From: Menno Rubingh (rubingh@delftnet.nl)
Date: Mon Dec 20 1999 - 17:23:45 MST
On Mon, 20 Dec 1999, Jeff Nordahl wrote:
> If all we are is a pattern of atoms *thoughts*, then we have already
> successfully uploaded a portion of Jimi Hendrix. Perhaps someone else knows
> more about this software, but I heard that all of Jimi Hendrix's music was
> fed into a computer. The computer then analyzed, deciphered, and
> constructed consistent patterns from Jimi Hendrix's music. The programmers
> then set up a blues progression of a few chords and applied the Jimi Hendrix
> pattern to it. Amazingly, the resulting jam session sounded like an
> authentic Hendrix composition. Of course this is a simplified version of
> uploading brain patterns, but is it anyhting different in theory from
> physically scanning your entire collection of current living brain patterns?
Great example !! *Yes* I really DO think that a part of Jimi Hendrix has been
successfully uploaded in this way.
Aristoteles is one of the first people who has successfully uploaded part of
himself this way (I mean, through his writings).
> Did this Hendrix computer experience a sliver of consciousness?
> Did it experience a slight sensation of qualia?
Is *doesn't matter* whether it does. If it *were* Really Conscious, then how
on earth *could* you know for sure ?!?? 'Consciousness' can only be measured
by the Turing test, i.e., by external observation. If the machine acts as if
it consciously makes Jimi Hendrix music (that is, if the person occupying the
chair of the judge in the Turing test THINKS the machine does some
'consciousness' type of thing), then the outcome is that the machine IS
''conscious''. Personally, I think that labelling the thing as 'conscious' or
not doesn't make any damn difference. Whether a person X labels a thing Y as
conscious probably says more about person X than about Y.
> IF not, then at what point would the brain pattern computer become
> conscious?
It becomes conscious if the judge in the Turing test arbitrarily and
subjectively decides that the machine being judged for 'consciousness' passes
the test. Put an illiterate Papua in the judge's chair, then any Windows
computer with sound card and speakers will pass the Turing test.
> Is there a mathematical threshold for consciousness?
NO, there isn't. ''Consciousness'' is just your own, subjective,
interpretation of the behaviour you see in another entity. (And your
own subjective judging of yourself. :-))
--- > There seems to be a trend by those anti-qualiaists to define the world in > two realms. 1. the physical real world where we *believe* that we should > trust our qualia for practical matters like avoiding cars that are about to > run over us & 2. the realm where we *BELIEVE* that our qualia is an illusion > and does not exist. > In your efforts to nullify Cartesian Dualism, it seems as though you have > created an equally (if not more) awkward dualism between the UPPER CASE and > lower case realms. No, I think that is not correct. Us zombiists :-) think that the difference between a "thing" and a Thing is exactly the same as the difference between a scientific hypothesis that is well supported by evidence and in which you can trust to a great degree, and a newly made scientific hypthesis not as yet very well supported by evidence. There is really nowhere a hard, all-or-nothing distinction in our using the notation "thing"/Thing. --- Greetings, Menno (rubingh@delftnet.nl)
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