Category: Consciousness

What is Consciousness?–Getting our Categories Straight and Asking the Right Questions

jdtabor

I know some of you–perhaps many of you–have followed the work of Dr. Robert L. Kuhn on his TV and now Youtube programs “Closer to Truth.” If you have not visited the web site lately, it has been marvelously redesigned and Robert is ever at work with new horizons…see closertotruth.com.  The program looks at the broad categories of Cosmos, Consciousness, and Meaning, drawing upon a wide range of scientific, historical, and philosphical approaches.

I received the following from Robert this week and pass it along with his permission:

My comprehensive review of theories of consciousness, A Landscape of Consciousness: Toward a Taxonomy of Explanations and Implications, derived in part from Closer To Truth, was just published in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology — and will appear in print in August.

In the paper, I seek an organizing framework for diverse theories of consciousness and to explore their impact on big questions. My central theses are twofold: (i) understanding consciousness at this point cannot be limited to selected ways of thinking or knowing, but should seek expansive yet rational diversity, and (ii) issues related to consciousness, such as AI consciousness, virtual immortality, meaning/purpose/value, life after death, free will, etc., cannot be understood except in the light of particular theories of consciousness. In addition, I want to present consciousness and its significance to broad scientific and scholarly communities.

The paper has good visibility in scientific circles. Any promotion in other communities via social media and/or personal networks welcome (but not expected).

I know Robert has worked on this harder than anything he has ever produced…and the results are remarkable.  I may have mentioned here before that I have a whole series of interviews with Dr. Kuhn which you can find very conveniently collected here: https://closertotruth.com/contributor/james-tabor/

On an even more personal note, I had Robert as a guest in the LAST university class I taught, capping off my 45 year career, when I “retired” in July 2022. Here is a recording of that class for those interested:

The False Promise of ChatGTP

jdtabor

If you have fallen or partly fallen for all the AI nonsense that ChatGTP has generated in the popular media, about computers taking over, controlling us, or in any way exhibiting the human capacities of our linguistic programming, Chomsky set things straight in clear language and straight talk. As one of the smartest computer guys I know puts it, hyperbole, but you get the point, ChatGTP is as “dumb” as this keyboard. Input, output. Nothing conscious or even near so. I think Robert Kuhn (Closer to Truth) agrees. We are not even close to understanding or explaining the human mind…or any mind for that matter…think about our dogs and cats whom we know so well. They are NOT machines on any level:

Noam Chomsky: NY Times–The False Promise of ChatGPT

https://theconversation.com/it-takes-a-body-to-understand-the-world-why-chatgpt-and-other-language-ais-dont-know-what-theyre-saying-201280

The False Promise of ChatGTP Consciousness…

jdtabor

If you have fallen or partly fallen for all the AI nonsense that ChatGTP has generated in the popular media, about computers taking over, controlling us, or in any way exhibiting the human capacities of our linguistic programming, Chomsky set things straight in clear language and straight talk. As one of the smartest computer guys I know puts it, hyperbole, but you get the point, ChatGTP is as “dumb” as this keyboard. Input, output. Nothing conscious or even near so. I think Robert Kuhn (Closer to Truth) agrees. We are not even close to understanding or explaining the human mind…or any mind for that matter…think about our dogs and cats whom we know so well. They are NOT machines on any level:

Noam Chomsky: NY Times–The False Promise of ChatGPT

 

New Closer to Truth Web Site–The Best Thing out There!

jdtabor

Dr. Robert L Kuhn’s newly designed Closer to Truth web site is truly stunningly done. Rich content, endless fascination…I know of nothing on the internet that compares. You can subscribe for free. Program content is also available on Youtube and via major Podcasts. If you are mainly interested in the “Big Questions” as I am, this is the BEST thing out there. Check it out.

Click on Image for 45s Introduction to the newly Designed Site

I am also very pleased to note my own contributor page has been wholly reorganized with videos I did not even remember I had done with Dr. Kuhn over the years, links to my books, and an updated Bio. Check it out here–a good place to start in diving into Closer to Truth!

James Tabor

 

A Sentient Computer? I Think Not…

jdtabor

Some readers might have seen a version of this story that appeared in the Washington Post last weekend about a Google AI program called LaMDA that one of its creators claimed was sentient and “conscious.” Here is the CNN version of that story, “No, Google’s AI Is Not Sentient.” Even the description of what it can do makes it clear this machine is just operating a sophisticated version of John Searle’s Chinese Box example. See Robert Kuhn’s interview here with Searle on his amazing program Closer to Truth-–which, by the way is now being uploaded to Youtube. And for dozens of other programs exploring these fundamental questions do the search on the Closer to Truth web site for the “Mind Body Problem.”

I am a historian of ancient Mediterranean/Ancient Near Eastern religions so my comment here is stictly “outside my field,” as the saying goes. I have to agree with Roger Penrose, this idea that intelligent and consciousness—not to mention self-consciousness—is based on this kind of a computational model of complex data association is a basic category mistake, see his enlightening interview with Lex Fridman, “Consciousness is Not a Computation.”
I don’t think one needs to move to some “wholly other” force and call it “Mind,” as if naming a phenomenon conveys understanding it. I am quite sure our self-conscious minds are rooted in “this” world—I remain a Monist in that Whiteheadean sense, but our reductionistic assumption that the “material” is just STUFF…in contrast to some “spiritual” other—is just wrong headed. As if naming Gravity, Light, and the Strong and Weak Nuclear forces somehow means we have understood them and made them part of some so-called “material” aspect of the cosmos. The problem here, as I see it, is the very assumptions that are built into our dualistic categorization that seems to be built into our language anytime we discuss the so-called “spiritual.”