(09-03-2024, 06:31 AM)The Real Marty Wrote:

(09-02-2024, 05:40 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: I want to point out that I was generally speaking of a generally theory of consciousness. I am not necessarily being specific to machines or AI learning, and I only made the reference to answer Marty's specific question. This is just an idea I was exploring on my own because I think it's interesting.

I am in complete agreement that most of the fuss about AI machine learning is based on a serious misunderstanding of what these machines can do. If we are in danger of anything moving forward, it will be due to a failure of human arrogance and reasoning.

It's an incredibly interesting subject, and hard to discuss in a few paragraphs.  You have to start with a very strict definition of what you are talking about.  

The 30,000-foot view from my perspective is this: I don't think there's anything that can only be particular to humans.  I don't see any reason why machines can't become so human-like it in terms of their thinking that it would be very hard to tell the difference.  The basic reason I think that is because I think humans are machines.  I think all living things are just machines in essence, and completely governed by the laws of science.  

Whether we ever engineer human-like machines is an open question.  We might decide to leave out some human characteristics that we consider weaknesses.  

The subject of what is consciousness, and what is unique about human consciousness, will always veer into religion at some point.  To me, the possibilities are divided into two: the natural and the supernatural.  If you don't believe in the supernatural, then you can only believe in the natural, that is, that everything that is and everything that happens is a result of natural forces, which are governed by the laws of nature.  If you do not believe in the supernatural, then you do not believe in the soul.  That makes a human being simply a machine, subject to all the laws of nature.  And then, depending on your knowledge of science, you can design a machine that is completely human-like, with a consciousness that is exactly human-like.  At that point, have you created a human?  

I think a religious person would tend to say that machines can never be human, and a non-religious person would say they can.  

And I have to stop there, because I am veering off into what could be the very best and most interesting thing we could discuss on this message board- religion.

If humans are essentially machines and divided into two camps, natural and supernatural, then the same life experiences for two people of the same camp should produce two people who think, believe and behave identically. But it doesn’t. 

However, distilled down to its most basic elements, all of nature is purely mathematical. So, in the purest of essence, we are indeed machines.

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