From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Sun May 23 2004 - 06:46:12 MDT
Hi,
I have read Daniel Dennett's book.
I think "Freedom Evolves" is a better book than "Consciousness
Explained."
In Consciousness Explained, Dennett basically declares that experience
doesn't exist, and dismisses the "hard problem" of
Consciousness without any serious or intelligent discussion.
In Freedom Evolves, on the other hand, Dennett provides a pretty good
analysis of the neuroscience and psychology of free will, excepting of
course those aspects relating to consciousness ;-)
In his discussion of Libet, as I recall, he argues that Libet's results
simply indicate that the experience of free will is something that
occurs over a period of time and space in the brain, rather than being
localized to a single choice-point. He then waves his hands and says
that future research will yield more insight.
OK, fine. But he doesn't really say anything new of substance in the
book(he just dismisses, correctly, a lot of other peoples' illusions);
and in particular, he doesn't address the peculiarity of Libet's finding
that conscious awareness of a stimulus or action tends to follow the
actual stimulus action by about half a second.
-- Ben G
> -----Original Message-----
> From: daniel fogelholm [mailto:daniel.fogelholm@kolumbus.fi]
> Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2004 8:36 AM
> To: Ben Goertzel
> Subject: Re: Volitional Morality and Action Judgement
>
>
> Good day,
>
> I'm not familiar with everything you just brought up, but I
> wonder have you
> read Daniel Dennett's recent analysis of Libet's experiments
> in his book
> 'Freedom Evolves'?
>
> "As I never tire of pointing out, all the work done by the
> imagined homunculus
> in the Cartesian Theater has to be broken up and distributed
> in space and
> time in the brain." - Dennet on page 238
>
> What do you think about Daniel Dennet's approach?
>
> On Sunday 23 May 2004 14:24, Ben Goertzel wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Regarding the relation between consciousness and intelligence, I
> > suggest everyone read Benjamin Libet's outstanding work in the
> > neuroscience domain
> >
> > http://shorterlink.com/?TOD9PD
> >
> > http://www.pdcnet.org/volbrain.html
> >
> > This is the only work I know of that really addresses the
> phenomenon
> > of human consciousness in a rigorous empirical way. It doesn't
> > resolve every question, but it says a lot. The former book in
> > particular is very easy to understand yet amazing in its
> implications.
> >
> > My own essays on free will and consciousness are highly in
> the spirit
> > of Libet's work
> >
> > http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/2004/HardProblem.htm
> >
> > http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/2004/FreeWill.htm
> >
> > Both Libet and I consider subjective experience to be a
> > philosophically separate domain from empirical physical
> dynamics. As
> > noted in my essay, this is in accordance with the ideas of many
> > philosophers such as Charles S. Peirce. We also consider
> subjective
> > experience as something that *naturally emerges* from complex
> > cognitive systems. In this view it is extremely unlikely that it's
> > possible to create a nonsentient general intelligence. But
> of course
> > this can't be rigorously *proven* since we lack a solid theory of
> > either general intelligence or consciousness.
> >
> > According to Libet's experiments, it seems that, for
> instance, when a
> > physical stimulus is received by the skin, it is only consciously
> > perceived about half a second later. The moment of
> perceived stimulus
> > is then "backdated" to the actual time of the stimulus. In
> dynamical
> > systems terms, conscious perception of a stimulus seems to
> involve the
> > formation of some sort of "neural attractor" initiated by
> the actual
> > stimulus (in line with my friend George Christos's notion of
> > "consciousness as an attractor"). This ties in with my theoretical
> > notion that the consciousness possessed by a system is
> connected with
> > the patterns that system has recognized in itself. Apparently, in
> > humans, the pattern-recognition subsystem takes a little while to
> > respond, thus explaining the delay in consciousness. But
> programmed
> > responses to stimuli may happen faster than this, because
> they don't
> > require the creation of attractors embodying perceived
> patterns, they
> > just require charge to flow along existing reflex channels.
> >
> > In my view, so long as a complex cognitive system
> recognizes patterns
> > in itself, it's going to have a subjective experience.
> >
> > I also argue that any complex cognitive system is very
> likely to have
> > some kind of experience of "free will" -- for similar
> reasons. Free
> > will has to do with the relation between choices made by
> unconscious
> > dynamics, and the registration of these choices in the
> mind's "virtual
> > multiverse model" of itself and the world. Any complex mind
> > confronting the world is going to maintain a virtual
> multiverse model,
> > and have an experience of navigating through it. The
> flavor of this
> > experience may be very different for different types of mind of
> > course.
> >
> > Regarding emotion, on the other hand, I have argued that
> digital minds
> > may experience much less emotion than humans, and the
> emotions they do
> > express may be of a very different kind:
> >
> > http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/2004/Emotions.htm
> >
> > So, in my view, what neural and cognitive science suggest
> at present
> > is:
> >
> > 1) AGI's will be conscious
> > 2) AGI's will have some sort of free-will-ish experience,
> but probably
> > with fewer illusions attached to it
> > 3) AGI's will probably have far less intense emotions than
> us, unless
> > they're specifically architected to do so
> >
> > Since our own ethical behavior is closely tied in with our emotions
> > (e.g. love, compassion), and with some of the more illusory
> aspects of
> > our experience of free will and choice, this suggests that the
> > psychology of AGI ethics is going to be rather different than the
> > psychology of human ethics.
> >
> > -- Ben Goertzel
>
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