[Wittrs] Is Homeostasis the Answer? (Re: Variations in the Idea of Consciousness)
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:36:09 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "iro3isdx" <xznwrjnk-evca@...> wrote:
> --- 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.
>
>
What makes an action "about something"? If it is a reaction to something or a
mindless response to a stimulus, is that "about" the stimulus or just a
mindless response to it? On my view, "aboutness" is when we can relate some
symbol or indicator to something else, when we can see meaning. But yes, one
might reasonably say that this "aboutness" is grounded in the kind of process
you describe. That is, they can be seen as occurring on the same continuum. But
does that make them the same?
> > 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.
>
>
Hard for us, too, though we are obviously a more sophisticated and complex
system than ordinary computer programs. But then, if we could create a system
of many programs running together in an integrated, interreactive and
overlapping way, why should we necessarily think the same level of flexibility
in response could not be achieved?
Perhaps the issue between us hinges, to some extent at least, on your focusing
on the nature of computational programs themselves (nothing conscious about
them!) vs. my focusing on the nature of computational systems (i.e., many
different programs running many different processes to accomplish many
different functions in a kind of orchestral arrangement)?
> > 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.
>
Yes, the human eye is constantly moving about and the picture it captures
consists of many distinct imprints or partial images which the brain somehow
sees as a whole, a complete pattern. (Hawkins uses this model quite a bit in
his book On Intelligence.)
>
> > 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.
>
What is a visual feature but a pattern within a larger pattern, a picture
within a larger picture? The pixels on a computer screen don't necessarily
replicate the larger image we see (though Hawkins makes the rather interesting
point that the patterning done by the neocortex in human brains seems to
replicate pictures at more and more expansive levels).
>
> > 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.
>
Well we do need a way to account for retained images we have, the ability to
call up a mental picture of something and describe it in a way that can be
compared to the real thing we are trying to remember. As I noted, Hawkins
suggests the brain develops and retains templates and that when a remembered
image is called up we get more of an adumbration which we then use to plug in
details, presumably by recognizing subsections and using this to call up
detailed images within the larger one.
As I explained at the time when I raised this, I do see reason to accept an
account like this based on some of my own experiences (recall the description I
gave of passing out from a coughing fit while I had whooping cough and then
seeing before my eyes a very convincing image of the computer screen I had been
looking at, as I was coming to, only to discover that, the more I tried to
focus on the image I thought I was seeing, the more out of focus it became, the
less detail I could see -- this was precisely the kind of generic template
Hawkins claims our brains retain and that we use to build our memories back as
needed).
It also bears remembering that Hawkins agrees with you that brains lack the
kind of capacity for precise memories that computers have which is why he
proposes a template model, one based on pattern matching, retention and
recapitulation.
> 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.
>
Why wouldn't features be small patterns within larger ones? Why would a feature
in this sense of the term be other than a pattern on a certain level?
>
> > 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
>
> =========================================
Isn't that true of us too? We only see in the world what we are built to see.
If we had been built differently the world might seem entirely different to us,
no?
SWM
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