[lbo-talk] AI

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Fri Nov 21 07:31:27 PST 2003


Ted scalates to a whole lot of really heavy philosophy that is probably beyond the ability or anyway the desire of a political list full of nonphilosophers to discuss in the way that it deserves. But I want to reframe the discussion. Ted says that thinking and consciousness can't be captured in terms of computation. Miles says, and I'm inclined to agree with him with respect to that, we'll see what AI cans how us sbout thinking. But there is a different question which needn't take us so far into the ontology of everything as Ted goes. Even if Ted is right that thinking and consciousness, whatever that is, requires or presupposes some sort of unobservable transcendental subject, why can't that be realized in a computer? Is there something special about biological systems taht they and only they can be conscious? Or couldn't an AI, if it got smart enough, wake up with all the puzzles about consciousness we have? jks

--- Ted Winslow <egwinslow at rogers.com> wrote:
>
>
> Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> >> Miles Jackson asks:
> >>
> >>> Consider: what if we learn more and more about
> human
> >>> cognition and we discover it's nothing like
> >>> machine output?
> >>
> >> Then we'll design machines that utilize what we
> know of
> >> human cognition to perform cognitive functions
> better.
> >>
> >> Why is there such a tendency to deny that
> cognitive
> >> functions are beyond the eventual reach of a
> technology that
> >> is now scarcely even newborn?
> >>
> >> Shane Mage
> >
> > Good point. We'll have to see what happens.
> Given the fact
> > that psychologists--after 100 years of theory and
> research!--
> > have not even come to a consensus on what
> intelligence is in
> > human beings, I guess I'm not expecting rapid
> advancements.
>
> This can't be done. Defining "thinking" and
> "cognition" as machine
> replicable routines leaves out essential features of
> human thinking and
> cognition that aren't replicable by a machine.
>
> Whitehead, in pointing out that deduction can't be
> the main method of
> "philosophy" (which for him means ontology), makes
> the main method
> "direct intuitive observation." This is what
> Husserl means by
> "phenomenology," This is the ultimate basis of
> thinking and cognition.
>
> It requires and is the activity of what Husserl
> calls a "transcendental
> subject" i.e. a consciously self-determined being
> whose consciousness
> provides direct experience of an external world and
> whose subjectivity
> (whose "ego") is able through this consciousness to
> cognize reality by
> means of direct intuitive observation.
>
> The being of such a subject is not coherently
> thinkable as a "machine."
> The conception of the latter derives from the
> scientific materialist
> ontology that became dominant in the 17th century.
> It assumes reality
> to be a set of externally related material entities
> (i.e. a set of
> material "substances" in the sense of Aristotle and
> Descartes) in
> which self-determination and final causation play no
> part.
>
> This has no logical space for a transcendental
> subject and, hence, no
> logical space for thinking and cognition (in so far
> as we retain as
> part of their definition the meaning that they are
> the conscious
> activities of a subject). In fact, it has no
> logical space for
> consciousness of any kind. Even if consciousness
> were possible, the
> conception of consciousness to which the rest of the
> ontology leads
> creates an impossible problem for epistemology since
> the object of this
> consciousness is not, given the ontology, direct
> experience of an
> external world. This problem was elaborated in
> Hume's skepticism. Its
> full logical implication (not completely worked out
> by Hume) is
> "solipsism of the present moment."
>
> The "argument" that consciousness, thinking and
> cognition can all be
> characteristics of a "machine" assumes that being is
> a machine. All
> characteristics of being must therefore be
> characteristics of a
> machine. Consciousness, thinking and cognition are
> characteristics of
> at least one kind of being, human being. They must
> therefore be
> characteristics of a machine and there is no
> ontological barrier to
> their becoming characteristics of another machine.
> To eliminate any
> such barrier, the terms are redefined so as to get
> rid of those
> meanings which are inconsistent with the idea of a
> machine i.e. with
> the premises of scientific materialism.
>
> Whitehead demonstrates that this still leaves
> problems of logical
> incoherence. His main effort, however, is to work
> out an alternative
> ontology, an ontology of internal relations so
> conceived as to be
> consistent with self-determination and final
> causation and with
> transcendental subjectivity. This ontology sublates
> the positive
> content of "science" developed on the ontological
> foundation of
> scientific materialism. It can, he claims, be
> grounded in direct
> intuitive observation once we rid ourselves of the
> mistaken
> interpretation of conscious experience in terms of
> scientific
> materialism that, since the 17th century, has been
> mistakenly
> identified with conscious experience per se.
>
> The essential features of this ontology are also
> what Marx means by
> "historical materialism."
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
>
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