The physicist Michio Kaku in a recent video describing how one might devise a sophisticated means of "machine intelligence" makes no mention of the competing "Easy" versus "Hard" AI problems. Some researchers don't even recognise that there
is a "Hard" problem - maybe Michio is one of these. But consideration of both these opposing views is central to a fully rounded research into the possibility of imbuing a machine with real consciousness and more to the point, free will.
Thomas Huxley, English biologist (1825-1895) remarked: "How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as the result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp!" This is the "Hard" Problem!
By the way, more Huxley quotations here: http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Thomas_H._Huxley
Michio however only addresses the view of the "mechanists" who with no expertise in quantum mechanics take the soft option, the "Easy" AI research route, believing they can have the consciousness problem sown up simply by mirroring sufficient neurones in the human brain, one by one with transistors in the robot's head, as if this is going to conjure up an equivalent and
true self awareness. These researchers are adherents of the Susan Blackmore point of view that there is simply no such thing as self-awareness or free will - and that we are being duped into a false sense of knowing "who" we are, and "where" we are, and "what" we are doing. But the question then arises "Who or what is being duped?!" It is in the penumbra of this question that the "no consciousness / no free will" argument fails in my opinion. Indeed if a conscious entity is not involved, then who or what (and by what process) has just formulated and presented THIS conundrum right here, now, weighing the pros and cons of:
consciousness as reality, or,
zombiism as reality? I do not buy into the philosophical concept that all we have to do in order to be "aware" is simply to present an outward appearance of it to others! Claptrap and lazy science.
It is probable that the scientist who will stun the world with a true understanding of consciousness and how it's "emergence" actually occurs, has already been born. I do hope so! In truth this will be a more fundamental discovery than Newton's Principle of Gravitational Attraction or Einstein's Theory of General Relativity.
One thing I feel sure about is that consciousness will be found to be underpinned fundamentally by quantum mechanics, relying on a reversely directed then a forwards directed looped-flow of information. Back and forth, again and again and again - in other words, a temporal looping of information on a cyclic timescale of milliseconds or even seconds. I suspect this to be highly likely on account of recent brain scan experiments which demonstrate that the brain is "subconsciously aware" of a choice being made some six seconds before the act of "conscious awareness" of the decision. Extraordinary, but apparently true. Up until recently this lag effect was observed experimentally by other researchers to be less than a second. But whichever is actually true, the significance is the same.
So - bottom line alternatives:
(i) If NO temporal looping of information takes place in the brain, then there can only be one interpretation of the brain scan experimental results - that we have no self-will - that there is no such thing as self-awareness, and that we are zombies.
(ii) If temporal looping DOES take place then we are not zombies, because then the six second subconscious precognition effect can be explained by the "conscious decision" signal being fed back in time by a property of quantum mechanics, the counter-intuitive nature of which is crucial to this "information time travel" effect taking place.
It is inconceivable that self awareness would
not involve an informational feedback loop to set up an observational resonance. This would amount to a temporal recursive process (in mathematical terms: a recursive equation in which the mathematical value of the expression to the right of the equal sign feeds back to the left side of the equal sign for the next recursion of the equation) which would manifest itself as a complex system - out of which typically, an emergent property would arise - which in this case would be consciousness.
And thus, the requirement of a significant reverse temporal looping to explain the observed ubiquitous timing mismatch of subconscious and conscious awareness, is totally consistent and gratifyingly not unexpected!
So - before we can imbue a machine with consciousness, that genius person out there somewhere is going to have to do his/her stuff first, and wow us with his/her maths and scientific rigour! The expected scientific paradigm shift will then occur and we will all start saying to each other "Well - why didn't we see that before - seems so obvious now it has been pointed out!" Only then will we be ready to imbue machines with the capacity for true self-awareness. But how would we know that we had been successful? Outwardly the intelligence might be there but there would be no way to prove the machine is actually aware of itself. Capacity is the operative word because none of us can be sure that anyone but ourselves (let alone a machine) is actually self-aware. There are of course tell-tale outward signs e.g. emotional responses, signs of pain and distress, but we would all have to be the "me" of everybody else to prove absolutely that others were conscious like ourselves. This is the enigma of consciousness.
I ramble on so!
This was kicked off by the Tucson shootings - in the wake of Sarah Palin's and the Republican media's toxic "target" and "shoot them down" metaphorical call to arms these past months.
This feeble-minded woman, Sarah Palin, has exploited her sexuality and good looks to inveigle herself into the minds and souls of what threatens to be a majority of American voters and so threatens to become the next President of the United States.
Think about it! If you have ever witnessed her trying to acquit herself under close questioning on TV you'll know what I mean - AND YET - a huge section of the American public still adore her and dream of her presidential inauguration. It is frightening beyond belief - because - well correct me if I'm wrong - shoot me down and call me a cretin - for a start, she will become the Commander in Chief of the most powerful military machine in the world! And would also become the most easily manipulated puppet ever in the hands of well-known right-wing groups. If there is any glimmer of hope that has emerged from this appalling tragedy, it is that at last the odds of Sarah Palin become president will have surely dipped below 50/50! But why did it have to come to this?!
You know, ****, that I am as anti-patriarchy as anyone you are ever ever ever likely to meet - which is one of the principal reasons why I am vociferously anti-Holy See and Church of Islam. Do you honestly think this woman has drawn the attention of a large swathe of the American public by flaunting her mind? - nope - to the men it has been her booty and to the women simply the thought that a woman - any woman, could become president. I so want that latter eventuality to come to pass! Sarah Palin's inauguration will set back the equal rights for women cause decades.