[Wittrs] Is Homeostasis the Answer? (Re: Variations in the Idea of Consciousness)
- From: "iro3isdx" <xznwrjnk-evca@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:45:48 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
> Perhaps this is where we should focus our efforts to explain to
> one another?
A little off that focus, but close:
Suppose a robotic system has sensory detectors that pick up signals (as
seems to be the common AI assumption).
The signal the computer sees, coming from that sensory detector,
actually is about something. Specifically, it is about that sensory
detector and its current state. This is, of course, internal
information to the robotic system. That's a kind of derived
intentionaly with respect to internal things.
If that robotic system happens to be a traffic control computer, and
that sensory detector is connected to the traffic sensors, then we can
also say that the signal is about the traffic. So there is some
"aboutness" having to do with the world external to the robotic system.
It is only derived intentionaly, but it is good enough and the traffic
controller works.
If, however, the robotic system is something like a walking humanoid
robot, then the situation is completely different. The sensory
detector isn't connected to anything in the external world. It may be
picking up signals from the external world, but they are useless unless
you already know what it is picking up the signals from. And, as the
robot moves around and changes its orientation, the external world
source of the signals keeps changing.
In order to get useful information about the external world, you have
to control the position and orientation of the robot while accessing a
sensory signal. The entity best able to control the position and
orientation of the robot is the robot itself. We (thinking of ourselves
as robots) do that very well - it is where consciousness and
intentionality come into play. A tree has a more-or-less fixed
connection to the external world, so it doesn't take much to keep it
appropriately oriented and positioned, and that's probably why
consciousness has not evolved in trees.
Getting back to that walking humanoid robot, you can begin to see some
of the difficulties. A signal from a sensory detector is, by itself,
pretty useless because you don't know what it is coming from in the
external world. So instead, the robot needs to follow a procedure that
coordinates its position and orientation with how it is using the
signals picked up by sensory detectors. This is further complicated by
the fact that (a) you need to coordinate the orientation before you can
get useful information about the external world, and (b) you need
information about the external world before you can coordinate the
orientation.
Regards,
Neil
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