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Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly not."
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Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Dec 20, 2015

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Page 1: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Can a machine be conscious? (How?)

Depends what we mean by “machine?

man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots?

"Almost certainly not."

Page 2: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Why “almost"? (1) “empirical risk.” (2) “other-minds” problem” 

Descartes on certainty and uncertainty: Certain: (i) mathematics, (ii) my-own-mind (the "cogito"), and Uncertain: everything else

other-minds problem haunts robotics 

Page 3: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

"Is any machine we have built to date conscious?"

"Can a man-made artifact be conscious?"

Genetic or other biological engineering? 

Toasters: man-made vs. tree-grown

Page 4: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Machine =any causal physical system

Includes biological organisms Hence we are conscious machines.

So the right question is :“What kinds of machines can and cannot be conscious,and How?” (cognitive science)

(And How can we (And How can we telltell??The "other-minds problem.”)The "other-minds problem.”)

Page 5: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

"forward-engineering" vs. "reverse-engineering"

causal explanation How?

Page 6: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Explaining a cardiac system (a heart):F-eng: build a mechanism that can do what the heart can do R-eng: F-eng + explain (and/or build) the structure and the function of the biological heart itself:what the heart is (made out of)how it in particular happens to do what hearts can do.

Explaining a conscious system (the brain):F-eng: build a mechanism that can do what the brain can doR-eng: F-eng + explain (and/or build) the structure and the function of the biological brain itself:what the brain is (made out of)how it in particular happens to do what brains can do.

Either way, the causal explanation is a structural/functional one.

Page 7: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

The ghost of the other-minds problem:

Note: Cardiac research program is completely unproblematic. The “cardiac vitalist” asks: "Can a machine be cardiac?"

(“What kind of machine can and cannot be cardiac, and how?”)

Page 8: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

At no point would the cardiac vitalist have any basis for saying: "But how do we know that this machine is really cardiac?" There is no way left (other than ordinary empirical risk) for any difference even to be defined.

 Same would be true if our question had been "Can a machine be alive?"When we ask -- of the man-made, R-eng clone: "But how do we know that this machine is really alive?"

Page 9: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Two structurally and functionally indistinguishable systems, one natural and the other man-made,their full causal mechanism known and understood: What does it mean to ask:"But what if one of them is really alive, whereas the other is not?"

What property is at issue that one has and the other lacks, when all empirical properties have already been captured?

Vitalism sounds like the other-minds problem-- and may be the other-minds problem:

the animism at the true heart (soul) of vitalism

Page 10: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

The (nonanimist) vitalist who accepts that plants are not conscious would be in exactly the same untenable position if sceptical about the R-eng plant as the sceptic about the R-eng heart:

What vital property is at issue (if it is not consciousness itself)?

But the same is most definitely not true in the case of consciousness itself.

Page 11: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Forward-engineering the brain:Build an F-eng robot that passes the Turing Test: It can do everything a real human can do, for a lifetime, indistinguishably from a real human (except appearance: we will return to that).

Is it really conscious? It is indistinguishable from us in everything it can do.

But conscious is something I am, not something I do. In particular, it is something I feel; indeed, it is the fact that I feel.

Page 12: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

The sceptic wants to say that F-eng is the wrong kind of machine,that it lacks something essential that we humans have.

The robot does not feel,

it merely behaves -- behaves exactly, indeed Turing-indistinguishably -- as if it feels,

but without actually feeling a thing.

Page 13: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Whether or not a Turing robot feels is an ontic question rather than merely an epistemic question.

Having conceded this point regarding certainty, however, only a fool argues with the Turing-Indistinguishable:

Page 14: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Indistinguishable?

If you prick us, do we not bleed?

Perhaps the sceptic about the F-eng machine should hold outfor R-eng machine, made out of the right stuff,

Turing-indistinguishable both inside and outat both the macro and micro levels.  

But would we be right to kick robots that don’t bleed, because we infer that they therefore don’t feel?

Page 15: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

The Other-Minds Barrier

TELEPATHY:mind-reading vs.

turing-testing

Page 16: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

"theory of mind" or "mind-reading" in animals and children.

(not philosophy or parapsychology but "other-mind perception”)

“Mind-reading” is Turing-testing: inferring mental states from behavior.

(Language (also a behavior) is the most powerful and direct means of mind-reading!)

Page 17: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

The only mind we can read other than by Turing-testing is our own! 

Don’t make ontic/epistemic conflation here:

Turing-testing does not mean that all there is to mind is behavior (as the blinkered behaviorists thought)!

It means the only way to read others' minds is through their behavior.

Page 18: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Indistinguishable?

What about R-eng.and rest of the neuromolecular facts about the brain?

Which facts?

Page 19: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

"What kinds of machines can and cannot be conscious?"

We know brains can be, but how? What are their relevant properties (if their weight, for example, is not)?

If we pare down the properties of the brainto test which ones are and are not needed to be conscious:What will our test be?

We are right back to Turing-testing again, the only non-telepathic methodology available to us,because of the other-minds problem.

Page 20: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Will "correlations" do instead?Brain imaging to find the areas and activities that covary with conscious states,as the necessary and sufficient conditions of consciousness?

But how did we identify those correlates? Because they were correlates of behavior:and of our own feelings i.e., by Turing-testing. What is our basis for favoring R-eng over F-eng then,if they are Turing-Indistinguishable (behaviorally)

and the Turing Test is our only face-valid criterion. 

Page 21: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Conclusion:

"What kinds of machines can be conscious (and how)?"

The kinds that can pass the Turing Test,

and by whatever means are necessary and sufficient to pass the Turing Test.

Page 22: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Two consolations for residual worries about Zombies passing the Turing Test:

(1) Darwin is no more capable of telepathy than we are. Evolution can’t distinguish sentients from zombies either.

(2) the problem of explaining how (and why) we are not zombies (the “mind/body problem”) is “hard”(probably insoluble)

Page 23: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

Why the Mind/Body Problem is “hard”?

Causality

The Scylla of TELEKINESIS:

Feeling as a Primal Force

The Charybdis ofEPIPHENOMENALISM:

Feeling as anInert Fact

Page 24: Can a machine be conscious? (How?) Depends what we mean by “machine? man-made devices? toasters? ovens? cars? computers? today’s robots? "Almost certainly.

It would be easy if telekinetic powers existed: Then feelings would be physical forces like everything else.

But there is no evidence that feelings are causal forces. Hence both F-eng and R-eng can only explain how it is that we can do things, not how it is that we can feel things.

And that is why the ghost in the machine is destined to continue to haunt us even after all cognitive science’s empirical work is done.

 This paper (and linked references) is available at:http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/machine.htm