We don’t need neuroscience to answer that. If we can't tell they're not, then what is the downside of treating them as though they are? — Patterner

No downside. There's no downside to forbidding people not to abuse their cars or toasters. It just seems kind of odd to treat something as conscious when we have no idea whether it really is conscious or not.

Ok. I'm quite confident that minds emerge from brains, but that is a different matter than knowing all of the details of how minds emerge from brains that would be required to build a machine in which conscious could merge. — wonderer1

Well then, let me ask you about brains. When did consciousness first arrive on the scene? Was coccocephalus wildi conscious? Were the dinosaurs? Is an ant conscious? A bee? A shark? Are mollusks conscious? What's the minimum number of neurons required for consciousness?

I didn't say that I know. The reason I consider it highly implausible is that we don't know enough about how consciousness emerges in a brain to have much hope of building a machine in which consciousness emerges. — wonderer1

I see. You said to me "I don't know whether you understand minds as functions of brains.". Yet you're saying now that "we don't know how consciousness emerges in a brain to have much hope of building a machine in which consciousness emerges." I got the impression from you were pretty sure about minds and brains. Now it sounds like you're not so sure.

Some machines have performed at or above human levels in some limited domains, but that has been going on for a long time. That in itself doesn't lead to any good reason to think that consciousness has emerged in machines other than brains.

Your last question is poorly phrased. Passing a Turing test won't cause an AI to be conscious, and who conducts a Turing test and how that person interacted with the machine would make a difference in what conclusions would be reasonable, based on how the AI responded. In any case the Turing test wasn't seen by Turing as a test for consciousness, but as a test for thinking. I would say that modern AI's can reasonably said to think, regardless of whether they would pass the Turing test I would pose.

I never said that passing a Turing test would cause consciousness. I want you to think about what it would mean for a machine to be conscious. Soon, we will have AGI's that perform as well as us in all manner of activities. Soon after that, there will be ai's that surpass us. What does neuroscience say about how we should treat them? Should we assume they're conscious, even if we don't know?

I don't think minds have emerged from machines other than brains here on earth. — wonderer1

How do you know? Some of the Ai's perform at human level. If an Ai passes the Turing Test, will it be conscious?

It's too early in the history of neuroscience to be able to explain how minds emerge from the most complex physical systems we know of. — wonderer1

Do minds emerge from other things? Machines, maybe?

I don't know whether you understand minds as functions of brains. — wonderer1

How do minds emerge from brains? Why aren't all brain processes associated with consciousness?

How would an unconscious unaware mind be triggered by an outside source? By definition, the mind is unconscious and unaware, so how would it be aware and conscious of any trigger? It would have to become conscious of it's own accord. Or just always conscious.

Although there was three intersecting lines making up the triskele/space station there was a open port hole to look inside. I forget what the exact lines were labelled with now but found them reducible to thinking(father),interpretation ( son), and action ( holy ghost). — introbert

:chin:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/kakhovka-dam-ukraine-russia-destroyed-rcna87852

This was a targeted strike designed to wash all the nazi's away.

Everywhere we look, the universe looks/sounds silent, pristine, and unlived in and we also have UFO vehicles? That doesn't make sense.

I think the same way about brain consciousness.

What happened, Philosophim? I am attending to your points, as you asked.

It's an insolvable problem. The only thing we can be sure of is our own consciousness. For the longest time, it was also a trivial problem, but now we have Ai's with human level abilities, and it's not so trivial anymore.

She was born with all her senses. She lost them when she was 19 months old, and perception begins in the womb. Also, she did not lose all of her senses. She lost her sight and hearing. — Patterner

Let's assume we have a being born with only one sense, touch. Is it going to be less conscious than someone with all five senses? Or is consciousness like a switch? You either have it or you don't?

I can’t imagine consciousness, would develop without perception. An infant born with no senses of any kind would not develop consciousness. — Patterner

Was Helen Keller less conscious than most people?

2. Brain consciousness leads to machine consciousness

No, brain consciousness leads us to realize that matter and energy if organized correctly can be conscious. This appears across living species with different types of brains. We realize that brains are clumps of neurons which have a system of communication, reaction, and planning. Therefore it seems possible that if we duplicate matter in such a way that it can communicate, react, and plan, it would be conscious.

"No, brain consciousness leads us to realize that matter and energy if organized correctly can be conscious."

So if you have some matter and energy, and you organize them in the right way, you get consciousness (or the matter-energy system is conscious or becomes conscious).
A) how does that happen?
B) why does it happen with certain types of matter and energy and not others? A working brain is conscious, but if you put it in a blender, blend it, and then add some current to the mix, you won't have consciousness. What is it about working brains that makes them conscious? Why are only parts of the brain conscious? Why isn't my heart conscious?
C) Would something that is functionally identical to a working brain be conscious? Does substrate matter? Is there something unique about neurons that only a collection of them could be conscious? How would you test for consciousness in a machine or alien brain?

"This appears across living species with different types of brains."

Which brains are conscious? Are bees conscious? Ants? Toads? Approximately how many neurons are required before consciousness emerges? How can we test whether insects are conscious or not?

I'll think about it, but remember that a reductio ad absurdum assumes certain things in order to derive an absurdity. If I am making a reductio absurdum argument against materialism, it does not mean I believe in materialism. For the sake of argument, I am assuming your viewpoint (neurons cause consciousness) in order to show an absurdity.

You already agree there are neurons, and you claimed they correlated with mind, and didn't cause it. At this point retreating and saying, "Well maybe brains don't exist" is borderline trolling. — Philosophim

I'm an idealist. I've identified as such here for quite awhile. I was meeting you halfway for sake of argument earlier. Don't accuse me of trolling, please.

We're at first principles now. I want to know why, at the starting gate, I should adopt your materialistic view of reality because in actuality, I don't.

Answer my original reply and I'll address this question. I'm not interested in a one-sided discussion where you get to ignore my statements back to you. — Philosophim

I decided to take you up on that.

That's not an argument, that's a string of statements without any connective logic and an unproven conclusion.

Lets work backwards.

1. Brain consciousness is an absurdity.

Why?

2. Brain consciousness leads to machine consciousness

No, brain consciousness leads us to realize that matter and energy if organized correctly can be conscious. This appears across living species with different types of brains. We realize that brains are clumps of neurons which have a system of communication, reaction, and planning. Therefore it seems possible that if we duplicate matter in such a way that it can communicate, react, and plan, it would be conscious.

3.
What you think is neural causation is neural correlation. It's the old, correlation is not causation.
— RogueAI

No, we have ample conclusion of causation. I'll start with a relatable example before getting deeper. Ever been drunk before? Been on anesthesia? We know that if we introduce these chemicals into the blood, they affect the brain. And when the brain is affected, your consciousness becomes inhibited or suppressed entirely. This is not happenstance correlation. This is repeatably testable, and falsifiable causation which has been upheld in both active life and science for decades. With modern day neuroscience, we can actually get live scans of the brain to show the physical impacts and when consciousness is lost.

Address these points, and we'll have a discussion. — Philosophim

Implicit in what you said is an assumption that there exist physical objects like brains. Why should I agree with your materialist/physicalist assumption?

:up:

I'll pass.

Would a functional mechanical equivalent of a working brain be conscious? Would a simulation of a working brain be conscious? If yes to either of those, how would you verify the consciousness of the simulation and/or the mechanical brain?

Another option is to ask for the proof that machine consciousness is an absurdity. — Patterner

Yes. Kastrup gives god arguments along these lines.

been using ChatGPT since the day it launched. — Wayfarer

Me too. I started to anthropomorphize it pretty quickly.

You have a lot to present if you're going to deny that consciousness comes from the brain. — Philosophim

My argument is very simple: belief that brains cause consciousness leads to belief that machines can be conscious and machine consciousness is an absurdity, therefore the belief that brains cause consciousness is wrong. What you think is neural causation is neural correlation. It's the old, correlation is not causation. Now, you can attack my argument by claiming either belief in brain consciousness doesn't commit one to belief in machine consciousness, or that machine consciousness is not an absurdity. Which option do you like?

Yes, just like if we take a bunch of cells and have them constantly shift into different states they'll have consciousness as well. Your brain proves it quite easily. When matter and energy are organized in a particular way, they will exhibit a pattern we call consciousness. You are a living example of this. Your degree of consciousness is one of the most powerful of the living beings on this planet. — Philosophim

But you're assuming here that brains produce consciousness. I think the idea of machine consciousness should make us question the currently prevalent belief that brains cause consciousness. Believing that brains cause consciousness commits one to believing that, if you simply change the substrate to silicon, microchips can be conscious, which is to say that collections of electronic switches can be conscious.

I think this is magical thinking. I'll even go so far as call it an absurdity. So, if brain consciousness commits one to a belief in machine consciousness, and machine consciousness is absurd, by reductio ad absurdum, we should reject the idea that consciousness comes from brains. Let me ask you: if you didn't know anything about brains, would you think that turning switches on and off in a certain way can lead to consciousness?

I think when people start uploading videos of themselves abusing AGI humanoid robots, there's going to be a reaction.

Meaning yes, its quite possible for us to program consciousness into a computer, though that consciousness may not expressly ever be human. — Philosophim

So you're saying that if we take a collection of electronic switches and turn them on and off in some particular sequence, consciousness will emerge? That begs all sorts of interesting questions.

I completely agree. What are people going to do when we have AGI's that beg not to be shut off or shut down?

Can an algorithim be conscious? That is to say, can a collection of electric switches become conscious if flipped on and off in a particular way?

If there is a cure, should parents of autistic children be forced to give it to their kids?

Is a Boltzmann hydrogen bomb possible?

So we're halfway there. We've established the existence of consciousness. Do you have experiences?

Are you conscious?

It assumes the existence of “conscious experience”. — NOS4A2

That is a safe assumption.

I don't anything about that part of it. You're saying Boltzmann is wrong?

If a working brain could assemble itself randomly, then a working brain with life-support equipment would also be possible. The Boltzmann argument would have to work that way, because I'm not passing out due to lack of oxygen.

I'm not entirely sure what the precise wording is. It matters though. Seems to me that Mary's room aims at the wrong target. — creativesoul

The precise wording matters. The whole point is that Mary knows all the physical facts about seeing, and then learns something new when she actually sees color for the first time.

Dennett claims that if we grant the premiss that Mary knew everything there was to know about seeing color — creativesoul

Isn't the claim that Mary knows all the physical facts about seeing color?