quote:Not in America, no. But more seriously, the test is not intended as a least bound; if you can do research, you are definitely sentient; it may be possible to be sentient without the ability to do research.
Originally posted by fugu13:
KoM: people generally aren't conscious until they've at least finished high school?
quote:Having taught high school for many years, I think it is safe to say that as a general rule, no. There are some exceptions.
Originally posted by fugu13:
KoM: people generally aren't conscious until they've at least finished high school?
quote:Simple Betrayal written by BRUTUS.1 which was, in turn, written by Selmer Bringsjord and others.
Originally posted by King of Men:
A good test of consciousness, I think, is the ability to write an original novel or to do graduate-level research in a hard science. Of course, somebody is no doubt going to prove me wrong by writing a novel-generating program in fifty lines of Lisp and put OSC out of business.
quote:No it wouldn't. Effects can have multiple causes. Both the soul and genetics could be relevant to consciousness. The presence of one doesn't necessarily mean the other is irrelevant.
In other words, it would imply that the genetic code of the fetus is irrelevant to consciousness, because if it was relevant then that would mean that there is a natural cause of consciousness.
quote:Extrapolations of this kind are essentially worthless. As an example, I point to you my flying car, which became common and affordable back in the 70s.
Software emulation of the human brain should be possible by 2030 on a $1000 computer.
quote:I don't like the term sentient either, because it literally means "feeling", and thus applies to your dog as well.
I don't like the term conscious. At least as commonly used, my dog is conscious. Sentient is a more common term for what is being talked about, I think.
quote:Please... false analogy. The growth of computing power has been extremely consistent over the past decades. The flying car prediction was not based off of any established trends.
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:Extrapolations of this kind are essentially worthless. As an example, I point to you my flying car, which became common and affordable back in the 70s.
Software emulation of the human brain should be possible by 2030 on a $1000 computer.
code:That's roughly 10 bytes per neuron. Then to simulate the brain, you need 10^12 bytes of memory just to store the neurons. 1 terabytes of RAM, in other words. In addition to this comes all the modelling of the chemicals and whatever other things influence brain function. Let's call it 10 terabytes all told. Even with Moore's law working full clip, that's quite a bit of memory. Then, of course, you're going to have to have a CPU that can manipulate all these structs at some reasonable speed.struct neuron {
int exciteLevel;
neuron** connections;
};
quote:I know that there is a supercomputer in existence that has 6 terabytes of memory, so the 10 terabyte requirement is very achievable. Desktop computers (assuming that we'll still be using them) still have a ways to go though.
Originally posted by King of Men:
That's roughly 10 bytes per neuron. Then to simulate the brain, you need 10^12 bytes of memory just to store the neurons. 1 terabytes of RAM, in other words. In addition to this comes all the modelling of the chemicals and whatever other things influence brain function. Let's call it 10 terabytes all told. Even with Moore's law working full clip, that's quite a bit of memory.
quote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that transistor growth had pretty much outstripped the ability to design faster computers. So basically, we had the ability to add a lot more transistors on a chip, but they would get more power out of using those transistors for a two core chip than they would by trying to make a faster single core chip.
Originally posted by Zhil:
Moore's law has been "slowing down" for a couple of years now, which is one of the reasons why dual-core and quad-core are all the rage in computing nowadays. [edit: Especially in super computer and networking systems. Dual and quad core stuff is relatively new in personal computers, but they've been used in the bigger systems for a long time.]
quote:I remember about ten years ago reading that this would happen within a few years. It doesn't seem to have.
It's going to get into the quantum level soon, and that's bad news for traditional transistors. Weird stuff happen thar.
quote:Don't be like the guy praying to be rescued from the flood who keeps turning boats down because he's waiting for God to rescue him and finally God says "What else do you want? I sent three boats!"
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
Nah. I'll wait.
quote:Depends... you think the brain is 32-bit or 64-bit addressing?
Originally posted by King of Men:code:That's roughly 10 bytes per neuron...struct neuron {
int exciteLevel;
neuron** connections;
};
quote:If consciousness is an emergent property of a particularly complex physical structure, then I don't see why it could not, in principal, be created artificially if technology ever allows that structure to be replicated artificially.
I don't think we can make conscious machines because I don't see how the concept of consciousness can be reduced to anything replicable (or anything else).
quote:That's why I specified 'bytes', meaning 'one address' rather than a specific number of bits. Although, in fact, with 32-bit bytes you couldn't address that many structs anyway.
Originally posted by Nighthawk:
quote:Depends... you think the brain is 32-bit or 64-bit addressing?
Originally posted by King of Men:code:That's roughly 10 bytes per neuron...struct neuron {
int exciteLevel;
neuron** connections;
};
quote:Not sure what you mean by "That's why I specified 'bytes', meaning 'one address' rather than a specific number of bits." A byte is 8 bits for all intensive purposes and there is no reason for that to change.
Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:That's why I specified 'bytes', meaning 'one address' rather than a specific number of bits. Although, in fact, with 32-bit bytes you couldn't address that many structs anyway.
Originally posted by Nighthawk:
quote:Depends... you think the brain is 32-bit or 64-bit addressing?
Originally posted by King of Men:code:That's roughly 10 bytes per neuron...struct neuron {
int exciteLevel;
neuron** connections;
};
quote:If something occurs that violates the laws of our universe then it is a supernatural event.
Originally posted by Qaz:
I don't think we can make conscious machines because I don't see how the concept of consciousness can be reduced to anything replicable (or anything else). This is not a supernatural argument, surely. I am not sure if it leads to supernature -- I don't see how -- but surely we should go where reason takes us. There are other things humanity can never create: everything that predates humanity (unless time travel is possible); pi; energy (as opposed to merely changing its form).
quote:The "connections" object is a pointer, and depending on the memory addressing model, that pointer will be a 32-bit or a 64-bit address. That's why 32-bit systems can only access 4Gb of memory (2^32, or 4,294,967,296 bytes).
Originally posted by King of Men:
As far as I'm concerned, a byte is one machine address, whatever size that is.
quote:I do know that, yes. Actually 'connections' is an array of pointers, and will therefore take up 64 bits times the average number of connections. Let's think in bits from now on, then, as we apparently do not agree on definitions.
Originally posted by Nighthawk:
[QB] The "connections" object is a pointer, and depending on the memory addressing model, that pointer will be a 32-bit or a 64-bit address. That's why 32-bit systems can only access 4Gb of memory (2^32, or 4,294,967,296 bytes).
quote:Depends. Is it combustible?
Would a conscious human-manufactured machine be distinguishable from an organic being?