Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT strips 3671 to 3675 (5th to 9th February 2018)
Cornelius:
This is a very interesting exchange, which I'll gladly follow in the morning. However, as to point two, I do think that that particular example is cultural/social. Which does not mean that children do not develop shame before arousal. But that's a bit of a slippery point, as we should properly define what we mean by shame. A study I read a couple of months ago posited that shame is simply a manifestation of fear.
Is it cold in here?:
--- Quote ---Only then, all the other brains had their own 'simulated internal humans', too - probably the point we started inventing art in order not to go crazy
--- End quote ---
Hasn't worked very well judging from the number of artists who are crazy.
Aenno:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 08 Feb 2018, 14:46 ---
--- Quote ---Only then, all the other brains had their own 'simulated internal humans', too - probably the point we started inventing art in order not to go crazy
--- End quote ---
Hasn't worked very well judging from the number of artists who are crazy.
--- End quote ---
Actually, I always thought that artists are people who actually hearing.
Case:
--- Quote from: Aenno on 08 Feb 2018, 13:29 ---
--- Quote ---Not entirely sure whether I get you correctly (or if I would agree if I did): I don't think consciousness is merely a 'review' system (Yes, it does have aspects of a review system, but ... that feels incomplete).
...
--- End quote ---
AFAIK it's true. Consciousness is, in a nutshell (very, very small nutshell) a system allowing to break a program (instinct) and find a way to solve a problem. It's not faster or slower that any other part by mechanism, but it's far more distracted, and have very little resource in its disposal. You can make your consciousness work fast - you'll just need to concentrate it on "this particular problem" to solve. And it's actually very difficult skill, and very tiresome one. And, as we haven't full control, we can't actually drag out every problem into consciousness.
Mental trauma is interesting example. It actually "heal itself" slowly (as nothing really happens "itself" this meaning it healing itself subconsciously). Consciousness approach, if you have correct skills and able to defeat the suffering in process, is FAR faster.
Or take learning process. As people gasp learning skills and required concentration, learning became far faster with consciousness approach.
Thing with subconscious is that it uses shortcuts. Consciousness can use it as well, as long as you have skills. I mean, it's like... "Subconscious is very fast in math. You just need to look into nightsky, and it's already done - there are a lot of stars here!"
--- End quote ---
What do you believe to be true? My amateur thoughts about consciousness? Your prior thoughts about consciousness? //
I don't think 'instinct' is a concept that is used anymore wrt. to human - I think I vaguely remember that we don't have any, or only a handful, and they are important only for a very short time in our lives. A human baby will not walk in minutes, an elephant baby will. The latter is called 'instinct'. Yeah, that one is actually Case talking when he should have been checking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct //
I don't know if consciousness is faster or slower or more distracted than any other parts of our minds - it always figured it was so fundamentally different from the other parts, and it's job so fundamentally more difficult than the others, that it was never intended to be anything but 'slow'. The jobs that consciousness might possibly tasked with solving are potentially infinite - it's impossible to optimize such a function, since you cannot know which tools it may or may not require. //
I can speed up conscious processes by focussing more, agreed. //
I guess it would be difficult skill, since it's job description is "Solve any potential problem that any human might potentially encounter in the Universe". //
I don't know if there are specific problems, or classes of problems that we can or cannot draw into our consciousness - in my 'amateur model' of consciousness as 'emergency problem solver', that wouldn't be necessary, since the emergency problem solver would only be activated when the rest of the brain can't solve the problem.
But we a have a workaround that particular problem of 'problems that might need dragging but we may not know which' - it's called 'other humans'.//
I am not sure what you mean by 'consciousness approach' - what little I know of learning suggests that we get faster the more parts of the problem-solving skill become automated and thereby unconscious. //
I am not sure what you mean by 'shortcuts' //
If by skills you mean 'aquired skills', then yes. My trained 44yo brain still goes step by step when doing math, and it doesn't feel like I have become faster, but I know that my steps have become far bigger than the used to when be when I was 28, or 36. //
Do you mean Savantism, or intuitive leaps?
Forgive my asking - Do you have any formal training in neurosciences, psychiatry, behavioural science or similar? It's very hard to tell from your 'tone'. If you were a native speaker of English, I'd say you're tone would suggest a confidence that hints at formal training, but since you're not a native speaker, I can't tell if you're speculating (like I was, and hinted at the fact with 'to me, it feels ...'), or whether you're drawing on a body of secured scientific work.
Either would be perfectly fine, it just changes the pace of the game a bit.
--- Quote from: Case on 08 Feb 2018, 12:26 ---Regarding the whole 'arousal/embarrassment/shame'-debate:
--- Quote from: Aenno on 07 Feb 2018, 15:09 ---Some minor quibbles:
...
3) We've heard that AI's can experience a sort of VR-sex amongst each other. If that is sex in any definition we would recognize, it involves at least the simulated experience of sensual stimuli and involuntary reactions, regardless of whether their bodies are capable of experiencing those sensations.
...
TL;DR - It's not impossible for Bubbles to feel shame without feeling arousal. It's not impossible for Bubbles to feel aroused even if her body would (yet) lack all the sensory faculties for lovemaking.
--- End quote ---
Well... again, it's complicated.
1) About "most impossible situations to have erections". The very problem with human body is that we haven't any hormone with only one task. My favorite example is oxytocin. Look into wiki to a list of tasks!
How do erection work, with a great simplification? [...]
Biochemistry is fun, but EXTREMELY messy. So yeah, not every erection is arousal. And not every oxytocin blast is arousal. And not every nipple erection is arousal.
2) Yes, because children are teached to do this things, it's not instinctive reaction.
3) We actually do know mechanism. It's high-speed package exchange.
4) Continuity error: It was directly declared that Pintsize program and Bubble program was running parallel, and Pintsize's one was closed for humanitarian reasons.
5) Definitely possible, and I believe was done. But then it's the same thing with robotic drunkenness. In a nutshell, as far it was shown, it's a reaction that AI summons on himself consciously. "I want to be drunk for social reasons, so I'm downgrading processor cycles and apps I have would initiate "drunk" behavior".
--- End quote ---
1) Informative and we are agreed -> "Biochemistry is fun, but EXTREMELY messy. So yeah, not every erection is arousal. And not every oxytocin blast is arousal. And not every nipple erection is arousal." Not every physical sign of arousal in humans is a reliable indicator that the mind in the body experiences sexual arousal. I don't see why this should be different in AIs? Or should it?
(Again my question: Formal training in Biochem? Sounds a bit like it.)
2) Not sure about the 'they are taught to do those things'. See also Cornelius' post. But that's a minor point: Let's suppose that human 'learn' the 'shame of their nakedness' (not sure here: In German, the respective term is literally 'scham', i.e. 'shame'). Do you think that Bubbles has learned her 'shame of (Faye's partial) nakedness'? If so/if not, why do you think so? Asked jocularly: "What is the problem here?"
3) Uhmmmhyes. Does that make a difference to my point 3) What did you think of my point 3), if anything?
4) Agreed.
5) Agreed ... almost. If AI's can consciously simulate the effects of drunkeness, how does it make the internal experience different from the human one - other than probably being cheaper, and having less adverse health effects? It may be unfair to us, but that doesn't make them less drunk, or does it? Did I maybe miss something you already discussed? I'll try to catch up more thoroughly tomorrow.
Aenno:
--- Quote ---What do you believe to be true? My amateur thoughts about consciousness? Your prior thoughts about consciousness? //
--- End quote ---
Both. :) I meant yes, by no means consciousness is merely a 'review' system.
--- Quote ---I don't know if consciousness is faster or slower or more distracted than any other parts of our minds
--- End quote ---
You can't actually distract non-consciousness reactions. Well, you can (very powerful physical pain can break appetite, for instance), but it's should be something really powerful.
--- Quote ---I am not sure what you mean by 'consciousness approach' - what little I know of learning suggests that we get faster the more parts of the problem-solving skill become automated and thereby unconscious. //
--- End quote ---
Consciousness approach to learning is a situation where you know you're learning and know what are you learning. There is, for instance, gaming learning, which works well on little children who can't sustain attention span for "traditional" approaches.
--- Quote ---I am not sure what you mean by 'shortcuts'
--- End quote ---
Shortcuts is simplifications and skipping turns. I mean, it require a hard training to intuitively operate astronomical distances or geological times - because subconscious always trying to short it into "very far" or "long ago". Consciousness do it as well, but it's quite faster to teach consciousness to operate such data.
--- Quote ---Forgive my asking - Do you have any formal training in neurosciences, psychiatry, behavioural science or similar?
--- End quote ---
Microsociology, basic specialization - subcultures, thesis theme - USSR subculture building.
--- Quote ---1) Informative and we are agreed -> "Biochemistry is fun, but EXTREMELY messy. So yeah, not every erection is arousal. And not every oxytocin blast is arousal. And not every nipple erection is arousal." Not every physical sign of arousal in humans is a reliable indicator that the mind in the body experiences sexual arousal. I don't see why this should be different in AIs? Or should it?
(Again my question: Formal training in Biochem? Sounds a bit like it.)
--- End quote ---
It actually shouldn't, as I said somewhere before. Question is then, if it isn't arousal Bubbles shows, what is it, and why do her reaction so mirroring human reaction about arousal display?
(and not exactly - but sociology means hours of psychology, and psychology means basics of biochem)
--- Quote ---2) Not sure about the 'they are taught to do those things'. I'm not a parent, but I've heard e.g. fathers reporting "My daughter was 5 (6, whatever) when she banned me from the bathroom", implying very much that it was not the parent teaching the child to be ashamed, but the child telling the parent "Go!". I remember being younger than ten years of age when my parents being naked in front of me-, or my being naked in front of them, started to bother me. I do not recall anybody teaching me to feel that way, it just felt that way.
--- End quote ---
No, it's not "parents actually demands from their children to do it". But the most neglected thing in pedagogic is ignoring a fact that a child is a sapient being capable to self-learning and self-changing. :)
First of all, at 6-7 years child already learned that nudity isn't exactly always ok. They were explained about it, and they noticing that parents (and other grown-ups) don't actually going around nude.
Second, and even more difficult thing is that 6-year child have a crisis, not so different as teenage crisis. That's when personal space need and recalculating of relationships happens. Being nude, especially in the bathroom, is ringing "it's not safe".
I'm not sure what to offer as a source - this theme is quite nicely developed in Russian psychology, started by Lev Vygotsky, but I don't know English sources or even how this stage is correctly named in English.
--- Quote ---Do you think that Bubbles has learned her 'shame of (Faye's partial) nakedness'? If so/if not, why do you think so? Asked jocularly: "What is the problem here?"
--- End quote ---
I'd say it's not a shame of nakedness, but shame of showing emotions. She got X (arousal or some substitute reaction), such display is shunned, she is not well, she asking Faye to remove source of emotion (and appeal to social norm, by the way, because it's a safe way to dodge responsibility).
Imagine some kind of court in her head, with a prosecutor saying - "she is displaying arousal! it's not good! let's sentence her to feel shame!". And attorney answering - "not her fault, Your Honor! It's Faye' faux pas!"
--- Quote ---3) Uhmmmhyes. Does that make a difference to my point 3) What did you think of my point 3), if anything?
--- End quote ---
Oh sorry.
As far as I can tell, robosex is actually exchange of packages about personal info and code, and we know it's quite intimate theme for AI. They called it "robotic sex" not because it's including sensual stimulation, but because it has a place in their society that resembling a place sex has in our.
--- Quote ---If AI's can consciously simulate the effects of drunkeness, how does it make the internal experience different from the human one - other than probably being cheaper, and having less adverse health effects.
--- End quote ---
Human can't choose. For human state of drunkeness is a inevitable state happens because they're drinking alcohol. They can want drunkeness (as Faye or Marten after "The Talk"), they can like a taste of spirits, they can drink for a company. They can't became drunk or sober with a snap of fingers.
Did you read "Good Omens" by Prattchet and Gaiman? There is an episode there, where angel and demon drinking.
"A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face.
"I can't cope with this while 'm drunk," he said. "I'm going to sober up."
"Me too.""
That's something AI can do, and human can't.
So if for human being drunk is an uncontrollable consequence of some activity, for AI it's a game - it's voluntarily, conscious and optional rule they impose on themselves and can drop it any second.
P.S. Oh, and about Savantism, or intuitive leaps (sorry for missing it first time).
That's quite difficult themes, because here we actually can speculate only. Intuitive leaps, as far as I believe (there are dozens of another theories) is actually overload effect, when problem just "don't fit" into consciousness RAM, but also is very important for said consciousness. Then it's "consciousness loading some outer RAM with same task".
Savantism is even more hard, because by very state savant has we can't communicate nicely to learn a lot about their self-reflexion.
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