Sentience - Rebuttal
Dec. 27th, 2006 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribA housekeeping note - I've re-tagged all entries related to my ongoing debate with Peter Watts as Blindsight so I can track them.
Peter, in his reply (posted earlier today) says "planning doesn't require sentience." He sites as an example computerized chess programs. He's correct. I was in error in my post, which focused on planning. (He's been ruminating on this subject for years, I just got started last week.) Before I move on, I will point out that my day job for the last ten years has been herding computer networks large and small, and I know exactly how that computer chess program works - it calculates every possible move. It's a brute force approach that requires at least a 33 MZ chip (33 million calculations / second) to work.
Peter points out that the conscious mind gets inputs "predigested" (my words) from the subconscious. Therefore, what exactly does the conscious mind do? Let's stick with the computer chess example. The computer can calculate all possible variations of moves and the probabilities thereof. But until a computer reaches up and tweaks the player's nose, it ain't sentient. The computer can't plan outside the rules of chess - it can't think outside the rules of the game - or "think outside the box." I would argue that the first time we can prove humans thought outside the box was when they controlled fire. There have been others - agriculture, metalworking and animal husbandry come to mind.
My contention is that computers and non-sentient beings are very good at following rules. But not following rules get you rocketships and the Internet. Don't get me wrong - once the problem gets narrowed to a "crank the numbers" level, the subconscious may be faster. (Or, it could be that going to sleep frees up enough clock cycles in the brain to do the calculations.)
Here's another way to look at it. Humans can sleepwalk, even sleep-eat. These are fairly complicated but routine behaviors, being performed without the conscious mind being engaged. Ever hear of anybody sleep-cooking? Successfully sleep-driving? If you want complex activities, living things seem to need consciousness. Again, Peter's forgotten more about evolution then I'll ever know, but everything I've read suggest that the smarter the animal, the bigger and more developed the cerebral cortex. If the cerebral cortex is the source of "consciousness" maybe animals are more "conscious" then we thought. But if you have to snap a line in the sand, my vote is for controlling fire.
Peter, in his reply (posted earlier today) says "planning doesn't require sentience." He sites as an example computerized chess programs. He's correct. I was in error in my post, which focused on planning. (He's been ruminating on this subject for years, I just got started last week.) Before I move on, I will point out that my day job for the last ten years has been herding computer networks large and small, and I know exactly how that computer chess program works - it calculates every possible move. It's a brute force approach that requires at least a 33 MZ chip (33 million calculations / second) to work.
Peter points out that the conscious mind gets inputs "predigested" (my words) from the subconscious. Therefore, what exactly does the conscious mind do? Let's stick with the computer chess example. The computer can calculate all possible variations of moves and the probabilities thereof. But until a computer reaches up and tweaks the player's nose, it ain't sentient. The computer can't plan outside the rules of chess - it can't think outside the rules of the game - or "think outside the box." I would argue that the first time we can prove humans thought outside the box was when they controlled fire. There have been others - agriculture, metalworking and animal husbandry come to mind.
My contention is that computers and non-sentient beings are very good at following rules. But not following rules get you rocketships and the Internet. Don't get me wrong - once the problem gets narrowed to a "crank the numbers" level, the subconscious may be faster. (Or, it could be that going to sleep frees up enough clock cycles in the brain to do the calculations.)
Here's another way to look at it. Humans can sleepwalk, even sleep-eat. These are fairly complicated but routine behaviors, being performed without the conscious mind being engaged. Ever hear of anybody sleep-cooking? Successfully sleep-driving? If you want complex activities, living things seem to need consciousness. Again, Peter's forgotten more about evolution then I'll ever know, but everything I've read suggest that the smarter the animal, the bigger and more developed the cerebral cortex. If the cerebral cortex is the source of "consciousness" maybe animals are more "conscious" then we thought. But if you have to snap a line in the sand, my vote is for controlling fire.
