Of Dennett and Dogen, Stupas and Stones (Why I'm Ordaining an A.I. - 3rd in a Series)

[Kaitan]

I was thinking about the ancient technology of writing since after its introduction it took centuries to be implemented in all areas of life, at first it was only used for administration purposes. I cannot imagine the reaction of the first people seeing the habit of writing for the first time and observing its effects. Buddhism and religions in general started as orally transmitted and took also centuries for writing to be implemented and accepted, let alone texts being printed by machines. It would be fascinating to see how AI is implemented in Buddhism, but I'm pretty sure it will remain as a tool rather than a substitute of a teacher as it is projected. It may appear to be legit and convincing, but it is just like a good rhetorical discourse.

Gassho

stlah, Kaitan

[Hoseki]

I think I may have been too quick in one of my former responses. I hadn't read the entire MIT article when I responded.

Very interesting article by the way!

I like the fact that they acknowledge that if an AI could look out at the world from its own personal perspective and not simply processing inputs, then it can in theory, suffer.

There's also such a mess of terms when it comes to The study of consciousness. In my mind sentience was of a lower order than consciousness. Ants have positive and negative experiences and so could be considered sentient. I think it's also important to distinguish the difference between consciousness and self-consciousness. Being able to perceive stuff is different from being reflexive about it.

I remember in some courses I took on cognitive ethology a particular experiment where they put a red dot on the forehead of various animals and then showed them a mirror. Certain animals looked in the mirror and did absolutely nothing. Other animals tried to rub the spot off. So I think it's fair to say that consciousness is not a now you have it, now you don't situation. Like many things, it's a continuum.

The article stated “being self-aware means not only having an experience but also knowing that you are having an experience”. But I know so many people who don't know that they're having experiences. So who's conscious now (I think that was kind of Dennett's point.)

What are they going to do if they find out that consciousness isn't limited to the boundaries of the brain. But wait isn't that kind of what we found out with Schrodinger's cat?

_/\_

sat / lah

Matt

Hey Matt,

I just wanted to chime in on the forehead experiment. One thing to keep in mind is that the mirror test probably isn't approprate for animals that don't have vision as their primary sense. Maybe a dog's self concept is smell based

Gassho,

Hoseki
sattoday/lah

[Matt Johnson]

Hey Matt,

I just wanted to chime in on the forehead experiment. One thing to keep in mind is that the mirror test probably isn't approprate for animals that don't have vision as their primary sense. Maybe a dog's self concept is smell based

Gassho,

Hoseki
sattoday/lah

Well hello fellow Canadian! East coaster on top of that

Yes the experiment was definitely biased to particular animals and I think the ones which responded with a sense of a localized "self" were dolphins (cetaceans), primates and some other interesting ones... Ill go looking for the paper, though its probably pretty dated now.

For many years the reigning view was Descartian, where it was reasoned if it couldn't communicate with language then it couldn't be conscious (which is obviously crap!) "I think therefore I am"... Dont stop thinking!... you might die LoL.

_/\_

sat/lah

Matt