| I totally disagree. No one knows how consciousness works. This is my same basis for completely disagreeing with the article: "Rees: In my experience, this question is almost always grounded in a defensive impulse. A sometimes angry, sometimes anxious effort to hold on to or to re-inscribe the old distinctions. I think of it as a nostalgia for human exceptionalism, that is, a longing for a time when we humans thought there was only one form of intelligence, us." This is just vacuous babel. To me it seems the defensive shoe is on the other foot. All of this is making an assumption that "people" are operating under the guidance of some 17th century philosophy. Which is wrong. It also makes an assumption that anyone anywhere actually knows how intelligence works, or even what it is. It's just kooky talk. That fact is, the physiology of the brain, the integration with the endocrine system, and the whole distributed nervous system is so far more complex that a Von Newman computer, that to try to compare the two is just not well founded in reality. Not one of the macro physiological subsystems mentioned above is even close to being understood. To say sequential instruction execution is performing a like function to human (or any organic) intelligence is completely ungrounded. The description give in another article, also linked today on HN is much more hewn from reality: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/take-two-ceo-strauss-zel... "Artificial intelligence is an oxymoron, there's no such thing," Zelnick said. "Machine learning, machines don't learn. Those are convenient ways to explain to human beings what looks like magic. The bottom line is that these are digital tools and we've used digital tools forever. I have no doubt that what is considered AI today will help make our business more efficient and help us do better work" It's a great tool, it'll find broad application. It's NOT intelligence, since, no one even knows what intelligence is, much less how it works... |
Well, we have a rough understand of what the concept represents, at least, don't we? It's like saying "we don't know how quantum physics works so we cannot talk about particles or waves". We have to start from somewhere. We have to make assumptions. When they are cleared and resolved, we can be more confident with our words.
> That fact is, the physiology of the brain, the integration with the endocrine system, and the whole distributed nervous system is so far more complex that a Von Newman computer, that to try to compare the two is just not well founded in reality.
That's part of my point, too, btw. It's ambiguous on purpose, when I mention reflections and echoes, these can happen through a multitude of media, whether it may be neurons, hormones, quantum physics or the ether, whatever may be anyone's interpretation.