is it possible for a computer to gain self awareness

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
What, other than your faith in the cyber rapture, makes you think a brain can be recreated on a computer?

Most of my understanding of the Singularity is more of a judgement made based on the validity of the claims made by leading experts based on their empirically generated statistics. Like believing they put a man on the moon despite me never having witnessed it first hand...Rather than religious faith. You really upset me with that bs slandering comparison. Just as they have not claimed it as a 100% certainty, I don't either, unless of course computers continue to accelerate their processing power at equivalent exponents to the past and present.

As for the topic, I couldn't explain it better than Oliver North has.

At the moment, we are creating 2.5 quintillion bytes of data per day.

It should however be noted that; in twenty years, just before computers become so powerful that they develop self-referential capability on their own; and, therefore reach self-awareness from the sheer volume of what's going on in the information being processed within the sextillions of bytes of nano-electronic data: a nearly insoluble problem will present itself in further miniaturization.

This problem is that the normal physics that transistors and integrated circuits operate on breaks down past the nanoscale, entering the quantum world.

Now, because electronics depend upon controlling the flow of electrons to work, issues like quantum tunneling create serious problems.

I have made it my goal to educate myself so thoroughly by aged 40 that, when this dilemma occurs, I will be the one to conquer it and usher in the age of Artificial Intelligence.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Can't most things?

What exactly do you mean by epiphenomenon?

I think most people here are functionalists, maybe teleofunctionalists to be more precise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_(philosophy_of_mind)

while I'm a physicalist of the non-reductive kind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-reductive_physicalism#Supervenience

Originally posted by 753
i dont think so. what do you have in mind exactly?

I can't think of any computation that cannot be replicated across many different platforms. That was the point of my clock example.

If I make a brass clock and it keeps time I should expect that a steel clock will also keep time. The materials aren't important. When you say that a computer brain will only "seem" to be conscious it sounds to me like saying the steel clock will only "seem" to keep time.

Keeping of time should even, as far as I can tell, be epiphenomenal to the motion of the parts of the clock.

You could use cars or electrical generators as well. There are often many ways to get the same result.

More specifically to the biology argument I would point out that my brain is not identical to your brain. Your argument seems to require solipsism. I cannot be conscious because my thoughts are not constructed by parts identical to yours.

Honestly, I think the Chinese Room being conscious feels more reasonable to me than what your vision of the mind seems to be.

Originally posted by 753
a secondary phenomenon (our inner mental world of sounds, images, sensations, feelings, emotions, etc.) that occurs in parallel to a primary phenomenon (the brain's biological activity), which really generates the secondary one as an emergence. mental states do happen and are real, but supervene (A supervenes on B when there can't be a difference in A without a correlated difference B) on the brain's physical behavior. they are of a different ontological nature however.

I'm afraid I'm quite out of my depth semantically here. Are there epiphenomenon that are unrelated to mental states? When a rock falls and strikes the ground is the vibration in the earth epiphenomenal to the impact?

Originally posted by 753
while I'm a physicalist of the non-reductive kind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-reductive_physicalism#Supervenience

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holon_(philosophy)

Holons sound an awful lot like nouns ("all things that can be identified"😉 and I can't see how they're a useful addition to philosophy as a result. What wouldn't be a holon?

The intent seems to be to look toward the idea that things are interconnected and made up of parts but surely everyone is perfectly aware of that.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Holons sound an awful lot like nouns ("all things that can be identified"😉 and I can't see how they're a useful addition to philosophy as a result. What wouldn't be a holon?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
The intent seems to be to look toward the idea that things are interconnected and made up of parts but surely everyone is perfectly aware of that.

Originally posted by Mindship
Philosophy likes to discern fundamentals.

I know but we already had this fundamental. All holons are nouns and all nouns are holons. You could just call them "things" and do as well. Holon seems more like a philosophers' attempt to sound deep than anything else.

Originally posted by Mindship
Holons may be regarded as the fundamental units of organization in a universe which appears to foster organization, this to include the universe as a whole, given the holon's fractal nature. Between the infinitesimal and the infinite, it's a process we see across all fields of study. Seems to me it might be to our benefit to understand what's going on or why this occurs.

But this is just saying "things are different sizes" which is something we also already knew.

Originally posted by Mindship
We may know it intellectually, but as a rule we don't exercise that mindset in our day-to-day lives. If we did, I suspect we'd be a lot nicer to each other and live more harmoniously with the world around us.

I don't think this is necessarily the case. Knowing something is true doesn't give us any practical knowledge or ability. To live more "harmoniously" we have to know how to be more harmonious and we have to be able to put it into practice. I feel like people live as harmoniously as they believe they are able.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I know but we already had this fundamental. All holons are nouns and all nouns are holons. You could just call them "things" and do as well. Holon seems more like a philosophers' attempt to sound deep than anything else.

I brought it up because I was curious if 753 was familiar with this. 'Supervenience' reminded me of holons/holism.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
But this is just saying "things are different sizes" which is something we also already knew.

Originally posted by Mindship
The concept of 'holism' is actually thousands of years old. I would say, if anything, 'holon' is a good word for the modern audience. Looks almost like a particle name.

It is also a proposed particle name.

Holism is fine as a way of thinking about the world, although in my experience people try to push it toward the needlessly mystical. The word "holon" is problematic because its just a fancy new word for "thing" and adds no information beyond what we would get from saying "thing". If one bothers to teach holism then one never needs "holons". Needless jargon only causes confusion and gives people, quite rightly IMO, a sense that the speaker is trying to sound clever.

But I might be misunderstanding what a holon is. Can you give me an example of a holon that is not a noun or a noun that is not a holon?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Holism is fine as a way of thinking about the world, although in my experience people try to push it toward the needlessly mystical.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
But I might be misunderstanding what a holon is.

A question of equal importance as the OP is; "should man move in the direction of algorithmic consciousness"?

I think that it would be disastrous to say the least. I find myself believing that if a perfect being, in terms of cognitive thought processes were to look on the human race as a whole, that it would trend towards a global purge.

We would appear to be corrupt in all of our ways, whether they be physical, or mental. We would in turn indeed make a man made Messiah, without the tethering of a God or second epistemological dichotomy, to regulate it's purposes.

The Bible said that God repented when he made man. Repentance means to turn away from whatever it is that you are doing, and go in the opposite direction. Hopefully man will repent of the idea of creating a perfect being, in all of its ways.

I'm always surprised by the idea that a perfect being ought to necessarily destroy us. People can be changed and controlled, after all.