[Wittrs] Is Homeostasis the Answer? (Re: Variations in the Idea of Consciousness)
- From: "iro3isdx" <xznwrjnk-evca@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:59:51 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
> In ourselves a good deal (perhaps the most important portions) of
> what you are describing happens below the conscious level. Not only
> conscious organisms but those we would presume to be unconscious
> (or certainly lacking the kind of consciousness we have) are capable
> of these kinds of autonomic adjustments.
Some of what I described is required for consciousness.
Insisting on human consciousness as a starting point is, I think, too
strict a standard. I think we should look at intentionality at a more
primitive level, say the ability to carry out actions that are about
something. That makes a starting point one can build on.
> Now your initial point above suggested that the machine system
> has no way of relating the changes in status of its sensors to the
> world outside itself.
I indicated the problem is difficult, but not necessarily impossible.
For machines, though, we can usually only get them to relate to changes
that the programmer/designer can anticipate. It's a lot harder if
there is a need to react to unknown unanticipated events.
> But in that it is not so different to us either. How do we relate it?
The barcode scanners in supermarkets make an interesting example. AI
people usually think of vision as making a pixel map, and then
analyzing that pixel map. But all of the problems of unknown motion
with respect to the outside world will present a problem for that. The
barcode scanner does not do that. Instead, the scanner emits a laser
beam that moves around to try to find a bar code, and looks for the
signal transitions in reflected light to detect the code. It has made
motion (of the scanning beam) part of the method for finding the bar
code. So additional motion, which is probably slower than the motion
of the scanning beam, won't cause serious problems.
If you think of the eye, it too is moving around (a motion called
"saccades") so seems to be scanning for features in a similarsame way.
> Well, we build a picture (or more correctly, a complex interlocked
> set of overlapping pictures, consisting, perhaps, of many different
> received and retained inputs stored in a relational way with others.
It is more likely that we scan for features, measure the time between
one feature and the next as an indicator of distance between them, and
then use those features to divide up the world. Then we probably
interpolate between the features to further subdivide.
> Our brains then relate the changes we are getting in sensory
> inputs through our sensory equipment to the retained pictures we
> are carrying ...
I seriously doubt that there are any retained pictures. To manage
retained pictures would be computationally expensive, and I doubt that
the brain has the compute power to do that.
You have probably been caught in a snow storm, with lots of blowing
snow. You get what's called a "white out" where it looks white in
every direction. From a mathematical point of view, looking the same
in every direction is almost the perfect pattern. Yet it's hard to see
anything in a white out. What you need is not patterns, but features.
It is the features that allow you to maintain an orientation.
> On the matter of homeostasis, why should a machine not be built
> to operate in a kind of ongoing equilibrium with its environment,
> i.e., to react to changes by continued internal readjustments, etc.?
You could do that. But it would only adjust for the kind of changes in
the environment that you program it for. And that means you have to
program in lots of innate knowledge. I doubt that you would get
consciousness that way.
Regards,
Neil
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