[iclaudius]

Wow, I am truly amazed to see so many dualists here today, and no one jumping to my defense. I thought this train of thought was killed off with post-modernism, but I guess not.

To the point, then: Probably the most common sentiment I'm seeing here adopts the belief that humans are inherently "better" than machines, that human intelligence is innately untouchable by artificial intelligence, and that in general people are -- dare I say? -- magically endowed with some special power of cognition that nothing we make can ever even hope to come near. Scofield, for example, responded, saying, "our uniqueness is in our potential to act outside of our programming" (in sentiment, anyway), that what separates us from our "pre-determined automatons is the capacity to act, to effect without a cause", and that we are not simply programmed to program ourselves. S/he seems to almost revere human intelligence.

Well, scofield, what do you think cognition is? The brain is basically a network of neurons, and those neurons are extremely predictable in the chemical responses they produce. How, exactly, do we act "outside" of our programming? In fact, how is that even possible? You do what your neurons are set up to have you do. Period. There is no alternative. We are clearly not set up to affect without a cause, and even if they were, how would that even be possible? Also, contrary to what you believe, when humans pick "random" numbers, their responses are much, much more likely to form patterns. When a computer picks a random number, it usually does so according to an algorithm picks a number statistically less likely to be picked than other options. Humans do not have the luxury of being able to calculate what should come next with complicated statistical analyses (not usually, at least), so they merely pick the number that seems least likely to them at that point in time. That is rarely, if ever, the most random number that could be chosen, and especially given the psychological effects of things like fatigue, their chances of generating something even remotely random are basically nil.

I understand that I cannot hope to dispel the notion of dualism completely here*, but what I hoped to address here is that the human brain is perhaps not as mystical and mighty as many of you believe. Scofield made the mistake of characterizing the complexity of human cognition as more complex than is physically (or logically) possible. And what s/he ends up demonstrating is that the basic tenants of AI and "actual" intelligence are the same; and that the biggest factors in our cognitive superiority are (1) level of complexion, and (2) self-realization. No, cognition is not made of anything particularly amazing. There are no magical levers being pulled in your head. There is no black magic going on. Your brain is a series of neurons that are programmed to fire in a very specific way. The difference between the standard computer program and you is self-realization.

That in mind, I'm going to directly address some of the things that have been said.

Quote by: scofield All programming is event driven. Set a computer running a program and it will run only according to the rules of that program. Sit a person down and they will generate thoughts without any external input or internal instructionset.

They will behave according to how their neurons fire. Human programming is still event driven, it's just on an incomprehensibly more complicated scale.

Quote by: nemiroff we are programmed to program ourselves? no no no, that doesn't make sense, perhaps you meant we are programmed to learn? programming is not learning. when you learn, you might not get the whole picture, you might understtand something wrong, different kids learn different things from the same lessons. when you are programmed, you just get the info hardwired into your brain. like brainwashing might be considered programming

And what is learning, nemiroff? Imagine this scenario: People are programmed to be curious. You stick your hand on the stove and quickly understand that it is very, very hot. You are now programmed to remember this whenever you think about sticking your hand on the stove, or actually, stoves at all. You have therefore essentially been programmed to generally avoid hot stoves. Brainwashing is a way of short-circuiting the learning process, but yes, it is still programming. You are essentially agreeing with me here.

Quote by: nemiroff I'M AGREEING WITH YOU, there is no difference between artificial intelligence and regular intelligence except the source. but if its made by man its called artifical. and the person with the replaced joint wouldn't call it artificial motion, he'd call it an artificial joint... the motion is perfectly natural unless he starts twirling it 360.

First, I'm saying "artificial" is irrelevant. If they're the same thing, how do you justify using 2 different terms? There's no point. Suppose everyone suddenly forgot what all the names of all the vital organs in the human body were, and you were in charge of naming them. Would you call the appendix by 2 names? No, of course not. Not without a good reason. Well, there's no good reason to differentiate them. Whether I make wood with nanomachines or grow it with a seed is irrelevant, so long as it's the same thing, and I can use it for the same things.

Quote by: compugasm A true artificial intelligence would be able to create art, and not merely duplicate brushstrokes, notes, or a scupture from instructions. One could argue, that fractal patterns are "art", however the computer doesn't appreciate it. Additionally, without the seed to create the pattern, it couldn't learn to paint the sky, or a tree, without the will to do so. Ok, that makes sense.

Why? An AI that could create and appreciate art would only need to be an AI that was programmed to be self-realizing and have an understanding of aesthetics, which (assuming you're talking about the human conception of the word) is dependent more on environment, values, culture, conflict, etc. A computer versed in these things would certainly be intelligent, but "true" intelligence does not entail this development. A computer could be as intelligent as a human being, for example, but not exposed to the same surroundings as us, and therefore not have the same definition of art as us.




* My boy Dan Dennett does a fine job of that in chapter 2.4, Why Dualism is Forlorn, in Consciousness Explained; the title is misleading, since consciousness is most assuredly not explained, but it is informative and more or less comprehensive in terms of creating a platform for solving the problem(s) of understanding consciousness.