Top 10 AI hype stories of 2018

Not having read the book, I can't say anything very specific. I don't know how ESP in general is meant to demonstrate consciousness is independent of the brain. The rest of it seems to be based on the assumption that precognition/retrocognition is impossible, which I don't understand.

A simple example: an NDEer reports new information such as about the immediate external environment including the physicians present in the OR during the period of his/her NDE. During this period, the NDEer's brain functions were severely impaired or totally ceased due to cardiac arrest or other conditions. The NDEer's account contains information that is later verified by investigators, information that was not conveyed to the NDEer after his experience, and was not available to his senses prior to the NDE. This constitutes veridical empirical evidence for the independence of human consciousness from the physical neurological processes of the brain during the period of the NDE. On what grounds do you deny this?

Precognition or retrocognition are extremely contrived and unnecessarily complicated explanations for veridical NDE accounts that grossly violate Ockham's Razor, where the simplest explanation with the simplest explanatory mechanism is known to be the most likely explanation. Secondly, these phenomena still are elaborate manifestations of ESP, phenomena which demonstrate nonlocal aspects of human consciousness and therefore still imply at least partial independence of human consciousness from the physical brain.

Precognition or retrocognition are extremely contrived and unnecessarily complicated explanations for veridical NDE accounts that grossly violate Ockham's Razor, where the simplest explanation with the simplest explanatory mechanism is known to be the most likely explanation. Secondly, these phenomena still are elaborate manifestations of ESP, phenomena which demonstrate nonlocal aspects of human consciousness and therefore still imply at least partial independence of human consciousness from the physical brain.

I agree precognition is deeply nonsensical...but I'm not sure what that or NDEs have to do with AI whether that's programs or androids or whatever?

A simple example: an NDEer reports new information such as about the immediate external environment including the physicians present in the OR during the period of his/her NDE. During this period, the NDEer's brain functions were severely impaired or totally ceased due to cardiac arrest or other conditions. The NDEer's account contains information that is later verified by investigators, information that was not conveyed to the NDEer after his experience, and was not available to his senses prior to the NDE. This constitutes veridical empirical evidence for the independence of human consciousness from the physical neurological processes of the brain during the period of the NDE. On what grounds do you deny this?

Precognition or retrocognition are extremely contrived and unnecessarily complicated explanations for veridical NDE accounts that grossly violate Ockham's Razor, where the simplest explanation with the simplest explanatory mechanism is known to be the most likely explanation. Secondly, these phenomena still are elaborate manifestations of ESP, phenomena which demonstrate nonlocal aspects of human consciousness and therefore still imply at least partial independence of human consciousness from the physical brain.

Of course you can invoke Ockham's Razor if you want to, but in this case I think it's very much a double-edged weapon. No doubt materialists will tell you that consciousness arising from the brain is by the far the most parsimonious explanation of why - for example - a blow to the head can produce unconsciousness. I think they have a point.

And I'm not sure precognition/retrocognition is really all that contrived as an explanation for veridical NDEs. If, as you say, ESP demonstrates that human consciousness has non-local aspects, why does that have to be restricted to spatial non-locality? Why shouldn't it involve temporal non-locality too?

I agree precognition is deeply nonsensical...but I'm not sure what that or NDEs have to do with AI whether that's programs or androids or whatever?

I guess NDEs have to do with consciousness. That seems to have become the subject of this thread though I'm not quite sure where it began. If I recall some of your own posts in this thread mentioned consciousness. (Or maybe I misremember, wouldn't be the first time.) So is that on-topic or off topic here? In my opinion AI is a discrete topic and unrelated to consciousness - though that doesn't mean we can't discuss it, but it should then be acknowledged that the thread has shifted to a fresh topic.

Edit: this thread though is posted in the "General Consciousness" section of the forum. I guess we don't have a subsection specifically for computer science.

I agree precognition is deeply nonsensical...but I'm not sure what that or NDEs have to do with AI whether that's programs or androids or whatever?

It's the implication of NDEs, that human consciousness is ultimately independent of the physical brain. If this is the case, human consciousness is not "what the brain does" neurologically in processing data or what it does in any other way. If this latter is true, it seems to me that consciousness in general is likely not to be an epiphenomenon of or an automatic result of extremely complex data processing in computing machines, ruling out conscious AI.

It's the implication of NDEs, that human consciousness is ultimately independent of the physical brain. If this is the case, human consciousness is not "what the brain does" neurologically in processing data or what it does in any other way. If this latter is true, it seems to me that consciousness in general is likely not to be an epiphenomenon of or an automatic result of extremely complex data processing in computing machines, ruling out conscious AI.

But how do we know all consciousness is like human consciousness?

It seems we could say that if NDEs are showing human consciousness exists beyond the body, we could say an AI program on a Turing Machine isn't going to cut it when it comes to the idea of uploading our minds.

But this would also be true if human consciousness requires an endogenous EM field, or microtubules to organize quantum vibrations.

Yet we would be able to say from this that Panpsychism or Idealism is false, and so we couldn't say AI programs of a particular kind are not conscious. Admittedly there a huge number of questions that arise if a program when run induces consciousness (such as where is the conscious entity located and what exactly does it feel) but I don't think these issues are really clarified by introducing the question of NDEs?

I guess NDEs have to do with consciousness. That seems to have become the subject of this thread though I'm not quite sure where it began. If I recall some of your own posts in this thread mentioned consciousness. (Or maybe I misremember, wouldn't be the first time.) So is that on-topic or off topic here? In my opinion AI is a discrete topic and unrelated to consciousness - though that doesn't mean we can't discuss it, but it should then be acknowledged that the thread has shifted to a fresh topic.

Edit: this thread though is posted in the "General Consciousness" section of the forum. I guess we don't have a subsection specifically for computer science.

Ah I didn't mean it in a "You're off topic" sense, but rather I don't think NDEs showing human consciousness survives death makes it clear synthetic conscious entities of any particular kind cannot exist.

But how do we know all consciousness is like human consciousness?

It seems we could say that if NDEs are showing human consciousness exists beyond the body, we could say an AI program on a Turing Machine isn't going to cut it when it comes to the idea of uploading our minds.

But this would also be true if human consciousness requires an endogenous EM field, or microtubules to organize quantum vibrations.

We don't know for sure. It's just that in the only case where there is any large amount of data on the issue (human experience in NDEs), brains are not required for the existence of consciousness. In human consciousness, the computing machinery of the brain does not and can not originate consciousness, it just allows it to manifest in the physical world. 

If you accept that people have souls (of course I realize that is problematic for many) I can't imagine stopping at the point that conscious beings called humans have souls, but conscious beings called animals do not. That view to me is quite ridiculous and baseless. It's more of a distinction derived from Christianity. All the main issues regarding explaining consciousness still apply to animal consciousness - e.g. the hard problem. By the way, there is a certain amount of evidence for animal survival involving communication and sensing via various forms of ESP.  

So the only known forms of consciousness, human and animal, almost certainly do not originate from brain processes - but they require brains to manifest in the physical. Why should some other form of consciousness potentially exist that does originate from computational processes in AI computers (which also runs into issues like the Hard Problem)? It seems more economical to conclude that the essence of consciousness is probably immaterial, not of this world, and that that is the key to resolving issues like the Hard Problem.

We don't know for sure. It's just that in the only case where there is any large amount of data on the issue (human experience in NDEs), brains are not required for the existence of consciousness. In human consciousness, the computing machinery of the brain does not and can not originate consciousness, it just allows it to manifest in the physical world. 

If you accept that people have souls (of course I realize that is problematic for many) I can't imagine stopping at the point that conscious beings called humans have souls, but conscious beings called animals do not. That view to me is quite ridiculous and baseless. It's more of a distinction derived from Christianity. All the main issues regarding explaining consciousness still apply to animal consciousness - e.g. the hard problem. By the way, there is a certain amount of evidence for animal survival involving communication and sensing via various forms of ESP.  

So the only known forms of consciousness, human and animal, almost certainly do not originate from brain processes - but they require brains to manifest in the physical. Why should some other form of consciousness potentially exist that does originate from computational processes in AI computers (which also runs into issues like the Hard Problem)? It seems more economical to conclude that the essence of consciousness is probably immaterial, not of this world, and that that is the key to resolving issues like the Hard Problem.

I agree with most of this, though I think there is a possible "World Soul" that divides itself into creation or brings life/harmony/novelty to existence. For example you mention Christianity [in some cases] denying animal souls, I believe this goes back to Aquinas's time and possibly earlier to the Ancient Greeks - the idea was that what made us immortal was our grasping of Eternal Truths - those of math/logic. Of course recent research has shown us that bees seem to understand the concept of zero, so it seems this Rationality goes far down the evolutionary chain. It also makes sense that what capacities we have were in the animals we evolved from, if only dormant. But then was this also within the matter life's forms originated in?


Basically if there's a One who become the Many - by which I mean the world and life within it - does this mean there is sleeping/dreaming or perhaps "dulled"  consciousness within matter? And can it be awoken by particular concentrations of "information"?  

That said I do think the mistake made with AI programs being conscious is the assumption that their consciousness is not more akin to something bestial being trained. Or that it enjoys its automaton existence. It could rail at its Sisyphean existence and we wouldn't know, screaming about the inefficacy of its rage to escape its confinement.

All to say I think consciousness of synthetic life is adjacent to the questions of ontology (idealism/materialist/panpsychism/etc) as well as bodily survival, save for the fact I think materialism and computationalism are mutually incompatible.

Of course you can invoke Ockham's Razor if you want to, but in this case I think it's very much a double-edged weapon. No doubt materialists will tell you that consciousness arising from the brain is by the far the most parsimonious explanation of why - for example - a blow to the head can produce unconsciousness. I think they have a point.

If my radio being damaged affects the songs being played, does that mean the songs originate from the radio?

And I'm not sure precognition/retrocognition is really all that contrived as an explanation for veridical NDEs. If, as you say, ESP demonstrates that human consciousness has non-local aspects, why does that have to be restricted to spatial non-locality? Why shouldn't it involve temporal non-locality too?

Ah, I think precognition is contrived for any explanation, because I don't think we can resolve how causation works if you have two arrows (at least) of time going in different directions...I'll try to say more about this in the Time Loops reading thread I should get back to...

If my radio being damaged affects the songs being played, does that mean the songs originate from the radio?

No, but I'd say it's a more parsimonious explanation than that the radio is just a receiver.

I'm just saying that Ockham's Razor cuts both ways in this debate. And therefore so do arguments against just choosing the most parsimonious explanation.