What separates a twenty year old, a two year old and a computer is the fact that the twenty year old has experienced an infinite number of things within those twenty years and more importantly remembers the majority of those things and especially the most significant of those things, that memory then affects what the twenty year old will think and ultimately react to new experiences... numerous and shaped points of reference... now the two year old has only been around an equally infinite time, but his experiences are to his mind random as he has not been given the time to understand the experiences to form his own points of reference... however given time the two year old has a more defined sense of what has happened around him and eventually becomes aware of himself.... therefore if you had to try to make a computer aware of itself it would have to experience things and remember those things over a course of time and eventually it would become aware of itself as a child does...
so if a computer started out speaking Chinese to people.... and it could remember those conversations... and continue speaking Chinese to more and more people... it could eventually take on the perspectives of those conversations to make its own unique speech patterns within the constructs of the language given....just as people do ....
- Joined
- 07 Jan 08
- Moves
- 34575
Originally posted by FabianFnasOne way might be through behaviour. The 2-year old might display self-awareness even though the child may not understand your question.
...
Does a two year old child have awareness? Can I ask? Can I rely on the answer.
And if I ask a computer program, what answer will I have? And can I rely on this answer?
There is no way to know if you have a computer program that have awareness. If so, how do I know?
I'm not offering an answer here, only opening up the possibilities of
trying to come up with an answer. In the animal kingdom, are animals
self-aware? I would posit that some are and some aren't, based on
intelligence as a result of behaviour. Let's take an example: a raven.
Ravens may be the smartest birds in the world. They can make tools
and work in groups to an end. But the most curious aspect of ravens,
and what indicates to me that they are possibly self-aware, is that they
play. The animal kingdom, for the most part, concerns itself with getting
food, maintaining health (to the extent that they can), sleeping, and procreating.
Ravens are nearly unique in that they'll take time to play, like roll down
a snow-covered slope. There's no point in it; they're just playing. Wild
birds, bored and playing.
Self-awareness is more than a game of 20 questions.
Originally posted by BadwaterMost animals play. Just ask your local dog. 😉 But I agree with you and DonPacia above (except with his use of the word "infinite"...I think he meant "finite" ), that consciousness is something that develops over time with experience. Isn't that the basis for understanding, after all? We may know a word, and use it properly, but still have the nagging feeling that we don't understand the word. However, when we know why we use that word instead of some other word, and the effect that the word has on ourselves and others in contrast to the effect that some other word has in the same place, we begin to really understand the word instead of just knowing it. Just as it takes time and experience to understand a word, it takes time and experience to understand what it means to be an "I".
One way might be through behaviour. The 2-year old might display self-awareness even though the child may not understand your question.
I'm not offering an answer here, only opening up the possibilities of
trying to come up with an answer. In the animal kingdom, are animals
self-aware? I would posit that some are and some aren't, based on
intelligenc ng. Wild
birds, bored and playing.
Self-awareness is more than a game of 20 questions.
- Joined
- 07 Jan 08
- Moves
- 34575
Originally posted by PBE6I guess I should have been clear in that I was talking about wild animals. I should have differentiated between 'play' as a juvenile that is actually training for hunting work or social skills and what-not, and play that a raven or dolphin might do that serves no purpose. For a raven to roll in the snow in and of its own accord, having created the idea that it is 'fun'...and I imagine that higher mammals like dolphins or apes would behave the same...the kind of 'play' one might observe that creature engaging in, that's what I was referring to.
Most animals play. Just ask your local dog. 😉 ....
Originally posted by BadwaterA quick Google search indicates play is running wild in the animal kingdom 😉:
I guess I should have been clear in that I was talking about wild animals. I should have differentiated between 'play' as a juvenile that is actually training for hunting work or social skills and what-not, and play that a raven or dolphin might do that serves no purpose. For a raven to roll in the snow in and of its own accord, having created the idea that ...[text shortened]... nd of 'play' one might observe that creature engaging in, that's what I was referring to.
http://books.google.com/books?id=jkiTQ8dIIHsC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=animal+play&source=web&ots=05xkY-8s-o&sig=NpXc8F4QNhIQSo-xnHscx0dHn7w
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Publications/ZooGoer/1996/1/junglegyms.cfm
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=9981
Originally posted by Badwater"John Byers, of the University of Idaho, and Marc Bekoff, of the University of Colorado, have done their best to establish a definition: "Play is all motor activity performed postnatally that appears to be purposeless, in which motor patterns from other contexts may often be used in modified forms and altered temporal sequencing."
Umm - I don't really need to search it (no offense intended here), being that I experience the wild first-hand; more so than a zoo, for example.
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Publications/ZooGoer/1996/1/junglegyms.cfm
Any comments?
- Joined
- 07 Jan 08
- Moves
- 34575
Originally posted by PBE6My only comment is that not all play is without purpose. Seems like a case of semantics to me, and I have no idea in what context he is defining play.
"John Byers, of the University of Idaho, and Marc Bekoff, of the University of Colorado, have done their best to establish a definition: "Play is all motor activity performed postnatally that appears to be purposeless, in which motor patterns from other contexts may often be used in modified forms and altered temporal sequencing."
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Publications/ZooGoer/1996/1/junglegyms.cfm
Any comments?
Originally posted by BadwaterBadwater: I should have differentiated between 'play' as a juvenile that is actually training for hunting work or social skills and what-not, and play that a raven or dolphin might do that serves no purpose.
My only comment is that not all play is without purpose. Seems like a case of semantics to me, and I have no idea in what context he is defining play.
'play' vs play.
- Joined
- 07 Jan 08
- Moves
- 34575
This seems to have gone on a tangent regarding the thread subject, but I think we could all agree that it is a component for the subject at hand. Computers don't play (at least in the way we think of an animal or human playing), but that's hardly the only consideration of what it takes for something to be self aware.
If a computer becomes adept at displaying the things, the processes, that we attribute to something being self aware (or even 'living' for that matter), is it self aware? At what point is it self aware? Is it ever self aware? Is that even the proper context to be discussing how a machine can become a 'living' thing?
Originally posted by BadwaterSelf aware. Aware of oneself. It's really quite simple.
This seems to have gone on a tangent regarding the thread subject, but I think we could all agree that it is a component for the subject at hand. Computers don't play (at least in the way we think of an animal or human playing), but that's hardly the only consideration of what it takes for something to be self aware.
If a computer becomes adept at displa s that even the proper context to be discussing how a machine can become a 'living' thing?
Originally posted by ivanhoeDo computers have minds?? Clearly not in the biological sense. But they do have limited programmed response in the areas in which they are programmed. 😏
..... or "Do computers have minds" ?
"Chinese room thought experiment.
Searle requests that his reader imagine that, many years from now, people have constructed a computer that behaves as if it understands Chinese. It takes Chinese characters as input and, using a computer program, produces other Chinese characters, which it presents as output. Supp ...[text shortened]... **************************************
What do you think ? Do computers have minds ?
Originally posted by bill718Which shows how much you know about programming and computers. Look up Genetic Programming somewhere, google it and see if you can learn something new.
Do computers have minds?? Clearly not in the biological sense. But they do have limited programmed response in the areas in which they are programmed. 😏
My apologies for being so late to this thread. There is a very simple test for self-awareness called the Rouge test, which every typically developing 2 year old and most chimps can pass.
Here is a home-video demonstration of the experimental paradigm.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5980976466387737630
If you designed a computer program with the requisite sensory and motor programs and it behaved in the same way as this child, then I think that you could call it self-aware.
Dennett (I think) proposed a variant of the Chinese-room argument, in which the "room" was now a person's brain, and one-by-one, each of the neurons was replaced by a silicon chip that had exactly the same inputs and outputs as the original neuron, and functioned in exactly the same way. At what point does the person stop being a person and become a machine? And at what point does the "system" stop "understanding" Chinese and start being just a system?
t. Referring to Ale's comments - there have now been several examples of people in comas being shown pictures or played sounds of particular objects that activate the correct sensory brain regions for those percepts using fMRI or PET. People with "locked-in" syndrome (following brain stem strokes) who have _no_ way to communicate have shown activation in exactly the brain regions one would expect when listening to language. Recent work by Frank Guenther at Boston University has actually enabled one of these people to make vowel sounds by recording directly from a part of the parietal cortex where vowel sound formation is thought to occur, and using that electrical information to drive a neural network that controls a voice synthesizer - this is all in a patient who never moves, acknowledges or even tracks with their eyes what is going on.