Do you think that it is valid to posit that there exists a reference frame within which the Universe ends when YOU die?
— universeness
That's a sound empirical hypothesis. — Wayfarer
Computing Science is my field of 'expertise,' in that I taught the subject for 30 years. — universeness
To be sure, translation alone is not sufficiently impressive, but 'thought' is most directly manifest (perhaps) in language use. — jas0n
I think it will happen eventually, yes but do you think the potential technological movements toward a transhuman distant future is evidence of emerging panpsychism? — universeness
Humans merging with technology! Cyborgs/human brains contained in cybernetic bodies/human consciousness transferred to cloned bodies etc. All these sci-fi projections of transhumanism. Will this eventually mean more 'networking' of individual consciousnesses and the ultimate result would be a Universal consciousness which is a merging of the individual consciousness of every lifeform in the Universe? Could such a manifestation of panpsychism satisfy the god criteria, ie the Omni's?
So the reason the god posit has always been with us, is because it is our ultimate fate/goal.
I don't particularly subscribe to this, I am an atheist through and through but I find the 'ultimate result of technological advancement,' interesting. — universeness
Translation is one of my fields of expertise, in that I have worked as a translator (using a "Computer Assisted Translation" or CAT tool) for 20 years. — Daemon
Machine translation doesn't "think" at all however, neither does it do what I do when I translate. — Daemon
Machine translation doesn't "think" at all however, neither does it do what I do when I translate. Here's a concrete example, intended to illustrate what you do when you understand language, which a computer can't do:
1. The council members refused to allow the protestors to hold their rally as they feared violence.
2. The council members refused to allow the protestors to hold their rally as they advocated violence.
You can tell who "they" refers to in each case because of your immersion of a world of experience. The computer can't tell. — Daemon
Getting a computer to process context is one of the hardest parts of NLP. — universeness
A single celled organism has no thoughts, but it does have a "self", in that it is distinct from its environment. — Daemon
That's the second time you've used this rather tired metaphor/straw man. How about explaining what you mean in plain language. — Daemon
Only when you look at it as an object. In practice, the brain is never an object, unless you're a neurologist or some such.
— Wayfarer
I still think your not seeing/addressing the issue I'm raising. You and I both believe that the brain evolved, so this seems to require a stage (space and time and molecules) for the composition and interaction of lifeforms (call it 'physical' or whatever.) That only makes sense as 'outside' the dream of such brains (or better yet the mediated environment of such brains.)
If 'the subject' or 'consciousness' lives in healthy human brains, then what are they made of and where do they exist? An indirect realist might say (1) some kind of non-mental stuff and (2) in some kind of substrate. — jas0n
I wouldn't use that exact word for it myself. I understand that (perhaps incorrectly) in terms of even a copper atom having its little allowance of 'consciousness.' — jas0n
This is what I take to be the default view, that we can 'talk to ourselves' and know exactly what we mean. The signified shines for an 'intellectual organ' that grasps meaning directly, instead of simply emitting sentences in response, just a machine can do (if not as well.) In this view, sentences are vehicles for meaningstuff, delivered to consciousness. And this is what we don't want to grant machines.For Husserl, as we have seen, the voice -- not empirical speech but the phenomenological structure of the voice -- is the most immediate evidence of self-presence. In that silent interior monologue, where no alien material signifier need be introduced, pure self-communication (autoaffection ) is possible.
Surely the distance between us will blur more and more as time passes and transhuman technologies propagate. — universeness
I remember watching the much underrated (in my opinion) film AI by Steven Spielberg.
The futuristic creatures portrayed near the end of that movie were 'individual' but also had the ability to merge or act collectively by 'tapping into' the experience of any one of their fellows.
All this stuff is part of why I don't understand the theist position. I would be so so disappointed if any of the religions turn out to be true. The future possibilities for the human species are far more exciting in my opinion than anything heaven posits have to offer. — universeness
In practice, the brain is inseparable from the lifeform as an integrated event, and has evolved with a high degree of variability within its protective casing. It is this integrated variability that enables a relational structure of ‘mind’ to develop through the ongoing interoception of affect. It’s effectively a DNA-style structure in 4D, a variable biochemical prediction of this lifeform’s ongoing interaction with the world. — Possibility
Dreyfus used Heidegger's work to argue against the hopes for AI back in his day. I think the approach was more symbolic at the time. I'm more hopeful with a continuous (floating-point ) approach. The internal thought of just boxes of numbers, not unlike the brain perhaps, if interpreted appropriately. — jas0n
Nice ! That makes sense. I like the emphasis on 4D and time. I acknowledge that the brain/non-brain distinction is an abstraction. I think it was appropriate in the context you quoted, but I don't take it seriously. Even the organism/world boundary is an abstraction/approximation. If light from distance stars is tickling my retina... — jas0n
There's a Twilight Zone episode where a creep goes to 'Heaven' (where he wins every game without effort, etc.) and slowly figures out it's the bad place — jas0n
This system does 'kind of,' emulate how humans access their previous experience to make decisions when faced with new unpredicted/unexpected conditions never encountered before. — universeness
I wonder how long it would be before the physical joy of an eternal orgasm would turn into a horrific scream. — universeness
Of course, theists get around this easily by claiming 'you are trying to conceive 'heaven' with a human mind and you cant do that,' my answer is normally 'but that's all I have! and it's all you have too!' They will normally just respond with a head shake and a comment like 'have faith in god!' — universeness
The distinction/boundary is heuristic. — Possibility
We say it has no thought (because it doesn't speak), but if it inherited reactions to its environment, that might deserve to count as intelligence. — jas0n
If you zoom in on the brain and look at neurons firing, where do you find thought? — jas0n
We ask if sensory cortex activations during sleep can be decoded in a more concrete manner by inferring the imagery encoded in neural activations. We propose an ambitious approach in which we will train a deep neural network to learn pixel by pixel mappings between visual input presented to the awake mouse and neural activations in visual cortex. We will leverage our expertise in longitudinal tracking of individual neurons, and the large-scale neural recording capabilities of two-photon microscopy, to present 200k natural images to 10k of neurons, across multiple visual areas, over a 2-week period. We will then apply the trained model to decode the stimuli most likely to give rise to patterns of internally generated neural activity observed during sleep.
Is there something irreplaceable about human brain tissue? Or does 'consciousness' only require a host of the proper structure? Maybe (I don't know) silicon or something else can work just as well as brain tissue.
This system does 'kind of,' emulate how humans access their previous experience to make decisions when faced with new unpredicted/unexpected conditions never encountered before. — universeness
My question would be whether there's any reason why improved algorithms, more compute, and more/better data won't eventually result in machines being as good as humans at translation? — jas0n
The Mars Rovers do not match or surpass the way humans access experience because they don't have experience. — Daemon
I don't really subscribe to old ways or new ways of thinking, especially on a website that is forever quoting from ancient thinking and thinkers. — universeness
Perhaps that's why I included the words 'kind of' and put them in quotes for emphasis. — universeness
Do you feel the same way about old science vs new science? — Joshs
Does science advance, such that ignoring the distinction between old and new theories in physics or biology is hard to justify? — Joshs
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