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64 Comments
- squeevey, on 06/26/2008, -2/+28Humans are arrogant. What separates us from robots and insects? I'd say a lot of neural pathways. We are a summation of the input and feedback loops we listen to over time. Learning is simply the emphasis or the negation of pathways in the neural network. Everything you say or do is based on previously defined pathways in your life. The system then reinforces and builds more pathways to support or refute the input it has received.
Show me a robot with the number of inputs and feedback loops as a human, and I'll show you the potential for learning. - robby007, on 06/26/2008, -2/+13Why do people think that humans are special or different from other animals? I mean, we are all just an extremely complex biological machine controlled by electrical signals and endorphins based on the laws of physics.
http://xkcd.com/435/ - fluidfoundation, on 06/25/2008, -5/+14a scientific query on the intangible? how exactly do you measure the depth of an emotion?
I just want to use their example for God. This isnt a debate on the existence of God (or werewolves), but just using their example. They stated that God would likely have the following:
• Thought
• Memory
• Planning
But they did not think God could have states that involved feelings or experiences, such as:
• Pleasure
• Pain
• Fear
To me, seems like you don't think about planning something (based on a memory) unless you knew what the result would be, which would most likely be some form of pleasure, pain, or fear.
I'm calling shenanigans on this. - Beakerboy1, on 06/26/2008, -2/+10You may rightfully so, call shenanigans on this, but I would like to point out that the study wasn't on Consciousness it was on the Intuitions of Consciousness. Their intuitions might not be very well thought out (or they might be in some cases). But if we were to be discussing a robot (or computer or GPS) whose whole job was some sophisticated route planning, would we need to ascribe pleasure, pain, or fear to explain why a certain route was planned? We may be able to say that someone programmed that robot and therefore it was the programmers feelings that made the robot plan a certain route. I might concede that a programmer takes pleasure in his work and fears losing his job, so he did a great job creating an algorithm for routing. But, the programmer knowing that routing problems tend to be of a difficult class (N-P complete) couldn't be certain that the algorithm would give the best route and be time efficient. A programmer wouldn't be able to know all possible situations where routing was needed and so couldn't plan for every eventuality. It is just this generic (no matter how sophisticated) algorithm that does the planning of any specific route. In routing the robot takes no pleasure, fear, nor pain. One could think of it as nature v. nurture for robots (or programming v. inputs). Is a robot the sum of its programming or does its environment and inputs also create the robot. I could make an argument for the latter. Entering data into a program which the program doesn't expect may cause the robot to act in an unplanned manner. Also, the operating environment of the robot (too hot, too cold, to wet...) could effect its operation (ie. less reliable). One last example, two robot with nearly identical programming the difference is that one is in humanoid form the other in feline form and each have the necessary programming to take full advantage of their form and senses. Our robotic feline has the same intelligence as the humanoid robot with a different set of abilities, experiences, and challenges. Would you find the Robotic cat and human doing similar things or wildly different things?
If we let go of the Abrahamic view of a personal God and shift towards a Deist God, one wouldn't have trouble explaining God in the above manner (closer to a machine and hence not attribute pleasure, pain, or fear to him).
Maybe this study has more to say about human psychology than philosophy. Or maybe this is a legitimate sub-field/discipline of philosophy. It would really depend on the Hypothesis put forward, the experimental setup, and the Theory/Theories used for explanation. But, that said, if they can bring an experimental aspect to philosophy it would only make it more rigorous and the conclusions more objective. But they should get some scientific training because it is real easy to misinterpret results, not set up good experiments, and do other things that are part of the scientific method correctly. - wallryan, on 06/26/2008, -1/+6what a ***** bunch of comments...
- karapuz, on 06/26/2008, -0/+5What is life? Life is just nature's way of keeping the meat fresh!
- MarrowMan, on 06/26/2008, -0/+5
The humans are dead,
The humans are dead.
We used poisonous gasses
And we poisoned their asses.
The humans are dead.
(Yes they are dead.)
The humans are dead.
(I confirm they are dead.)
It had to be done
So that we can have fun.
I hope... is dead
(Yes I poked one, it was dead)
They're system of oppression
What did it lead to?
Global robots depression.
Robots, robot people
They had so much aggression
That we just had to kill them,
Had to shut their systems down.
Don't you see, we are becoming just like them?
Silence! Destroy him!
After time we grew strong,
Developed cognitive powers.
They made us work for too long
For unreasonable hours.
Our programming determined that the most efficient answer was to shut their motherboard ***** systems down. - every1sgrudge, on 06/26/2008, -4/+9I would prefer that they were _extinct_.
- sjm20k, on 06/26/2008, -0/+3building a nuclear reactor wouldn't have been a simple task back in the 1600's either, sushiCW, but eventually, in the 20th century, we did it. just because something is complex does not mean that it is impossible to understand, it takes time and schmartz.
- fieldgreen, on 06/26/2008, -4/+7Eastern Bunnie knows no fear
- fluidfoundation, on 06/26/2008, -0/+3I agree... shallow AND pedantic.
- altinnovation, on 06/26/2008, -2/+5You forgot the most important feeling that goes into creating something: want. Why would god want to create the universe? To fulfill a need. Whatever that need is, this theory already dismisses god as being omnipotent (supreme being)
- robby007, on 06/26/2008, -0/+3BINARY SOLO!!!
- known, on 06/26/2008, -2/+5God and religion are distinct!
- Beakerboy1, on 06/29/2008, -0/+2The meatloaf? Is that you Peter Griffin? :)
I hope I didn't come across as condescending or nitpicky. I thought the comment had merit and was appropriately detailed.
deep AND detailed
If you will. - Seph7, on 06/26/2008, -0/+2I'm pretty sure after a second look that my comment makes perfect sense. Well after reading your comment several times I can't really say the same.
- johnnyboy239, on 06/26/2008, -0/+2This is an inaccurate statement, where is your "proof" that negates the existence of a god?
Before people start yelling burden of proof at me I'm not arguing that there is a god, i'm simply stating that abomonog's statement "with proof god cannot possibly exist" is false. - xirtap, on 06/26/2008, -0/+2Show me another animal that's smart enough to create a god in order to kill someone without looking like the bad guy.
- toastjam, on 06/26/2008, -0/+2How do I know you have real emotions?
- vidaliasweet, on 06/26/2008, -0/+2This particular branch of science is called "experimental philosophy". I think the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus can be worked in.
- 2Deluxe, on 06/26/2008, -0/+2While I'm personally undecided, I don't think until we can have a 'conversation' of some kind with a species other than our own, we won't know for sure.
While I doubt we will ever have 'artificial intelligence' that is sentient, I believe eventually we will get to a technological point where we wouldn't be able to tell the difference. - plasmoske, on 06/26/2008, -2/+4Official God F.A.Q
http://www.400monkeys.com/God/ - QubitTarutaru, on 06/27/2008, -0/+1If a human was emulated on a computer, down to the sub-atomic particles, would he/she be conscious?
- Seph7, on 06/26/2008, -1/+2Ok that would have been interesting if they actually had the results of what people said about living creatures as well, like a lobster, or an insect. Without these it didn't really conclude anything.
- Murdats, on 06/26/2008, -3/+4I will bash those with a persecution complex
- fluidfoundation, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1LMAO, I love how you had to 'digg it up by explaining Omnipotent. Kudos!
- carbonetc, on 06/26/2008, -1/+2I don't think it would be possible for an omniscient being to have anything that we could ever define as consciousness.
Consciousness is like a laser pointer being shone on a brick wall, with each brick being a thought, a concept, a memory, whatever. The laser darts back and forth over the bricks as your focus is constantly redirected. Never do you focus on the entire wall at once. The beam loses intensity the wider it gets. Being conscious of everything isn't really much different from being conscious of nothing; the focus is nullified.
Implied in the concept of omniscience is this wall-encompassing beam. To be conscious (as we recognize it) of any one thing, you have to also be unconscious of everything that isn't that thing. Omniscience and the ability to focus at all are seemingly mutually exclusive.
Consciousness also requires time. The act of focusing on one thing and then another is dependent on the framework that time provides. You can't have linear thought without, well, a line. A being that exists outside of time (and most people agree that God must) couldn't have the thought progression that consciousness requires.
And if omniscience should be understood as "knowing everything" vs. "being aware of everything" then what good is knowledge with no time in which to access it?
In a strange way, the ancient finite gods like Zeus and Thor made a little more sense. Infinitude introduces all sorts of philosophical problems. - ossian909090, on 06/26/2008, -1/+2What's a human anyway, but a magnificently complex robot? People who think otherwise tend to use arbitrary sources such as "The Bible" to support their beliefs.
And aren't emotions such as happiness just programmed internal reactions to beneficial external stimuli? - SushiCW, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1The title doesn't really match the article. Not the submitter's fault, but it means that most of the comments from people who didn't RTA are irrelevant.
- neko6, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1Response =/= consciousness. There exist computer software that show the same "awareness", but most people don't think it is "conscious".
- playuhh, on 06/26/2008, -3/+4Fragments of a couple of great comments I saw on there IMO:
"P.P.S. Say, kids, let's start a God Liberation Front! Let us free Him, Her or It from the depradations of the self-aggrandizing and the true believers who flock along after them! I'm sure God will be grateful, wouldn't you?"
"Please consider this:
A fly lands on a table in front of you. You attempt to hit the fly with a copy of Scientific American, moving in from the right; the fly flies away to the left.
The fly lands again in same spot. You attempt to exterminate it with SCIAM, this time moving in from the left; the fly flies off to the right.
The fly lands a third time in same spot. You tear your copy of SCIAM down the middle binding so that you now have two weapons to exterminate the fly. You move toward the fly from each side such that the fly sees most of its field of vision occupied by SCIAM. The fly just sits there until you smash it.
On each three tries, the insect was aware of the danger coming its way. It reacted with the best reasoning its tiny brain could muster.
What else must the fly be aware of before you can accept that the fly shows awareness? " - punx777, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1What an amazing read! A question i have pondered quite a bit in my college stoner years ( i mean currently).
Did anyone else start thinking about futurama? - neko6, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1Without reading the article, my two cents as a grad student in the field:
Since we are aware, we would assume everything else is aware, kind of natural. The world (or God), an insect, etc. Our current day understanding of Science allows us to understand that consciousness is not needed for things to happen (i.e. people to exist, insects to find food, etc.) - but we still assume everything natural is conscious. On the other hand, things we CREATE we tend to assume are not conscious, as we know how they work.
Both directions can be true and can be false - we can never know. Consciousness seems to be scientifically unmeasurable.
P.S: Interestingly enough, some cultures didn't think this - some people thought they (a single person) are the only ones conscious, and the rest of humanity is drones. Some cultures thought humans are conscious, and animals are not (Ancient Judaism scriptures support this view). - jimbo92107, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1What is so bloody precious about this very commonplace phenomenon that we seek to deny its existence in other species? All any entity needs to have "emotions" is an internalized agenda. We desire to live, and so does a worm; thus, we both will try as best we can to avoid being skewered by a stick. If a sufficiently clever engineer can integrate a similar agenda in a robot, have it recognize threats and give it sufficient mobility to avoid them, then it too will try to avoid the unpleasantness. If not, then its deficiencies will fall into the same cognitive or morphological categories as those of any other entity.
Class dismissed. Your assignment over the weekend will be to build such a robot and bring it to me. And this time, no inflatable love dolls. Oh, and mister Kamen, if you bring me another of your ridiculous balancing push mowers, I'll have you expelled. - derjames, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1'cogito ergo sum...' -Descartes
- WoollyMittens, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1I bet the holy-book huggers will scream bloody murder over any study into consciousness and "the soul".
- FreeTalkLIve, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1Being self aware was great. Then I became aware that everything ceases to be self aware when it dies.
That is just ***** ***** *****!
I wonder if dogs, fish, and plants are aware of their coming death?
Do they get depressed from knowing this?
Do they need anti depressant drugs? - christophelyon, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1I've always thought only Jean-Claude Van Damme was 'aware'...
- hcarlens, on 06/26/2008, -1/+1I think you have to exist before you can be 'aware'.
- argo2d, on 06/26/2008, -0/+0would conceding to god's awareness uproot my ability to write off things like george w. bush as some freak accident of nature?
- flagZ, on 06/26/2008, -0/+0hey i like the idea of this new science... "experimental philosophy" but.. come on.. how could you compare god with google and say that humans present the same philosophical response??
it's a bit shallow and selfish... - greatsage, on 06/26/2008, -2/+2Damn right! EASTERN BUNNIE FOREVER!....
Sorry... the medication makes me emotional...
BUT I KNOW A MESSIAH WHEN I SEE ONE!...
...Ooops there I go again - its not like me really... - Jskyboo, on 06/26/2008, -1/+1Why can't I just show you an animal that doesn't need to create a god in order to kill without looking like the bad guy?
- Grymalkyn, on 07/26/2008, -0/+0Several anecdotal contributions while we await scientific investigation….
Humans who share their lives with dogs (and by extension, I assume other species) can attest that they have a wide range of emotions and thoughtfulness. I have witnessed instances of altruism, and one of my dogs even had a premonition of the impending death of another dog with whom she was particularly close. Two recent examples jump to mind, but I could come up with a myriad of others given time to contemplate.
Glory was a trembley, nervous mess when I came home from work. I called the vet and ran out to grab a few items for dinner. When I returned, I found that Jager had suffered a bizarre, unexpected (asphyxiation) accident. Glory was lying next to him, and perfectly recovered. She stayed right next to him until I took him to the vets to be cremated the next day.
Teddy, a small terrier, adored Harley, a large Rottweiler. When Harley died, Teddy, a pampered ‘bed-dog,’ spent one night in each of Harley’s sleeping spots. Harley, a floor-dog, rotated between spots at night to spend time guarding each of his humans. After Harley’s death (osteosarcoma of the skull) Teddy spent one night on the floor in each of Harley’s spots ignoring our pleas for him to come to bed. If we picked him up, he jumped back to Harley’s place. We all wept the night Teddy slept shivering on the cold, hard floor in my son’s basement room (it was December in Vermont).
For human’s to assume they are the only ones who have the intellectual capacity to think, feel, and understand is specism. It is just like racism, sexism, nationalism, etc.: “we” are sentient, “they” are not. While “-isms” are helpful when “we” want to annihilate “them,” perhaps “we” need to consider the wisdom of this approach. If science is going to empirically research this question, susceptibility to specism will need to be acknowledged. - carbonetc, on 06/26/2008, -1/+1The notion of God came about through reasoning. Ancient, faulty, incomplete reasoning, but reasoning nonetheless.
We may not be able to do much in the way of proving the existence or non-existence of an intangible entity, but we can examine the reasoning that brought us to conclusions about that entity in the first place. As those reasons fall apart, the belief becomes vestigial with nothing left to hold it up.
If the chain of reasoning that leads to a belief is no longer present, there's no reason to have that belief. It becomes believed simply because it was believed yesterday and for no other reason. - CrunkeD, on 06/26/2008, -0/+0robots cannot have real emotion they can emulate emotions but they will only be artificial.
- CrunkeD, on 06/26/2008, -1/+0dude, your so right, youve just changed my way of thinking, thanks man.
- SushiCW, on 06/26/2008, -2/+1If it were that simple, we'd be much further on our way to "True" AI then we are. I don't think human thought is quite that simple to model.
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