernity, since it mesmerizes those who have fallen to the market society into believing they must have the latest smartphone or an automobile to keep up and maintain a relationship with others (the results of their own lives having become commodified), creates an eerie sameness in people's disposition. One of the more interesting points that came from McLuhan isn't to do with the global village: the more subtle "game changers" caused by use of technics we don't even consider, but are almost certainly true, are how use of tech changes sense ratios and ratiocination. This and that he thinks of technics as an extension of man and a primary source of narcissism are very relevant to our times. The sole question to ask is, as with all tech, what is the endgame or terminal value of the internet's purpose?

To those of you who are "progressive" (whatever that means), and think answers will be had in more and more inventions, have you ever asked a simple question: how do you know if there's progress if you haven't a clue of the destination? What, in the end, is the internet for? Whatever answer you give will probably be wrong in the far future. The internet has strongly supported the human defect of insatiable appeal to novelty fallacy. People I've talked to think it's a good thing how smartphone users have been reduced to the stimulus-response reflex of a nematode, my buddy will say something like " well, at least it's stimulating" or some such garbage; he got on his phone probably 15-20 times when we were supposed to be sharing vis a vis society yesterday (my society wasn't entertaining or stimulating enough it would appear). And that there are some who think depression is caused by being too disconnected and socially isolated is a real irony...you can make the case for the simulacrum of human relationships "internetized" being the real cause of depression; Facebook messiahs are so easily upset by their follower's comments. People are becoming overcommunicated and it is leading to social decay...serious ironies to consider here, to be sure.

The takeaway of my view is that the problem area to reck with includes psychology and sociology. We have to be honest with ourselves in concluding the internet is entirely a good thing for mental health and relationships (not only to other people, but to all that exists on earth). Also, no one asked me if I wanted to live at the pace at which AI makes possible. Slowing down a lot is a very smart idea in our times. Rewild and relearn the patience it takes to reclaim yourself from the twitchy, Tourette-like psychology the internet would foist upon you. Perhaps it is increasing our domestication in unimaginable ways. Another point: the hypnotic induction of the internet is patently real; how else would so many people consent to the panopticon of mass surveillance, and the personal data trade? The answer, as I see it, again touches on the way the advent of technologies like the internet unleash mental illnesses onto populations of users. The dark triad combo of illness is likely largely increased due to the internet, especially narcissism. Narcissism is an ogre of a disease...but selfies are now the norm. :brow: Nobody seems to care about mental health (in the age of machine learning, perhaps we should try to learn like a machine...oh wait, ha, machines don't have to be responsible for having a mind)...if we did, starting with an in depth look at internet as pathogenic (and the compulsion of adopting the newest technologies) deserves the first look.

To overcome our addiction of anthropomorphism may be the first step to understanding the mechanics of existence — BrianW

Agreed. However, maybe the real topic is human exceptionalism. It's very common to find a person who is concerned about anthropomorphic projection and at the same time displays all the trappings of someone who is a human exceptionalist. If you've not noticed...humans have a way of placing their technology at the center of all types of relations. And, because of this, they wind up anthropomorphizing heavily into technology. The same person may tell you not to anthropomorphize your pet and then they turn around and treat their computer like a human being and say it has memory, etc. It makes more sense to anthropomorphize something living than it does anything nonliving. Humans describe their computers quite poetically (metaphorically), so you can see it's actually about human exclusivity rather than anthropomorphism.

Undoubtedly we could better understand existence if we could get over ourselves. It's clear, however, this has yet to happen.

Make up your mind then. Did you intend to defend a substance ontology or a process one in talking about this "substrate" you call "mind". — apokrisis

Defend? I'm not interested in defending any of my ideas. This isn't to say I don't have inclinations, or strong feelings about some issues, but I'd rather think of it as mutual exploration of each others' ideas.

For example, because thought can't be measured outside of subjective reporting, it's impossible to empirically prove that thought and thought forms even need be open to energy for their existence. All physical systems require energy, hence the inordinate appeal to computer models (cognitive science) to explain away the mind. Information and organization of the psyche doesn't follow the same laws as the brain inasmuch as they are mental in nature and not physical (brain and mind, together, probably do obey some encompassing law, I think Bohm called it the holomovement; neutral monism seems a most sensible alternative); obviously the brain requires a lot of energy...but this says nothing at all about mentalese and mental imagery, dreaming and imagination, for these phenomena can't be exposed to any contrivance humans have to measure and quantify them with (and can't be said to be open to energy). There's really no clear evidence the brain produces the mind or consciousness; that we all remain invisible to each other, in a way, is a fact that's easy to overlook; my thought-forms always have been and always will be, for all other people know, nonexistent.

I believe you are trying to say what I am saying. See above. — schopenhauer1

Mind is the generative order of mental objects. Mental objects/thought forms don't cause mind, mind causes mental objects/thought forms. The event causes the agency; the agency is an emergent property of the event. Now, what's it like to be the event? Beyond definition.

No it bloody isn't. The psychological process produces the difference between a "self" and a "world". That is the function. — apokrisis

"Self" and "world" are concepts, mental impressions...not the originating mind itself (mind as substrate).

The whole of this would constitute the psychological function that is the one of modelling the world in a way that minimises its capacity to confound our agential intentions. — apokrisis

The agency is automatically confounded. Only the process itself or the event itself, inasmuch as it's incomprehensible, can ever be a perfect, non representational image of itself.

So again, you are not being clear about what point you mean to make. — apokrisis

I'm not really trying to make a point.

But the mental impression is the evidence whether the functional goal is getting met. — apokrisis

Meter reading, really. Isn't it interesting how the most important meters, physiological processes and biochemical pathways keeping us alive are autonomic/automatic? See, this is where I'd say we must stretch the definition of cognition to include perfect absence of automation.

If someone isn't cognizant we say they're incognizant (we'd might say they're incognizant because they don't recognize). There's a redundancy here, though I'm afraid. If you're careful in your definitions, you'll notice that there's only one act of cognition/every moment, picosecond, whatever. After this, we have a re-cognition, a re-presentation of what once was. And I'd say the communication between agency and process/event has to be renewed every moment. It can't be based on representation, excessive classification, or recognition.

New minds are being born constantly. — apokrisis

Nonetheless, there can be no cloning of a mental impression, let alone the mind itself. A mental impression would be the concept of functionalism, like an algorithm with a goal. Whereas, a mental impression has no goal.

I disagree as the same function can be realised at many different places and times. — apokrisis

But not the same place and time...so there IS always a difference, fundamentally. A function can't occur nowhere or noplace.

There's a big leap from the difference that makes a difference to a function. The mind doesn't function at anything at all. Buddhists teach practices such as non conceptualization to understand the difference between mental impressions and the mind itself (e.g., hearing is one thing sound is something else). Suspend conception of existence and non existence (what! you haven't learned to use the mind yet? haha). Now, what is your next thought? You can bet it's a mental impression and not the mind itself. Functioning/functionalism is a mental impression insofar as it is conceptual, so dissimilar to mind.

Again, are these differences that make a difference to the mind in question? Your response is all over the shop. — apokrisis

This sounds like Gregory Bateson. The difference which makes a difference doesn't exist in time and space. All over the shop (shop=place). Haha. That's why I come here don't you know. Thanks for being a mirror to my admittedly, at times, excessively Dionysian mind as it tries to countervail a radically Apollonian human system (in modernity).

panpsychic claim that there is such a thing as "the mind" and our minds participate in the greater mind that is the Cosmos, or existence, or God's mind, or something. — apokrisis

A panpsychic claim that there is a mind? A claim that there is a mind isn't perspectivally related to panpsychism. There is no "our" mind...there's only your mind and my mind, because each of our minds (and brains) has to include an a priori state of perception, a wanton, habitual state of mind, memory structures, forms, etc. You participate with the cosmos through your thought-forms, through a storehouse of memories you take as your self and the order you identify with, all at once. However, that there is no "our" mind doesn't mean we aren't compassed by it.

This doesn't preclude the possibility of each individual having a relationship with the entirety of existence, one which doesn't include the inner, a priori state of others. To limit belief in the mind is to limit belief in perspective, especially in diversity of perspectives. When you see that each individual has his own cosmos, then it isn't hard to understand the power of the mind (or agency) at once with it's limitation.

If you agree on a definition of mind, then you have to talk about local and nonlocal causality involving mind. Gravity, as a plausible place to start, is action at a distance. Does gravity affect the mind? Yes, it actually dilates time, thereby our minds are influenced by time dilation/gravity. If gravity can effect the mind at a distance, is there anything else that impels the mind from a distance?

Does everything in existence partake of the same event?

Process philosophy itself has been pretty much hijacked as a term by theist philosophers. So that shifts you into a different kind of distinction. You wouldn't be seeking a better description of physical nature but talking about what it is like to be participating in the divine cosmic mind. :grin: — apokrisis

Yet we are most definitely participants. We aren't separate from the process/event...we only think we are; thought forms are lain over it and then assume an agency or reality of their own. It doesn't matter what the dogmatic point of departure, science or religion, the truth of the event/process is there regardless of what we think about it. And you are it dreaming of your separateness; even though it seems less illusive, our individual agency is a prime barrier to understanding process/event, and so much more so with any collective agency hobgoblinry. It's far more woo to go on believing something other than that has already been debunked by the new physics: the observer is inseparable from the observed: but I'd say a pure act of observation becomes dumb and mute, inasmuch as it isn't translatable into language and thereby communicable.

Most inadvertently hide from the event in dogmatic knowledge and invented languages they're dependent on to attempt to relate their dogmatic knowledge (languages are theories, metaphors). Our minds tend to look at their own structure, made of memory and knowledge, or any mental impressions (skhandas), as tantamount to processes and events, but processes and events are inclusive of far more and else than our own sense of observation (including agency, or mutually subscribed policies and standards we attempt to share with others; no two people see the same event unmediated by agency and language which have removed from event/process; agency and language barely if at all communicate with event/process, they're like its crystallized double, enter the homunculus), and it is incontrovertibly separate from any woo notion of intersubjectivity (this concept has gained far too much acceptance by otherwise smart people).

Regardless of whether it appears to lean on theology or phase space or whatever the order, we are all a part of a massive event and to the extent it can be descried, it is welded to ineffability and fades out at the edges. Existence beyond our agency and language is, I hope, not associated with theistic smuggling; rather, I'd hope it to be an honest point of departure in a fruitful conversation of process/event. Probably, I'd be accused of trying to replace the concept of God with "event." Which wouldn't be a correct assumption, you could say I'm equating ineffability somewhat with event or process. What we can say about it is heavily filtered through the non event/process of our crystallized structures and karma: mental impressions, language, memory/knowledge (semantic, procedural and episodic), magical thinking of mental time travel (past and future preoccupation of mind; obsession with predictability I'd say blocks understanding of the event more than anything), any and all identifications, anything you can name filters it.

As a vehement adversary of the standard definition of scientific objectivity (which I've seen gets fairly mental with its definitions: absolute conception, view from nowhere), I'd say the event could be actual objectivity. But it would seem the closer we get, the more it's fugitive. For me, the event is original mind, but to the extent we all partake of mind as a moving event or process, its description can't be shared in a way that isn't it something other than it, which belies it. We have communication problems when mutual understanding as constrained by the dominant discipline of one species, that is to say the incorporeal, and therefore not empirical, social element of scientific agency (which is supposed to be exclusively empirical: the idea that the empirical animus would gain in strength by adding more agencies and observers seems totally off and is a subject of debate) masquerading as truth becomes quite isolated beside the Truth as likely coterminous with process/event.

Yeah, figured as much. This thread's a silly idea, as no one would admit their elevated station in the public eye or divulge a source of original material. I'm quite curious to know, though.

— Christoffer

The collective, as I see it, has no existence; the most I could cede is that it is an average of viewpoints...the problem here being I don't much grok averages either, they don't represent or describe any thing but a mathematical abstraction...rather nebulous, without texture. Sort of like fantasy. Which is why this topic is so ironic and interesting; many people treat science and peer review like God, all the way up to the point of personification of it: e.g.: "the science says/tells us...." ...which is essentially like "God spoke to me; God told us..." Like the transcendent belief in a God that can be found nowhere, so it is with collective beliefs.

The collective consensus clearly even violates the scientific policy of requiring evidence for a thing to exist: e.g. where is it? If you subscribe to the existence of collectives, you can say they exist in variable human sects: culture, religion, politics, nationalism, corporations (insane concept of personhood), military, sports, or any authoritative doctrine which asks of complete unquestioning obeisance and excision of individual virtue and agency (deindividuation). Problem with this is reason never makes it beyond duty and obedience. Where is the physical evidence of any collective? Evidence is the ultimate authority of science.

Surely , if we are honest and look into it, we would find out that a change of course, rejection of experimental validity, inaccuracy of testing, missed confounding variables, etc., is occasioned by the decision of the agency of one individual. Again, it is impossible for two or more people to make a decision in exactly the same moment as a unified mind of one with infrangible autonomy. One person who has retained his agency becomes the mover/shaker, others toe the line in a way prefigured by the Asch Conformity Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments.

It is hoped scientists won't have such a fear of designing odd experiments that can't easily be shared they conceive of a new science as objectified by BCI (brain computer interface) network between researchers. If this were to happen, the Borg of Star Trek realized, maybe I'd have to reconsider objectivity as a reasonable approach (however, this would have to include the ability to record and transmit emotions, mentalese, mental imagery, dreams, the whole inner domain, not only what may be re presented in symbols)...until then, we have to discuss the psychological force in the mind of the individual before jumping to an automated, algorithmic collective consensus.

A shift of agency can happen in a thousand subtle ways. Then when communication with command control center (dictatorship of collective consensus) is lost, and the individual is drawn back to himself, alienation, estrangement, and panic inevitably set in as he discovers his free agency had long ago been given away.

For all the Enlightenment effaced in the irrational faith of religious dogma, it opened up another box of fundamentalism laying so much stress on metrology to the point where today this thrill of objectivity has resulted in outlandish concepts like eliminative materialism. Not sure it will end well. Some AI scientific prejudice or sectarianism will have the trappings of a new eugenics movement. If you can't be objective, then maybe you'll have to get a chip in your brain or take a drug that makes it impossible to diverge from socio-scientific constructed reality (peer review is as much about social construction of science than any rigor of method).

Therefor, the higher number of consensus among the highest numbers of people who are as objective as they can possibly be with their subjective minds, is what objectivity means to us humans. — Christoffer

Why are numbers so important, here? Shouldn't we be able to discuss objectivity at the individual level? We can't ignore the inherent delimitation of consciousness and mentalese when discussing these things, can we? Understanding begins once we know how laws of consciousness and the spectrum of subjectivity to "objectivity" works for one person at a time. To begin to speak of two people as though they were one is to skip over most of the discussion. It's a huge jump from the individual to the collective on the topic of objectivity, if we must refer to the collective as necessary to the discussion of objectivity....I'm sure it's better to keep it to what communicates, what is possible and what isn't, objectively, between no more than two people.

There are built-in "laws" of the mind which are deterministic as to what is possible or not before we begin to speak of consensus reality...which is another word for intellectual laziness. Unfortunately, the dogma and intellectual laziness of science is coming to look more and more like religion.

An object existing objectively means it exists without an observers existence. To be objective means putting forth an argument or statement that is focused on the actual facts rather than the interpretations of those facts.

Example: There is a painting of a flower in a room. Ten people gets the task of going into the room and then come out and write down a description of what they saw in that room. All of these descriptions become a subject interpretation of the fact (the painting of a flower). But the sum of all those interpretations is the objective viewpoint. I.e a single person cannot hold a purely objective opinion or viewpoint, but a collective can, as long as the interpretations are presented, as close as they individually can, to be objective. — Christoffer

Then, by your definition, the only way it is possible for there to be objectivity is if there are no beings in existence capable of making an observation. Once we have an observer, objectivity doesn't exist, It matters not whether there is one observer or an infinity of them. To observe, conceptualize, logic chop, engage reason, measure, all requires splitting a foreground of observation from the background of what isn't observed or known.

How is it possible not to interpret something. The selection of what to be informed by against the background of truth, or incomplete information (perhaps truth from its side is complete, but to one of us or all of us, it is endlessly incomplete) is already an interpretation.

To say "all of these descriptions become a subject interpretation of the fact" and "but the sum of all those interpretations is the objective viewpoint" of the flower appears to be some sort of casuistry. What is the the real difference between "all of the descriptions" and " the sum of all those interpretations"; what is the difference between an interpretation and a description? Can you describe to me all of these descriptions or the sum total of the interpretations? How does one person ever have a sum total viewpoint as the "collective"? Surely the collective viewpoint would be exclusive to the collective, and intellectual honesty forbids me to entertain this fiction. In other words, do you honestly believe in a collective viewpoint? Once again if you please, describe to me what is a collective viewpoint?

Is it possible for two people to share the same observation? If so, please explain.

Maybe I could see two people being objective together if they aren't making an observation...which is impossible unless they be unconscious; maybe when they sleep in the same bed in a state of deep sleep they are almost objective. How would summing or averaging two different people's observations be possible without intellectual dishonesty? There is always a process of selecting one frame against all possible frames. And the frame is predominately a qualitative ontological edifice, not a quantitative, or countable one. Frames of observation can't be multiplied, or applied computations to, but only changed. It makes no sense to talk of a change of observing boundaries inclusive of two different people because this isn't possible anyway (sharing the same boundary of observational viewpoint). It does make sense to talk about one individual changing his frame of reference over time.

Computational universality has nothing to do with mathematicians — tom

Mathematicians are human computers...or mentats if you like. Once there was only the abacus for a computer.

What does that question even mean? — tom

You said, see below, that humans have a computationally universal brain. Maybe I'm one of those jugheaded laymen that needs an explanation here. Perhaps I'll look it up. Apologies.

Humans have something other animals do not - a computationally universal brain, and a self aware mind. — tom

I didn't know human brains differed that much from other mammal's brains, functionally? The human mind is what differs most patently, not the brain. As to why we are so self aware compared to other organisms is a question we should be very careful in limiting to any sort of computation.

Btw, I redacted my previous post.

It has been proved that, according to known physics, a universal computer can emulate any physical system exactly. It's not odd, it's reality. — tom

What is a universal computer? I've heard of the Cosmology Machine and was taken aback at the level of hubris. It's amazing the "science" (pseudoscience) of meteorology continues to claim it can forecast, when all it does is update based on essentially current conditions. Don't meteorologists rely on computer simulations? Their computers, then, fail miserably in attempting to compute nonlinear conditions. Now, how in the world would I believe, if the weather forecast is always wrong for regions of our planet, it would ever be possible for a machine to simulate the physical conditions of the entire cosmos?