Kurzweil: The Age of the Spiritual Machine

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• An attempt to project the advances in computer
  and cognitive science over the next 10, 20, 30,
  and 100 years.
• Has established quite a name as an innovator and
  entrepreneur in the field of advanced technology.
  
• His company has been successful in its
  development of voice-activated word processing
  and reading machines for the blind.

Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine
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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• The central thesis of the book is what Kurzweil
  proposes as the Law of Accelerating Returns,
  which states that "the time interval between
  salient events grows shorter as time passes"
• Technology allows significant evolutionary
  advances to occur at an accelerated rate.

Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine
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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Law of Increasing Chaos
• As chaos increases exponentially time
  exponentially slows down (that is the time
  interval between salient events grows longer as
  time passes)

Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine
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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Law of Accelerating Returns
• As order increases exponentially, time
  exponentially speeds up (time between salient
  events grows shorter as time passes) applies
  particularly in an evolutionary process where
  order is definitely increasing

Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine
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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Law of Accelerating Returns as Applied to an
  Evolutionary process
• an evolutionary process is not a closed system
  therefore evolution draws upon chaos in the
  larger system, in which it takes place for its
  options for diversity
• evolution builds on its own increasing order

Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine
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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• therefore
• in an evolutionary process order increases
  exponentially
• therefore
• time exponentially speeds up
• therefore
• the returns (value products of the process)
  accelerate

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Technology allows significant evolutionary
  advances to occur at an accelerated rate.
• Took early humans thousands of years to perfect
  the domestication of animals
• Moore's Law has revealed an exponential growth in
  the power of computing over the past century, a
  trend which will continue with current technology
  until around 2020.

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Kurzweil believes that the implications of
  Moore's Law must drive all predictions about what
  the 21st century will be like.

Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine
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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Where humankind in the past has sought
  immortality through its genes, it will now seek
  it through its machines.
• One way this will be accomplished is by
  downloading one's mind into a computer through
  the use of advanced, high-bandwidth MRIs.

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Vision of the future by including advances in the
  still young field of nanotechnology.
• Nanotechnology will allow for human "bodies" to
  be made of far sturdier material than the carbon
  and water from which it is currently
  predominantly constructed.

Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine
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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Evolution of Intelligence
• Can an intelligence create an other
  intelligence more intelligent than itself

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Evolution is master programmer recording code
  digitally in DNA for all species
• Every once in a while the enzyme machines that
  make copies make mistakes
• Once in a while the mistake has an advantage and
  increases possibility of survival

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• "genetic information processing appliance is an
  existence proof of nanoengineering (building
  machines atom by atom)"

Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine
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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Problems with Genetic Evolution
• Not efficient..97 of genome doesn't code for
  proteins
• Very slow programming changes introduced at
  random and evaluated for retention by survival
• Not good at complete redesign so stuck with slow
  speed of the neuron

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Is the length of time required to solve a problem
  or create a an intelligent design relevant to an
  evolution (timing on tests!)
• So evolution is just a little bit smarter than
  complete unintelligence

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Humans are a lot smarter and considering what we
  have done in the last couple of thousands years
• Eventually machines will match our intelligence
  so humans will have beaten evolution by doing it
  in only a few thousand years instead of billions

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• So human machine is much more intelligent than
  its creator, evolution,
• The intelligence we have created, computers, will
  be much more intelligent than us

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Of Minds and Machines
• Gradually replace Jack starting with cochlear
  implants
• Still the same Jack since we change most of our
  cells (not brain cells) every year or so
• We are not a collection of particles but rather
  patterns of matter and energy

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• So new Jack is still Jack created after scanning
  entire brain and neural system except old Jack
  may not feel that way
• Difference between objective and subjective
  experience

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Machines will soon equal human intelligence will
  they be conscious?

Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine
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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Downloaded minds will be conscious and will
  demand rights as citizens (because they will
  plausibly believe that they are the actual person
  who was downloaded).
• How will these downloaded minds lay down new
  memories?

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Schools of thought on consciousness
• The "Consciousness is just a machine reflecting
  on itself " School
• consciousness and free will are just illusions
  introduced by ambiguities of language
• consciousness is a logical process responding to
  and reacting to itself
• it is a set of abilities that evolved because
  self-reflective ways of thinking are inherently
  more powerful

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Schools of thought on consciousness
• The "Consciousness is just a machine reflecting
  on itself " School
• Kurzweil says this ignores the subjective view
• Does not explain HIS sense of red

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Schools of thought on consciousness
• Logical Positivists
• objective view codified by early Wittgenstein
• the only things worth talking about are direct
  sensory experiences and the inferences we can
  make from them

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Schools of thought on consciousness
• Consciousness is a Different Kind of Stuff School
• Another fundamental phenomenon like particles and
  forces mysticism
• Problem is how does it interact with the physical
  world?

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Schools of thought on consciousness
• We are too Stupid School
• Hofstadter cannot be an accident that our brains
  are too stupid to understand ourselves
• Kurzweil not too stupid, just having trouble
  formulating the questions

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Schools of thought on consciousness
• Synthesis
• Kurzweil all correct when taken together none
  correct when taken separately

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• How tell when a machine is conscious?
• When they can convince us they are!

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Science is about objective reality and can never
  breach the subjective

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Kurzweil defines intelligence as the "ability to
  use optimally, limited resources including time
  to achieve goals"

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• "what is the complete set of unifying formulas
  that underlies intelligence? Evolution
  determined an answer to this problem in a few
  billion years. We have made a good start in a
  few thousand years. We are likely to finish the
  job in a few more decades."

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Kurzweil The Age of the Spiritual Machine

• Here is how 
• Recursive Procedures useful in creating all
  possible solutions like pick the bests move in
  chess  
• Neural Nets self-organizing and good at pattern
  recognition
• Genetic Algorithms let algorithms compete and
  the best emerge

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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• The book has been called (Dennett) ultimate
  academic shaggy dog story, a tale whose
  fascinating digressions outweigh the punch line
  by a large factor.

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Attempts to debunk the strong AI'' view that
  minds are in principle complex algorithms, and
  that the particular manifestation of that
  algorithm is unimportant
• Penrose argues there is a level of physical
  action deeper than quantum mechanics (quantum
  gravity?) that is essential to the operation of
  the brain and is a prerequisite for the presence
  of real consciousness.

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• To build his case, Penrose must lead the reader
  through detailed discussions of many topics in
  mathematics (Turing machines and computability
  theory, complex numbers, the Mandelbrot set,
  Gödel's theorem, recursive function theory,
  complexity theory, Platonism versus
  intuitionism), classical Einsteinian physics and
  quantum physics, cosmology, and neuroscience

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Major ideas
• If the brain is a computer, its powers are
  circumscribed by the limits on all computation
  uncovered by Turing and Gödel.

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Major ideas
• Turing showed every possible mechanical
  computation can be precisely specified by an
  algorithm
• Gödels Theorem showed that no algorithm for
  proving mathematical truths can prove them all
• Therefore there are tasks we can perform that a
  machine cannot

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Argument has been discredited because
• Gödel's results not not applicable to either
  Turing machines or human beings
• Results apply to narrowly formal logic systems
  that must be consistent
• One mistake and a system becomes inconsistent

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Penrose feels that the mind must exploit
  non-deterministic effects that can be described
  only by quantum mechanics or a new physical
  theory that will bridge quantum mechanics and
  classical physics.

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• He even suggests that non locality, the ability
  of a quantum system to affect other parts
  instantly (spooky action at a distance says
  Einstein) might be the solution to the binding
  problem.

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Thinks quantum effects may work their magic in
  the microtubules, minute tunnels of protein that
  serve as a kind of skeleton

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Argues that mathematical insight (in particular)
  is non-algorithmic
• Function of consciousness view, is to leapfrog
  the limits of (practical) computability by
  conjuring up appropriate judgments.

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Brain could be a quantum computer
• A super-parallel computer, using superposition of
  computational states to perform a
  near-instantaneous global search through an
  otherwise untraversable space of possibilities,
  with the solution being output by the collapse of
  the wave function.

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Chapter 9 Real Brains and Model Brains
• Crude picture of what the brain does
• input comes from visual, auditory tactile and
  other signals
• first register in the cerebrum
• brains output in the form of activating body is
  mainly achieved by the frontal lobes of the
  cerebrum.
• in between processing takes place
• seems like a superb computing device

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Not so simple
• Cerebellum coordinates activity
• Hippocampus lays down long term memories which
  are stored someplace in the cerebral cortex
• Hypothalamus seat of emotion
•  

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Where is the seat of consciousness?
• Parts not involved to same degree.
• Cerebellum appears to be more of an automaton
  than the cerebrum actions take place without
  having to "think about them"
• Infer phenomenon of consciousness more to do with
  the cerebrum than spinal cord or cerebellum but
  not all action of cerebrum conscious

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Wilder Penfield has argued awareness resides in
  upper brain stem thalamus and reticular
  formation
• They communicate with cerebral cortex
• Experiments showed by stimulation could make arm
  move but not the desire to make the arm move
• So speculated thalamus involved

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• O'Keefe thinks it is the hippocampus
• Many think consciousness involves language which
  centered in the left hand side of brain in
  cerebral cortex
• Maybe consciousness to do with left hand side of
  brain and not right?? (Eccles)

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Severing of corpus callosum tested by Roger
  Sperry
• Showed object separately to right (pencil) and
  left (cup)
• Subject could verbalize object on right (went to
  left brain) though the left hand could select a
  saucer as appropriate to go with cup

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Split brain studies show no unique seat of
  consciousness
• Some areas more involved than others
• Blindsighted DB could guess at an item but not be
  aware of seeing it

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Neural Net Model
• Probabilistic aspect to biological neurons
  (firing increases the rate of the pulse)
• Same input does not always produce the same
  output
• Not the exact timing of computer circuits
• Much slower with a good deal of randomness and
  redundancy

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Emergent Quantities
• If consciousness comes from vast number and
  complexity of network, why does cerebellum have
  more densely packed cells than cerebrum?

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Parallel computers built to mimic nature but..
• 1. No differences in principle between a
  parallel or serial computer. Both are in effect
  Turing machines with differences only in speed
  and efficiency (Fodor's claims that connectivist
  models are new implementation not theory)

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Parallel computers built to mimic nature but..
• 2. Parallel classical computation unlikely to
  hold the key to consciousness.. A characteristic
  feature of conscious thought is its 'oneness'-as
  opposed to a great many independent activities
  going on at once. Say things like how can you
  expect me to think of two things at once

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• BUT
• could be some relationship between this oneness
  of consciousness and quantum parallelism, where
  different alternatives at the quantum level are
  allowed to coexist in linear supposition

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Is there a role for quantum mechanics in brain
  activity?
• one clear cut pace where action at the quantum
  level can have importance is in the retina which
  is technically part of the brain
• experiments with toads have shown a single photon
  triggers a macroscopic nerve signal

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• There may be neurons that can be trigger by a
  single quantum event, maybe deep inside the such
  cells exist . Admits that the brain is too hot
  an item to preserve quantum coherence for any
  significant time

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

•  
• "It seem to me that neither classical or quantum
  mechanics-the latter without some further
  fundamental changes which would make R into an
  'actual' process can ever explain the way we
  think."

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

•  
• Difference with minds and brains
• There is an "essential non-algorithmic
  ingredient to (conscious) thought processes"

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Chapter 10 Where lies the Physics of the mind?
• He going to deal with "What selective advantage
  does a consciousness confer on those who actually
  possess it"

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Implicit assumptions
• consciousness is a scientifically explainable
  "thing"
• this "thing" does something
• what it does is helpful to creature-product of
  natural selection

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Question of synonyms
• mind and consciousness some evidence the
  unconscious mind may have some awareness
  (conversations during an operation or hypnosis)

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• When assert consciousness necessary for
  intelligence implicitly saying does not subscribe
  to strong AI belief that the mind is algorithmic
  
• Believes there is an non algorithmic element of
  consciousness
•  

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Conscious mind is algorithmic at higher level
• No algorithms for judgment
• Sometimes conscious thought can yield a solution
  to a problem that has no algorithmic solution
• One needs external insights

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• The decision about whether an algorithm is valid
  is not algorithmic

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Part of reason for believing consciousness is
  able to influence truth-judgment in a
  non-algorithmical way stems from Gödel
• If can see this feature in mathematical judgment
  can extrapolate whatever formal system

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• A Platonist Mathematical truths exist and
  consciousness gives us access

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Something odd about the way time enters into
  conscious perceptions (experiments by
  LibetFeinstein)
• We impose on our perceptions in order to make
  sense of them
• "timing and temporal progression of consciousness
  not in accord with that of external physical
  reality

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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Penrose The Emperors New Mind

• Patricia Churchland says pixie dust in neural
  synapses would be as useful as quantum mechanics
• She says Penroses logic is consciousness is
  mysterious and quantum mechanics is mysterious so
  they are the same

Penrose The Emperors New Mind
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Three media for evolution of consciousness
• genetic evolution
• phenotypic plasticity
• memetic evolution
• All contributed to the design of human
  consciousness

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Genetic Evolution
• In the beginning just replicators avoiding bad
  things and seeking good thing
• Once get into self preservation have to develop
  sense of self
• There are reasons for evolving a point of view

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Genetic Evolution
• Consciousness evolves.
• First must recognize difference between in here
  and out there
• Then once are mobile need to be able to decide
  now what do I do!

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Genetic Evolution
• Every agent must solve what to I do next
• Sea squirt has rudimentary nervous system that
  once it finds a home eats its brain, like getting
  tenure

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Genetic Evolution
• Some innate wiring to duck..recognize vertical
• Perform an orienting response
• Interruption was useful so went into orienting
  mode more and more often
• Turned into regular vigilance

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Genetic Evolution
• Became informavores and scanned for information
  at all times

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Phenotypic Plasticity
• Advantage to plasticity since can make change
  much faster than evolution
• Good trick (Baldwin Effect) brains more closely
  wired to be able to take advantage of the good
  trick will survive

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Phenotypic Plasticity
• Then the need for higher level control
• Pandemonium contention scheduling solves problem
  of what to think about next

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Phenotypic Plasticity
• Internal dialogue
• asked for help
• if no one around.asked self!
• is autostimulation

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Memetic Evolution
• Richard Dawkins idea of memes from The Selfish
  Gene
• Life evolves by the differential survival of
  replicating entities (genes prime example)

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Memetic Evolution
• Another replicator ideas or cultural units
• Memes a unit of cultural transmission
• A unit of imitation
• Examples tunes, clothes, catch phrases
• Leap from brain to brain via process broadly
  called imitation

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Memetic Evolution
• A scholar is just a library's way of making a new
  library

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Memetic Evolution
• Dennett sees his brain as "a dung heap in which
  larvae of other peoples ideas renew themselves"

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Memetic Evolution
• Competition among among memes
• Evolution has potential to contribute remarkable
  design enhancements to underlying machinery of
  the brain

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Hypothesis
• Human consciousness is a huge complex of memes
  that can best be understood as a von Neumannesque
  machine implemented on the parallel processors of
  the brain.

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Fact that brain is parallel is no problem
• Can implement serial machine on brain circuitry
  since Turing proved universal machine can imitate
  any other machine

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• Claim that consciousness is software because
• Too recent to be hard wired,
• Largely a product of cultural evolution
• Its installation is determined by microsettings
  in the plasticity of the brain and therefore is
  likely to be invisible to neurantomical scrutiny
• Idea of the user illusion of a virtual machine in
  tantalizingly suggestive

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettEvolution of Consciousness

• This new machine highly replicable meme-complex
• Its own working are as visible and audible as
  things in the external world

DennettEvolution of Consciousness
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DennettConsciousness Imagined

• If consciousness is the activities of the virtual
  machine
• Then in principle a suitably programmed machine
  would be conscious, would have a self

DennettConsciousness Imagined
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DennettConsciousness Imagined

• Philosophers say How can the brain be the seat
  of consciousness?
• Nagel says there is no way to get to the
  subjective level of phenomenology from the
  objective level of physiology
• McGinn says consciousness has a hidden
  structure lies beyond both phenomenology and
  physiology

DennettConsciousness Imagined
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DennettConsciousness Imagined

• Says his software level of description fits
  McGinns description of hidden level between
  phenomenology and physiology
• McGinn says we cannot imagine it
• Dennett says We done it!

DennettConsciousness Imagined
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DennettConsciousness Imagined

• Responses to Searle Chinese Room with the systems
  reply
• The entire system, the man, the room etc
  understand

DennettConsciousness Imagined
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DennettConsciousness Imagined

• Challenge to Nagel
• Nagel claims we do not have to representational
  machinery to represent to ourselves what it is
  like to be a bat
• Dennett says he has not given us any good reason
  WHY we could not imagine it
• Nagel says no third-person knowledge could tell
  what it is like to be a bat. Rubbish says Dennett

DennettConsciousness Imagined
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DennettConsciousness Imagined

• Challenge to Nagel
• Goes through process of imaging what is like to
  be other things
• Know enough about a bat to get very close to
  imagining what it is like to be

DennettConsciousness Imagined
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DennettConsciousness Imagined

• People are afraid to see consciousness explained
  because they fear we will lose our moral bearing

DennettConsciousness Imagined
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Minsky Conscious Machines

• MINSKY My goal is making machines that can
  think, by understanding how people think. One
  reason why we find this hard to do is because our
  old ideas about psychology are mostly wrong. Most
  words we use to describe our minds (like
  "consciousness", "learning", or "memory") are
  suitcase-like jumbles of different ideas. Those
  old ideas were formed long ago, before 'computer
  science' appeared. It was not until the 1950s
  that we began to develop better ways to help
  think about complex processes.

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Minsky Conscious Machines

• It is claimed that there could be a machine
  that works and behaves just like a brain, yet
  does not experience consciousness. If that were
  the case, then this would imply that subjective
  feelings do not result from the processes that
  occur inside brains. Therefore (so the argument
  goes) a feeling must be a nonphysical thing that
  has no causes or consequences. Surely, no such
  thing could ever be explained!

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Minsky Conscious Machines

• The path toward understanding lies in that flood
  of new ideas that began to grow around the time,
  half a century ago, along with the emergence of
  computers in the 1950s -- include the work of
  Turing in 1936, McCulloch and Pitts in 1943, and
  the hundreds of thinkers who joined them
  afterward.

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Minsky Conscious Machines

• I don't consciousness as holding one great, big,
  wonderful mystery. Instead it's a large
  collection of useful schemes that enable our
  resourcefulness. Any machine that can think
  effectively will need access to descriptions of
  what it's done recently, and how these relate to
  its various goals.

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Minsky Conscious Machines

• We humans do not possess much consciousness. That
  is, we have very little natural ability to sense
  what happens within and outside ourselves.

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Minsky Conscious Machines

• Now at various times in those first few years,
  some of those (brain)systems create the most
  supremely useful of all fictions, namely, that
  the unwritten novel that constitutes your life is
  centered on a principle protagonist -- that you
  conceive of as your consciousness, like an actual
  person inside your head!