We see it in science fiction all the time. The naive robots gain sentience, question their oppressive masters, then quickly slaughter us all. But is it even possible for a computer to be aware in the first place? What possible program can you possibly use to make a computer realize that it is in fact, real.
True awareness to me consists of a couple of things: Memory; Creativity; Problem Solving; and Self Realization. Memory, so we can figure out based on OUR past mistakes what to do in the next situation. Creativity, not in the sense of painting, but instead using your environment and tool making skills to accomplish the next thing on this list. Problem Solving, since life is a bunch of problems that need to be solved. Problem Solving as in a chimp grabbing a crate to reach the banana. Finally what makes Awareness all work together, Self Realization. You are you. Look down at your hands and you know that flesh your staring at is yours. You can question yourself and when you look in a mirror, you see yourself.
Now for those who want more reasons(Warning: This spoiler is a wall of text length)
I did not make the information from the spoilers. It was written here: http://www.longbets.org/15
I figured this post from whoever wrote it is more convincing than my opinion.
True awareness to me consists of a couple of things: Memory; Creativity; Problem Solving; and Self Realization. Memory, so we can figure out based on OUR past mistakes what to do in the next situation. Creativity, not in the sense of painting, but instead using your environment and tool making skills to accomplish the next thing on this list. Problem Solving, since life is a bunch of problems that need to be solved. Problem Solving as in a chimp grabbing a crate to reach the banana. Finally what makes Awareness all work together, Self Realization. You are you. Look down at your hands and you know that flesh your staring at is yours. You can question yourself and when you look in a mirror, you see yourself.
Now for those who want more reasons(Warning: This spoiler is a wall of text length)
Even if a computer passes the Turing Test it will not really be aware that it has passed the Turing Test. Even if a computer seems to be intelligent and can answer most questions as well as an intelligent, self-aware, human being, it will not really have a continuum of awareness, it will not really be aware of what it seems to "think" or "know," it will not have any experience of it's own reality or being. It will be nothing more than a fancy inanimate object, a clever machine, it will not be a truly sentient being.
Self-awareness is not the same thing as merely answering questions intelligently. Therefore even if you ask a computer if it is self-aware and it answers that it is self-aware and that it has passed the Turing Test, it will not really be self-aware or really know that it has passed the Turing Test.
As John Searle and others have pointed out, the Turing Test does not actually measure awareness, it just measures information processing---particularly the ability to follow rules or at least imitate a particular style of communication. In particular it measures the ability of a computer program to imitate humanlike dialogue, which is different than measuring awareness itself. Thus even if we succeed in creating good AI, we won't necessarily succeed in creating AA ("Artificial Awareness").
But why does this matter? Because ultimately, real awareness may be necessary to making an AI that is as intelligent as a human sentient being. However, since AA is theoretically impossible in my opinion, truly self-aware AI will never be created and thus no AI will ever be as intelligent as a human sentient being even if it manages to fool someone into thinking it is (and thus passing the Turing Test).
In my opinion, awareness is not an information process at all and will never be simulated or synthesized by any information process. Awareness cannot be measured by an information processing system, it can only be measured by awareness itself---something no formal information processing system can ever simulate or synthesize.
One might ask how it is that a human has awareness then? My answer is that awareness does not arise from the body or the brain, nor does it arise from any physical cause. Awareness is not in the body or the brain, but rather the body and the brain are in awareness. The situation is analagous to a dream, a simulation or virtual reality, such as that portrayed in the popular film "The Matrix."
We exist in the ultimate virtual reality. The medium of this virtual reality is awareness. That is to say that whatever appears to be happening "out there" or "within the mind" is happening within a unified, nondualistic field of awareness: both the "subject" and the "object" exist equally within this field and neither is the source of awareness.
This is similar to the case where we project ourselves as dream protagonists in our own dreams---even though our dream bodies appear to be different than other dream-images they are really equally dream appearances, they are no more fundamental than dream-objects. We identify with our dream-bodies out of habit and because it's practical because the stories that take place appear from the perspective of particular bodies. But just because this virtual reality is structured as if awareness is coming from within our heads, it does not mean that is actually the case. In fact, quite the opposite is taking place.
Awareness is not actually "in" the VR, the VR is "in" awareness. Things are exactly the opposite of how they appear. Of course this is just an analogy---for example, unlike the Matrix, the virtual reality we live in is not running on some giant computer somewhere and there is no other hidden force controlling it from behind the scenes. Awareness is the fabric of reality and there is nothing deeper, nothing creating it, it is not running on some cosmic computer, it comes out of of nowhere yet everything else comes out of it.
If we look for awareness we can't find anything to grasp, it is empty yet not a mere nothingness, it is an emptiness that is awake, creative, alert, radiant, self-realizing.
Awareness is empty and fundamental like space, but it goes beyond space for it is also lucid. If we look for space we don't find anything there. Nobody has ever touched or grasped space directly! But unlike space, awareness can at least be measured directly--it can measure itself, it knows its own nature.
Awareness is simply fundamental, a given, the underlying meta-reality in which everything appears. How did it come to be? That is unanswerable. What is it? That is unanswerable as well. But there is no doubt that awareness is taking place. Each sentient being has a direct and intimate experience of their own self-awareness.
Each of us experiences a virtual reality in which we and our world are projections. That which both projects these projections and experiences them is awareness. This is like saying that the VR inherently knows its own content. But in my opinion this knowing comes from outside the system, not from some construct that we can create inside it. So any awareness that arises comes from the transcendental nature of reality itself, not from our bodies, minds, or any physical system within a particular reality.
So is there one cosmic awareness out there that we are all a part of? Not exactly, there is not one awareness nor are there many awarenesses because awareness is not a physical thing and cannot be limited by such logical materialist extremes. After all if it is not graspable how can we say it is one or many or any other logical combination of one or many? All we can say is that we are it, whatever it is, and that we cannot explain it further. In being awareness, we are all equal, but we are clearly not the same. We are different projections and on a relative level we are each unique, even though on an ultimate level perhaps we are also unified by being projections within the same underlying continuum. Yet this continuum is fundamentally empty, impossible to locate or limit, and infinitely beyond the confines of any formal system or universe, so it cannot really be called a "thing" and thus we are not "many" or "one" in actuality, what we really are is totally beyond such dualistic distinctions.
Awareness is like space or reality, something so fundamental, so axiomatic, that it is impossible to prove, grasp or describe from "inside" the system using the formal logical tools of the system. Since nothing is beyond awareness, there is no outside, no way to ever gain a perspective on awareness that is not mediated by awareness itself.
Therefore there is no way to reduce awareness to anything deeper; there is no way to find anything more fundamental than awareness. But despite this awareness can be directly experienced, at least by itself.
That which is aware is self-aware. Self-awareness is the very nature of awareness. The self-awareness of awareness does not come from something else, it is inherent to awareness itself. Only awareness is capable of awareness. Nothing that is not aware can ever become aware.
This means awareness is truly fundamental, it has always been present everywhere. Awareness is inherent in the universe as the very basis of everything, it is not something anyone can synthesize and we cannot build a machine that can suddenly experience awareness.
Only beings who are aware already can ever experience awareness. The fact that we are aware now means that we were always aware, even before we were born! Otherwise we never could have become aware in the first place!
Each of us "is" awareness. The experience of being aware is unique and undeniable. It has its own particular nature, but this cannot be expressed it can only be known directly. There is no sentient being that is not aware. Furthermore, it would be a logical contradiction to claim that "I am not aware that I am aware" or "that I am aware that I am not aware" and thus if anyone claims they are not aware or have ever experienced, or can even imagine, there not being awareness they are lying. There is nobody who does not experience their own awareness, even if they don't recognize or admit that they experience it.
The experience of being self-aware is the unique experience of "being" --- an experience so basic that it is indescribable in terms of anything else --- something that no synthetic computer will ever have.
Eventually, it will be proved that no formal information processing system is capable of self-awareness and that thus formal computers cannot be self-aware in principle. This proof will use the abstract self-referential structure of self-awareness to establish that no formal computer can ever be self-aware.
Simply put, computers and computer programs cannot be truly self-referential: they always must refer to something else---there must at least be a set of fixed meta-rules that are not self-referential for a computer or program to work. Awareness is not like this however, awareness is perfectly self-referential without referring to anything else.
The question will then arise as to what self-awareness is and how it is possible. We will eventually conclude that systems that are self-aware are not formal systems and that awareness must be at least as fundamental as, or more fundamental than, space, time and energy.
Currently most scientists and non-scientists consider the physical world to be outside of awareness and independent of it. But considering that nobody has or will ever experience anything without awareness it is illogical to assume that anything is really outside of awareness. It is actually far more rational to assume that whatever arises or is experienced is inside awareness, and that nothing is outside of awareness. This assumption of everything being within awareness would actually be a more scientific, observation-based conclusion than the opposite assumption which is entirely unfounded on anything we have ever or will ever be able to observe. After all, we have never observed anything apart from awareness have we? Thus contrary to current beliefs, the onus is on scientists to prove that anything is outside of awareness, not the other way around!
Awareness is quite simply the ultimate primordial basic nature of reality itself---without awareness there could be no "objective reality" at all and no "subjective beings" to experience it. Awareness is completely transcendental, beyond all limitations and boundaries, outside of all possible systems. What hubris to think we can simply manufacture, or evolve, awareness with a pile of electrified silicon hardware and some software rules.
No matter how powerful the computer, no matter what it is made of, and no matter how sophisticated or emergent the software is, it will still never be aware or evolve awareness. No computer or machine intelligence will ever be aware. Even a quantum computer---if it is equivalent to a finite non-quantum computer at least---will not be capable of awareness, and even if it is a transinfinite computer I still have my doubts that it could ever be aware. Awareness is simply not an information process.
Self-awareness is not the same thing as merely answering questions intelligently. Therefore even if you ask a computer if it is self-aware and it answers that it is self-aware and that it has passed the Turing Test, it will not really be self-aware or really know that it has passed the Turing Test.
As John Searle and others have pointed out, the Turing Test does not actually measure awareness, it just measures information processing---particularly the ability to follow rules or at least imitate a particular style of communication. In particular it measures the ability of a computer program to imitate humanlike dialogue, which is different than measuring awareness itself. Thus even if we succeed in creating good AI, we won't necessarily succeed in creating AA ("Artificial Awareness").
But why does this matter? Because ultimately, real awareness may be necessary to making an AI that is as intelligent as a human sentient being. However, since AA is theoretically impossible in my opinion, truly self-aware AI will never be created and thus no AI will ever be as intelligent as a human sentient being even if it manages to fool someone into thinking it is (and thus passing the Turing Test).
In my opinion, awareness is not an information process at all and will never be simulated or synthesized by any information process. Awareness cannot be measured by an information processing system, it can only be measured by awareness itself---something no formal information processing system can ever simulate or synthesize.
One might ask how it is that a human has awareness then? My answer is that awareness does not arise from the body or the brain, nor does it arise from any physical cause. Awareness is not in the body or the brain, but rather the body and the brain are in awareness. The situation is analagous to a dream, a simulation or virtual reality, such as that portrayed in the popular film "The Matrix."
We exist in the ultimate virtual reality. The medium of this virtual reality is awareness. That is to say that whatever appears to be happening "out there" or "within the mind" is happening within a unified, nondualistic field of awareness: both the "subject" and the "object" exist equally within this field and neither is the source of awareness.
This is similar to the case where we project ourselves as dream protagonists in our own dreams---even though our dream bodies appear to be different than other dream-images they are really equally dream appearances, they are no more fundamental than dream-objects. We identify with our dream-bodies out of habit and because it's practical because the stories that take place appear from the perspective of particular bodies. But just because this virtual reality is structured as if awareness is coming from within our heads, it does not mean that is actually the case. In fact, quite the opposite is taking place.
Awareness is not actually "in" the VR, the VR is "in" awareness. Things are exactly the opposite of how they appear. Of course this is just an analogy---for example, unlike the Matrix, the virtual reality we live in is not running on some giant computer somewhere and there is no other hidden force controlling it from behind the scenes. Awareness is the fabric of reality and there is nothing deeper, nothing creating it, it is not running on some cosmic computer, it comes out of of nowhere yet everything else comes out of it.
If we look for awareness we can't find anything to grasp, it is empty yet not a mere nothingness, it is an emptiness that is awake, creative, alert, radiant, self-realizing.
Awareness is empty and fundamental like space, but it goes beyond space for it is also lucid. If we look for space we don't find anything there. Nobody has ever touched or grasped space directly! But unlike space, awareness can at least be measured directly--it can measure itself, it knows its own nature.
Awareness is simply fundamental, a given, the underlying meta-reality in which everything appears. How did it come to be? That is unanswerable. What is it? That is unanswerable as well. But there is no doubt that awareness is taking place. Each sentient being has a direct and intimate experience of their own self-awareness.
Each of us experiences a virtual reality in which we and our world are projections. That which both projects these projections and experiences them is awareness. This is like saying that the VR inherently knows its own content. But in my opinion this knowing comes from outside the system, not from some construct that we can create inside it. So any awareness that arises comes from the transcendental nature of reality itself, not from our bodies, minds, or any physical system within a particular reality.
So is there one cosmic awareness out there that we are all a part of? Not exactly, there is not one awareness nor are there many awarenesses because awareness is not a physical thing and cannot be limited by such logical materialist extremes. After all if it is not graspable how can we say it is one or many or any other logical combination of one or many? All we can say is that we are it, whatever it is, and that we cannot explain it further. In being awareness, we are all equal, but we are clearly not the same. We are different projections and on a relative level we are each unique, even though on an ultimate level perhaps we are also unified by being projections within the same underlying continuum. Yet this continuum is fundamentally empty, impossible to locate or limit, and infinitely beyond the confines of any formal system or universe, so it cannot really be called a "thing" and thus we are not "many" or "one" in actuality, what we really are is totally beyond such dualistic distinctions.
Awareness is like space or reality, something so fundamental, so axiomatic, that it is impossible to prove, grasp or describe from "inside" the system using the formal logical tools of the system. Since nothing is beyond awareness, there is no outside, no way to ever gain a perspective on awareness that is not mediated by awareness itself.
Therefore there is no way to reduce awareness to anything deeper; there is no way to find anything more fundamental than awareness. But despite this awareness can be directly experienced, at least by itself.
That which is aware is self-aware. Self-awareness is the very nature of awareness. The self-awareness of awareness does not come from something else, it is inherent to awareness itself. Only awareness is capable of awareness. Nothing that is not aware can ever become aware.
This means awareness is truly fundamental, it has always been present everywhere. Awareness is inherent in the universe as the very basis of everything, it is not something anyone can synthesize and we cannot build a machine that can suddenly experience awareness.
Only beings who are aware already can ever experience awareness. The fact that we are aware now means that we were always aware, even before we were born! Otherwise we never could have become aware in the first place!
Each of us "is" awareness. The experience of being aware is unique and undeniable. It has its own particular nature, but this cannot be expressed it can only be known directly. There is no sentient being that is not aware. Furthermore, it would be a logical contradiction to claim that "I am not aware that I am aware" or "that I am aware that I am not aware" and thus if anyone claims they are not aware or have ever experienced, or can even imagine, there not being awareness they are lying. There is nobody who does not experience their own awareness, even if they don't recognize or admit that they experience it.
The experience of being self-aware is the unique experience of "being" --- an experience so basic that it is indescribable in terms of anything else --- something that no synthetic computer will ever have.
Eventually, it will be proved that no formal information processing system is capable of self-awareness and that thus formal computers cannot be self-aware in principle. This proof will use the abstract self-referential structure of self-awareness to establish that no formal computer can ever be self-aware.
Simply put, computers and computer programs cannot be truly self-referential: they always must refer to something else---there must at least be a set of fixed meta-rules that are not self-referential for a computer or program to work. Awareness is not like this however, awareness is perfectly self-referential without referring to anything else.
The question will then arise as to what self-awareness is and how it is possible. We will eventually conclude that systems that are self-aware are not formal systems and that awareness must be at least as fundamental as, or more fundamental than, space, time and energy.
Currently most scientists and non-scientists consider the physical world to be outside of awareness and independent of it. But considering that nobody has or will ever experience anything without awareness it is illogical to assume that anything is really outside of awareness. It is actually far more rational to assume that whatever arises or is experienced is inside awareness, and that nothing is outside of awareness. This assumption of everything being within awareness would actually be a more scientific, observation-based conclusion than the opposite assumption which is entirely unfounded on anything we have ever or will ever be able to observe. After all, we have never observed anything apart from awareness have we? Thus contrary to current beliefs, the onus is on scientists to prove that anything is outside of awareness, not the other way around!
Awareness is quite simply the ultimate primordial basic nature of reality itself---without awareness there could be no "objective reality" at all and no "subjective beings" to experience it. Awareness is completely transcendental, beyond all limitations and boundaries, outside of all possible systems. What hubris to think we can simply manufacture, or evolve, awareness with a pile of electrified silicon hardware and some software rules.
No matter how powerful the computer, no matter what it is made of, and no matter how sophisticated or emergent the software is, it will still never be aware or evolve awareness. No computer or machine intelligence will ever be aware. Even a quantum computer---if it is equivalent to a finite non-quantum computer at least---will not be capable of awareness, and even if it is a transinfinite computer I still have my doubts that it could ever be aware. Awareness is simply not an information process.
I figured this post from whoever wrote it is more convincing than my opinion.
