Re: cognitive != observable?

Ray Gardener wrote:

> There's a simple and straightforward logical proof as to why macroscopic
> intelligence cannot possess subjective experience.
>
> Posit that one builds and programs a sufficiently complex computer to
> behave, for all appearances, sentient. One then asks the machine if it
> experiences qualia.
>
> If the machine answers "Yes", then we can examine a recording of its runtime
> execution and trace the complete chain of events that led it to say Yes. And
> none of those events will be special in the slightest regard. 

Simlarly if your reduce the quantum effects inside a brain 
to the field variables of vibrating strings there will be 
nothing "special" either.  Nor will you find water by 
examining a H2O molecule, or know that a glider is moving by 
examining a cell that is blinking on and off.  Engergence 
simply is not reducable in that manner.  You have proven 
nothing.

> There is no
> qualia causing the machine to say Yes, merely a chain of unspecial
> mechanical events strung together. Not only was the machine mistaken to say
> Yes, but we can even explain why it was mistaken.
>
> If we want to argue that we must consider the environment as part of the
> machine's ability to be conscious, then what we are admitting is that it
> can't be conscious without other preexisting conscious entities -- namely
> people -- interacting with it. 

Imagine an entity examining the process without any bias as 
to what is human and what is not human.  Assume that that 
entity has some means to examine a process and determine if 
it is conscious or not.  Such an entity would consider your 
argument quite silly.

> But that explains nothing since it doesn't
> explain why we are conscious. If we think that multiple such machines
> interacting together would make each other conscious, then no, because that
> merely resizes the problem upward and only makes the machine bigger. We can
> still trace the cause of any qualia affirmation.
>
> The only macroscopic systems that offer emergent effects beyond those of
> chemistry are living organisms. In fact, this is a good definition of
> life -- any macroscopic entity that, when aggregated, produces higher-order
> emergent effects (such as social systems, morality, etc.). And tellingly
> enough, the one key distinction between life and machine is that living
> things are built with molecular-sized components. And since this is one
> aspect of construction we have not yet attempted in a signficant way with
> machines, it is reasonable to seriously consider that our answers will be
> found there.

Have you considered the possibility that the kind of 
consciousness that you are describing is biased to the 
constitution of humans - needs the human brain and body to 
exit - its pattern being dependant on that particular 
amimal.  Yet that there may be a species independant 
invariant aspect of that pattern that could supervene on any 
suitable sub processes ?

> If quantum computation so far looks stale (a mere scaling of traditional
> computing ability), I can only speculate that we have just begun to explore
> the possibilities, and that more should be forthcoming. Materials
> scientists, for example, admit that they still have much to learn to explain
> the basic properties of matter at the atomic and molecular scale.

A pattern is a pattern is a pattern - the size of its 
elements is irrelivant.

Patty