In dealing with the emergence of artificial intelligence, Steven Berlin Johnson‘s book Emergence points out that self-awareness – consciousness – may be secondary to our awareness of others. An animal, for example, is at a great evolutionary advantage if it can understand what other animals are, and are not, aware of. If I am the first to turn a corner, I am aware of what’s around the corner, while those behind me are not aware. When I am behind something, facing their back, they cannot see what I can see behind them. Obvious, isn’t it?
Quoted from Emergence:
“[our skill at imagining other people’s mental states] comes so naturally to us and has engendered so many corollary effects that it’s hard for us to think of it as a special skill at all. And yet most animals lack the mind-reading skills of a four-year-old child. We come into the world with a genetic aptitude for building “theories of other minds,” and adjusting those theories on the fly, in response to various forms of social feedback.”
“We’re conscious of our own thoughts, the argument suggests, only because we first evolved the capacity to imagine the thoughts of others. A mind that can’t imagine external mental states is like that of a three-year-old who projects his or her own knowledge onto everyone in the room? ?But as philosophers have long noted, to be self-aware means recognizing the limits of selfhood. You can’t step back and reflect on your own thoughts without recognizing that your thoughts are finite, and that other combinations of thoughts are possible? ?Without those limits, we’d certainly be aware of the world in some basic sense – it’s just that we wouldn’t be aware of ourselves, because there’d be nothing to compare ourselves to. The self and the world would be indistinguishable.”
If you follow the development of this ability to build a mental model of what others are aware of far enough, then you may eventually lead to the abstract realization that you too have a limited point of view, just like the others. The ability to form a mental model of what others perceive is extended to the self.
Reading Emergence coincided with my introduction to the Eastern philosophy that that there is no self – only a collection of action and thoughts. When you look deep inside, there may be nothing there. You are only the sum of your thoughts and actions without which, there is nothing (I’m not sure I believe this, but it struck a chord). So it is with software. Software is nothing but a set of instructions. When you take away the instructions, there is nothing left.
Putting these two concepts together left me thinking that artificial intelligence isn’t such a distant or impossible concept. Perhaps there is no difference between our own intelligence and artificial intelligence.
I agree your thought is interesting: “Perhaps there is no difference between our own intelligence and artificial intelligence.” The assumption underlying this possibility is that just as a computer operates using sets of instructions, perhaps the human mind operates in the same way. Take away the instructions, and the human ceases to exist just as the computer would without its software.
The problem with this line of thought is twofold. First, a computer’s software is a set of instructions existing first in someone’s (or several people’s) mind[s]. The existence of the instructions (i.e., the computer’s consciousness) continues to exist independent of the state of the hardware. Second, computer software operates according to and limited by the rules of the scripting language, a limitation which does not seem to be the case with the human mind.
Of course, one could say that the existence of human consciousness (software) is just like computer software because the human counsciousness exists in the mind of God. That’s another discussion entirely.
Andrew, the two points you bring up are good ones. Your first point, correctly points out that the whole concept of an instruction implies and instructor. Maybe you answer your own question that we exist in the mind of God. Im not sure that is another discussion entirely I think it is very much the same idea.
I think I might disagree with your second point – that the human mind is not limited in the way software is by the rules of a scripting language. I can imagine two possible arguments to this. First, that we are indeed limited, but are unaware of our limitations (though Im not even sure we are really that unaware). Second, couldnt the laws of physics (and the subsequent sciences: chemistry, biology, psychology, etc.) be the laws that limit us the framework upon which our program is run?
Steven, thanks for the quick reply. You’re right, if we’re using the computer analogy and the human brain is the hardware and the human mind is the software, then there is no doubt that there are going to be limitations. If the brain is damaged, the mind’s operation is impaired. The mind-body connection is so strong that the limitations of the one impair the workings of the other. But, if the mind can exist apart from the brain, then these limitations cease to be a problem.
Maybe Im pushing the metaphor too far, but perhaps it could be taken a step further. If the brain is the hardware and the mind the software, then the mind could exist beyond the brain, just as software can exist beyond hardware. However, software needs hardware to run (see my post about the blurry line between hardware and software). Perhaps porting our minds over to computers (if that ever becomes a possibility) remove some of the limitations of the brain, just as running old software on a new computer can eliminate limitations (unlimited storage, backup/restore, etc.)
There is no ‘strong connection’ between mind and body. The body (rather , the brain) IS the mind. If I make a drawing with pen on a sheet of paper, and then delete the paper, and delete the ink, the drawing would cease to exist.
The mind, like software, or drawings, or all patterns anywhere, don’t physically exist. They are virtual objects, created by the organisation of physical objects. In the brain’s case, the tons of neurons and their connections are the objects, and their flexibility and self-adaptability in combination with the senses, form a mind.
If you just copied one person’s brain into, say, marble, all you’d have is a really complex stone object, and not a conscious mind. So AI is only possible in a chip whose pathways go beyond simple zeros and ones, and can modify themselves. An AMD or Pentium as we know it will never spawn any AI, because it isn’t that different from the marble brain. It’s fixed.
I should proofread before I post. 🙂
Sorry for those clunky sentences.
To say the brain IS the mind, doesn’t make much sense to me. The brain is a physical thing, the mind is not. The mind has thoughts that have a texture to them, something that cannot be explained by anything physical…certainly not by nuerons firing off in sequence. Properties of the mind are the types of things that cannot be measured or evaluated according to the laws of physics. They are of a different class altogether. How could a physical thing (the brain) be the same thing as a non-physical thing (the mind)?
At the very least (and I don’t buy into this view), I think one must hold to some kind of emergent view where the brain produces a consciousness that is not purely physical as in John Searle’s theory (see The Rediscovery of the Mind.
Dear Steven,
I have been following your interaction with your readers, and I find it very intersting. I am doing a PhD in philosophy of mind.
Some philosophers make a distinction between consciousness and awareness. They say humans, and perhaps some animals, are conscious, while lower animals are merely aware. I wonder how something could be aware without being conscious. Could you please share your views on this.
Thanks,
Kuldip
Dear Mr. Steven,
i’ve been long wanting to write something about human mind versus computing objects.
may i know some information regarding this aspects..?
thank you very much.
best wishes,
Edward
hi !
since last few years,i am suffering from a strange thing.people think that i am a psychic.but i know,i am not balaceless.
i am observing absolutely,everything happening around me ,of which i have thought few moments before.
for example ,i today in morning thought on someone who i had cursed most.then suddenly in the next 1.5 hrs,she actually came to my home.such things r really making my life terrible.
is there any technique which can ,understand what is going in someones mind,any technique to know exactly the things on which someone is thinking
brain mapping,mind mapping,putting chip in someone brain;exactly what is the technique to do this?
pl.reply fast.
reg,
c.a ghate
pune,India
9860051254