Is consciousness necessary for intelligence?
Most people have an understanding of what intelligence is, or at least agree on what intelligent behavior is. While everybody might not agree 100% on what constitutes intelligent behavior, I assume that we do not need a definition for intelligence because most views of it overlap to a large degree. Humans have it, rocks do not, & there is a lot of controversy over where to draw the line between all entities or objects which have intelligence and all that do not. If you need to discuss or define what intelligence is, please start another Thread.
Consciousness is a bit trickier. It is often described or defined as awareness of self. I like to think that my life experiences are like a movie being watched or a book being read, with my consciousness being the viewer or the reader.
When I ski, play tennis, play chess, pursue a female, write a program, solve a mathematical problem, et cetera, there are instinctive activities and intelligent activities involved in accomplishing what I am doing. There is also an entity (my consciousness) which has thoughts like: I am enjoying what I am doing, or I wish I were doing something else, or I am doing this well/poorly. I hope we do not need more discussion of what consciousness is.
When Deep Blue was playing chess versus Gary Kasporov, there was no part of the system that was viewing the movie or reading the book about playing Kasporov.
Most people would consider chess playing as intelligent behavior. Yet Deep Blue shows that it can be done without consciousness.
Some stray thots and opinions.
I believe that, in principle, intelligence can exist without consciousness. In practice, I am not so sure it ever will.
Some intelligent people have come up with arguments claiming that only a biochemical entity can have consciousness. Equally bright people argue that an electronic device could have consciousness. I side with the latter.
A few posts seem to imply that AI is far more advanced than I think it is.
I am glad the thread has not digressed into discussion about the definition of intelligence.
It may seem that the AI goal posts are constantly moved back, but I do not think that this is a fair assessment of what is happening. When some very bright people claimed that a computer beating the best human chess player would be an example of AI, they did not think it could be done by number crunching and the Minimax algorithm. They thought that it would require something like the human brain to do it.
BTW: Maybe if we knew how humans played chess, perhaps we would say something like: “That doesn’t seem to require intelligence. It is just clever pattern recognition and the use of memory.”
Religious types often think of the consciousness as the soul, but usually change their mind if forced to think critically about the subject. Then they realize that they consider the soul more mystical. Most of them would consider an extremely deteriorated person (like an advanced Alzheimer patient or a brain dead person) to have little or no consciousness, but would argue for the existence of a healthy soul.
Some seem to view the consciousness (and the mind) as mystical and perhaps not dependent on the physical brain. Believers in Astral projection, channeling, communication with the dead, and other such nonsense obviously consider both the mind and the consciousness capable of existing when spatially separated from the body.
It surprises me that we do not seem to have much meeting of the minds on what consciousness is. While it seems difficult to understand the mechanism behind it, I never thought the concept was that difficult to define. In spite of various posts to this thread, I think there a high level of agreement. There are some confusing semantic issues here, and some who will always try to muddy the waters of any already difficult subject.
As I posted earlier, the big guns who try to understand consciousness say things like the following.
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The human mind seems to have utilitarian functions related to problem solving, survival, satisfying desires, et cetera. There also seem to be other activities of the mind which are much like the activities of the viewer (or critic) of a movie or the reader (or critic) of a book, where the movie being viewed or the book being read is the history of the individual. These other activities are called the consciousness of the individual.
When a human plays chess, there are thoughts like the following which are not directly related to playing the game- I am playing chess, and I am bored with this game.
- I do this well.
- My opponent is a nice guy, but a lousy chess player.
- I should read a good book about Queen Pawn openings.
- I should get more exercise. I wonder if Joe can play tennis tomorrow.
When Deep Blue plays chess there are no such thoughts.
The consciousness does not seem to be required for the performance of any specific utilitarian function, but might be necessary for the mind to function at all.
I am convinced that my consciousness exists, and that all but extremely dysfunctional humans have a similar consciousness. I have no proof for these beliefs. I just know that I have it, and consider it absurd to believe that others do not also have it. Others seem to be similar to me in most of the characteristics I can observe, why should they be fundamentally different in the characteristics I cannot observe directly?
Searle & the Chinese Room.
The Searle discussion was a tuff read.
It does not seem to me that Searle has proven that AI is impossible. I do think that he has presented a convincing argument that AI is not possible with computers using current architecture.
I think that AI is possible, but that it requires neural networks, or arrays of thousands or millions of CPU’s with some yet to be designed connectivity, or some other architecture unlike current systems.
It seems to me that Searle has not provided a formal proof, and I am not sure he was trying to develop a formal proof. Since the URL led to Larry Hauser’s article criticizing Searle, it is hard to figure out exactly what Searle said. Intent is tuff to determine under any circumstances. From what I read about the Chinese Room, I do not think it was an attempt at a formal proof, although the Hauser article indicates Searle formatted his argument like a formal proof, and used the Chinese Room in his argument.
It is fairly obvious that Hauser is attacking the Searle argument by showing that it is not a formal proof, which might not be fair if Searle never claimed to be presenting a formal proof. Hauser seems to me to be correct in claiming that the proof by Searle is invalid logic. However, Hauser does not seem to describe or refute the ideas put forth by the Chinese Room experiment.
For those not familiar with The Turing Test and the Chinese Room thought experiments, I will describe them.
Turing came up with the idea of testing future AI devices versus a human being. His idea is to put one or more people in a room with a keyboard and two monitors (actually in those days two crude typewriter like devices were proposed). Questions or remarks would be entered via the keyboard, and a pair of answers or pertinent remarks would be provided via the two monitors (teletype machines). One monitor would be controlled by a human and the other would be controlled by the AI device.
The people in control of the keyboard could ask questions or merely carry on a conversation with the entities in control of the monitors. If the people in control of the keyboard could easily tell which monitor was controlled by the AI device and which by the human, then the AI device failed the test. If the people could not figure out which was which, the AI device passed the test 100% and had to be considered intelligent. Obviously, it would be possible for the AI device to be given some score between 0 & 100%, depending on how difficult it was to identify which was which.
A full Turing Test would have no restrictions on the subject matter, and nobody expects an AI device to pass such a test with a high grade in the next 50-100 years. It seems reasonable to expect some AI device to pass a less rigorous test with restrictions on the subject matter or which otherwise gave the AI device a little help.
The Chinese Room thought experiment is an argument which claims that the Turing Test is not a valid way to assess an AI device. Imagine that you can pass Chinese ideograph text into a slot in the door of a room. Some time later, an English translation is provided via a second slot in the door. If a person fluent in Chinese and English verified that the translations were correct, it would seem reasonable to conclude that a person or an entity in the room understood both Chinese and English.
Now suppose that you investigated the contents of the room and discovered a group of people running computers. One group was looking ideographs up in a computerized database of ideograph images and creating a literal translation of original messages. Another group was processing the literal translations versus a huge subject indexed data base of Chinese ideograph literature with English translations. This group would use contexts found in Chinese literature to refine the literal translation. All the notes made by these two groups were passed to an output group which typed up the final translation.
After understanding the processes inside the room, most people would conclude that there were people in the room who understood English, but that nobody there understood Chinese. Even if the operations were carried out by one person, most people would not conclude that the person understood Chinese.
Note that the Chinese Room is similar in some ways to a Turing Test for comprehension of the Chinese language. The argument is that if you understood how a proposed AI device functioned, you might not credit it with intelligence. This is why Deep Blue is not considered an AI device even though it beat the best human chess player and chess playing is generally considered to require intelligence.
It seems that Searle carried this Chinese Room argument a bit further and claimed that AI was not possible.
Do you know what you're talking about?
I hate to say this, but you look very ignorant to me, all of you. (except Kzin, I didn't distinguish his opinion)
guv
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If you need to discuss or define what intelligence is, please start another Thread.
We still haven't defined what intelligence is, since a year ago when I started that thread. How can you relate to a undefined concept? ignorance yes...
simon
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OK then, let's define awareness (as far as I know, no one's ruled out discussing that yet).
A computer gathers information through input devices such as a keyboard and a mouse. If your definition of awareness includes a computer by means of it's keyboard and mouse then I would say that your definition of awareness is different than mine.
i.e. A computer is not aware, even though it gathers information through various input devices.
I did go on to my specifically define consiousness/awareness as "the sensation of experience". This, I believe, more acurately describes my definition of consiousness.
And you imply that the computer is not feeling this sensation? If you ask it, it would answer you it had. Let's assume you have developed a computer to act as a specific human, it would say it feels this sensation, and the human would also say this. How do you distinguish between them?
Until you accept my theory, there's no way to proove. There's no way to think it's possible to proove.
I define consciousness as my own awareness, and a possible similar experience of others. We do apply consciousness concept on other human beings, and sometimes animals etc... but you can't proove whether a turing machine, computer, a dolphin, or even another human being possess consciousness, and we shouldn't put a line between them, they all can be either fully conscous or not at all.
Until then, this debate should be degraded to "which god is the right one" stage. That is, let your belief decide, if you wish. It's a religious matter.
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Perhaps as far as you're concerned but it's hardly been resolved satisfactorally one way or the other yet. Still that's another side road I'm not going to go down now.
You know what I've told you Simon. It's the only fully explanatory theory that fit's both our consciousness and our enviroment, why hang onto something that is obviously incorrect?
WHY PEOPLE THINK COMPUTERS CAN'T
I've just been reading the website that Kzin pointed out and I found the following very interesting statement:
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So such concerns are not about
computers at all, but about our foolish quest for meanings that stand by
themselves, outside any context. Our questions about thinking machines
should really be questions about our own minds.
The first sentanceis a reference to our quest for absolute truth. It sums up my belief that truth is meaningless without context. i.e. Absolute truth may or may not exist, but it is only context which injects it with meaning.
The second sentance also echo's my belief in that when asking such questions about AI we need to first understand what makes us intelligent (or why we think we are intelligent).
But, I do think that generally, this guy grossly underestimates how difficult it would be to make a computer self-consious. Indeed, he states that it would be possible to make computers more self consious than we are!
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I see no special problem in giving them the "self-insight"
they would need to understand, change, and improve themselves.
I think the above statement is based on a significant failure to understand what makes us self-consious.
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I think this could be done by providing machines with ways to examine
their own mechanisms while they are working. In principle, at least, this
seem possible; we already have some simple Al programs that can
understand a little about how some simpler programs work.
But then what. Do you need ways to examine the mechanisms that examine the mechanisms? Where does this stop? Obviously, this could go on indefinitely and this is exactly what humans can do and what computers can't. We intuitively grasp an infinte and undefineable concept.
Knock it off on provablility.
Kedaman: Do you post under the influence of something you injected, smoked, or snorted? I often wonder if you ever read what you typed before you post it.
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My theory is that universe as it looks now doesn't exist, that it is a sub-reality, a dreamworld, a projection of our mind, and that if we accept the fact that it is, it will instantly disappear.
The above is not the first off the wall opinion I have seen you post, and I doubt if it will be the last. At least the above is understandable verbiage.
I often find it hard to take you seriously. Many of your posts seem almost unintelligible. Sometimes I am reminded of some of the Eastern Mystical crap I used to hear like the sound of one hand clapping. It merely sounds profound, but is actually nonsense. Most people are afraid to scoff at crap like that for fear of seeming stupid. It never bothered me to say that such drivel is meaningless because it is meaningless. At least Carroll did not pretend to be saying anything meaningful when he wrote the following.
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Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Next, it seems to me that almost every body posting here has a working definition of intelligence which is not far different from what others believe intelligence to be.
If you claim otherwise, you are really saying that any thread related to AI, consciousness, intelligence, the human mind, et cetera cannot be discussed in any meaningful fashion on this forum because we have no common understanding of the vocabulary required for the discussion.
I avoid forums which use Chinese, Swahili, et cetera. It seems to me that you should similarly avoid any threads discussing intelligence, since you claim that nobody has any knowledge of what intelligence is, or at least you claim that their view of it is radically different from your view.
Note that I did not assume that most of us have a similar understanding of the meaning of consciousness.
You constantly harp on the subject of provability. Everybody with any knowledge of formal logic knows that nothing is provable in an absolute sense. All so called proofs rely on axioms which are assumed rather than proven to be true. Without a proof of the axioms, none of the conclusions of any axiomatic system are absolutely provably true. You do not have to tell us this over and over again as though we are children who do not understand.
The Pythagorean theorem while almost universally accepted as true in Euclidean space, is not absolutely provably true. We do, however, have faith that our airplanes fly most of the time and that our bridges do not fall when we drive across them. For all practical purposes, the theorems of mathematics, physics, and science are valid now and will be valid in the future. Perhaps we will discover that all of our science cannot be extrapolated beyond the experimental evidence on which it is based. That is what happened to classical physics. It was not shown to be wrong. It was only shown to be not applicable to phenomena not known or not measurable at the time classical physics was developed.
In discussing subjects like AI, consciousness, the human mind, perception, et cetera nobody expects axiomatic proofs ala geometry and calculus theorems. At least I do not. The most we can hope for are arguments that are reasonable and which seem consistent with the meager applicable knowledge available to us. We can hope that though reasonable discussion we can improve our own concepts and opinions on difficult subject matter.
Being told that nothing is provable adds nothing to threads like this one. Claiming that any imaginable belief might turn out true in the future is a ridiculous copout. You harp on provability and use logically invalid arguments in your own posts. Time and again I notice you mentioning some stupid point of view held by somebody 500 years ago and use it to support a belief in the future possibility of some weird notion. Stupid opinions from the past do not support the credibility of any belief.
If you want precise definitions of all terms and absolute provability, stick to Euclidean geometry and you will get close to such an ideal state of knowledge. Note, however, that formal logic requires a set of undefined terms. Hence, you will never get every term defined. Stay away from discussions of AI, consciousness, et cetera or else present reasonable views backed up by some sensible commentary, instead of knocking the point of view of others because nothing is provable.
Radical theories are met with distrust and mockery
Guv
Some guys would agree, there was need for those like you as well as those like me for civilisation to advance.
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Time and again I notice you mentioning some stupid point of view held by somebody 500 years ago and use it to support a belief in the future possibility of some weird notion. Stupid opinions from the past do not support the credibility of any belief.
If this in particular upsets you, you have missunderstood me. I was mentioning it a while ago, once, as an example, not as support for beliefs, rather to concretisize my theory. I was refering to evolution as whole (which was the actual support for my theory), do you deny it happened/is happening/is going to continue? I suppose you don't, so if you want to continue the discussion, we could, but not on this thread.
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You do not have to tell us this over and over again as though we are children who do not understand.
I know, most people will never learn, how many times you ever tell them. But I remain hopefull. I agree with you that it is a problem to bring it up in every single matter in life, but sometimes, especially on this subject, I think that it will bring some sense, instead of nonsense. If there aren't any other reasonable theories, why not accept the possibility of the radical?
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I often find it hard to take you seriously. Many of your posts seem almost unintelligible
I didn't expect you or anyone in this forum to take me seriously when I wrote that specifically. I was explaining it to simon earlier and it took me several pages for him to even accept it is understandable. The last one I expect to try to understand me is you, so I didn't consider doing any explanation here. If you've found related posts by me you might have encountered the same theory. Since I expect a serious response, I'm adapting this post specifically for your convenience. Just ignore my theory for now.
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Next, it seems to me that almost every body posting here has a working definition of intelligence which is not far different from what others believe intelligence to be.
Imagine a group of knowledgeable men working on trying to proove certain paragraphs in the bible. They would not accept a scientist coming around and say that Earth is round or something, he'd be hanged immediately. I'm not a scientist around here, but what's wrong being openminded?
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I avoid forums which use Chinese, Swahili, et cetera. It seems to me that you should similarly avoid any threads discussing intelligence, since you claim that nobody has any knowledge of what intelligence is, or at least you claim that their view of it is radically different from your view.
If an enough intelligent being would take your advice (for some odd reason) he would go and hang himself because he don't want to participate in life. I'm not going to hang myself, first because I'm the optimistic guy, and second since I feel participating might trim my intelligence further.
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In discussing subjects like AI, consciousness, the human mind, perception, et cetera nobody expects axiomatic proofs ala geometry and calculus theorems. At least I do not. The most we can hope for are arguments that are reasonable and which seem consistent with the meager applicable knowledge available to us. We can hope that though reasonable discussion we can improve our own concepts and opinions on difficult subject matter.
To me it sounds like you are contradicting yourself. Trough "Reasonable" discussion we apply logic and theorems all the time, if it's not directly mathematical, it still is built up on logic, otherways we would not be able to discuss anything coherent.
Anyway, I apologise for trying to knock off the definitions you've set up for this thread. Instead of relating to my vision, you might consider this reasonable:
Moral aspects vs Scientific aspects
IF there's a purpose for AI, you probably agree with me that it's not we that are to be replaced by it, especially you. Say tasks currently operated by other human beings can be operated by AI devices. If that's what you need AI for, then there's no need to drag in consciousness in the business, if you are the scientist. If you're the moral guy, you have to concider about consciousness though, and ask if AI obtains consciousness, and if so, should it be given human rights and so on... Now which discussion are we leading here? The scientific right?
The scientist would look at it this way: Human beings are no different from machines, they are just biological machines. Therefore it's possible to replicate machines that emulate humans, or at least perform tasks that can be performed by humans.
The moral guy would say: Human beings have consciousness and therefore machines cannot be replicated to emulate humans, which probably results in not being able to perform the tasks either.
The philosopher might make an observation here: While there's no proof of other human beings to have consciousness, machines not induce consciousness on their own, consciousness should not be assumed to be needed when implementing the AI device.
Concluding that, consciousness should not be taken as relevant if you intend to develope AI. If our intentions are to provide the same results as intelligence can provide, an emulation that does the same will do. Since you asked for everyones opinion on the relation between intelligence and consciousness, I think you have to accept responses like this. If you would have asked how consciousness relates to the developement of AI, my answer would have been straight forward and the missunderstandments would never had taken place.
If csammis is pointing to the right tools we need, then it's those we need to discuss.
Intelligence based on self-awareness
Guv
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Faced with an AI device that claimed to be self aware, is there any way I could verify or refute the claim? I could devise a lot of tests to verify or refute behavior which at least mimicked intelligence, but what test is there for self awareness?
I think the right direction for such tests would be along the lines of Godel's incompleteness theorems. If you asked the device what it would do in a new situation (that it is not curently familiar with) then it could only answer if it had a concept of self. If you had to feed in a complete description of itself (in order to answer the question) then it would not be self-consious and would not be able to answer the question. i.e. It would have to run a sub program that was a simulation of itself and that sub program would in turn have to run a sub-sub program etc. to infinity.
Only an entity that had an intuitive grasp of itself could ever come up with an answer in a finite amount of time.
Obviously, the quesiton would have to be picked very carefully to avoid the device's creators being able to trick their way out of such questions.
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I can imagine intelligence without self awareness, but not the converse. Because I can imagine it, is it possible? I think so, but my belief has little conviction.
Do you consider chimpanzees intelligent? They have been shown to be self-aware although they are (as far as we know) much less intelligent than humans.
All in all, I think there are limits to how far you can go with intelligence without self-consiousness. Without the ability to think about oneself in the third person, then it is simply impossible to postulate about oneself in new situations.
