Sentience

Yautja SG

What if one day our technology reach the point where the movie”Terminator”becomes pluasible.where we create a living entity ,a sentient being but it exist in a shell as an machine or supercomputer (Skynet) with a mind of its own.Is it subjected to the 6 realms of reincarntion or if we terminate it..is there bad karma.?How do we perceive towards such a lifeform?

bohiruci SG

Even if it have a mind of its own , does it able to perceive an

CONSCIOUS and SUBCONSCIOUS level

I believe many have watched I ,robots ,the robot that is featured killing the professor does not have a real intention to kill, but is acted on a request by the Professor

so basically when an sentient beings does not have a spiritual level ability
it is still not considered as one

Human have many rebirths ,so human have the description of what is being possessed as conscious and subconscious level

Cool Cool

Yautja SG

Smile ok..but the moment a baby is bornt...can we assume that baby possess a certain spiritual consciousness or what if the lifeform possess that same level of spiritual consciousness..
the movie"Centennial man" is also very thought provoking.

sinweiy SG

so wat u think these robot belong? opapatika?

Four Modes Of Birth
Buddhism states that there are four modes of birth - namely :
egg-born beings (andaja)
womb-born beings (jalabuja)
moisture-born beings (samsedaja)
beings having spontaneous births (opapatika)

This broad classification embraces the 4 modes of birth of all living beings.
Birds and oviparous snakes belong to the first division.

The womb-born creatures comprise all human beings,
some devas inhabiting the earth,
and some animals that take conception in a mothers womb.

Embryos, using moisture as nidus for their growth,
like certain lowly forms of animal life, belong to the third class.

Beings having a spontaneous birth are generally invisible to the physical eye.
Conditioned by their past Kamma, they appear spontaneously,
without passing through an embryonic stage.
Petas and Devas normally, and Brahmas belong to this class.
http://www.kmspks.org/activities/bbc/bbc6.htm

HHDL got wonder b4 that if robot really can advance to that level of human thinking. being can oso take up the "body" of robots. but mus ask if they still have doubts which is the criteria of human realm.
hmm, or maybe they belong to other realms.

/\

Yautja SG

i see…i myself got no answer…assuming is spontaneous birth..we still dunno which realm does it belong to as in the 6 realms of rebirth

An Eternal Now SG

Hi, this is not possible. No matter how intelligent you make AI to be, and even if one day AI may trick people to believe that they are real beings, it does not mean they have consciousness, because it is impossible to 'create' consciousness.

It is not possible to create consciousness because consciousness is a fundamental, irreducible 'element', the fundamental reality that cannot be objectified or reduced to a physical form, in which all appearances appear 'in'.

Consciousness is formless, and by that I do not mean that consciousness is a formless ghostly entity residing somewhere in the body (which would then be reducing it to an objective reality, though formless), but that consciousness CANNOT be objectified, located, or grasped in any sense at all -- whether formless, form, and it cannot be located at any single place (because all locations are objective realities and Mind/Consciousness is NOT an objective reality)

Consciousness is Awareness, your sense of 'being', of being aware at all. You know you are not just a machine, because you can are aware, and that is undeniable.

I wonder if you understand what I mean... Interestingly I have been discussing this topic recently both in this forum as well as in the Chit Chat forum... will post more later.

p.s. the term 'consciousness' is very confusing. in buddhism, 'consciousness' does not mean awareness, but i am using these terms as if they are similar here. furthermore 'awareness' cannot be conceived as a separate entity.

An Eternal Now SG

Why Machines Will Never be Conscious

Below is the text of my bet on Long Bets. Go there to vote.

"By 2050 no synthetic computer nor machine intelligence will have become truly self-aware (ie. will become conscious)."

Spivack's Argument:

(This summary includes my argument, a method for judging the outcome of this bet and some other thoughts on how to measure awareness...)

A. MY PERSPECTIVE...

Even if a computer passes the Turing Test it will not really be aware that it has passed the Turing Test. Even if a computer seems to be intelligent and can answer most questions as well as an intelligent, self-aware, human being, it will not really have a continuum of awareness, it will not really be aware of what it seems to "think" or "know," it will not have any experience of it's own reality or being. It will be nothing more than a fancy inanimate object, a clever machine, it will not be a truly sentient being.

Self-awareness is not the same thing as merely answering questions intelligently. Therefore even if you ask a computer if it is self-aware and it answers that it is self-aware and that it has passed the Turing Test, it will not really be self-aware or really know that it has passed the Turing Test.

As John Searle and others have pointed out, the Turing Test does not actually measure awareness, it just measures information processing---particularly the ability to follow rules or at least imitate a particular style of communication. In particular it measures the ability of a computer program to imitate humanlike dialogue, which is different than measuring awareness itself. Thus even if we succeed in creating good AI, we won't necessarily succeed in creating AA ("Artificial Awareness").

But why does this matter? Because ultimately, real awareness may be necessary to making an AI that is as intelligent as a human sentient being. However, since AA is theoretically impossible in my opinion, truly self-aware AI will never be created and thus no AI will ever be as intelligent as a human sentient being even if it manages to fool someone into thinking it is (and thus passing the Turing Test).

In my opinion, awareness is not an information process at all and will never be simulated or synthesized by any information process. Awareness cannot be measured by an information processing system, it can only be measured by awareness itself---something no formal information processing system can ever simulate or synthesize.

One might ask how it is that a human has awareness then? My answer is that awareness does not arise from the body or the brain, nor does it arise from any physical cause. Awareness is not in the body or the brain, but rather the body and the brain are in awareness. The situation is analagous to a dream, a simulation or virtual reality, such as that portrayed in the popular film "The Matrix."

We exist in the ultimate virtual reality. The medium of this virtual reality is awareness. That is to say that whatever appears to be happening "out there" or "within the mind" is happening within a unified, nondualistic field of awareness: both the "subject" and the "object" exist equally within this field and neither is the source of awareness.

This is similar to the case where we project ourselves as dream protagonists in our own dreams---even though our dream bodies appear to be different than other dream-images they are really equally dream appearances, they are no more fundamental than dream-objects. We identify with our dream-bodies out of habit and because it's practical because the stories that take place appear from the perspective of particular bodies. But just because this virtual reality is structured as if awareness is coming from within our heads, it does not mean that is actually the case. In fact, quite the opposite is taking place.

Awareness is not actually "in" the VR, the VR is "in" awareness. Things are exactly the opposite of how they appear. Of course this is just an analogy---for example, unlike the Matrix, the virtual reality we live in is not running on some giant computer somewhere and there is no other hidden force controlling it from behind the scenes. Awareness is the fabric of reality and there is nothing deeper, nothing creating it, it is not running on some cosmic computer, it comes out of of nowhere yet everything else comes out of it.

If we look for awareness we can't find anything to grasp, it is empty yet not a mere nothingness, it is an emptiness that is awake, creative, alert, radiant, self-realizing.

Awareness is empty and fundamental like space, but it goes beyond space for it is also lucid. If we look for space we don't find anything there. Nobody has ever touched or grasped space directly! But unlike space, awareness can at least be measured directly--it can measure itself, it knows its own nature.

Awareness is simply fundamental, a given, the underlying meta-reality in which everything appears. How did it come to be? That is unanswerable. What is it? That is unanswerable as well. But there is no doubt that awareness is taking place. Each sentient being has a direct and intimate experience of their own self-awareness.

Each of us experiences a virtual reality in which we and our world are projections. That which both projects these projections and experiences them is awareness. This is like saying that the VR inherently knows its own content. But in my opinion this knowing comes from outside the system, not from some construct that we can create inside it. So any awareness that arises comes from the transcendental nature of reality itself, not from our bodies, minds, or any physical system within a particular reality.

So is there one cosmic awareness out there that we are all a part of? Not exactly, there is not one awareness nor are there many awarenesses because awareness is not a physical thing and cannot be limited by such logical materialist extremes. After all if it is not graspable how can we say it is one or many or any other logical combination of one or many? All we can say is that we are it, whatever it is, and that we cannot explain it further. In being awareness, we are all equal, but we are clearly not the same. We are different projections and on a relative level we are each unique, even though on an ultimate level perhaps we are also unified by being projections within the same underlying continuum. Yet this continuum is fundamentally empty, impossible to locate or limit, and infinitely beyond the confines of any formal system or universe, so it cannot really be called a "thing" and thus we are not "many" or "one" in actuality, what we really are is totally beyond such dualistic distinctions.

Awareness is like space or reality, something so fundamental, so axiomatic, that it is impossible to prove, grasp or describe from "inside" the system using the formal logical tools of the system. Since nothing is beyond awareness, there is no outside, no way to ever gain a perspective on awareness that is not mediated by awareness itself.

Therefore there is no way to reduce awareness to anything deeper; there is no way to find anything more fundamental than awareness. But despite this awareness can be directly experienced, at least by itself.

That which is aware is self-aware. Self-awareness is the very nature of awareness. The self-awareness of awareness does not come from something else, it is inherent to awareness itself. Only awareness is capable of awareness. Nothing that is not aware can ever become aware.

This means awareness is truly fundamental, it has always been present everywhere. Awareness is inherent in the universe as the very basis of everything, it is not something anyone can synthesize and we cannot build a machine that can suddenly experience awareness.

Only beings who are aware already can ever experience awareness. The fact that we are aware now means that we were always aware, even before we were born! Otherwise we never could have become aware in the first place!

(continued from URL)

Yautja SG

hi AEN,
i am not a biologist.please pardon me if i made any error.Let focus on a scenario..we talk about amino acids and some other parts.we know that if we combine them in a condition and environment.we can create a lifeform no doubt its a very simple one.but we must remind ourselves that each part b4 we combine them...they are individually not living things at all.we can dictate that these parts lacks consciousness but we did not know they can form a living thing if pieced together.hence we cannot actually dictate what gives what consciousness or is it possible
second mirror scenario..we pieced resistors,conductors,transformers,capacitors and other mumbo jumbo plus a highly complex program so powerful that it thinks and gain awareness...we have to remember b4 we piece them together,we were sure they are not living things.again wecannot actually dictate or be completely sure what is not possible

sinweiy SG

Originally posted by Yautja:
...we talk about amino acids and some other parts.we know that if we combine them in a condition and environment.we can create a lifeform no doubt its a very simple one.

i tot this was not cfm yet. got supports that it's cfm already?

/\

An Eternal Now SG

Interesting article I've posted btw, just finished reading the first part.

(continued from my previous post)... Each of us "is" awareness. The experience of being aware is unique and undeniable. It has its own particular nature, but this cannot be expressed it can only be known directly. There is no sentient being that is not aware. Furthermore, it would be a logical contradiction to claim that "I am not aware that I am aware" or "that I am aware that I am not aware" and thus if anyone claims they are not aware or have ever experienced, or can even imagine, there not being awareness they are lying. There is nobody who does not experience their own awareness, even if they don't recognize or admit that they experience it.

The experience of being self-aware is the unique experience of "being" --- an experience so basic that it is indescribable in terms of anything else --- something that no synthetic computer will ever have.

Eventually, it will be proved that no formal information processing system is capable of self-awareness and that thus formal computers cannot be self-aware in principle. This proof will use the abstract self-referential structure of self-awareness to establish that no formal computer can ever be self-aware.

Simply put, computers and computer programs cannot be truly self-referential: they always must refer to something else---there must at least be a set of fixed meta-rules that are not self-referential for a computer or program to work. Awareness is not like this however, awareness is perfectly self-referential without referring to anything else.

The question will then arise as to what self-awareness is and how it is possible. We will eventually conclude that systems that are self-aware are not formal systems and that awareness must be at least as fundamental as, or more fundamental than, space, time and energy.

Currently most scientists and non-scientists consider the physical world to be outside of awareness and independent of it. But considering that nobody has or will ever experience anything without awareness it is illogical to assume that anything is really outside of awareness. It is actually far more rational to assume that whatever arises or is experienced is inside awareness, and that nothing is outside of awareness. This assumption of everything being within awareness would actually be a more scientific, observation-based conclusion than the opposite assumption which is entirely unfounded on anything we have ever or will ever be able to observe. After all, we have never observed anything apart from awareness have we? Thus contrary to current beliefs, the onus is on scientists to prove that anything is outside of awareness, not the other way around!

Awareness is quite simply the ultimate primordial basic nature of reality itself---without awareness there could be no "objective reality" at all and no "subjective beings" to experience it. Awareness is completely transcendental, beyond all limitations and boundaries, outside of all possible systems. What hubris to think we can simply manufacture, or evolve, awareness with a pile of electrified silicon hardware and some software rules.

No matter how powerful the computer, no matter what it is made of, and no matter how sophisticated or emergent the software is, it will still never be aware or evolve awareness. No computer or machine intelligence will ever be aware. Even a quantum computer---if it is equivalent to a finite non-quantum computer at least---will not be capable of awareness, and even if it is a transinfinite computer I still have my doubts that it could ever be aware. Awareness is simply not an information process.

An Eternal Now SG

I think you do not understand what I mean about consciousness being a fundamental reality.

What you said might happen, and I suggest that there is no need to go through such a tedious process to "make" sentient beings: all we have to do is to make two sentient beings mate, and then they will produce an offspring.

Or, you can clone a person, and what you will get is another conscious being, because it is a being -- it is not a machine, it is not an artificial intelligence based on information processing system.

BUT you can never produce consciousness based on an information processing system such as AI! AI simply refers to fixed meta-rules that are not self-referential for a computer or program to work. Awareness is not like this however, awareness is perfectly self-referential without referring to anything else.

Consciousness is an irreducible fundamental reality, more fundamental than space, time, energy, in which everything appears.

Without consciousness, the body is simply a corpse!

http://www.parama.com/html/process_enlightenment.html

So the body still feels pain?

No! The body is oblivious to pain. The body has never felt anything! The body is an appearance in Awareness. The contrast that happens gives rise to I am-consciousness in relation to the body. When any form of experiencing happens it is of this consciousness, NOT the body.

But, if you cut a finger, it bleeds. If you eat too much, the stomach bloats and feels uncomfortable.

Consciousness is the animation of the body. You cut a finger and it bleeds. This is a product of that animation. Your stomach bloats, and this animation is also due to Consciousness. The body is, and always has been, an inanimate object, animated by Consciousness! The body is no different to a glove puppet without a hand in it. Consciousness is the hand, as it were, that animates the body. The body doesnt feel this animation.

Seeing, feeling, hearing, and smelling are attributed to the sense organs. These organs dont have any experience whatsoever. They are inanimate objects animated by consciousnessthe manifest expression of You. Do you get that?

Yes, but the mind still has thoughts about what you see and feel and experience?

No! The mind doesnt have thoughts. The mind doesnt experience thoughts. The mind is thoughts, a whole parade of them. The mind is a reflection of the animating principleYou. Only You, the animating principle, can be said to have, and experience, thoughts. The body does not cause its own animation, and cannot feel it. The mind doesnt cause its own animation, and cannot think or experience thoughts.

David Carse:

...Look, it's all so incredibly simple. There is no one here. This is not a figure of speech. I mean there is truly no one here, no person, no individual speaking to you. You look at me and think there is a person here talking to you, trying to tell you something. I assure you, there is not. Look at me. If there were not Consciousness streaming through this body, what would be here? What would this body be if Consciousness were not here? A corpse, of course! Dead matter. There is nothing else here. There is only the appearance of a body, and Consciousness which animates it. You, along with the rest of the world, have assumed that there is a discreet individual person here: that the Consciousness which is the animating force here is an individual consciousness, unique to this body and separate from the consciousness in other bodies.

This is based on appearances: there appear to be separate bodies, so the assumption is that there are separate consciousness-es. The belief in this assumption blinds you to seeing What Is, and is also the cause of your experience of this life as disquieting, confusing, unhappy, and generally full of fear and suffering. But it is not the case. There is in no way an individual sitting here talking to you. This body is nothing, an appearance in the dream. All there is is Consciousness, and it is Consciousness which is streaming through this appearance.

There is nothing here that exists in and of itself. What we call the human being is not an independent being, not an originating mechanism, not a transmitter. It is a relay station, a pass-through mechanism for Consciousness, the One Consciousness, All That Is. That is what I am, talking to you. And it is the same One Consciousness listening to this, looking back at me out of those eyes you call your own. What I am when I say 'I Am' is exactly the same as what you are when you say 'I Am.'....

An Eternal Now SG

Ajahn Brahm:

...I gave a simile to a monk the other night. Imagine an Emperor who is wearing a long pair of trousers and a big tunic. He's got shoes on his feet, a scarf around the bottom half of his head and a hat on the top half of his head. You can't see him at all because he's completely covered in five garments. It's the same with the mind. It's completely covered with sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. So people don't know it. They just know the garments. When they see the Emperor, they just see the robes and the garments. They don't know who lives inside them. And so it is no wonder they're confused about what is life, what is mind, who is this inside of here, were did I come from? Why? What am I supposed to be doing with this life? When the five senses disappear, it's like unclothing the Emperor and seeing what is actually in here, what's actually running the show, who's listening to these words, who's seeing, who's feeling life, who this is. When the five senses disappear, you're coming close to the answer to those questions.

What you're seeing in such deep meditation is that which we call "mind," (in Pali it's called Citta). The Buddha used this beautiful simile. When there is a full moon on a cloudy night, even though it's a full moon, you can hardly see it. Sometimes when the clouds are thin, you can see this hazy shape shining though. You know there is something there. This is like the meditation just before you've entered into these profound states. You know there is something there, but you can't quite make it out. There's still some "clothes" left. You're still thinking and doing, feeling the body or hearing sounds. But there does come a time, and this is the Buddha's simile, when the moon is released from the clouds and there in the clear night sky you can see the beautiful full disc of the moon shining brilliantly, and you know that's the moon. The moon is there; the moon is real, and it's not just some sort of side effect of the clouds. This is what happens in meditation when you see the mind. You see clearly that the mind is not some side effect of the brain. You see the mind, and you know the mind. The Buddha said that the mind released is beautiful, is brilliant, is radiant. So not only are these blissful experiences, they're meaningful experiences as well.

How many people may have heard about rebirth but still don't really believe it? How can rebirth happen? Certainly the body doesn't get reborn. That's why when people ask me where do you go when you die, "one of two places" I say "Fremantle or Karrakatta" that's where the body goes! [3] But is that where the mind goes? Sometimes people are so stupid in this world, they think the body is all there is, that there is no mind. So when you get cremated or buried that's it, that's done with, all has ended. The only way you can argue with this view is by developing the meditation that the Buddha achieved under the Bodhi tree. Then you can see the mind for yourself in clear awareness - not in some hypnotic trance, not in dullness - but in the clear awareness. This is knowing the mind

Knowing the Mind.

When you know that mind, when you see it for yourself, one of the results will be an insight that the mind is independent of this body. Independence means that when this body breaks up and dies, when it's cremated or when it's buried, or however it's destroyed after death, it will not affect the mind. You know this because you see the nature of the mind. That mind which you see will transcend bodily death. The first thing which you will see for yourself, the insight which is as clear as the nose on your face, is that there is something more to life than this physical body that we take to be me. Secondly you can recognise that that mind, essentially, is no different than that process of consciousness which is in all beings. Whether it's human beings or animals or even insects, of any gender, age or race, you see that that which is in common to all life is this mind, this consciousness, the source of doing....

Yautja SG

if we refer back to the organism in the 1st scenario..we know its alive but where is its consciousness or does it have consciousness?we cannot locate or see its consciousness...we don't know if it "thinks" or is "aware".
likewise if we refer to the supposedly alive AI,lets call it Skynet.how do we know its alive.?is it conscious,is it aware?
are both alive?

An Eternal Now SG

Microscopic lifeforms, unicellular and multicellular, virus and bacteria, all these are not sentient beings. They are not conscious beings, they do not have nervous system, or sensory organs, etc. Like plants and trees, they do not undergo rebirth, and are purely biological functions.

Next, you cannot know whether that appearing AI is alive by looking at his appearance, but whether you know or do not know does not change the fact that the AI is not aware, is not conscious.

Any artificial intelligence is simply informational processing systems and cannot ever produce consciousness because consciousness is an irreducible element and is not generated by information processing.

Appearances 'appear' IN consciousness, not the other way round!

Even the body does not generate consciousness, consciousness 'streams through' the body. Consciousness is that which perceives the pain, the sensations, not the body. The body simply 'appears' in that awareness.

AI is simply an information processing system, but we will never never create consciousness in the realm of objects -- we cannot create an 'artificial intelligence' because Intelligence/Consciousness is that which streams through the body, it is that which feels pain and sensations, it is not something 'CREATED' by the body/physical instrument. The body does not feel -- consciousness feels and body is an appearance in consciousness.

Consciousness is simply consciousness -- an irreducible element -- we cannot 'artificially create consciousness out of physical element', though consciousness can 'stream through' bodies. BUT it will never be based on information processing systems, or a pile of electrified silicon hardware and some software rules. Those are simply 'automated' functionings -- not conscious beings. Conscious intelligence can never be artificial.

Like I said just now, "BUT you can never produce consciousness based on an information processing system such as AI! AI simply refers to fixed meta-rules that are not self-referential for a computer or program to work. Awareness is not like this however, awareness is perfectly self-referential without referring to anything else."

Yautja SG

According to what science has pointed..the very 1st living thing on earth was a microorganism...after a very long time,it evolves into more complicated living things.Theory of evolution.lets say after a very long time...this microorganism evolves to become a type of worm...can we say that the worm has consciousness while its very ancestor that it evolved from does not have consciousness.?
or can we say the worm is sentient but its ancestor the moicroorganism is not.?
or maybe consciousness do evolve or there are various degree of sentience.

An Eternal Now SG

The worm is sentient, the microorganism is not. Yes.

There is difference of consciousness, but the microorganism, like a plant or a tree, is incapable of consciousness. It has no consciousness.

Yautja SG

ok we can say the micro organism is life but not sentient.
the worm is life with sentient.
are we taking life if we kill the worm?
are we taking life if we kill the organism?
Both actions are taking of lives

An Eternal Now SG

Yes, both actions are taking lives, but you won't create negative karma by killing microscopic organisms such as bacteria and viruses. That is why drugs and injections is OK.

Similarly vegetables are life but they are not conscious, that is why vegetarianism is encouraged in Buddhism over eating animals.

Yautja SG

ok..it kind of link back as how are we to dictate what is life what is not because we cannot see or locate consciousness.?if supposedly AI is life with no sentience while the worm is life with sentience.
and a broken link appears..how can we highly sentients be drived from a non sentient being?

An Eternal Now SG

Hey sorry for late reply was away.

We cannot see consciousness, but we can tell from signs whether a person has consciousness. Like for example you can tell from signs whether a person is alive or dead, etc

Why a microscopic organism doesnt have consciousness is because it is incapable of being conscious, it is just made up of cells and cannot possibly have a nervous system, feel, sense, and so on.

That is why it is incapable of consciousness.