We can (if we are honest) observe that progress, and the potential it unleashes in many cases, is not all that closely linked with what’s commercially available or common around the time of the fundamental invention. In the first decade after lasers were invented, for instance, there was no significant commercial application. When the integrated circuit was invented, it wasn’t much to look at and functionally speaking, for decades, it was outright pitiful compared to ICs today. We’re still dealing with developing a full understanding of how neurons do what they do. In laser parlance, in 2017 we are yet pre-laser, and in my opinion, anyone who tries to tell us that lasers, figuratively speaking, can’t do X at this point should be considered, at most, a hand-waver in the grips of a fit of profound hubris.
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Posts Tagged consciousness
On the likely inevitability of AI and AC
2017 Apr
2017
30
AI vs. LDNLS
2016 May
2016
5
Low Dimensional Neural-Like Systems — LDNLS. LDNLS is epitomized by NN (Neural Net) and/or algorithmic solutions which solve only extremely narrow, but often deep, problems such as play go; guide a vehicle in well-constrained environments; play chess; recognize speech; colorize images and so on. I coined the terminology LDNLS specifically to serve as a way to draw a very specific, very important distinction that illustrates what intelligence is not.
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Consciousness: on the Nature of the Inherently Inexplicable
2015 Oct
2015
17
In this essay I will describe my take on what consciousness is, and by process of elimination, what it is not. To further an understanding of my ideas on the matter, I’m going to briefly describe the nature of some software to you. It is not artificial intelligence software. Even so, there is a notable, relevant thing that happens to the user’s perception of this software when it is being executed by a computer. I very strongly suspect that this parallel points precisely to the absolute nature of consciousness.
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A Theory of Mind
2014 Nov
2014
3
Consciousness and the mechanism of thinking in general have remained an opaque block to science overall and specifically to researchers in the area. Here I attempt to lay out the fundamental underpinnings that support consciousness, as well as other related mental activity, and then place consciousness and related function into the context so established. I make a concerted effort not to lapse into jargon.
As it turns out, “Theory of Mind” has some previous associations, so please note it was only intended as a description of the content here, not a declaration of association with these ideas.
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I will present a description of how the brain operates. Not a metaphor — metaphors tell you what things are like, not what they are — but my conclusion as to how the brain, and therefore the mind, actually works.
I’m working backwards on this, as are we all — but after almost forty years of examining the problem I have come up with a model that has turned out to satisfy every question that I have about thought and consciousness in what I can only describe as a manner satisfactory to myself. Which is, I think, in itself notable. If for no other reason than everything I have ever come up with previously, or read about, has utterly failed to do this. So, dear reader, please come along as I try to explain myself. Literally.
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