Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mcvax!ukc!rjf From: rjf@ukc.ac.uk (R.J.Faichney) Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: Searle, Turing, Nagel Message-ID: <2177@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> Date: Sun, 30-Nov-86 12:25:52 EST Article-I.D.: eagle.2177 Posted: Sun Nov 30 12:25:52 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 1-Dec-86 21:20:19 EST References: <158@mind.UUCP> <150@cwrudg.UUCP> <160@mind.UUCP> <2495@utai.UUCP> <229@mind.UUCP> <230@mind.UUCP> Reply-To: rjf@ukc.ukc.ac.uk (R.J.Faichney) Organization: U of Kent at Canterbury, Canterbury, UK Lines: 216 Keywords: machine intelligence consciouness Summary: Are misunderstandings self-propagating? Xref: mnetor comp.ai:78 comp.cog-eng:21 In article <230@mind.UUCP> harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes: >On mod.ai, rjf@ukc.UUCP <8611071431.AA18436@mcvax.uucp> >Rob Faichney (U of Kent at Canterbury, Canterbury, UK) made >nonspecific reference ... Sorry - the articles at issue were long gone, before I learned how to use this thing. >... I'm not altogther certain ... intended as a followup to ... >"Searle, Turing, Categories, Symbols," but ... >I am responding on the assumption that it was. It was not. See below. >... Whether consciousness is a necessary >condition for intelligence is probably undecidable, and goes to the >heart of the mind/body problem and its attendant uncertainties. We have various ways of getting around the problems of inadequate definitions in these discussions, but I think we've run right up against it here. In psychological circles, as you know, intelligence is notorious for being difficult to define. >The converse proposition -- that intelligence is a necessary condition for >consciousness is synonymous with the proposition that consciousness is >a sufficient condition for intelligence, and this is indeed being >claimed (e.g., by me). The problem here is whether we define intelligence as implying consciousness. I am simply suggesting that if we (re)define intelligence as *not* implying consciousness, we will lose nothing in terms of the utility of the concept of intelligence, and may gain a great deal regarding our understanding of the possibilities of machine intelligence and/or consciousness. >If the word >"intelligence" has any meaning at all, over and above displaying ANY >arbitrary performance at all... I'm afraid that I don't think it has very much meaning, beyond the naive, relative usage of 'graduates tend to be more intelligent than non-graduates'. >...the Total Turing Test...amounts to equating >intelligence with total performance capacities ... >... also coincides with our only basis for inferring that >anyone else but ourselves has a mind (i.e., is conscious). >There is no contradiction between agreeing that intelligence admits >of degrees and that mind is all-or-none. But intelligence implies mind? Where do we draw the line? Should an IQ of => 40 mean that something is conscious, while < 40 denotes a mindless automaton? You say your Test allows for cross-species and pathological variants, but surely this relative/absolute contradiction remains. >> Animals probably are conscious without being intelligent. Machines may >> perhaps be intelligent without being conscious. >Not too good to be true: Too easy. Granted. I failed to make clear that I was proposing a (re)definition of intelligence, which would retain the naive usage - including that animals are (relatively) unintelligent - while dispensing with the theoretical problems. >...the empirical question of what intelligence is cannot be settled by a >definition... Indeed, it cannot begin to be tackled without a definition, which is what I am trying to provide. My proposition does not settle the empirical question - it just makes it manageable. >Nagel's point is that there is >something it's "like" to have experience, i.e., to be conscious, and >that it's only open to the 1st person point of view. It's hence radically >unlike all other "objective" or "intersubjective" phenomena in science >(e.g., meter-readings)... Surely intersubjectivity is at least as close to subjectivity as to objectivity. Instead of meter readings, take as an example the mother- child relationship. Like any other, it requires responsive feedback, in terms in this case of cuddling, cooing, crying, smiling, and it is where the baby learns to relate and communicate with others. I say that it's one *essential* characteristic is intersubjectivity. Though the child does not consciously identify with the adult, there is nevertheless an intrinsic tendency to copy gestures, etc., which will be complemented and completed at maturity by a (relatively) unselfish appreciation of the other person's point of view. This tendency is so profound, and so bound to our origins, both ontogenic and philogenic(sp?) that to ascribe consciousness to something man-made, no matter how perfect it's performance, will always require an effort of will. Nor could it ever be intellectually justified. The ascription of consciousness says infinitely more about the ascriptor than the ascriptee. It means 'I am willing and able to identify with this thing - I really believe that it is like something to be this thing.' It is inevitably, intrinsically spontaneous and subjective. You may be willing to identify with something which can do anything you can. I am not. And, though this is obviously sheer guesswork, I'm willing to bet a lot of money that the vast majority of people (*not* of AIers) would be with me. And, if you agree that it's subjective, why should anyone know better than the man in the street? (I'm speaking here, of course, about what people would do, not what they think they might do - I'm not suggesting that the problem could be solved by an opinion poll!) >> So what, really, is consciousness? According to Nagel... >> This accords with Minsky (via Col. Sicherman): >> 'consciousness is an illusion to itself but a genuine and observable >> phenomenon to an outside observer...' >The quote above (via the Colonel) is PRECISELY THE OPPOSITE of Nagel's >point. The only aspect of conscious experience that involves direct >observability is the subjective, 1st-person aspect... >Let's call this private terrain Nagel-land. >The part others "can identify" is Turing-land: Objective, observable >performance (and its structural and functional substrates). Nagel's point >is that Nagel-land is not reducible to Turing-land. The part others "can identify with" is Nagel-land. People don't identify structural and functional substrates, they just know what it's like to be people. This fact does not belong to purely subjective Nagel-land or to perfectly objective Turing-land. It has some features of each, and transcends both. Consciousness as a fact is not directly observable - it is direct observation. Consciousness as a concept is not directly observable either, but it is observable in a very special way, which for *practical* purposes is incorrigible, to the extent that it is not testable, but our intuitions seem perfectly workable. It cannot examine itself ('...is an illusion to itself...') but may quite validly be seen in others ('...a genuine and observable fact to an outside observer...'). >... hardly amounts to an objective contribution to cognitive science. I'm not interested in the Turing Test (see above) but surely to clarify the limits of objectivity is an objective contribution. >> It may perhaps be supposed that the concept of consciousness evolved >> as part of a social adaptation... >Except that Nagel would no doubt suggest (and I would agree) that >there's no reason to believe that the asocial or minimally social >animals are not conscious too. I said the *concept* of consciousness... >> ...When I suppose myself to be conscious, I am imagining myself >> outside myself... >When I feel a pain -- when I am in the qualitative state of >knowing what it's like to be feeling a pain -- I am not "supposing" >anything at all. When I feel a pain I'm being conscious. When I suppose etc., I'm thinking about being conscious. I'm talking here about thinking about it, because in order to ascribe consciousness to a machine, we first have to think about it, unlike our ascription of consciousness to each other. Unfortunately, such intrinsically subjective ascriptions are much more easily made via spontanaeity than via rationalisation. I would say, in fact, that they may only be spontaneous. >Some crucial corrections that may set the whole matter in a rather different >light: Subjectively (and I would say objectively too), we all know that >OUR OWN consciousness is real. Agreed. >Objectively, we have no way of knowing >that anyone else's consciousness is real. Agreed. >Because of the relationship >between subjectivity and objectivity, direct knowledge of the kind we >have in our own case is impossible in any other. Agreed. >The pragmatic >compromise we practice every day with one another is called the Total >Turing Test: I call it natural, naive intersubjectivity. >Ascertaining that others behave indistinguishably from our >paradigmatic model for a creature with consciousness: ourselves. They may behave indistinguishably from ourselves, but it's not only snobs who ask 'What do we know about their background?'. That sort of information is perfectly relevant. Why disallow it? And why believe that a laboratory- constructed creature feels like I do, no matter how perfect it's social behaviour? Where subjectivity is all, prejudice can be valid, even necessary. What else do we have? >...a predictive and explanatory causal thoery of mind. Is not something that we can't get by without. >...if we follow Nagel, our inferences are not meaningless, but in some >respects incomplete and undecidable. I may be showing my ignorance, but to me if something is (inevitably?) 'incomplete and undecidable', it's pretty nearly meaningless for most purposes. To sum up: there is actually quite a substantial area of agreement between us, but I don't think that you go quite far enough. While I cannot deny that much may be learned from attempting computer and/or robot simulation of human performance, there remains the fact that similar ends may be achieved by different means; that a perfectly convincing robot might differ radically from us in software as well as hardware. In short, I think that the computer scientists have much more to gain from this than the psychologists. As a former member of the latter category, and a present member of the former (though not an AIer!), I am not complaining. -- Robin Faichney UUCP: ...mcvax!ukc!rjf Post: RJ Faichney, Computing Laboratory, JANET: rjf@uk.ac.ukc The University, Canterbury, Phone: 0227 66822 Ext 7681 Kent. CT2 7NF