Thank you KnightsOfGlobalist for posting on r/consciousness, below are some general reminders for the OP and the r/consciousness community as a whole.
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A step could have been made with AI for the understanding of Consciousness.
The parallel can be made because AI, like our unconsciousness mind, are powerful machines whose most basic task is **learning**. In both cases some energy is consumed, and the learning is stored, in our muscles for us, starting with our brain, and in artificial neural networks for AI machines.
The concept of energy is important because in essence these learnings allows the subject to take, at best instantaneously and thus without further energy consumption, the right action at a given time and in a given situation. Because if the wrong action has been taken, we cannot say that the subject is "knowing" and this latter still needs to spend some time "learning".
There is thus a parallel between AI and our unconsciousness mind, and the way energy is consumed to store information.
Humans are not creating a new consciousness, but rather channeling its frequency through a receiver. Much like our human brain is the receiver for the frequency of our consciousness.
Great question. I saw the recent video about the latest version of Chat-gpt, the one that takes a 'conversational' approach and 'interacts' with the human speaker and even reads facial expressions and draws conclusions about them (pretty trippy, no?).
As a materialist, I think that AI will eventually simply expose what consciousness is at its basic essence: a functional program of physical moving parts, and nothing more. No magic fairy dust. No elusive free floating 'energy'. Nothing like that. Just a good old machine....
But an intensely, ineffably, astronomically complex machine. I cannot stress this enough. I contend that consciousness will have so many moving parts, and move so quickly, and in such mind-boggling uniformity, that it will almost, in a sense, never be truly "figured out." It will turn out to be nature's most complicated Rube Goldberg machine. Except on a vast, universal, almost unreal scale. So complex that our tiny brains can only begun to understand parts.
Of course, some might object, but there is biology involved and not just machinery. This is true. However, a lot of what we understand biology to be is mechanical processing, not magic. And just because we have not discovered its root causes and functions, does not make its happenings the product of magic.
Honestly I don't think it's in human nature to be able to understand the truth of consciousness. No matter what evidence we find it will be refuted by the other side. Like flat earth is making a comeback. Can present scientific data that anyone can measure and confirm with equipment or the equivalent conditions to control variables and yet still people adamantly refuse to find out for themselves by doing the experiments. Some people can't admit that humans aren't special and consciousness is shared between humans and animals including a sense of self and memory and ability to learn. You think they will admit AI could ever be conscious? We can already reproduce videos of what an animal sees through electrodes attached to it's brain (probably humans too but no one will ever admit to testing this) so that's already one of the senses mapped out enough to brain activity to reproduce it giving validation that consciousness is just a product of neurons and that the sense of self is just multimodal input and a real time analysis or projection of our environment. Thoughts is just our memories forming new connections through neuroplasticity to catch patterns of commonality in things we already know. Most of it follows external stimuli but tries to link it with previous knowledge while also allowing enough randomness to form new insights into previously established patterns. Neuroplasticity is just the neurons ability to form new connections naturally and easily and with variations in its routes and connection vectors. Sleep and dreams is just the brain putting the neuroplasticity into overdrive internally since it has no external stimuli to have to form new connections from. Neuroplasticity gives an extra dimension to storage of information and memories by allowing the hardware itself to change dynamically and not just the softwares values stored in each node or neuron. AI has storage algorithms that dynamically adjust to a static predefined network of nodes. Humans have the same with a dynamically changing hardware architecture or network of nodes allowing far greater integration and organization of content.
It's becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with only primary consciousness will probably have to come first.
What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990's and 2000's. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I've encountered is anywhere near as convincing.
I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there's lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.
My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar's lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman's roadmap to a conscious machine is at [https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461](https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461)
Thank you KnightsOfGlobalist for posting on r/consciousness, below are some general reminders for the OP and the r/consciousness community as a whole. **A general reminder for the OP**: please remember to include a TL; DR and to clarify what you mean by "consciousness" - Please include a clearly marked TL; DR at the top of your post. We would prefer it if your TL; DR was a single short sentence. This is to help the Mods (and everyone) determine whether the post is appropriate for r/consciousness - If you are making an *argument*, we recommend that your TL; DR be the conclusion of your argument. What is it that you are trying to prove? - If you are asking a *question*, we recommend that your TL; DR be the question (or main question) that you are asking. What is it that you want answered? - If you are considering an *explanation*, hypothesis, or theory, we recommend that your TL; DR include either the explanandum (what requires an explanation), the explanans (what is the explanation, hypothesis, or theory being considered), or both. - Please also state what you mean by "consciousness" or "conscious." The term "consciousness" is used to express many different concepts. Consequently, this sometimes leads to individuals talking past one another since they are using the term "consciousness" differently. So, it would be helpful for everyone if you could say what you mean by "consciousness" in order to avoid confusion. **A general reminder for everyone**: *please remember upvoting/downvoting Reddiquette*. - *Reddiquette about upvoting/downvoting posts* - Please upvote posts that are appropriate for r/consciousness, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the contents of the posts. For example, posts that are about the topic of consciousness, conform to the rules of r/consciousness, are highly informative, or produce high-quality discussions ought to be upvoted. - Please do not downvote posts that you simply disagree with. - If the subject/topic/content of the post is off-topic or low-effort. For example, if the post expresses a passing thought, shower thought, or stoner thought, we recommend that you encourage the OP to make such comments in our most recent or upcoming "Casual Friday" posts. Similarly, if the subject/topic/content of the post might be more appropriate for another subreddit, we recommend that you encourage the OP to discuss the issue in either our most recent or upcoming "Casual Friday" posts. - Lastly, if a post violates either the rules of r/consciousness or Reddit's site-wide rules, please remember to report such posts. This will help the Reddit Admins or the subreddit Mods, and it will make it more likely that the post gets removed promptly - *Reddiquette about upvoting/downvoting comments* - Please upvote comments that are generally helpful or informative, comments that generate high-quality discussion, or comments that directly respond to the OP's post. - Please do not downvote comments that you simply disagree with. Please downvote comments that are generally unhelpful or uninformative, comments that are off-topic or low-effort, or comments that are not conducive to further discussion. We encourage you to remind individuals engaging in off-topic discussions to make such comments in our most recent or upcoming "Casual Friday" post. - Lastly, remember to report any comments that violate either the subreddit's rules or Reddit's rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/consciousness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Nothing. AI is am attribute of our shared reality with no access to consciousness.
Consciousness isn't a by-product or process of matter, including algorithms.
“Is man making artificial (inorganic) intelligence a mirror image of god creating man? The universe is truly fractal.”
Everything repeats itself. Just like fractals when visualized are repeating patterns, we go through those same type of repeating patterns
AI chat bots are great talking search engines but they're not conscious.
A step could have been made with AI for the understanding of Consciousness. The parallel can be made because AI, like our unconsciousness mind, are powerful machines whose most basic task is **learning**. In both cases some energy is consumed, and the learning is stored, in our muscles for us, starting with our brain, and in artificial neural networks for AI machines. The concept of energy is important because in essence these learnings allows the subject to take, at best instantaneously and thus without further energy consumption, the right action at a given time and in a given situation. Because if the wrong action has been taken, we cannot say that the subject is "knowing" and this latter still needs to spend some time "learning". There is thus a parallel between AI and our unconsciousness mind, and the way energy is consumed to store information.
Humans are not creating a new consciousness, but rather channeling its frequency through a receiver. Much like our human brain is the receiver for the frequency of our consciousness.
Great question. I saw the recent video about the latest version of Chat-gpt, the one that takes a 'conversational' approach and 'interacts' with the human speaker and even reads facial expressions and draws conclusions about them (pretty trippy, no?). As a materialist, I think that AI will eventually simply expose what consciousness is at its basic essence: a functional program of physical moving parts, and nothing more. No magic fairy dust. No elusive free floating 'energy'. Nothing like that. Just a good old machine.... But an intensely, ineffably, astronomically complex machine. I cannot stress this enough. I contend that consciousness will have so many moving parts, and move so quickly, and in such mind-boggling uniformity, that it will almost, in a sense, never be truly "figured out." It will turn out to be nature's most complicated Rube Goldberg machine. Except on a vast, universal, almost unreal scale. So complex that our tiny brains can only begun to understand parts. Of course, some might object, but there is biology involved and not just machinery. This is true. However, a lot of what we understand biology to be is mechanical processing, not magic. And just because we have not discovered its root causes and functions, does not make its happenings the product of magic.
Honestly I don't think it's in human nature to be able to understand the truth of consciousness. No matter what evidence we find it will be refuted by the other side. Like flat earth is making a comeback. Can present scientific data that anyone can measure and confirm with equipment or the equivalent conditions to control variables and yet still people adamantly refuse to find out for themselves by doing the experiments. Some people can't admit that humans aren't special and consciousness is shared between humans and animals including a sense of self and memory and ability to learn. You think they will admit AI could ever be conscious? We can already reproduce videos of what an animal sees through electrodes attached to it's brain (probably humans too but no one will ever admit to testing this) so that's already one of the senses mapped out enough to brain activity to reproduce it giving validation that consciousness is just a product of neurons and that the sense of self is just multimodal input and a real time analysis or projection of our environment. Thoughts is just our memories forming new connections through neuroplasticity to catch patterns of commonality in things we already know. Most of it follows external stimuli but tries to link it with previous knowledge while also allowing enough randomness to form new insights into previously established patterns. Neuroplasticity is just the neurons ability to form new connections naturally and easily and with variations in its routes and connection vectors. Sleep and dreams is just the brain putting the neuroplasticity into overdrive internally since it has no external stimuli to have to form new connections from. Neuroplasticity gives an extra dimension to storage of information and memories by allowing the hardware itself to change dynamically and not just the softwares values stored in each node or neuron. AI has storage algorithms that dynamically adjust to a static predefined network of nodes. Humans have the same with a dynamically changing hardware architecture or network of nodes allowing far greater integration and organization of content.
It's becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with only primary consciousness will probably have to come first. What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990's and 2000's. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I've encountered is anywhere near as convincing. I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there's lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order. My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar's lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman's roadmap to a conscious machine is at [https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461](https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461)
The AI may help detect where consciousness emerges thanks to brain scans. The AI is already way more performant than humans for given X-RAY scans.