The Mystery of the Human Psyche.

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When we seek answers to the mysteries of life, are we asking mindful, intellectual questions out of curiosity, or are we simply performing precognitive brain functions?

The human curiosity is an amazing thing given what it has accomplished that has separated us from the rest of the animal kingdom. To ponder existence and what powers to be have brought all of this about seems to be the key component to being human. And yet there are those that would suggest that all of our pondering is nothing more than random, natural brain function and that there is no such thing as human psyche or mind. They attempt to explain everything as biological function.

What are the arguments to this sort of thinking? Is there more to our curiosity than brain function?

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@Pathfinder,

... one of the first things I would note is that the branch of AI that seeks to understand mind (as opposed to creating engineered special-purpose intelligences) attempts to do so by reproducing mind on a silicon substrate ... so if mind can be reproduced on a silicon substrate, does that imply that mind is something distinct from any one particular substrate? ...

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@paulhanke,

paulhanke;91671 wrote:

... one of the first things I would note is that the branch of AI that seeks to understand mind (as opposed to creating engineered special-purpose intelligences) attempts to do so by reproducing mind on a silicon substrate ... so if mind can be reproduced on a silicon substrate, does that imply that mind is something distinct from any one particular substrate? ...

Okay lets take a look at this in greater detail Paul.

First of all, as in the other thread, mind needs to be exactly defined so we are all talking about the same thing. Just because someone duplicates or imitates the working of the brain does not mean they have created mind or consciousness. So what exactly is it that you are saying is being created on these silicone substrates? And try to avoid getting too technical and long winded for us who are not physicists.

It seems as though you are suggesting that there is a branch of artificial intelligence that has been developed who's sole purpose is in learning about the nuances of the human mind. Is this correct?

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@Pathfinder,

Havent we already a thread started on this by Ody Pathfinder? How come you just didn't pick that one up only there's no point in duplicates. Im just wondering why you didnt go into that one ahh yeah, it's locked isn't it? Ahh i forgot, sorry, oops. Shame because that was a really good thread maybe we should open it back up now huh, what do you think folks?
Thanks.

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@paulhanke,

paulhanke;91671 wrote:

... one of the first things I would note is that the branch of AI that seeks to understand mind (as opposed to creating engineered special-purpose intelligences) attempts to do so by reproducing mind on a silicon substrate ... so if mind can be reproduced on a silicon substrate, does that imply that mind is something distinct from any one particular substrate? ...

Just a silly question can it, has it?

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@Caroline,

Caroline;91808 wrote:

Havent we already a thread started on this by Ody Pathfinder? How come you just didn't pick that one up only there's no point in duplicates. Im just wondering why you didnt go into that one ahh yeah, it's locked isn't it? Ahh i forgot, sorry, oops. Shame because that was a really good thread maybe we should open it back up now huh, what do you think folks?
Thanks.

Caroline I would like to avoid you in this thread if you could find the courtesy, thank you!

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@Pathfinder,

I beg your pardon but I was only making a suggestion, no I will not leave this thread and I've got a good mind to open Ody's up once again, after I've found out who derailed it in the first place. I have that right.
Thank you

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@xris,

xris;91809 wrote:

Just a silly question can it, has it?

Thta is what we will be discussing but we need to allow Paul time to respond.

I find it curious that he says in brackets , as opposed to something that is not specialized.

Could you tell me what you mean by the difference there as well Paul. If it is created for the purpose of something in particular what do you mean by not designed for something specific.

Just a little confusing.

---------- Post added 09-19-2009 at 08:13 AM ----------

Caroline;91814 wrote:

I beg your pardon but I was only making a suggestion, no I will not leave this thread and I've got a good mind to open Ody's up again after I've found out who derailed it in the first place. I have that right.
Thank you

Are you, as a moderator, going to follow me and harrass me? I can promise youy that if you are implying that I have deliberately derailed someone's thread that you are confusing me with someone else. Can you not check IP numbers for that sort of thing? I have only ever used the name Pathfinder here. And I am not able to keep you from posting in this thread, but I can ask you politelyto allow me to use this forum without being harrassed. I will avoid you and I would ask you to do the same please. I do not want to have problems with anyone in here. And who the heck is Ody??????

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@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder;91665 wrote:

When we seek answers to the mysteries of life, are we asking mindful, intellectual questions out of curiosity, or are we simply performing precognitive brain functions?

My view is that Life is all about exploring (curiosity). It seems that is what we all do from the moment we are born until we move on.

Rich

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@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder;91797 wrote:

Okay lets take a look at this in greater detail Paul.

First of all, as in the other thread, mind needs to be exactly defined so we are all talking about the same thing. Just because someone duplicates or imitates the working of the brain does not mean they have created mind or consciousness. So what exactly is it that you are saying is being created on these silicone substrates? And try to avoid getting too technical and long winded for us who are not physicists.

It seems as though you are suggesting that there is a branch of artificial intelligence that has been developed who's sole purpose is in learning about the nuances of the human mind. Is this correct?

... yes - it's called the enactive approach: Enactive Artificial Intelligence Tom Froese ... it is a response to the perceived shortcomings of the computational and embodied approaches to AI with regards to learning about the human mind ... the computational approach took no account of significance and meaning and resulted in its own version of mind-brain dualism: the symbol grounding problem (how do you make symbols mean something?) ... the embodied approach was an attempt to remedy this shortcoming by grounding intelligence in a body (via a sensorimotor loop) - while this has been an advance, significance and meaning still remain elusive (how do you make perception and action mean something?) ... the enactive approach is an attempt to supplement the embodied approach by grounding intelligence in the responsibility for its own bodily existence - "constitutive autonomy is a necessary condition for intrinsic teleology", as it has been put ... an interesting thing here is that this would position autopoiesis at the center of explanatory descriptions of both life and mind - hence the title of a philosophical exposition by Evan Thompson: "Mind In Life" (Amazon.com: Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (9780674025110): Evan Thompson: Books) ...

---------- Post added 09-19-2009 at 09:35 AM ----------

xris;91809 wrote:

Just a silly question can it, has it?

... nope, as yet it has not - so far, what we've got are engineered intelligences based upon introspective accounts of human symbol processing, small-scale models of low-level neural information processing, and insect-level robotic embodied interaction with the world ...

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@richrf,

richrf;91849 wrote:

My view is that Life is all about exploring (curiosity). It seems that is what we all do from the moment we are born until we move on.

Rich

Move on to where Richrf exactly, please pray tell?

1 Reply

@Caroline,

Caroline;91906 wrote:

Move on to where Richrf exactly, please pray tell?

It is a secret. Nature loves to hide. [Heraclitus]

Rich

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@Pathfinder,

So Heraclitus said it? But what about you rich? What do you really think please?
Thanks.

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@richrf,

richrf;91849 wrote:

My view is that Life is all about exploring (curiosity). It seems that is what we all do from the moment we are born until we move on.

Rich

I think that this is a key quality of the human being as well. Every creature explores in the sense that they constantly search for food and mates. But they do so out of a survival instinct.

The human being is unique in that our curiosity extends into realms of artistic and intellectual talent that far surpasses the animal kingdom. Man seems to instinctively know that there is more to what he sees around him and feels compelled to explore the possibilities.

---------- Post added 09-19-2009 at 03:03 PM ----------

paulhanke;91859 wrote:

... yes - it's called the enactive approach: Enactive Artificial Intelligence Tom Froese ... it is a response to the perceived shortcomings of the computational and embodied approaches to AI with regards to learning about the human mind ... the computational approach took no account of significance and meaning and resulted in its own version of mind-brain dualism: the symbol grounding problem (how do you make symbols mean something?) ... the embodied approach was an attempt to remedy this shortcoming by grounding intelligence in a body (via a sensorimotor loop) - while this has been an advance, significance and meaning still remain elusive (how do you make perception and action mean something?) ... the enactive approach is an attempt to supplement the embodied approach by grounding intelligence in the responsibility for its own bodily existence - "constitutive autonomy is a necessary condition for intrinsic teleology", as it has been put ... an interesting thing here is that this would position autopoiesis at the center of explanatory descriptions of both life and mind - hence the title of a philosophical exposition by Evan Thompson: "Mind In Life" ...

Well thanx for not using too many big words Paul lol.

So did you just say that some realm of science has endeavored to devise some sort of robotic brain that is attempting to understand the nuances of the human consciousness? And that at this point they have not been able to have much success?

My question still remains I think:

What exactly is it that they have designed?

1 Reply

@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder;91956 wrote:

So did you just say that some realm of science has endeavored to devise some sort of robotic brain that is attempting to understand the nuances of the human consciousness? And that at this point they have not been able to have much success?

My question still remains I think:

What exactly is it that they have designed?

... just to make sure we're on the same page on this, it is not the robotic brain that is attempting to understand the nuances of human consciousness, but rather humans who are attempting to understand the nuances of human consciousness by constructing robots with brains ... as for what has been achieved thus far, here it is in four acts:

Act I: a bunch of scientists introspect about how they think and hypothesize that conscious intelligence is symbol processing ... eventually, an artificial symbol-processing intelligence is constructed that beats the world chess champion ... however, by the time this occurs it has become obvious that this approach will not result a general human-like intelligence - any meaning or significance is that of the designers, not the intelligence ... symbol processing loses interest as a path toward understanding human intelligence, and moves off into industrial applications.

Act II: the next wave of scientists hypothesize that conscious intelligence can emerge from neuronal information processing ... eventually, artificial intelligences are designed and/or evolved to recognize anomalies in mammograms and to recognize (and produce) speech - yet again, however, any meaning or significance is that of the designers, not the intelligence (and yet again, interest moves off into industrial applications).

Act III: the next wave of scientists hypothesize that conscious intelligence can emerge from embodied neural nets ... it is discovered that isolated simple behaviors coupled together in a body and acting in a world can result in the emergence of complex behavior such as locomotion ... it is also discovered that what were thought to be complex computational problems (e.g., locomotion) could actually be vastly simplified by having a body in a world - things like gravity and joint tension can result in "morphological computation" that can offload computation away from the brain ... once again, unfortunately, the meaning/significance is that of the designers, not the intelligence (if you run a robotic puppy on a treadmill, you are providing it with meaning and significance - i.e., what is meaningful and significant is running on a treadmill).

Act IV: Enactive AI is proposed as an approach to get away from "extrinsic teleology" (meaning and significance supplied by the designer) and move toward "intrinsic teleology" (meaning and significance that arises within the intelligence) ... one way to proceed forward in this approach is to make the intelligence responsible in some way for its own existence ... give it the ability to learn and let it loose in the wild, and it will either die or it will learn how to maintain itself ... and in so doing, what will be learned is perception and action that is meaningful and significant for the intelligence ... that is, the trick to designing an artificial intelligence that displays "intrinsic teleology" is to take the designer out of the equation! Wink

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The Mystery of the Human Psyche.

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