You keep doing that!!! I was just in here reading and chuckling, and then went to reply and there you were!!!!

boo

Come on Michael, it's not about ego at all. Why do you always have to bring ego into it?

You're trying to claim that there is an absolute difference between a biological thinking machine versus a non-biological thinking machine. But you can't explain why that must be so.

What does that have to do with ego?

In your other thread you posted the following,... I think I need to say something about this.



I'm in complete agreement with you here Michael. I agree that you appear to have a very well-organized construct for what intuitively needs to be accomplished to create a sentient being. In fact, in the other thread I even went on to show how I would use this very outline to built a sentient android. I wasn't kidding either. This outline is a perfect outline.

I'm dead serious too Michael. If the government (or whomever) were to set me up to oversee a multi-billion dollar project to build a sentient robot, and you walked in the door with this outline of what we need to accomplish to create the robot. I would take one look at this outline and say to you, "Your hired". This is exactly what we need to do.

I'm mean you're right on the money here. I don't disagree with you on this at all. Not one iota.

The only difference between us is that I believe we could build the android to satisfy these requirements and you don't.

For that reason alone I'd have to ask that you not be on the project. That last thing I would need would be to have people working on the project who don't even believe that it's possible. Other than that, I'm in 100% agreement with your basic outline.

You refuse to believe that computers can even do the first step.

As far as I'm concerned you're requiring that sentience be innate before the project even gets underway. But that denies the need for the rest of your list. If you already need to have a sentient being before you start out then what are you really doing? You're not building a sentient being at all, all you would be doing is giving a preexisting sentient being more capabilities.

In other words, you're demanding that we start with a 'soul' and that we just give that 'soul' some capabilities.

But doesn't that defeat your whole claim? Isn't that what I've been saying all along? That we need an underlying spiritual essence?

I do believe that there is an underlying spiritual essence to life Michael.

What I confess is that I don't know how it interfaces with the physical world.

Does it interface via a special pineal gland that Jeannie mentioned?

Or it is an automatic sentience that comes to any sufficently complex physical machine that is capable of collecting and processing stimuli in specific ways?

I don't know the answer to that question. I wish I did know the answer to that question.

You seem to be claiming that you do know the answer to that question.

Yet there is an irony in your claim. You seem to be claiming that an 'innate soul' is required. Yet at the same time you have claimed that the idea of thought or sentience is meaningless if there isn't a physical brain to do the thinking.

I seriously don't see where you have made any progress on this extremely ancient dilemma.

I would at least be willing to try to build the android, if only to see if the question could be answered.

You seem to be just looking at animals, and looking at computers (as you think of them) and then saying, "Oh well, clearly animals have a will and computers don't".

But like Jeannie says, that's like standing on the White Cliffs shouting the obvious.

Do you seriously think this doesn't appear to be intuitively obvious to everyone?

The real question is whether what appears to be intuitively obvious is actually true.

Until you can give a logical explanation of why it must be true, then all you are doing is shouting the obvious.

If this fact bruises your ego, all I can do is apologize. Although I'm not sure why I should need to? I shouldn't need to apologize for pointing out to you that you haven't given any evidence for your claims.

If you had any evidence (or sound reasoning for your claims) I would be very interesting in hearing it. But so far everything you've claimed has amounted to nothing more than shouting what appears to everyone else as the intuitively obvious but can't be proven.

I think we're all with you on that boat.

But that's not a logical rock that you can build upon. It's a very unstable lily pad. Put too much on top of it and it sinks. It's an unproven intuitive guess is all it is.

Yet, you seem to be trying to assert it as a fact.

ok - i missed the boat...
who changed the boat?

i believe machines can think. but i also believe we
are machines. my thinking is loose. i'm generally kinda loose.

Sarcasm is just one of my many talents.

I confess, I totally plagiarized that statement.

I learned from one of the best plagiarizers of all time... Paul Twitchell founder of Eckankar, the religion of light and sound. He actually compiled a lot of awesome and enlightening spiritual information, but very little of it was his own writing.

I just thought it fit perfectly. Creative does state the obvious and he thinks he's won some argument.

Then when we tell him this, he starts bringing "ego" into it. I wonder if his own ego is not involved in this kind of reaction.

I would like you, Creative, to answer this one simple question:

Does a sentient body or being, have to have a spiritual connection or a soul first or does a soul arise out of the body parts?

If a soul arises out of the body parts, then an advanced futuristic andriod could possibly become sentient and develop a soul or spiritual connection to god.

If not, then there must be an ability to perceive and be aware apart from the physical construct... such as the soul or spirit.

JB

I would love to know what your purpose is.

If you need to start out with the premise that only biological creatures can be sentient, then why not just state that as a "What if" scenio and go on to explain you "purpose".

What are you ulimately trying to get at?

From our perspective the only thing you seem to be trying to assert is that your premise it TRUE.

You sound like a broken record.

We ask,... Why can't a computer perceieve?

You say,... Because they can't.

We ask,... Why can't they?

You say,... Becasue they can't.

We ask,... But why not?

You say,... Because they just can't.

Then we say,... you sound like a broken record.

You say,... Well if you're going to get egotistical about it I'm not going to discuss this anymore.

Discuss what? All you're trying to do is make an assertion without giving any reason why it has to be true!



This is a good question Michael,...

Because this is all you seem to be saying.

You seem to be saying that only things that already have souls can ever have a soul.

In the case I'm using the term 'soul' to simply mean a 'feeling center' or a 'center of will'.

You seem to be saying that a 'center of will' must exist before you can "build" a sentient being.

In other words, you seem to be saying that if someone gives you a sentient 'soul' you can build a sentient being from it.

But isn't that a bit redundant?

Thus something VIVDID like suggesting that you appear to standing on the White Cliffs screaming the obvious is in order.

What do you have other than an unsupported assertion?

This is like a religious person saying, "God exists because he does".

Ok. Fine.

NEXT!

I mean, after all, you're the one who claims to be able to support your assertions using reason and logic. But no such reason or logic appears to be forthcoming.

You don't sound any different from a religous person who's just asserting that God must exist because he does. And then refusing to give a logical reason for the assertion.

In 2000 and i do not know why or maybe it is,i do not know. Edigital corporation reported they had developed a computer that would greet you when you turned it on. It would then respond to you by the mood you were in. I guess it was by how and what you were typing or web sites you would go to. Anyway they claimed then this computer was already had been made and showed a willingness to act as if you were talking with a human. Anyone ever heard of this? or seen one of these computers?..Miles

1 thing i do remember. Is one of the developers of this computer got picked up by Google as a VP of one of thier Divisions.. I wonder if google has any of this technology?

Can computers purposefully go against their programming?

James,

As a result of my respect towards you, I feel that I should respond to a few things which you brought forth. I do not wish to copy everything, as you tend to give lengthy posts at times.

First of all, I could not possibly deny that a computer can indeed be able to perceive, according to the vagueness within the definition that I have been using. It really matters not though, because we both know that they do not truly perceive.

Therefore, the stance that you take against the notion that a computer cannot perceive leads one to believe that you think that they can.

If your intent was to be of assistance to me in my pursuit, as it has been so many other times in the past, then it sure has not seemed that way.

You and I have never had a disrespectful nature towards one another, and I have sensed a big difference in your perspective towards and of me.

You said it correctly before when you stated that you thought that you knew me better than that.

I thought that you did also. Evidently not?

I bring up ego, because of the personal stance combined with the repeated misquoting, and misappropriations.

When one is looking at a reflection from another about one's self, and that reflection is contorted beyond recognition, then the true source of the reflection is s/he who is holding the mirror.

Just because one thinks that another's behaviour(s) and/or words means something in particular does not make that other person's reasoning for the behaviour(s) equal to what one thought that they recognized in those behaviours.

This has been the case.

A reflection through you about me that is not of me.

What is in the way of your recognition of this?

Hopefully not.

However if the programmer programs the computer to have free will then the computer can have free will without going against its programming.

Programming a computer to have free will is easy.

The question then becomes,... will it make good free will choices on its own?

Well, you could ask the same thing of a human.

Do humans make good free will choices?

What constitutes a good free will choice?

Can a computer make a good free will choice?

Well, that all depends on who it had for a programmer (a mentor).

Not really much different from a human eh?

What do think schools are for? They're just programming sessions for humans.

Oh yeah,

Thank you for your overly generous assessment of the requirements construct.

That was actually an inaccurate copy of the rough draft... the differences were minute.

Although, I have since recognized several huge voids in the construct.

You helped me to see the ambiguity in the definition of perception needed to be more concise. I should have just acknowledged that, instead of continuing on as though I had not.

My apologies.

It began as a way to show why and how perception is required for awareness, and has since been placed on a shelf, though it may have some potential for something else later.

James,

If you can program a computer to have free will, then you, my friend would be the one with the nobel prize.

Free will does not exist.

To choose better, one must know of better.

I'm only using the term 'Free Will" here to mean the freedom to not have to stick to a rigid program. That was the question.

That's hardly nobel prize material. Robot enthusiasts do it all the time.

Their robots just make really stupid free will choices.

Not enough complexity yet.

Either that or they are just bad 'free-will' programmers.

According to you even humans don't have free will.

So I'm not even sure what you mean by the term.

Most people believe that humans do have free will.

That's the other thing too.

I'm in complete agreement that there cannot be absolute free will because free will must also be confined by the choices and knowlege available.

Within that limitation I can program (and any savvy comptuer programmer) can program a computer to have free will choice within the capablities of that machine.

For example, even humans don't have the free will to sprout wings and fly.

All free will is restrained by what's possible and by the data base of knowledge that is available.

Computers are not differnent. They can only be given as much free will as their physical capablities allow for.

I would like to see an example of a computer purposefully going against what it had been programmed to do.

Could you explain such a thing for me?