Just as a child learns by growth can’t machines develop human features by technological growth?

Anwser Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
the question is a child can learn a phenomenal amount of things by gradual growth and we see that machines today have a extraordinary capacity for processing information so in future it may well be possible that machines may be able to come to the develop the features of life and consciousness is that the question? ok yes certainly the kind of features that machines have developed they are remarkable in fact what to speak of developing features similar to humans in terms of number processing or calculating or even recollecting many machines have now exceeded human capacity so if we are considering mechanical processing of information machines have already exceeded humans the key question is not whether machines can do what humans can do in terms of information processing the key question is what does the information mean this is called in philosophy as the hard problem of consciousness the hard problem of consciousness means I’ll give a simple experiment to a simple example about 15 to 20 years ago was the first time that a computer defeated a reigning world champion world chess champion Garry Kasparov was defeated by a computer named Deep Blue and that came all over the world newspapers and they showed the picture of Kasparov holding his head to be defeated by a machine he was devastated the makers of Deep Blue were delighted about the computer that they had made but what was Deep Blue’s reaction Deep Blue itself had no reaction Deep Blue had gone through all the processes of making the right moves and leading to a checkmate but it had no experiences at all if we know about the history of the development of devices now we have very sophisticated computers which can do incredible amount of number crunching but they all started the essential principle is the same as the principle of an abacus an abacus is a device which is used in primitive times to calculate so basically no matter how sophisticated a computer may be ultimately it does nothing except changing the states in certain memory areas from 0 to 1 now it changes those states so fast at such an incredible level of precision that phenomenal amount of work can be done by it in terms of information processing but the point is in many ways the digital circuitry of a computer and the neural circuitry of the brain in content they are different but in effect they are the same, the neural circuitry of the brain does some processing of information the digital circuitry of the computer does some processing of information and the digital circuitry of the brain of the machine can do almost all the processing that in terms of information processing the neural circuitry can do and can do it better so the digital circuitry despite doing it all it has no emotions.
It has no consciousness. It has no experience. So the question comes up, why do we have consciousness? Why do we have experience? Why, if life were all about information processing, then a computer can do all kinds of information processing without any consciousness.
Why do we need to have consciousness at all? So the more technology advances, the more the devices become more and more precise and phenomenal at information processing. The difference between information processing and the meaning of that information, what it means to us. Now Deep Blue went through all the motions of a chess game, but it did not experience any emotions.
We go through the moves of a chess game, but we experience. What we experience is, we experience excitement, we experience elation if we win, we experience exasperation if we lose, we experience puzzlement if we are not able to come up with some right move. So it is not just the mechanical processing of the data, it is the experience of that processing, that is the question.
So when we talk about artificial intelligence systems being developed by computers, yes, computers can do more and more and they will keep doing more and more. But the point is that what they are doing more is processing information. There is no question even asked over there about how this, how or why there is an experience of the emotions and who is the experiencer? What is the need for that experiencer to be present? Where is the experiencer present? So experience is a fundamental reality for all of us, but where does the experience happen, why does the experience happen? So experience is as different from information processing as time is from the hands of a clock.
The hands of a clock, they are correlated with time. If a student is giving an exam and a student finds time is running out, so the student may pick up a stone and throw it at the clock in the exam room, the clock will break. Now if the clock breaks, that does not mean time breaks down.
There is definitely some correlation between time and the clock, but the clock is simply a means to measure and display time. But the clock, but the time itself is a different concept. So like that, the brain or a computer, they are tools for information processing.
But who is the processor of that information? Who is the experiencer of the processed emotions? So to give another example of this, say right now, say somebody sends me a chit, and that chit says, you are a fool. Now if I consider you are a fool, this is simply patterns of black ink on white paper. They are simply, now the paper itself does not feel angry, paper does not feel sarcastic, paper does not feel critical.
It is simply patterns of ink on the on the paper. Now instead of giving, nowadays we have digital age, now that same message can come on say YouTube live to me, you are a fool. Now when that is coming on a computer, the computer is conveying that message, but the computer does not experience anything.
Now take this thing forward, actually that letters, you are a fool, I read them, the data goes through my eyes, through my optic nerves, through the optic area of the brain, and a particular correlation of neurochemical states in the various brain cells have, which say hypothetically speaking, which correlate with the information over here, you are a fool. So that registers in my brain, in terms of a particular brain cells in the brain getting changed. But that also is basically a pattern of chemicals.
Here we had a pattern of ink, and there there is a pattern of chemicals. But who is it that is experiencing that pattern of chemicals? What does that mean to me? Who is it that it means something to? Just as the paper does not experience any emotion, when an abusive message or a critical message comes through it, similarly the brain itself is also another medium, much more subtle, much more sophisticated, which is simply a conveyor of information. But who is the experiencer of the information? So, they are two qualitatively different things that what machines can do and what machines will do is they will process information with phenomenal precision and speed, and they will do it often better than what humans can do.
But we are not talking about processing of information, we are talking about the experiencing of information. That is something which requires a non-material experiencer. So, the more machines advance, the more actually the distance between information processing and experiencing that becomes more and more apparent.
And that is why the premise is wrong. Now, it is Blaise Pascal, he said that suppose a person has lived always in dark and then that person suddenly comes to a room where there is light. And then the person asks, oh, how did this darkness produce light? Now, from that person’s experience perspective, there was darkness and now there is light.
So, where did light come from darkness? But the reality is light did not come from darkness, that actually darkness is the absence of light. So, what happens when we go from, when we start from machines instead of from humans, we start from machines and then more and more machines are being developed. We are starting from information processing and getting impressed by the capacity for information processing.
But actually, we cannot even appreciate the processing of information unless there is consciousness. So, consciousness does not come from the processing of matter or even impressive processing of matter. It is consciousness that is the fundamental reality that enables us to perceive that this processing of information is impressive.
So, consciousness is a fundamental reality, it is an irreducible reality. And it is not replicated by no matter how phenomenal information processing is there. Does it answer your question? Yes.
Thank you. Are there any other questions? Yes, please. We have questions here also on Facebook live, on YouTube live.
I can answer them also, but we would prefer to give first reference to the questions over there if there are any. Yes, please.