snatchbalance

No.

In the first place, throughout this entire conversation, we have bee talking about a silicon based machine, possibly wiyth a "virtual body"(your idea). Now, I take it that you want to change, without ackowlegding your change of heart. Or, is this some sort of "virtual body".

How will a virtual body produce and accept hormonal messages?

SB

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snatchbalance

Tron,

Yes, yes, keep repeating your mantra. Of course, you keep avoiding the question, or the issue, if you prefer. The human body is part and parcel of the impuluses, desires, emotions, feelings, etc., that you seem to think can be reproduced in a different type of medium.

Of course, you, and nobody else, has the slightest idea of how this might be accomplished. In fact, since the medium is responsible for producing the sensations in question, your contentions are patently ridiculous.

To simply keep repeating that you can do something, adds no to creadance to your claims.(Keep repeating; There is a god... sooner or later, you will find god.)

SB

snatchbalance

Yes, this claim is somewhat controversial.

SB

excreationist

Taffy Lewis:
...But the question is, what are the necessary conditions for having beliefs, desires, and intentional actions...

I'm not sure what you are asking... I'll attempt to answer anyway...

- beliefs just involve uncertain or probabilistic knowledge. i.e. they are theoretically capable of changing. (even someone's belief that 2+2=4 is theoretically capable of changing - if they joined the appropriate cult, etc)

- desires would be either fundamental desires (e.g. jerking your foot away from the fire or sucking on something) or desires that are associated with fundamental desires. They are the goals.

- intentional actions are actions that are done in order to seek those goals. Those behaviours have been associated with the goals as results.

The reason why something can have (ownership of) those things is because it would have accumulated those things through its own experiences. e.g. a cow learns that electric fences hurt through experience (I think) - those beliefs aren't programmed in (by humans or by their DNA). So it becomes the *cow's* belief that future brushes with the fence will result in the urge to avoid the situation. So it stays away from the fence in order to avoid the situation of itself brushing the fence. The fundamental desires aren't learnt though. I think examples of human ones include the need for some coherence/resonance, some newness, relief from tension (relaxation), the need to avoid frustration (seeking goals in the same dead-end way) and avoiding physical injury.

Keith Russell

Greetings:

Desires, goals, 'wants', I believe, have to stem from the fact that life is not permanent. Things can hurt us, so a basic desire is to avoid pain--and thus avoid the things which cause pain.

In addition, evolution has given us pleasure sensors, and life quickly shows us that certain basic actions (sex, food, etc.) bring pleasure.

In addition, we learn that other, less basic, actions will also bring pleasure--entertainment, friendship, hobbies or other interesting activities, learning new things, etc.

So, the fact that life is not guaranteed leads most people away from truly dangerous activities, while the fact that certain activities give us pleasure and satisfaction leads us to choose activities which increase those emotions.

Machines which do not have these mechanisms, will be unable to have 'goals' or 'desires'.

Keith.

snatchbalance

Tron,

Let's say I pass a current through a lemon. I measure a voltage drop across the lemon.

I then replace the lemon with a silicon transistor, and measure the same voltage drop.

Has the same phenomenon taken place in both instances? Or do I percieve the same result from two different sources of phenomena?

SB

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tronvillain

If the phenomenon you are looking for is simply a given voltage drop, then the same phenomenon has taken place in both cases, though it had different causes in each case.

tronvillain

snatchbalance:
Go back, and read the entire argument. Once you have done that and can show that you understand it, you will deserve more of a response than this.

tronvillain

snatchbalance:
I am of the opinion that if the architecture of the human mind is reproduced in another medium, you will in fact have a human mind. Oh, you can claim that no other medium will be capable of doing the same job, but barring the existence of as yet undiscovered quantum effects, there is no apparent reason that this should be so.

It could be accomplished in a variety of ways, one of which would be brute force simulation, where you simulate physical law at an appropriately low level and construct a virtual lifeform out of the appropriate building blocks. Given a sufficient understanding of physical law and a computer powerful enough, this could be done. Another more elegant way would be simply using elements that do the same job as the original without actually reporoducing the original.

No one is saying that any of this would be easy, but saying that you know it to be impossible is laughable. I suggest you read this article: <a href="http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html" target="_blank">How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments
</a>.

snatchbalance

Tron,

I will number my objections, maybe you yu will be able address them cogently:

1. If you build a machine that is consciuos, it will know that it is a machine. It will have no reason to have biological drives. It won't really need food, air, sex, etc. You can simulate these needs all you want, they remain simulations. Get it?

In regards to your wet dream above:

2. We really are dealing in fantasy at this piont. None of what you describe is even remotely possible.

3. Let's pretend(you're good at that) that we can turn a human into a machine. I guess you're trying to preserve the biological drives in a different medium. Well, you have to do it without the subject being aware that you were doing it. If the subject knew, his consciousness would allow him to compensate for his new medium. he/she/it would know that it no longer needed to breath, have sex, etc.

4. If the subject didn't know, what would the subject's friends and relative's say when they saw him? Would the subject then know that he was a machine and no longer was human? Last I knew humans were social animals. Do you think for a minute that human consciousness exists in some sort of isolation?

Keep repeating your mantra, everthing will be OK.

SB