Mind: emergent property or "Ghost in the machine"?

[Chalnoth]

Call it an anomaly then. Just don't claim it's not a problem, or that it's been solved case-closed.

1. All systems currently claimed by ID proponents to be irreducibly complex have been shown not to be.
2. Lack of knowledge is not a problem with the theory. Once can only disprove a theory when new knowledge shows it to not be true. Irreducable complexity is effectively attempting to state that lack of knowledge can disprove a theory (evolution). This is blatantly illogical.

 

[Oncedeceived]

But it also shows that they have some of the basic concepts of it. If we look at humans, not everyone has the same ability to use abstract thought. Mathematicians are very good at it, but some people can't grasp mathematics at all. They are still capable of abstract thought, only their ability in it is less.

I am not sure if I agree. Although some people have problems with mathematics they still have high levels of abstract thought that allows them to side-step these problems and take other routes to solve their problems.

Cats often attack their own mirror image, they think it is another cat. Chimps and dolphins recognize it is their own image reflected. They have a higher sense of 'self' as cats have, which is already (as far as I can see) an abstraction. Your chimp example shows the same. The chimp already has a certain level of abstraction, where the chimp equates objects, groups them (standon thing to reach banana), instead of looking at each object as a new thing. Sure, the level of abstraction is less than in humans, I cannot agree more. But it is also higher than it is in cats, chickens or insects.

Well....I don't know if the world of insects have been studied to determine whether or not they recognize themselves or not.

You seem to see abstract thought as black and white. You either have it, or you don't. I would propose that there is a continuum here.

Not at all, I may have not been clear on that. I just feel that we as humans have an abstract thinking ability that exceeds even what we understand. We can manipulate our environment to accomodate that thought process as well.

When you look at all animals, humans included, you see that the more something looks like you, the more value you place on it. People fall in love with people that look a bit like them, that's why you so often feel that a couple fits so nicely together. When choosing a pet like a dog or a cat, people also prefer to choose an animal in which they recognize part of themselves. This is not something done consciously. When we think about it, we know that we depend on other animals for survival. Trouble is, we don't think as often as we like to pretend.

Although I agree in part, I think that we have enough knowledge of the inter-connectiveness of the world we live in to think about our survival depending on the survival of others. Which again exemplifies that mankind has a great responsibility to all the earth due to our ability to look at our world in this way. We have the ability that no other species on the plant has, the ability to plan and determine action to save lives as well as eco-systems.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Nope. What do you think that shows?

My point is the continuation of self. Even if that "self" changes due to a damaged brain or a disease; the self recognizes it(self). There is never a time that I have ever been someone else. I have had experience that my personality has been under influence yet during that time I was always me. (IN the case of alcohol for instance, I was myself more affectionately)

 

[Oncedeceived]

I know this was directed at Chalnoth, but for myself. Yes, I do feel there is a distinction between my 'self' and someone elses 'self'.

Your self always knows it(self). The other people who also see themselves as themselves may be unaware that under certain circumstances you see their "selves" as different than before. When a brain damaged person has different personality traits from before the person is seen as someone different than before but the person themselves sees themselves as the same but they just accept the changes as you would any change in your life.

 

[TricksterWolf]

What you are writing here seems to underline the position that memory is flawed according to science. Why else the need for reproduction etc, if not that bias and flawed memory are taken into account?

It's more that I was contrasting the two ideas. Memory is definitely flawed, but systems of coming-to-know based solely on experience still have value for certain things. You can learn some things more quickly by experience than by scientific observation, and this is borne out in the job market. Science isn't the only method of information gain that has value to it, despite the fact that are our memories aren't literal.

I was also contesting the reason why science works. It's not because the element of human memory and its associated flaws are eliminated, as Chalnoth originally appeared to claim. Human memory and creative embellishments are essential to science. Science works despite the flaws of individual observers because systematic, repeated measurements end up reducing these errors to background noise over time.

Trickster

 

[Tomk80]

I am not sure if I agree. Although some people have problems with mathematics they still have high levels of abstract thought that allows them to side-step these problems and take other routes to solve their problems.

Their ability to side-step the problems does not take away from the fact that they do not have the ability to solve it. It does not take away from the fact that even in humans, there is a continuum of abstract thought.

What if we force them to solve a complex mathematical problem. Many of them will fail in it. Sure, they do not need to solve that problem in their daily life, but in the same way the chimps in normal life do not encounter the problems we give them. That doesn't mean they do not have any possibility for abstraction. Only that that level is lower in them then in humans.

Well....I don't know if the world of insects have been studied to determine whether or not they recognize themselves or not.

Not at all, I may have not been clear on that. I just feel that we as humans have an abstract thinking ability that exceeds even what we understand. We can manipulate our environment to accomodate that thought process as well.

I'm not sure I'm following you here.

Although I agree in part, I think that we have enough knowledge of the inter-connectiveness of the world we live in to think about our survival depending on the survival of others. Which again exemplifies that mankind has a great responsibility to all the earth due to our ability to look at our world in this way. We have the ability that no other species on the plant has, the ability to plan and determine action to save lives as well as eco-systems.

To be honest, I think you have a little too rosy a view of humans. Sure, if you ask ask specifically they'll often recognize and agree with your view. But look at how they act. One moment they'll say what you are saying. The next they'll take the car to drive to the supermarket a block away. When confronted (yes, I've confronted them with this kind of behavior) they often are a little embarrased, come up with some lousy excuse and continue what they're doing anyway.

 

[Tomk80]

My point is the continuation of self. Even if that "self" changes due to a damaged brain or a disease; the self recognizes it(self). There is never a time that I have ever been someone else. I have had experience that my personality has been under influence yet during that time I was always me. (IN the case of alcohol for instance, I was myself more affectionately)

Sure, but what does this 'continuation of self' really show? People who experience a change in behavior still also have all the memories of what they have done before etc etc. So it's no wonder they'll feel a continuation of self. Why should a seperate body and mind need to be an explanation to this?

 

[Tomk80]

Your self always knows it(self). The other people who also see themselves as themselves may be unaware that under certain circumstances you see their "selves" as different than before. When a brain damaged person has different personality traits from before the person is seen as someone different than before but the person themselves sees themselves as the same but they just accept the changes as you would any change in your life.

But is this because of a seperation of 'mind and body', or because that person still has all (or a lot of) the memories of his life before that time?

 

[TricksterWolf]

Try telling that to the People who say Moses wrote the first 4 books of the Bible... that requires the memory of everyone passing the Story from Adam onwards to be infalible!

Not necessarily. One could claim that God told them what to write, or that it all worked out by the Hand of God such that the proper things happened to be written down. This assumes that God's memory is less fallable than that of humans. It's not a scientific proposition, but religion shouldn't be.

Ideally, religion is (in my opinion) at its best when it deals only in unfalsifiable beliefs and doesn't attempt to "prove" itself with pseudoscience.

Trickster

 

[Tomk80]

It's more that I was contrasting the two ideas. Memory is definitely flawed, but systems of coming-to-know based solely on experience still have value for certain things. You can learn some things more quickly by experience than by scientific observation, and this is borne out in the job market. Science isn't the only method of information gain that has value to it, despite the fact that are our memories aren't literal.

I was also contesting the reason why science works. It's not because the element of human memory and its associated flaws are eliminated, as Chalnoth originally appeared to claim. Human memory and creative embellishments are essential to science. Science works despite the flaws of individual observers because systematic, repeated measurements end up reducing these errors to background noise over time.

Trickster

okay

 

[TricksterWolf]

Forgot to respond to this.

The idea with a Turing test, is for the machine to pass as human. There would be no specific limits as to the questions you can ask, because if that has to be done, this would by definition fail the test. For the questioner, the most logical course of action would, in my mind, be to immediately start asking questions that require a sense of self.

I'm very familiar with what a Turing test is.

It's easy to establish an upper limit on the number of questions that can be asked or the length of a question that could be asked--make it several trillions of years such that life no longer exists.

Any restriction to a finite domain (and all solvable problems, practically speaking, are restricted this way) will allow the mathematical construction of a Turing machine to respond to questions appropriately with a simple lookup table. It's easy. Just have elements for "question asked (tuple of character)", "questions previously asked (tuple of tuple of character)", and "response" (tuple of character), including only permutations that could be answered by the Big Chill.

The person I was refuting was implying that it could not mathematically be done. It can't be practically done, but it can be mathematically done. It is possible, therefore, for a machine to convincingly act sentient when it isn't remotely self-aware.

The Eliza program is a good example. It's an extremely simple AI program developed in 1966 to mimic a Rogerian therapist. Many "patients" interacting with Eliza believed it to be a real person, even though it was only parsing grammar and parroting it back. Self awareness can be faked.

Trickster

 

[TricksterWolf]

My point is the continuation of self. Even if that "self" changes due to a damaged brain or a disease; the self recognizes it(self). There is never a time that I have ever been someone else. I have had experience that my personality has been under influence yet during that time I was always me. (IN the case of alcohol for instance, I was myself more affectionately)

This isn't true. I've done cognitive testing on Alzheimer patients and worked in mental wards, and I can conclusively say that sometimes a person does not know herself, and sometimes a person becomes a totally different person. Frontal-temporal dementias will take away a person's inhibitions, completely changing her personality, and eventually strip away the sense of self as well. Other disorders can cause dissociative fugues.

Trickster

 

[Tomk80]

I'm very familiar with what a Turing test is.

It's easy to establish an upper limit on the number of questions that can be asked or the length of a question that could be asked--make it several trillions of years such that life no longer exists.

Any restriction to a finite domain (and all solvable problems, practically speaking, are restricted this way) will allow the mathematical construction of a Turing machine to respond to questions appropriately with a simple lookup table. It's easy. Just have elements for "question asked (tuple of character)", "questions previously asked (tuple of tuple of character)", and "response" (tuple of character), including only permutations that could be answered by the Big Chill.

The person I was refuting was implying that it could not mathematically be done. It can't be practically done, but it can be mathematically done. It is possible, therefore, for a machine to convincingly act sentient when it isn't remotely self-aware.

Aha.

The Eliza program is a good example. It's an extremely simple AI program developed in 1966 to mimic a Rogerian therapist. Many "patients" interacting with Eliza believed it to be a real person, even though it was only parsing grammar and parroting it back. Self awareness can be faked.

Trickster

This is interesting. I'll try to read up on it. Thanks.

 

[Oncedeceived]

This isn't true. I've done cognitive testing on Alzheimer patients and worked in mental wards, and I can conclusively say that sometimes a person does not know herself, and sometimes a person becomes a totally different person. Frontal-temporal dementias will take away a person's inhibitions, completely changing her personality, and eventually strip away the sense of self as well. Other disorders can cause dissociative fugues.

Trickster

You really can't say absolutely that it isn't true. Probably any more absolutely that I can say that it is. In researching Alzheimer Dementia, although not conclusive, it is usually in stage six that mirror reflections of patients were unrecognizable to those patients. This may seem to be a loss of self recognition but what is becoming more accepted is that the person is regressing rather than losing the self. The person is actually more at a level of a small child who does not realize they are looking upon themselves in a mirror. What supports this hypothesis is that these patients can have moments of clarity. Moments of lost memories.

 

[TricksterWolf]

You really can't say absolutely that it isn't true. Probably any more absolutely that I can say that it is. In researching Alzheimer Dementia, although not conclusive, it is usually in stage six that mirror reflections of patients were unrecognizable to those patients. This may seem to be a loss of self recognition but what is becoming more accepted is that the person is regressing rather than losing the self. The person is actually more at a level of a small child who does not realize they are looking upon themselves in a mirror. What supports this hypothesis is that these patients can have moments of clarity. Moments of lost memories.

Well, that's true--I can't say anything "conclusively" about someone else's mind, any more than I can make the claim that the "self" disappears at death. For all I know, a corpse still feels fear and pain as he rots away in a box.

But the idea that the self doesn't change due to brain disease is at least a scientifically unprovable belief. I've known families to utterly abandon a mother or child because they could not deal with the changes in her personality after she became demented (usually, for frontal and temporal dementias this includes grotesque behaviors and hypersexuality, with children, animals, strangers, you name it). There's a physical cause to the changes, but some people cannot get past their view that the self is some unchanging thing, and they judge the victim as "evil". This is a shame when the victim has no control over the monster she has become.

Trickster

 

[Chalnoth]

This is interesting. I'll try to read up on it. Thanks.

The Linux program Emacs has a program that's pretty similar (under help->emacs psychiatrist), and it can be pretty fun to fiddle with

Edit:
After finding a web-based ELIZA on Google pretty much instantly, I have to say that it pales in comparison to the Emacs psychiatrist, but Emacs can be really hard to install on Windows if you're not familiar with Linux, so...

 

[Oncedeceived]

Well, that's true--I can't say anything "conclusively" about someone else's mind, any more than I can make the claim that the "self" disappears at death. For all I know, a corpse still feels fear and pain as he rots away in a box.

Yikes! That is a horrible thought!

But the idea that the self doesn't change due to brain disease is at least a scientifically unprovable belief. I've known families to utterly abandon a mother or child because they could not deal with the changes in her personality after she became demented (usually, for frontal and temporal dementias this includes grotesque behaviors and hypersexuality, with children, animals, strangers, you name it). There's a physical cause to the changes, but some people cannot get past their view that the self is some unchanging thing, and they judge the victim as "evil". This is a shame when the victim has no control over the monster she has become.

Yes, but you are talking about personality. Personality is a changing thing. Physical dementia is a real change. I think that we have a problem here with definitions. Personality is an attribute of self. It is not the sole make-up of the self. Personality, physical attributes change as well, but as we see these changes we see them happening to "us" to our selves. I may not like that I can't remember my name or what I look like but it is "I" that can't. Do you see?

Trickster[/quote]

 

[Tomk80]

Well, that's true--I can't say anything "conclusively" about someone else's mind, any more than I can make the claim that the "self" disappears at death. For all I know, a corpse still feels fear and pain as he rots away in a box.

But the idea that the self doesn't change due to brain disease is at least a scientifically unprovable belief. I've known families to utterly abandon a mother or child because they could not deal with the changes in her personality after she became demented (usually, for frontal and temporal dementias this includes grotesque behaviors and hypersexuality, with children, animals, strangers, you name it). There's a physical cause to the changes, but some people cannot get past their view that the self is some unchanging thing, and they judge the victim as "evil". This is a shame when the victim has no control over the monster she has become.

Trickster

I am currently reading "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance". In the book the main personage has received shock therapy and, because of this, lost all memory of his former "self" and also some of his personality traits. Throughout the whole book, he speaks about the ideas of his former self and what he thinks of them, as well as on what he has recollected, through reading, talking with friends of that past life and bits and pieces of memory. He refers to his former "self" as Phaedrus, as a completely different person. Since the book is highly autobiographic, are there any other known cases where something like this has happened?

 

[Chalnoth]

Yes, but you are talking about personality. Personality is a changing thing. Physical dementia is a real change. I think that we have a problem here with definitions. Personality is an attribute of self. It is not the sole make-up of the self. Personality, physical attributes change as well, but as we see these changes we see them happening to "us" to our selves. I may not like that I can't remember my name or what I look like but it is "I" that can't. Do you see?

But if the "self" is contained outside the body, how is it affected by damage to the body?

 

[TricksterWolf]

I may not like that I can't remember my name or what I look like but it is "I" that can't. Do you see?

I do. But this is an essentialistic discussion (based on labels, definitions, and "essenses" of things, rather than facts).

What if the "I" is only recognized by the other, as in the case of someone with severe dementia--where only you can see the self when they cannot? Some people certainly have less self awareness than even an insect. Is it the outsider's perspective that creates the impression of self? If you see a convincingly constructed wax dummy and think it is a person, does that give it a self? If a person is completely unconscious, does it lose its self, then regain it when revived? What about cryogenically frozen animals, who are frozen--technically dead, but able to be revived to consciousness? How can we know if Terri Schaivo had, post vegetative state, a self or not?

I don't think any of these questions are easily answered. The evidences of "selfhood", such as personality and awareness, can certainly change. This alone makes skepticism a logical conjecture. There isn't a logical way to show consistency of self in the way that we'd like it to exist. The whole notion of "self" probably originates from the fact that many ways of acting, which we call personality, are fixed over a person's life...most of the time.

Trickster