Subhash Kak – Can Consciousness Be Non-Biological?

46 thoughts on “Subhash Kak – Can Consciousness Be Non-Biological?”

1. Our assessment of the feasibility of an artificial human mind in a computer with consciousness, totally depends on what we think humans are. If you think we are divine mythical creatures, then not possible. If you think we are biochemical robots, then relatively easy.
   Irrespective of the camp you are in, the question is if we want cognition that perfectly mimics humans because such a system will make the same mistakes as humans (and there are a lot). To understand ourselves better, it really is a good idea to try to accomplish it.

2. Humans do calculations and perform Boolean logical functions occasionally as one of their mental functions

   Computers do calculations and perform Boolean logical functions

   Therefore when computers get more powerful they will be able to do everything humans can do mentally.

   At the bumper-sticker level of thinking this arguments seems plausible but given a few moments of deeper thinking (stepping past the 6th grade Hollywood understanding of science and philosophy), a very thorny problem arises.

   Attributes of consciousness

   1-First person data (in the form of experiences and perceptions) mixed with third/person data arranged, and weighted into a data warehouse that can sort though, contextualize, serve up instant decisions from huge amounts of data (petabytes of raw data from a computational perspective).

   2-large amounts of data are qualitative rather than quantitative. Hundreds of shades of redness of apples or being able to describe why you prefer one barolo wine over another.

   3-Mental representation of the world (phenomenal structure) is incredibly complex data warehouse schema that can replace whole sections of false data based on new experiences or learning.

   4- Has the state of intentionality
   5 – Has the focus of aboutness (our ideas tend to be about mental objects).
   6 – Contains sensory data that is qualitative
   7- Private subjective in nature
   8 – can think my thoughts are a function of a combination of all of the above but are not for the most part automatic like my breathing.
   9 consciousness seems unified over time. My self concept is different than when I was a child or a teen or an early adult or middle-aged etc. My self is one self over time. My whole body, including my brain turn over new cells every few years but I maintain a unified self despite having 20 complete part replacements in my life.
   10- Brain scientist will tell you, if they are honest, that there are only a few (mostly autonomic functions and math mathematics that map uniformly to areas of the brain. Most other functions are not uniform and actually change location from one moment to the next!

   For more see:

   https://youtu.be/BqHrpBPdtSI

   https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#DesQueWhaFeaCon

3. Biological consciousness seems inexorably linked to the systems of sensory experience feedback we have in our bodies.

4. A machine is not driven by the biological imperative therefore has no creative stimulation to create. Machines can only mimic the instructions provided by the GOD creator.

5. Awaken life's smartphone reaction to emotional, regarding GOD in everything computers of blinds life's nonsense computers compare to awaken life's computers or smartphone reaction to emotional of users, as told before awaken life's 😇 everything alive even machine or chairs or srounding all have same mood as the awaken life's truth ok

6. Maybe this person forms his ideas based on a pro-biological life bias, or anti-machine life bias

7. Can't help but be sceptical of this guy. He ASSERTS that biology can do what a machine cannot. He thinks of machines like 1960s data processors churning out line printer reports. He completely ignores current-day AI, which is exploding with pattern recognition and image synthesis machinery that is doing things we did not even know to wish for a decade ago. Those are not traditional in that they do not 'run programs'. They learn from exposure to patterns. Ring a bell? It's what humans do.

8. Interesting that we still "Think" we humans are controlling information!!!! We might be doing (happening through us), but many frontiers are showing we are losing out. We are being Evolved than Evolving voluntarily.

9. A brain retains millions or trillions of imprinted memories of every event of our lives. All of those lifetime memories go into creating our individual consciousness and are integral to conscious or unconscious thoughts. In my opinion no one could or would ever artificially replicate human consciousness.

10. Machines follow prescriptions that are logical, when conciseness holds aspects that are contradictory and therefore, in his view, machines will never be conscience ( 0.53). I guess, he is too polite to say that they will never be that stupid. He is so right! The quite observer presenting our conciseness is aware of everything, except it's own stupidity.

11. It's physical therefore we can control it? Beyond what we know is physical.

12. Can a computer be aware of there potentials and freely choose it's path based on it's own self awareness?

13. I’m pretty surprised by this guy… but in a negative sense. Saying machines can't have consciousness, because they are just executing instructions, is an incredibly outdated — and frankly embarrassingly simplistic — view.

    Also, we will never be able to prove consciousness in machines, as we can't prove it in ourselves.

14. Consciousness survives death. A cloud of consciousness exists which can interact with the physical world. Is consciousness an alien visitor?

15. I wonder how western science will ultimately end up digesting Vedanta. What will it look like?

16. I don't agree with Subhash's pov. First there was a chemical soup from which humans evolved. Consciousness has to be evolutionary and emergent because that's how humans came to be.

17. If it is not biological, where does it go when anesthesia is applied?

18. Human consciousness is substrate independent, which means that consciousness occurs when complex physiological processes happen in specific complex patterns. Consciousness needs the substrate to exist but what the substrate is made of is not important. Only the computational patterns are important for the phenomenon of consciousness.

19. It seems to me children learn through probability and ‘trial and error’. The brain seems to build a models through millions of interactions and sensory input. Should computers be designed based upon probability, trial and error and ‘fuzzy logic’. The computers needs to build it’s own algorithms based upon vasts amounts of processing and sensory input. Maybe this process may take decades when the system is first switched on.

20. Consciousness is non-local. It doesn't require biological processes to exist. Just research NDE and OBE. Then research Roger G. Vogelsang's work on artificial intelligence back in 1981. He was one of the physicists who worked on the international joint project called The 5th Generation Computer. I am in the process of finishing up two books about Vogelsang right now. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: ROGER G. VOGELSANG'S DIRE FUTURE PREDICTIONS, and SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE GOD IS REAL, Found in Experiments. Vogelsang discovered the field of energy we exist within is the consciousness of God. So, unbelievable I know. The scientific experiments he did in the early 80's on quantum entanglement explains everything.

21. No, of course not

22. I think Swami Sarvapriyananda based in New york will be the best person to explain conciousness in terms of vedantic view…He has many good arguments..he should be invited to this show

23. Organisms are not mechanisms. Mechanisms are invariably designed by conscious designers. All the parts of a mechanism are assembled fully finished and fully functional by conscious assemblers or by robots designed, built and programmed by conscious designers and assemblers. Mechanisms know no death since all the parts making up a mechanism can theoretically be replaced ad infinitum. Consciousness is precisely what mechanisms lack.
    Meanwhile. organisms evolve either out of an unconscious process, a supra-conscious process, or both. All the parts that make up an organism are never assembled: they grow to maturity, decay and die together in a symbiotic relationship from beginning to end. The parts making up an organism cannot be replaced ad infinitum so death is the inevitable fate of any organism. Comparing organisms to mechanisms is a fundamental mistake.

24. Our brains are literally reasing scripts of past experiences to make decisions.

25. Dr Kuhn it would be interesting to see you have a conversation with an AI/Robot such as Sophia or the like. 🆒

26. Since we have ZERO comprehension of what consciousness is, whatever answer he gives past "I have no idea" is theoretical nonsense.

27. My penis has become conscious.

28. 86 billion (or so) neurons in the brain…each neuron can form 1000 synapses… will take a computer 3 million years..to fully understand all the connections! good luck trying to guess where consciousness comes from !!

29. I’m pretty surprised by this guy. The first guy i have heard in this age of AI obsessed society that actually stays down to earth and realistic. I’m so tired of listening to computer programmers who go on and on but don’t even understand what consciousness is it even attempt to understand it.

30. The problem is how do we destroy the CCP!

31. Yes. It's the equivalent of, "Thee Soul." "Thee Soul," is the equivalent of the, "Universal Embodiment." Implying every Atom and molecular fusion is recorded, including computational.

    #TheRealQAnon #Archive #Anonymous #Viper #rotaercmai

32. i think it is only a matter of time before machines gain consciousness. or at least they get to a point in which we can't tell that they aren't conscious. the difficulty arises bc we dont even know what consciousness is, we've been trying since at least the presocratics in the west to try to find and explain what consciousness is, and all over the world we've been trying. and we simply don't know. but to the extent that we base our understanding on actions and behavior computers will be conscious.

33. Where is the border between biology and not biology, exactly? Not explained or defined in words and language but so that one can witness the border in a microscope.

34. Wow you interview a lot of quantum woo people. Congrats on this dude throwing out QM terms as if he knew what they meant. The virtual particle bit gave me a chortle.

35. After only 75 years of development of digital systems we're giving up on being able to go further?

    Nuh uh. BS, Subhash.

    Quantum mechanics only in "sentient" beings? It's not an on-off condition. It's a range. And we can do a digital C. elegans eventually. Then a ladybug. Then….

    Nope. I think he's biased.

36. Those who say that consciousness is not non-physical is said by their own consciousness or mind-brain. It is tantamount to saying that a physical state is saying that it is not non-physical? This is called as the fallacy of sva or atmaviruddha in Indian logic. The physicalists as physical brain cannot say of themselves as not non-physical. To argue in the opposite is the same thing as matter which is mind-brain of physicalists saying that it is matter. For matter to say it is matter is a self-contradiction in terms.

37. Is it not begging the question that consciousness is physical and thus it can be manipulated by engineers? The engineers' brains themselves are biological. And to say that it can be so is that it is the same biological process which manipulates.

38. can non biological entities fly…i thought so.

39. With all due respect this interviewee needs to study some more neuroscience first.

40. he is so Wrong, we may be biological. but we are also programed by sociality the same way. we follow strict rules also <law>

41. The inteviewer is far smarter than the person he is interviewing.

42. There you have it Robert ….the answer you have been lucking for years…..Consciousness is not an emergent property IT IS THE FUNDAMENT OF EXISTANCE….and It only can be assimilated by biological organism!!!! It is that easy.

43. Wow

44. Very common not to separate the problem of quaila and sensing .

45. Can there be a more ridiculous question ? Consciousness is nothing special.

46. The interesting thing about these discussions about mechanical and biological manifestations in relation to consciousness is that consciousness is always being assessed and compared in terms of outputs and behaviour. This is a fundamentally disputable approach to pinning down consciousness and is partly the limitation of the scientific approach. Science has trouble investigating Ontological states, things in themselves. It measures outputs, behaviours, processes, properties but not things in themselves. So for instance, if a computer beats a human at chess,we have little difficulty in distinguishing between consciousness and mechanical.computation even if the mechanical.computation has within narrowly defined and programmed limits, superior computational output. As computers become more sophisticated (AI, quantum.computimg) the imitation of conscious outputs by machines appears to.make the distinction between human consciousness and mechanical.computation harder to observe. Nevertheless, consciousness is very likely a categorical absolute, independent of and not irreducible to mechanical and computational outputs and behaviours. In so far as consciousness cam operate in transcendence (nonlocally) and be imaginative, creative and emotional in ways irreducible to programming), it's fair to.say that not even the most sophisticated machine will.ever manifest consciousness,only its increasingly sophisticated imitation. I think this is what Mr Kak is driving at. I believe it is still very much a respectable and compelling hypothesis.

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