

Open-Mindedness [video] - brentb
http://www.dailymotion.com/user/totocacapouet/video/x8uei4_openmindedness_tech

======
dasil003
This is pretty solid reasoning and touches on a lot of good points. But just
as there are people who make the close-minded mistakes he cites, there are
also people who are entirely too self-assured in their reliance on scientific
data.

What makes me skeptical of the (overly) scientific mindset is that quality of
life has nothing to do with understanding whatever physical realities we can
ascertain by experiment. I don't think science will ever meet philosophy,
because a scientific theory must be falsifiable, and I don't believe that is a
property of all truth (why should it be?). To the contrary, I think the layers
of human consciousness are far more subjective, subtle and complex than
science will ever be able to tease apart. Furthermore scientific research can
easily makes flip assumptions about the nature of reality without suitable
evidence (eg. that consciousness is a by-product of brain activity). In these
cases Philosophy is much more capable of addressing the issue than Science.

The problem is that we aren't an external observer of a closed system. At some
point everything we think we know boils down to some common-sense assumptions
that are in no way provable. This makes some people deeply uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable enough that they lash out against any form of mysticism or
intuitive knowing. Sure, the world is full of charlatans and scammers, but
then so do we have sham research done on the corporate dime merely to have the
appearance of scientific rigor. It doesn't mean that traditional forms of
understanding and wisdom have no place.

To the contrary, there is a lot of richness to reality that can't be captured
by measurements and control groups. Honestly I don't need to know the
mechanics of every experience in my life. When people say "God told me..." and
you get hung up on the person's beliefs and the definition of God you are
bound to miss the relevant point.

~~~
trapper
Researchers are determining whether consciousness is a by-product of brain
activity. Projects like blue brain aim to make this question something we can
answer.

Can you expand on what assumptions we make that are in no way provable?

~~~
qbit
Can we ever prove that someone or something is conscious and not just
mimicking consciousness extremely well?

~~~
rms
There's no difference.

<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/04/zombies.html>

~~~
dasil003
Great read, but irrelevant. The difficulty here is in determining what it
means to "act conscious". We can agree that consciousness exerts influence on
the world without knowing how to measure that influence exactly.

~~~
trapper
This sounds like mysticism wrapped up in psychology. If there is no measurable
difference between two "beings", one a copy of the other but implemented in
silicon, what would your conclusion be? Surely if consciousness is anything
magical this will be impossible.

~~~
dasil003
That's way off base. You're not understanding my argument. Nobody said
anything about magic.

The point is how can you ever verify that two beings react exactly the same to
all stimuli? How are you determining "no measurable difference"? Setting aside
the fact that silicon is measurably different from neural tissue, you still
aren't any closer to answering the question "does the machine experience
consciousness the same way I do as a result of its function?"

~~~
rms
You're talking about qualia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia>

Let's just pretend that we run all the arguments for and against qualia from
that article against each other and declare us all losers in advance.

------
Hexstream
Wonderful video, however I have a feeling those most likely to benefit from
this video are the least likely to watch it (and with careful attention).

------
Confusion
Some people have a mind that is so open that their brain has fallen out. I
don't know the origins of the citation, but I love it.

~~~
nop
"We should be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brain falls out."
\-- Richard Dawkins

(Hes got various versions attributed to him)

------
swombat
Warning: this is a loud auto-play video.

