Archive for August 18th, 2015
Does it matter to Debate Machine Consciousness?
“I think therefore I am.”
“What about thinking? Here I make my discovery: thought exists; it alone cannot be separated from me.
I am; I exist – this is certain. But for how long?
For as long as I am thinking; for perhaps it could also come to pass that if I were to cease all thinking I would then utterly cease to exist.
At this time I admit nothing that is not necessarily true.
I am therefore precisely nothing but a thinking thing; that is a mind, or intellect, or understanding, or reason – words of whose meanings I was previously ignorant.
Yet I am a true thing and am truly existing; but what kind of thing? I have said it already: a thinking thing.” – René Descartes
In 1637, when he published, The Discourse on Method, René Descartes unleashed a philosophical breakthrough, which later became a fundamental principle that much of modern philosophy now stands upon.
Nearly 400 years later, if a machine says these five powerful words, “I think therefore I am,” does the statement still hold true?
If so, who then is this “I” that is doing the thinking?
In a recent talk, Ray Kurzweil showed the complexity of measuring machine consciousness, “We can’t just ask an entity, ‘Are you conscious?’ because we can ask entities in video games today, and they’ll say, ‘Yes, I’m conscious and I’m angry at you.’
But we don’t believe them because they don’t have the subtle cues that we associate with really having that subjective state. My prediction that computers will pass the Turing test and be indistinguishable from humans by 2029 is that they really will have those convincing cues.”
If artificial intelligence becomes indistinguishable from human intelligence, how then will we determine which entities are, or are not, conscious—specifically, when consciousness is not quantifiable?
Though the word consciousness has many commonly held definitions, this question can be answered quite differently when filtered through the many existing philosophical and religious frameworks.
With two particularly conflicting viewpoints being the common Eastern and Western notions of what exactly consciousness is—and how it comes to exist.
At the heart of many Eastern philosophies is the belief that consciousness is our fundamental reality; it is what brings the physical world into existence.
By contrast, the Western notion of consciousness holds that it arises only at a certain level of development.
Looking at these two opposing belief systems, we can see that to answer, “What and who is conscious?” can pull drastically different responses.
“Fundamentally, there’s no scientific experiment that doesn’t have philosophical assumptions about the nature of consciousness,” Kurzweil says.
We’d like to have an objective scientific understanding of consciousness, but such a view remains elusive.
“Some scientists say, ‘Well, it’s just an illusion. We shouldn’t waste time with it,” Kurzweil says. “But that’s not my view because, as I say, morality is based on consciousness.”
Why does all this matter?
Because as technological evolution begins intersecting our biological evolution as a species, the lines between “human” and “non-human” entities will begin blurring more so than humanity has ever encountered, and a new era of identity, and the surrounding ethics and philosophy, will take center stage.
What happens if a non-human conscious entity travels into another region of the world where its consciousness is not believed to be real?
Or more broadly, how will we treat intelligent machines ethically as their intelligence approaches our own?
If morality is based on consciousness, does a machine become an “I” if it has one?
(If Morality is a set of behaviors disseminated by the power-to-be and communities are coaxed to follow suit, then an artificial intelligent consciousness is political by nature)
Note: It is Not a matter of morality: It is this lapse of time of uncertainty we need to determine whether our act is Good or Bad. Give a machine the illusion of needing some time to decide and you can be fooled.
“If artificial intelligence becomes indistinguishable from human intelligence, how then will we determine which entities are, or are not, conscious?”
Dismantled and fed to profit-hungry corporations? Case of Greece
Greece is heading towards its third “bailout” (Fourth bailout after parliament voted for it).
This third bailout of €86 billion is on the table, which will be packaged up by international lenders with a bundle of austerity and sent off to Greece, only to return to those same lenders in the very near future.
“selling off profitable or potentially profitable assets leaves a country less able to repay its debts.”
Facts about infidelity? Are you in the mood for further surprises?
Love isn’t so much an emotion, says biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, as it is a brain system, one of three that’s related to mating and reproduction. It’s those other two systems that explain why human beings are capable of infidelity even as we so highly value love.
Here Fisher explains more about cheating — why it occurs, how common it is and how a study shows it could potentially correlate to a gene
1. Pairbonding is a hallmark of humanity.
Data from the Demographic Yearbooks of the United Nations on 97 societies between 1947 and 1992 indicate that approximately 93.1% of women and 91.8% of men marry by age 49. More recent data indicates that some 85% of Americans will eventually marry.
Further reading:
- Anatomy of Love, by Helen Fisher
- The Marriage-Go-Round, by Andrew J. Cherlin
- Marriage, a History, by Stephanie Coontz
2. However, monogamy is only part of the human reproductive strategy.
Infidelity is also widespread. Current studies of American couples indicate that 20 to 40% of heterosexual married men and 20 to 25% of heterosexual married women will also have an extramarital affair during their lifetime.
Further reading:
- The Social Organization of Sexuality, by Edward Laumann, John Gagnon, Robert Michael and Stuart Michaels
- “Serial monogamy and clandestine adultery: Evolution and consequences of the dual human reproductive strategy,” by Helen Fisher in Applied Evolutionary Psychology
3. Brain architecture may contribute to infidelity.
Human beings have three primary brain systems related to love.
1) The sex drive evolved to motivate individuals to seek copulation with a range of partners; (Why do I lack this fantastic drive? I need a rebirth, quick)
2) romantic love evolved to motivate individuals to focus their mating energy on specific partners, thereby conserving courtship time and metabolic energy; (I like converters. Particularly catalysts)
3) partner attachment evolved to motivate mating individuals to remain together at least long enough to rear a single child through infancy together. ( On the basis that raising a first child is the most unhappy of events soon after giving birth)
These three basic neural systems interact with one another and other brain systems in myriad flexible, combinatorial patterns to provide the range of motivations, emotions and behaviors necessary to orchestrate our complex human reproductive strategy.
But this brain architecture makes it biologically possible to express deep feelings of attachment for one partner, while one feels intense romantic love for another individual, while one feels the sex drive for even more extra-dyadic partners. (A multifunctional system, working in absolute parallel modes)
Further reading:
- Why We Love, by Helen Fisher
4. Infidelity has been a reality across cultures. It was also common among the classical Greeks and Romans, pre-industrial Europeans, historical Japanese, Chinese and Hindus and among the traditional Inuit of the arctic, Kuikuru of the jungles of Brazil, Kofyar of Nigeria, Turu of Tanzania and many other tribal societies.
Further reading:
- Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman, by Marjorie Shostak
5. There are different types of infidelity. (Better, a taxonomy for infidelity?)
Researchers have broadened the definition of infidelity to include sexual infidelity (sexual exchange with no romantic involvement), romantic infidelity (romantic exchanges with no sexual involvement) and sexual and romantic involvement.
Further reading:
- “Justifications for extramarital relationships: The association between attitudes, behaviors, and gender,” by Shirley Glass and Thomas Wright in the Journal of Sex Research
6. Myriad psychological, cultural and economic variables play a role in the frequency and expression of infidelity. But one thing is clear: infidelity is a worldwide phenomenon that occurs with remarkable regularity, despite near universal disapproval of this behavior.
- “Infidelity: who, when, why,” by Irene Tsapelas, Helen Fisher and Arthur Aron in The Dark Side of Close Relationships II
- 7. Mate poaching is a pronounced trend. In a recent survey of single American men and women, 60% of men and 53% of women admitted to “mate poaching,” trying to woo an individual away from a committed relationship to begin a relationship with them instead.
- Mate poaching is also common in 30 other cultures.Further reading:
- “Patterns and universals of mate poaching across 53 nations: the effects of sex, culture, and personality on romantically attracting another person’s partner,” by David P. Schmitt in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- The Dangerous Passion, by David M. Buss
8. Infidelity doesn’t necessarily signal an unhappy relationship. Regardless of the correlation between relationship dissatisfaction and adultery, among individuals engaging in infidelity in one study, 56% of men and 34% of women rated their marriage as “happy” or “very happy,” suggesting that genetics may also play a role in philandering.
Further reading:
- “Sex differences in type of extramarital involvement and marital dissatisfaction,” by Shirley Glass and Thomas Wright in Sex Roles
- “Infidelity: who, when, why,” by Irene Tsapelas, Helen Fisher and Arthur Aron in The Dark Side of Close Relationships II
- 9. Studies show the possibility of a gene that correlates to infidelity. In 2008, Walum and colleagues investigated whether the various genes affect pair-bonding behavior in humans; 552 couples were examined; all had been married or co-habiting for at least five years.
- Men carrying the 334 vasopressin allele in a specific region of the vasopressin system scored significantly lower on the Partner Bonding Scale, indicating less feelings of attachment to their spouse. Moreover, their scores were dose dependent: those carrying two of these genes showed the lowest scores, followed by those carrying only one allele. Men carrying the 334 gene also experienced more marital crisis (including threat of divorce) during the past year, and men with two copies of this gene were approximately twice as likely to have had a marital crisis than those who had inherited either one or no copies of this allele.
- Last, the partners of men with one or two copies of this gene scored significantly lower on questionnaires measuring marital satisfaction. This study did not measure infidelity directly, but it did measure several factors likely to contribute to infidelity.Further reading:
- “Genetic variation in the vasopressin receptor 1a gene (AVPR1A) associates with pair-bonding behavior in humans,” by Hasse Walum et al in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
10. Several scientists have offered theories for the evolution of human adultery. I have proposed that during prehistory, philandering males disproportionately reproduced, selecting for the biological underpinnings of the roving eye in contemporary men. Unfaithful females reaped economic resources from their extra-dyadic partnerships, as well as additional males to help with parenting duties if their primary partner died or deserted them.
- Moreover, if an ancestral woman bore a child with this extra-marital partner, she also increased genetic variety in her descendants.
- Infidelity had unconscious biological payoffs for both males and females throughout prehistory, thus perpetuating the biological underpinnings and taste for infidelity in both sexes today.
- (So, here is why Homo sapiens species prevailed over all the other Neo-Cortex species)
- Helen Fisher is a biological anthropologist who studies the brain in love. She is the Chief Scientific Advisor for dating site Match.com and the author of five books on love, sex and relationships, including Why Him? Why Her?: How to Find and Keep Lasting Love.
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“Infidelity doesn’t necessarily signal an unhappy relationship,” and more surprising facts from Helen Fisher:
Anthropologist Helen Fisher studies what happens in the brain when we’re in love.Here she gives 10 facts about why we cheat.t.ted.com
Adonis Diaries 