Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 154.
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        Date: 2024-09-24 03:50:14+00:00
        From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@gmail.com>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.151: a paradox (?) commented

Willard -- thank you for the elaboration.

RE: your first paragraph, I think you're being a bit vague. What do you
mean by "the machine thinking as we do"? We do math. Calculators do math.
Calculators do math better and faster than most humans do math, maybe
better than all humans do math. But that's not what you mean. You're not
asking about machines doing math, I don't think.

Do you mean to refer to "consciousness" or "sentience" by the phrase
"thinking as we do"?  I try to discuss the difference between machine
consciousness and human consciousness here:

https://medium.com/@jamesrovira/ai-and-talking-heads-part-ii-why-sentient-
machines-will-never-exist-5ae276a559fb

I argue that there are two conceptualizations of machine sentience or
consciousness: gnostic and organic.

Gnostic conceptualizations make the body irrelevant: consciousness resides
in electrical patterns that could be sustained in a completely inorganic
environment - a metal box.

Organic conceptualizations make the body essential to consciousness.
Machines can't attain consciousness without a physical body that interacts
with its environment as a human body does. I'm not talking about picking up
objects. I'm talking about things like breathing and having skin and ears.
Nonstop sensory input that is an essential and inescapable part of
cognition on a moment by moment basis.

I suggest that bodies are essential to consciousness, so something that's
just a computer in a box will never attain consciousness. But I think it
may address some of the ways that the cognitive "it" of the machine is
fundamentally different from the human "it."

Jim R


> The first, because we're confronted with it daily, is the notion that
> the (reachable) end-point of artificial intelligence begins once the
> machine can think as we do--and then goes on to do that cognitive 'it'
> better, faster etc. Frustrating to me is the lack of discussion of how
> different the artificial mode of being intelligent is, and the absence
> of interest (as far as I can tell) in developing smart machines in that
> other direction. Perhaps I am simply ignorant of the research and
> engineering which are doing precisely that; if so, kindly let me know.
> But still the loud public droning on will continue, of course, since it
> is so good at keeping the funding flowing.
>
>
   - *Women in Rock, Women in Romanticism
   <https://www.routledge.com/Women-in-Rock-Women-in-Romanticism-The-
Emancipation-of-Female-Will/Rovira/p/book/9781032069845>*,
   Routledge, 2023


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