I can not prove one way or another that I have free will. I simply go by the assumption that I do because the alternative depresses me.
It would be difficult for humans to be finite state machines because of the theoretical limitations of these machines. As another poster noted, all Turing machines are constrained by the Turing halting problem, and all FSMs can be proven logically equivalent to a Turing machine. The halting problem basically states that a machine of any class is not powerful enough to determine whether an arbitrary program on that machine will halt on a given input. It takes a more powerful machine to solve the halting problem for any given class of machine. Yet, the human brain can solve the halting problem for finite machines, indicating that it is more powerful than a FSM.
Of course this is neither concretely proven nor disproven, and if you can point me to any reading that argues that the human brain is a FSM I would be very interested in seeing it. I have read GEB, as well as some of Hofstadter's other works, but I also like to see other people's perspectives since nobody has all the answers yet.
To consider a computer to truly be conscious, I would expect it to be able to be self-aware, in the sense that it could independently evolve its own programming. Deep Blue was programmed to find chess moves using algorithms that humans have never fully analyzed (because we can't - to examine every permutation of a chess-solving algorithm by hand would take more time than this universe has left). It did the job very well - but could it extend the move selection and prediction algorithms it used, say to make them more efficient or more versatile?
When a program begins to show self-awareness, then it has broken through into conciousness. I know we have written programs that can modify their own programming to a very limited, controlled extent. Take that ability and extend it to the point where the program can apply everything it learns to itself... that is what I meant about a program being able to do more than what it was programmed to do.
The idea that computers will outstrip humans cognitively and spiritually is fascinating... but what concrete evidence do we have that this is even on the horizon? Superintelligent robots and rebellious AIs have been a staple of science fiction for decades, but we are not any closer to realizing these visions than we were in the 1950's.
Yes, we have machines that can process information at very high clock rates. However, we still have only dim guesses at what causes consciousness. We do know that a simple finite state machine doesn't cut it, though. If anything, our studies of the past several decades have shown us how hard it will be to achieve consciousness with our current computer architectures. The fact of the matter is that we have yet to produce a machine that does anything other than what we have explicitly programmed it to do. No glimmers of free will or the existence of a mechanical soul have ever been observed in a human creation.
I too would love to attend this conference... even though I think that if we look back on it 30 years from now, we will marvel at how far off the mark we are today. If we sent our current computing technology back to the 1950's, scientists of the time would be astonished at what we have accomplished, and they would also be astonished that we are no closer to creating intelligent machines than they were, since they thought that all that was necessary was a fast enough processor and enough memory.
Similarly, I think that scientists of today fundamentally misunderstand what is involved in creating consciousness and spirituality. Speculating on whether computers will soon outstrip us in these areas is fun, and will hopefully further the development of our current technology. The reality of what we discover and what we achieve will be so far away from our speculations, though, that taking this speculation too far is a moot point. I would really like to see a conference that approaches this issue from a technological standpoint, concentrating on what we can actually do today and what we think will actually be possible in the next 10 years. That way the moral debate will stay somewhat grounded in reality, rather than flying into realms of science fantasy that have yielded no fruit in half a century.
One of the past winners of this prize, Charles Colson, really makes me wonder what the criteria are to receive it. Colson was one of Nixon's major hatchetmen during the portion of his administration when the felonies that later ended Nixon's presidency took place. By all accounts, he was a vicious individual. During his prison sentence he supposedly received a revelation and thus began his new career as a fundamentalist Christian. But all of his religious writings and newspaper columns that I have read paint him a a person filled with hate and condemnation. He definitely does not epitomize the better side of religion.
I can only hope that Colson was awarded this prize because of his public visibility and his popularity among a certain portion of people, and not for his views. To place him in the same category as Mother Teresa is almost surreal.
Dyson opines that "In this country, churches are the organizations that hold the community together" but that has never been true anywhere that I have ever lived. Maybe in other, less urban parts of the country, and maybe among a different generation, this is true. Dyson's views are really out of step with most of the country, especially younger people today. Even regular churchgoers in my acquaintance consider their church only one community to which they belong... they do not consider the church to represent the entire community.
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I can not prove one way or another that I have free will. I simply go by the assumption that I do because the alternative depresses me.
It would be difficult for humans to be finite state machines because of the theoretical limitations of these machines. As another poster noted, all Turing machines are constrained by the Turing halting problem, and all FSMs can be proven logically equivalent to a Turing machine. The halting problem basically states that a machine of any class is not powerful enough to determine whether an arbitrary program on that machine will halt on a given input. It takes a more powerful machine to solve the halting problem for any given class of machine. Yet, the human brain can solve the halting problem for finite machines, indicating that it is more powerful than a FSM.
Of course this is neither concretely proven nor disproven, and if you can point me to any reading that argues that the human brain is a FSM I would be very interested in seeing it. I have read GEB, as well as some of Hofstadter's other works, but I also like to see other people's perspectives since nobody has all the answers yet.
To consider a computer to truly be conscious, I would expect it to be able to be self-aware, in the sense that it could independently evolve its own programming. Deep Blue was programmed to find chess moves using algorithms that humans have never fully analyzed (because we can't - to examine every permutation of a chess-solving algorithm by hand would take more time than this universe has left). It did the job very well - but could it extend the move selection and prediction algorithms it used, say to make them more efficient or more versatile?
When a program begins to show self-awareness, then it has broken through into conciousness. I know we have written programs that can modify their own programming to a very limited, controlled extent. Take that ability and extend it to the point where the program can apply everything it learns to itself... that is what I meant about a program being able to do more than what it was programmed to do.
The idea that computers will outstrip humans cognitively and spiritually is fascinating... but what concrete evidence do we have that this is even on the horizon? Superintelligent robots and rebellious AIs have been a staple of science fiction for decades, but we are not any closer to realizing these visions than we were in the 1950's.
Yes, we have machines that can process information at very high clock rates. However, we still have only dim guesses at what causes consciousness. We do know that a simple finite state machine doesn't cut it, though. If anything, our studies of the past several decades have shown us how hard it will be to achieve consciousness with our current computer architectures. The fact of the matter is that we have yet to produce a machine that does anything other than what we have explicitly programmed it to do. No glimmers of free will or the existence of a mechanical soul have ever been observed in a human creation.
I too would love to attend this conference... even though I think that if we look back on it 30 years from now, we will marvel at how far off the mark we are today. If we sent our current computing technology back to the 1950's, scientists of the time would be astonished at what we have accomplished, and they would also be astonished that we are no closer to creating intelligent machines than they were, since they thought that all that was necessary was a fast enough processor and enough memory.
Similarly, I think that scientists of today fundamentally misunderstand what is involved in creating consciousness and spirituality. Speculating on whether computers will soon outstrip us in these areas is fun, and will hopefully further the development of our current technology. The reality of what we discover and what we achieve will be so far away from our speculations, though, that taking this speculation too far is a moot point. I would really like to see a conference that approaches this issue from a technological standpoint, concentrating on what we can actually do today and what we think will actually be possible in the next 10 years. That way the moral debate will stay somewhat grounded in reality, rather than flying into realms of science fantasy that have yielded no fruit in half a century.
One of the past winners of this prize, Charles Colson, really makes me wonder what the criteria are to receive it. Colson was one of Nixon's major hatchetmen during the portion of his administration when the felonies that later ended Nixon's presidency took place. By all accounts, he was a vicious individual. During his prison sentence he supposedly received a revelation and thus began his new career as a fundamentalist Christian. But all of his religious writings and newspaper columns that I have read paint him a a person filled with hate and condemnation. He definitely does not epitomize the better side of religion.
I can only hope that Colson was awarded this prize because of his public visibility and his popularity among a certain portion of people, and not for his views. To place him in the same category as Mother Teresa is almost surreal.
Dyson opines that "In this country, churches are the organizations that hold the community together" but that has never been true anywhere that I have ever lived. Maybe in other, less urban parts of the country, and maybe among a different generation, this is true. Dyson's views are really out of step with most of the country, especially younger people today. Even regular churchgoers in my acquaintance consider their church only one community to which they belong... they do not consider the church to represent the entire community.