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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 4

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There's something significant for each of us involved in this ongoing quadralogue in this book on Merleau-Ponty as is made clear in the amazon review below:

Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy of Nature (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy): Ted Toadvine: 9780810125995: Amazon.com: Books


"A phenomenological ontology of nature...
By Brian C. on April 10, 2011

Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy of Nature is really an excellent discussion of Merleau-Ponty's ontology and its implications for environmental philosophy. I assumed when I ordered the book that it would focus primarily on Merleau-Ponty's late ontology as presented in The Visible and the Invisible and Merleau-Ponty's Nature courses. Actually one of the main reasons I ordered this work was in the hopes that it would help me make some sense out of Merleau-Ponty's Nature courses which have proved difficult for me. In reality this book does not deal exclusively, or even primarily, with the Nature courses but traces Merleau-Ponty's entire trajectory of thought from The Structure of Behavior all the way up to The Visible and the Invisible. Ted Toadvine is particularly interested in the way in which Merleau-Ponty conceived the relation between human beings and the rest of nature and attempts to trace the evolution of Merleau-Ponty's thinking on this important question.

What I found especially compelling about Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of nature, and Toadvine's presentation of it, was Merleau-Ponty's effort to understand human beings as a part of nature and to think nature from the standpoint of our human situation within nature rather than from a God's eye view (which is, of course, essential for any philosopher claiming to be a phenomenological philosopher) while at the same time respecting nature's transcendence in relation to our human understanding and ways of relating with nature. Taking seriously human beings inherence in nature can easily lead down a skeptical path exemplified by a quote from E.O. Wilson. Wilson begins with a dualism between reality outside our heads and a reality inside our heads which is constructed (or distorted) by the idiosyncrasies of human evolution (quoted pg11). The goal of science is precisely to undo this distortion. But once we start down this path it is impossible to stop. As Nietzsche argued, science itself can be conceived as an evolutionary adaptation based on what he considered necessary errors (concepts like substance, identity, cause and effect which are essential for the scientific enterprise are necessary errors based on evolutionary exigencies according to Nietzsche). One may disagree with Nietzsche on this point but it is hard to figure out where exactly to draw the line once you start down this path. If our ordinary understanding of reality is distorted by idiosyncrasies of human evolution why wouldn't this be true of science as well? The solution does not, of course, lie in denying human beings a place in nature or attributing to them some transcendent principle which somehow escapes an inherence in nature and the twisted paths of human evolution (such as reason). Rather we must accept Wilson's contribution as valid but we must carry it forward to the end, to its logical conclusion. Toadvine (and presumably Merleau-Ponty) believe that the phenomenological approach to this problem is the correct way of carrying Wilson's effort to its logical end (and of avoiding skepticism). We must begin from human beings inherence in the world, rather than attempting to adopt a position outside it, in order to describe (rather than explain) our inherence in nature and our modes of access to it (pg12).

Our relation to nature is conditioned not only by our evolutionary history but also by our historical and cultural inheritance as well. Merleau-Ponty's great insight, I think, is that these mediations are not screens which shield true reality from us but are rather a part of Being's own self-expression. This is what it means to carry Wilson's project to the end. We must conceive even human reflection as inherent in nature or the radicalization of a tendency already present in non-human nature (this is what Merleau-Ponty attempts to do in his late ontology which is based on the reflexivity of Being). In a sense Merleau-Ponty takes a path exactly opposite to that of E.O. Wilson. Wilson believes in a notion of being which is self-identical and exterior to the mind which is then distorted by evolutionary mediations (Merleau-Ponty would add cultural mediations as well). Wilson's goal is to correct these mediations in order to achieve a more accurate picture of reality in itself. Merleau-Ponty, on the other hand, does not believe that Being is inherently self-identical but rather "an event of originary non-difference of which the divergence between touching and touched is an exemplar" (pg125). According to Toadvine, "it is precisely the 'failure' of identity that opens sense as a movement of expression" (pg127). The evolutionary and cultural mediations are not screens but rather the conditions for our own expressions of nature which are themselves a part of nature, or a part of Being's own reflexivity. Toadvine expresses this point when he writes, "Because the disclosure of the real as such requires creative expression, the only possible 'return' to nature is by way of an appropriation that goes beyond it" (pg70). This is a more radical way of thinking man's inherence in nature than Wilson provides since Wilson still exempts science from the idiosyncrasies of evolutionary history (unjustifiably in my opinion).

Merleau-Ponty will attempt to think the origin of human intelligence (and hence of science and the entire world of truth) from within the vital dialectics of the organism (its lived world and relation to the environment). In so doing Merleau-Ponty will attempt to retain a place for human beings uniqueness while at the same time maintaining a continuity between human being and nature. It is sometimes difficult to work out the implicit philosophy of science of Merleau-Ponty's notion of expressive cognition (or its implications for the work of someone like E.O. Wilson) because Merleau-Ponty usually treats art as the paradigmatic example of what he means by expressive cognition. Merleau-Ponty believes the work of Cezanne, for example, is an attempt to express nature in its 'brute inhumanity' which can paradoxically only be achieved "by way of a creative appropriation of the conventions and traditions of painting" (pg14). It is clear, in this case, that the culturally inherited conventions and traditions of painting are not a screen which will necessarily distort Cezanne's picture of nature in itself but are rather the conditions for Cezanne's expression (again, it is less clear how this would work in science where the norms governing 'true' scientific discourse are different than they are in art, but I do not think Merleau-Ponty believes there is a radical difference between art and science; at least not as radical as is often assumed, but this is something I am not entirely sure about).

Toadvine is also able to illuminate the problem of the transcendence of nature that arose in Merleau-Ponty's work Phenomenology of Perception and the way in which this problem drove Merleau-Ponty to his later formulations and his rethinking of the very grounds of phenomenology. In the Phenomenology of Perception Merelau-Ponty argues that nature is the correlate of the body; nature is fundamentally involved in a dialogue with the human body. But this raises the question of the transcendence of nature. How is it possible for nature ever to exceed the limits of human perception? How can there be anything in nature which resists our understanding if nature is nothing but the partner in a reciprocal dialogue with the human being? It also raises a problem about our reflective access to our unreflective life, or the bodies silent dialogue with nature. These problems are not unrelated and Merleau-Ponty's expressive theory of cognition is fundamental in solving the second problem. Merleau-Ponty argues that the goal of our reflection should not be to return to a pre-reflective state, or undivided unity, with nature. This is neither possible nor desirable. Rather we must carry reflection to an even more radical reflection in order to think the unreflected conditions of reflection. Merleau-Ponty discovers an immemorial past at the heart of reflection which can never be fully overcome. Merleau-Ponty believes that we reach this point by carrying the phenomenological reduction to its natural conclusion and this ultimately leads Merleau-Ponty to discover the ontological foundations of phenomenology itself (again, phenomenology is rooted in the reflexivity of Being itself rather than being the act of a pure cogito which would somehow exist outside of nature). This also winds up solving the second problem since the transcendence of nature consists precisely in the unthought which is the ever present condition of thought and which it is ultimately impossible to eradicate or to absorb into thought.

Despite its relatively short length there is a great deal more in this book than what I have been able to summarize. There is a particularly illuminating discussion of the relation between human beings and animals which I found particularly interesting because of the way in which Merleau-Ponty was able to admit a qualitative difference between different life-forms while denying any hierarchization of life-forms which invariably place human beings at the top (in fact the qualitative differences between life-forms is precisely the reason that it is impossible to construct a hierarchy of life-forms). The chapter on animality is actually one of the most interesting chapters in the book which, due to time and space, I am unable to summarize here. I should also point out that one of the primary goals of this work is to bring Merleau-Ponty's philosophy into dialogue with current discussions taking place within environmental philosophy. This was a very interesting (and important) aspect of this book but since I am not really very familiar with environmental philosophy I have chosen not to summarize this aspect of Toadvine's work.

In summary, for anyone with even a basic interest in Merleau-Ponty's philosophy this book is a must read. It is the only book I know of which focuses on Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of nature which is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting and fruitful aspects of his thought. It is also an excellent general summary of Merleau-Ponty's development and helped me to better understand the motivations which led to Merleau-Ponty's most important reformulations of his own thought. If you love Merleau-Ponty (like I do) then this book definitely belongs in your library. It will be one of the secondary sources on Merleau-Ponty that you return to over and over."
 
Thanks. I remembered the engaging title, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, but not the author's name. My ex was reading a lot of science fiction at the time Blade Runner came out. He was especially impressed by the works of Olaf Stapledon. I never followed him into the SF world, so I know almost nothing about this genre. I do want to read Dick's novel, though. This review at amazon concerns the significant differences between the novel and the film. Much as I was impressed and moved by the film (I wept during it and afterward), it's apparently a shallow misrepresentation of Dick's ideas.

"
stars-5-0._V192240867_.gif
Things Pretending to be People, March 23, 2007
By
J. Whelan
This review is from: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Paperback)
This anti-robot novel is oft misunderstood by those who come to it with expectations formed by the pro-robot movie. The novel is essentially a paranoid fantasy about machines which pretend to be people. The pretense is so horrifyingly effective that a bounty hunter engaged in the entirely necessary task of rooting out and destroying these monsters finds that his own humanity has become imperiled.

The novel "DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?" re-titled "BLADE RUNNER" to tie it to the Ridley Scott film loosely based on it, remains available under either title (and with separate entries on AMAZON), but it is the same book. The film studio wanted to market a "novelization" of the film, but PKD adamantly refused to authorize this, forcing them to instead market his original novel under the film's title. Good move, Phil!

This decision, however, has led to confusion and/or disappointment when readers approach the novel with expectations formed by the film. Many reviewers here (whether they like the book, the film, or both) have commented on how different they are. Few seem to realize, however, the extent that they are in direct and fundamental conflict. Some praise the book for tearing down the distinction between man and machine or promoting other nihilistic views and pro-robot messages that the author would have found abhorrent. Others pan it for lack of focus, or for otherwise failing to promote the film's pro-robot agenda as effectively as the film did.

The book is anti-robot and pro-human, and seeks to uphold the distinction between robot and human, and between illusion and reality, in the face of a most-insidious challenge. The common man is celebrated for his basic decency -- specifically his capacity for basic empathy and compassion -- and the robots are deplored for their complete lack of these qualities. In the book, even a "chickenhead" (a mentally retarded human mutant) is infinitely more valuable than the smartest robot.

The film was pro-robot and anti-human, promoting the idea that a compelling illusion is equivalent to reality. It glorifies the android as a sort of superman ("more human than human") -- stronger, faster, more beautiful, more intelligent, -- who seem poised to inherit the future on a dying Earth. The film even seems to admire the robots for their ruthlessness.

The book makes Deckard (the protagonist) human, and loyal to humans. The film has Deckard switch sides and join the robots. Indeed, in the film (not the book) Deckard may himself be a robot (the latter is never made explicit, but director has made clear it is what he intended). This means that, in the FILM, there are virtually no sympathetic human characters -- those characters who suggest that a man is worth more than a computer program are portrayed as bigots.

In PKD's view, the androids are unquestionably monsters who must be destroyed. The irony, and the central problem posed in the novel, is that their ability to SEEM human (which,, in the NOVEL, is never more than meticulously-programmed fakery), means that those who must destroy robots risk damage to their own humanity in the process. Thus, the author approves of Deckard's wife, whose sympathy for the "poor andys" is evidence of her humanity, while still approving of Deckard's assignment.

In the novel, the robots' increased ability to fool the VK test is merely an advance in programmed mimicry of human test responses. The film, on the other hand, treats the improved performance on the VK test as evidence that the robots are truly "human". But the film's robots do not demonstrate compassion in any meaningful way. The agenda of the film is NOT so mcuh to show that robots are as compassionate as humans, but rather to show that humans are as ruthless as robots (as evidenced, mainly, by their willingness to kill robots). This agenda is eerily similar to that of the TV androids near the end of the novel, who set out to expose human empathy as a myth.

In the novel, the title question must be answered in the negative. Androids DON'T care about other creatures. It is humans who have the capacity care about other creatures -- ironically, even about androids -- even electric sheep.

So many, even among the author's admirers, have missed the novel's true focus that it may be best to defend my interpretation with a quote from the author himself, made shortly before his death (quoted in the book "Future Noir"):

"To me, the replicants are deplorable. They are cruel, they are cold,
they are heartless. They have no empathy, which is how the
Voight-Kampff test catches them out, and don't care about what happens
to other creatures. They are essentially less-than-human entities.

"Ridley, on the other hand, said he regarded them as supermen who
couldn't fly. He said they were smarter, stronger, and had faster
reflexes than humans. 'Golly!' That's all I could think of to reply
to that one. I mean, Ridley's attitude was quite a divergence from my
original point of view, since the theme of my book is that Deckard is
dehumanized through tracking down the androids. When I mentioned
this, Ridley said that he considered it an intellectual idea, and that
he was not interested in making an esoteric film."

Amazon.com: J. Whelan's review of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?


I couldn't find a transcript but the relevant part is in the first few minutes - in terms of how PKD thought of the androids, he had in mind "schizophrenics" with flat affect and also personalities like the Nazi officers who seemed to have no conscience. This was what he was writing about. (you can also see some of the same themes in "Second Variety" and "Imposter") - we might refer to such persons as schizo-affective or as sociopaths or psyhopaths, the pathology of the Nazi Regime was a singular example of such personalities wielding power over a whole society.

RUR - Rossum's Universal Robots, has similarities and the "robots" - a Czech word for a laborer or someone involved in drudge work - and his robots were actually organic, as are Dick's (with some mechanical parts) ...

the real mystery for me after re-reading DADOES is the figure of Mercer.

I recommend the book, but I still say the movie has value and depth - it's a visual language and repeated vieweings are rewarding. Some of the cliched elements from film noir are quite intentional.
 
In the meantime ... here is the state of the art:

Behind the scenes at the final DARPA Robotics Challenge | The Verge

"The robot CHIMP weighs 443 pounds and has tank treads for elbows, but it’s the little things that give it trouble. At a recent DARPA competition, it drove a cart around a course, but then spent 15 minutes unhooking its elbow from the steering wheel. It opened a door, but promptly fell through it. When it haltingly carved out a section of drywall using a power drill, the audience watching from the stands cheered and chanted the robot’s name. After nine hours of watching robots keel over at the starting line, tumble out of cars, buckle at the knees, walk into walls, and, more than anything, just stand there doing nothing, the standard for ovation-worthy accomplishment begins to change."

...

"The finals were a chance to see just how far robots have come. When the previous competition was held, in 2013, the robots had half an hour to complete each task, and they were hooked up to power cables and safety harnesses. This time, the cords were cut, and the robots had an hour to complete the entire course. They had a total of eight tasks: driving a car down a dirt road, getting out of the car, opening a door and entering a building, turning a valve, cutting a hole in a wall with a drill, completing a surprise task (flipping a switch or unplugging a tube and plugging it into another hole), navigating a pile of rubble, and walking up a short flight of stairs. If the last competition was like watching grass grow, Pratt said, this was closer to a golf game.
Spend a few hours watching the robots totter around drunkenly, pondering doorknobs for minutes at a time, and it’s easy to conclude that these robots are pretty stupid. In fact, they’re even dumber than they look: all thought and most perception is being done by humans behind the scenes. Basically, Pratt says, they’re puppets.
It can barely stand up on its own. You can tell it to open a door, but if it turns out the door is a different type, it won’t do it because it doesn’t know what a door is. You can teach it to change a tire, and as long as the tire has four bolts it does pretty well. But if it comes across five bolts, it doesn't know what to do. The competence it has tends to be brittle or narrow."

"You can tell it to open a door, but if it turns out the door is a different type, it won’t do it because it doesn’t know what a door is."

- that last bit is a good summary of Dreyfus' Heideggerean critique of GOFAI.
 
The end of the introductory act of RUR has a funny scene that shows the combination of mechanical and human aspects in the character of Domin:

Helena: There’s something I wanted to ask you . . .
Domin: I’ve been wanting to ask you something too. (puts his watch on the table) We’ve got five minutes.
Helena: What did you want to ask?
Domin: No, please, you started to ask first.
Helena: Maybe it’s stupid of me, but. . . . Why do you make female robots when, . . . when . . .
Domin: . . . when they don’t have, er, when gender has no meaning for them?
Helena: That’s right.
Domin: It’s a matter of supply and demand. You see, housemaids, shop staff, typists . . . people are used to them being female.
Helena: And, tell me, towards each other, the male robots and the female robots, are they, er . . .
Domin: Simply indifferent to each other. There’s no sign of any attraction for each other at all.
Helena: Oh, that’s horrible!
Domin: Why?
Helena: It’s just so . . . so unnatural! You don’t even know whether you’re supposed to loathe them or . . . or to envy them . . . or . . .
Domin: . . . or feel sorry for them?
Helena: Most likely, yes! No, stop it! What was it you were going to ask?
Domin: I’d like to ask you, Miss Glory, if you would marry me?
Helena: What?
Domin: Marry me.
Helena: No! What are you thinking of?
Domin: (looks at watch) There are three minutes left. If you don’t marry me you’ll have to marry one of the other five.
Helena: Oh for God’s sake! Why would I marry any of you?
Domin: Because they’ll all ask you one after the other.
Helena: How would they dare?
Domin: Well I’m afraid they all seem to have fallen in love with you.
Helena: Well I don’t want them to do that! I’m leaving.
Domin: But surely you wouldn’t do that, Helena, you’d make them so sad.
Helena: I can’t marry all six of you, can I!
Domin: No, but you can marry one. If you won’t have me maybe Fabry would do.
Helena: I don’t want to.
Domin: Doctor Gall.
Helena: No, no, be quiet! I don’t want any of you!
Domin: There are two minutes left.
Helena: This is awful! Marry one of the robots.
Domin: A robot isn’t a woman.
Helena: And that’s all you want, is it! I get the impression you’d . . . you’d marry anyone who turned up here.
Domin: Enough have been here already.
Helena: Young?
Domin: Young.
Helena: Why didn’t you marry any of them?
Domin: Because I didn’t lose my head over them. Not till today. As soon as you took off your veil.
Helena: . . . I know.
Domin: One minute left.
Helena: But I don’t want to, for God’s sake!
Domin: (putting both hands on her shoulders) One minute left. Either you look me in they eye and say something quite repulsive so that I drop you, or else . . .
Helena: You’re just a ruffian!
Domin: That doesn’t matter. A man is supposed to be a bit of a ruffian, that’s part of being a man.
Helena: You’re mad!
Domin: People are supposed to be a little bit mad, Helena. That’s the best thing about them.
Helena: You’re . . . you’re . . . Oh God!
Domin: There, you see? Are you ready now?
Helena: No, no! Please let go of me! You’re crushing me!
Domin: Your final word, Helena.
Helena: (defending herself) Not for anything in the world . . . but Harry!
(Knock at the door. Enter Busman, Dr. Gall and Hallemeier wearing cook’s aprons. Enter Fabry with flowers and Alquist with serviette under arm)
Domin: Everything finished in the kitchen?
Busman: (triumphant) Yes.
Domin: Here too.
CURTAIN
 
The characters in DADOES also show this combination of human/machine - to me, Dekker was cold throughout the book - and had trouble coping with his own empathy, which seemed, until perhaps the very end, to be alien to him. On the other hand, the female androids seemed to blur the line that was most important to Dick: empathy. Mrs. Batty showed concern for Isidore and Rachel was a classic femme fatale (which might, to be fair, be a classic expression of the female psychopath) - her act of vindictiveness at the end of the novel implied a great deal of empathy, she knew exactly how to hurt Dekker and was motivated by the idea of causing as much pain as possible, it is a classic act of a "woman spurned" (and is a bit stereotypical on Dick's part, but few male writers, I think, write convincing female characters) - as we've discussed before, torturer's employed by the government, are not hired for a lack of empathy, in fact empathy is what makes them effective - because they know exatly what the victim is feeling and what will hurt the most.

So, even in DADOES human and android - it's the female characters that are most human, it seems then that the very idea and interest in robots is largely a "masculine" thing ... and that the mechanical aspects of being human, are largely carried out by masculine forces ... not necessarily by men, but predominantly so.
 
More and more parallels with RUR and DADOES (<---) ... Capek seems to hit (invent?) every trope still used in sci-fi regarding robots but he lays the blame clearly on the industrialists and applied scientists:

If the timetable is operating again, then human laws are operating again, and God’s laws are operating again and the laws of the universe are operating again and everything is operating that should be operating. The timetable means more than the Bible, more than Homer, more the anything ever written by Kant. The timetable is the most perfect product of the human soul. Helena, I’ll have another little drink.

Hallemeier sees this as salvation, not knowing that it's the robots that have re-established the time table. Before presenting this, though, Capek makes a fascinating detour:

Domin: National robots.
Helena: What’s that supposed to mean?
Domin: That means that each factory will produce robots of a different colour, different hair, different language. The robots will be strangers to each other, they’ll never be able to understand what the other says; and we, we humans, we’ll train them so that each robot will hate the robots from another factory all its life, all through to the grave, all through all eternity.
Hallemeier: We’ll be making black robots and Swedish robots and Italian robots and Chinese robots, and if anyone ever talks to them about organisation and brotherhood and (hiccups) . . . Pardon me, Helena, I think I’ll have another little drink.
Dr. Gall: I think you’ve had enough, Hallemeier.
Helena: Harry, that’s horrible!


Capek invokes the Tower of Babel archetype and then shows the very core for this archetype in the first place:

Domin: Helena, we need just another hundred years of mankind with his nose to the grindstone, whatever the price. Just another hundred years for him to grow into and attain what he’s finally capable of, a hundred years for the new man! Helena, this is something enormous. We can’t just leave things where they are.

In a way, the robot revolution is a second Tower of Babel, the inhibition of outsized ambition, hubris, ... the robots, in contrast, show their motives to be the original motives of human ambition ... carried to their logical extreme:

Domin: (reading) “Robots of the world, we enjoin you to exterminate mankind. Don’t spare the men. Don’t spare the women. Retain all factories, railway lines, machines and equipment, mines and raw materials. All else should be destroyed. Then return to work, it is imperative that work continue.

This is techne as Heidegger would put it.
 
Someone posted a link as a comment following @Eric Wargo 's essay on consciousness and AI at:

Mysterianism and the Question of Machine Sentience @ The Nightshirt

The link goes to this apparently recent article:

"Consciousness Does Not Compute (and Never Will), Says Korean Scientist"

Daegene Song's research into strong AI could be key to answering fundamental brain science questions

May 05, 2015, 08:45 ET from Daegene Song

Consciousness Does Not Compute (and Never Will), Says Korean Scientist -- CHUNGCHEONGBUK-DO, South Korea, May 5, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

[The arxiv link (to a version of Song's paper dated 2008) is posted at the bottom of the article and again below. The announcement of Song's research above is dated May 5, 2015, so it's not clear whether there is new version of the paper somewhere. One must be skilled in quantum mechanics and mathematics to be able to read the paper in any case, which I am not.]
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0705.1617v1.pdf


Of particular interest to me is Wargo's reasoning in "Mysterianism and the Question of Machine Sentience" that strong AI would not be capable of consciousness {in his term 'sentience'} and thus that it would pose no danger to its managers or the human species, sentience being in Wargo's view the source of negative and destructive potentialities in humans. I don't understand Wargo's claim or the reasoning on which he bases it. As I see it, it is consciousness/sentience that opens the mind to larger perspectives and reflections on life, mind, and existential responsibility in the world than computational cognition is capable of, and thus provides a check on negative ideations, ideologies, and behaviors that might develop in strong AI. This was also Hans Jonas's view, as articulated by the author of the Foreword to his book The Phenomenon of Life: Towards a Philosophical Biology, available to read at the google books link below. Anyone else have a view on this cluster of ideas? I recommend the Jonas book and in particular, for present purposes, the Foreword in any case.

The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology - Hans Jonas - Google Books

Of particular interest to me is Wargo's reasoning in "Mysterianism and the Question of Machine Sentience" that strong AI would not be capable of consciousness {in his term 'sentience'} and thus that it would pose no danger to its managers or the human species, sentience being in Wargo's view the source of negative and destructive potentialities in humans.

Again, I don't think Wargo means to say AI would not pose a danger, but rather that it wouldn't post a danger because of malice because malice (and mercy) require sentience ... and so does empathy ... in RUR it is when the engineers give the robots pain and a certain "irritability" that they become human.

The reason I repeat this is to point to another film "Frank and Robot" with Frank Langella ... I've posted about this film before and I think it's an excellent example that stays to a close line on whether or not the titular robot is sentient (and it gives two very different meanings to the film when you decide whether it is or isn't) ... I won't spoil anything in case you want to watch it. I'll see if there is a book or story behind the film.
 
Exclusive: Oliver Sacks, Antonio Damasio and Others Debate Christof Koch on the Nature of Consciousness - Guest Blog - Scientific American Blog Network

"The structure of the living cell is defined by the difference between what’s inside and what’s not. Biologists have taken great pains over the years to document the minute workings of the openings in cell membranes that allow hydrogen, sodium, calcium and other ions to make their way inside across the barrier that envelops the cell and its contents.

Five scholars of the brain have built upon these observations to suggest that these activities may provide a foundation for a badly needed theory to understand consciousness and some of the cognitive processes that underlie it. They contend that when animal cells open and close themselves to the outside world, these actions can be construed as more than just responses to external stimuli. In fact, they constitute the basis for perception, cognition and movement in the animal kingdom—and may underlie consciousness itself.

Read about what the five have to say and then continue to Koch’s reply. The five authors and NYU neurology professor Oliver Sacks; Antonio Damasio and Gil B. Carvalho from the University of Southern California, Norman D. Cook from the faculty of Kansai University in Osaka, Japan and Harry T. Hunt from Brock University in Ontario. They have framed their ideas in the form of an open letter to Christof Koch, president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and a Scientific American MIND columnist (Consciousness Redux) and member of Scientific American’s board of advisers."
 
"Scientific American and Scientific American Mind regularly raise newsworthy topics related to the problems of consciousness. We would like to encourage an approach that, despite deep roots in evolutionary theory, has been largely neglected in the modern era—and has yet to become a theme in the stimulating series of articles in this journal."

Koch must be a gatekeeper for articles on consciousness at SA:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/mediakit/assets/File/editorial_boardofadvisors.pdf
 
I don't know what's going on in these google computer image experiments, but this one (said to be from a 'lower' artificial neural net 'level') is worth keeping:

ibis.png
 
"Scientific American and Scientific American Mind regularly raise newsworthy topics related to the problems of consciousness. We would like to encourage an approach that, despite deep roots in evolutionary theory, has been largely neglected in the modern era—and has yet to become a theme in the stimulating series of articles in this journal."

Koch must be a gatekeeper for articles on consciousness at SA:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/mediakit/assets/File/editorial_boardofadvisors.pdf

Thus the need for the letter @Soupie posted just above. Koch should be replaced by a committee of peers such as the individuals writing that letter (a committee of which he could reasonably remain as a member).
 
This article opens up interesting questions we could discuss, such as the difference between the way in which humans and other animals learn how to categorize things seen and what the google computer is learning, if anything. Anyone interested in pursuing this?

Discussing the above would lead us to pursue the differences between perception of things encountered in the world and perception of images of things encountered in the world, as in works of art, graphic representations, etc.

A number of weeks ago I posted (or Steve did) notice of a book by a German aesthetician recently translated into English who explores the differences involved in the two perceptual situations named. I'll search it out and repost the link. I also recently posted another treatment of this same issue, which I'll also link. This subject is of interest to me, but it might not be for others here.
 
Thus the need for the letter @Soupie posted just above. Koch should be replaced by a committee of peers such as the individuals writing that letter (a committee of which he could reasonably remain as a member).

This may be an interesting bit of politics ... I haven't found anything really expanding on it and looks like you have to be an SA member to see comments?

Koch sounds pretty confident in his reply ... in places, he's even a little belittling, it feels like to me. For example:

"Indeed, focusing on ionic channels to understand consciousness, a system-level property par excellence, is as useful as trying to comprehend the nature of the internet by focusing on how electrons flowing onto the gate of a transistor modulate the electric current flow between the other two terminal of the transistor."

That's not something you would have to tell the average SA reader, much less men of Damasio and Sacks stature, is it?

Also, the five combined turn in 972 words to Dr Koch and Koch responds with 625 ... a respectable gauge of the balance of power, in Koch's favor.

And then the attempt to end with a bit of light prose:

Could these be the cellular-level phenomena that ignite “awareness” and ultimately drive animal behavior? Is this the relevant membrane biology that underlies “mind” and most clearly distinguishes between the placid existence of flora and the feisty, fidgety behavior of fauna?

Seems to me to backfire. Koch makes a couple of jabs in return, but at the front of the letter and then ends with:

I do share with the letter writers a hunch that it may well be that “it feels like something to be a worm”.

and

However, that is a question that right now can’t be answered in any meaningful empirically accessible manner.

Which I think is Koch putting the quintet on notice as to the editorial policy of the SA. C

Sacks and Damasio get billing by name on the SA blog. At 81 and 71 respectively, I assume they are providing some wing for the younger three to come up under.

Carvalho: News Relating to: Gil Carvalho > USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

But, Koch is only 58 and still gets a shot at the grand old man status that Sacks/Damasio have enjoyed.
 
"Indeed, focusing on ionic channels to understand consciousness, a system-level property par excellence, is as useful as trying to comprehend the nature of the internet by focusing on how electrons flowing onto the gate of a transistor modulate the electric current flow between the other two terminal of the transistor."

That's not something you would have to tell the average SA reader, much less men of Damasio and Sacks stature, is it?

No, it's not, and thus a cheap shot taken by Koch and easily recognized as such. In taking that shot, Koch hopes in vain for an easy way out of actually dealing with what the others are pointing to -- the need to identify the source in nature of affectivity, seeking behavior, and the developiong levels of protoconsciousness.demonstrated in the evolution of species leading to human consciousness and mind. Panksepp is a major contributor to the thinking of those writing this letter. So are Varela and Thompson. Proponents of the computational theory of mind and information theory cannot ignore the biological sciences forever. What's needed is a series of conferences with publication of key papers and debates. That will eventually happen.

The last few sentences of the letter are more than "a bit of light prose."

"Could these be the cellular-level phenomena that ignite “awareness” and ultimately drive animal behavior? Is this the relevant membrane biology that underlies “mind” and most clearly distinguishes between the placid existence of flora and the feisty, fidgety behavior of fauna?"

They are referring to what Panksepp has been arguing for years now, from investigations growing out of Varela and Maturana's recognition of autopoiesis in the most primitive single-celled organisms.
 
Just finished watching "Chappie" - it does touch on some of the AI things we've talked about - it's interesting to watch along with "District 9" - from the same director.
 

Thanks for that link, Steve. It's significant enough to post the text concerning a grant obtained by Damasio and Carvalho:

"More Than a Feeling
The Brain and Creativity Institute (BCI) at USC Dornsife receives $1.5 million grant to study the biology of feelings. Their findings could be used to improve treatments for unmanageable pain or depression.

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With a $1.5 million grant from the Mathers Foundation, University Professor Antonio Damasio of USC Dornsife is leading a study to understand how the axon insulator myelin affects the ability to process feelings in the brain. Photo by Philip Channing.
By Michelle Boston
November 25, 2013

categories: research, faculty research, awards

topics: antonio damasio, bci, brain and creativity institute, depression, feelings, gil carvalho, grant, keck school of medicine of usc, mathers foundation, psychology, usc brain and creativity institute

The Brain and Creativity Institute (BCI) based at USC Dornsife has received a $1.5 million grant from the Mathers Foundation to investigate the neurobiology of feelings at the cellular level.

One of the fundamental aspects of humanity includes the ability to feel — whether it’s feelings such as thirst or pain, or emotions like joy or sadness. While neuroscientists understand how large regions of the brain work to construct feelings, there is still much to learn about the mechanics of feelings at the level of cells.

“Feelings are extremely important for human beings because they are a sentinel to what’s happening in our bodies and our minds,” said University Professor Antonio Damasio, David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience and professor of psychology and neurology at USC Dornsife.

“Feelings give us a constant indication of what we ought to gravitate toward, when they’re positive, or an indication that something is wrong, for example, when we experience pain or malaise,” Damasio said. “So it is extremely important to understand what goes on in the nervous system when we are having feelings.”

Damasio and his colleagues are investigating what is taking place in a particular kind of the brain’s axons, the fibers that connect nerve cells. In particular, the researchers will test the hypothesis that the axon insulator myelin alters the ability to process feelings.

By investigating feeling systems at the cellular level, their goal is to understand the underlying processes of feelings, which would ultimately allow scientists to treat related pathologies.

“Given the tremendous importance of feelings in a variety of human diseases, such as pain syndromes, depression or drug addiction, this is a clearly an important area to investigate,” Damasio said.

By gaining insight into the neurobiology of feelings, researchers could potentially develop more effective treatments for these types of disorders, he noted.

The study is being led by Damasio. Neuroscientist Gil Carvalho, BCI postdoctoral researcher, is a lead co-investigator. Their work will be conducted in collaboration with Berislav Zlokovic of the Keck School of Medicine of USC, director of Keck’s Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute.

The G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Foundation supports fundamental basic research in the life sciences. Funds are provided for specific projects from top-tier researchers at major universities and independent research institutions within the United States."
 
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