Re: [sl4] Re: Uploads coming first would be good, right?

From: John K Clark (johnkclark@fastmail.fm)
Date: Fri Mar 06 2009 - 15:09:43 MST


On Fri, 6 Mar 2009 "Randall Randall"
<randall@randallsquared.com> said:

> I would guess that conscioussness has an adaptive
> advantage over entities which are equivalently intelligent
> but not conscious, inasmuch as consciousness is bound
> up with planning and simulating actions.

To say that one being can make plans and create mental simulations of
future events and one can not but the two beings are equally inelegant
is gibberish; such things are the hallmark of intelligence. At any rate
from your above comment I take it you would agree that if a computer can
out plan us, that is to say if it can beat the pants off us in any
mental task you care to name then you would conclude that it must be
conscious as hell.

> The argument that something can't exist because
> evolution didn't produce it falls flat

Well I didn’t quite say that, but it does prove that if Darwin was right
then Evolution must see consciousness or consciousness is the byproduct
of intelligence, either way it means the Turing Test must work for
consciousness and not just inelegance. And you’re right, it’s not a
absolute proof that a unconscious intelligence is imposable, but it is
strong evidence in that direction, and at the very least it must mean
that a unconscious AI would be HARDER to make than a conscious one. So
guess what the first AI will be. And the first AI is the most important
one.

If consciousness is the result of something like the notorious “self
circuit” that doesn’t effect behavior and just gives us a sense of self
and nothing more then Evolution could never have produced it and Darwin
was wrong. The day that the self circuit is proven to exist I will
become a Bible thumper myself. Don’t hold your breath

 John K Clark

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  John K Clark
  johnkclark@fastmail.fm
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