Why does Bernardo reject the possibility of sentient AI?

[Hedge90]

At first glance this seemed logical, but as I thought a bit about it, I don't get why it would be impossible to create sentient AI. In Bernardo's view, life is a dissociation when experienced from the 1st person view, and an objectification of a mental state when experienced from the 3nd person view. But why would this preclude the possibility of us producing such dissociation by artificial means? We are doing it all the time via biological procreation, which is the natural process of it, but why would it be impossible to figure out a way to do it without sexy time?
Of course I get it that it's not going to happen in the way that AI researches currently expect it to happen, i.e. by merely expanding computational capacities to a certain point, where sentience should magically appear. I get that. But unless I'm missing something, it is not logical to postulate that it cannot happen by any other means.

[Ben Iscatus]

BK thinks abiogenesis is possible in principle, but that it would look like metabolising life (this being the extrinsic image of conscious inner life). There is a good very recent discussion with Brian Ford.

[Starbuck]

BK thinks abiogenesis is possible in principle, but that it would look like metabolising life (this being the extrinsic image of conscious inner life). There is a good very recent discussion with Brian Ford.

That's my understanding too.

Worth noting that if what we see is a 'dashboard' representation of mental forms, then 'what metabolising life looks like' is our best guess/estimation, not a one to one correspondence. I think we will create synthetic life, but that does not entail that we will grasp all of the underlying processes.

Going to the OP, I think AI will greatly aid us in this venture, which is more to say that AI will be doing things we don't understand - which is very different to saying that the AI is sentient!

They are currently growing muscles cells as a meat substitute, no jiggy jiggy going on there! These cells will be an artefact of an original donor animal, so I assume zombie meat!!

[AshvinP]

At first glance this seemed logical, but as I thought a bit about it, I don't get why it would be impossible to create sentient AI. In Bernardo's view, life is a dissociation when experienced from the 1st person view, and an objectification of a mental state when experienced from the 3nd person view. But why would this preclude the possibility of us producing such dissociation by artificial means? We are doing it all the time via biological procreation, which is the natural process of it, but why would it be impossible to figure out a way to do it without sexy time?
Of course I get it that it's not going to happen in the way that AI researches currently expect it to happen, i.e. by merely expanding computational capacities to a certain point, where sentience should magically appear. I get that. But unless I'm missing something, it is not logical to postulate that it cannot happen by any other means.

Death-Life, Unconsciousness-Consciousness, Sleeping-Waking, etc. are polar relations. All too often these poles are divided from each other and then reified into absolute states of reality. So BK then says some things are alive and some are dead, some things are instinctively conscious and other things are 'meta-conscious'. Of course this is the same position of the physicalist, except "instinctive" is replaced with "material" or "energetic". Consistent idealism overcomes this dualist framework and understands these qualities as relational modes of ideational Being. These poles are not only relational, but they are also evolving in an upwards spiral. What is dead is being raised into life, what is unconscious is raised into consciousness, what is asleep is awakened. This evolution occurs through our own concrete higher Thinking activity. It restores the union of Soul-Spirit which our lower thinking (abstract intellect) tore asunder. And those who are raised into eternal life also become responsible for redeeming those who are 'dead'.

So, in short, the question of sentient AI and 'abiogenesis' already presupposes unwarranted assumptions about reality, which explains why BK cannot have any coherent idealist position on it. The latter rejects the possibility of absolutely unconscious and dead 'entities' to begin with.

[Ben Iscatus]

those who are raised into eternal life also become responsible for redeeming those who are 'dead'.

The zombies will be pleased to know this.

Interesting that "Analytic Idealism" and "Artificial Intelligence" are both "AI" - possibly deliberate.

[AshvinP]

At first glance this seemed logical, but as I thought a bit about it, I don't get why it would be impossible to create sentient AI. In Bernardo's view, life is a dissociation when experienced from the 1st person view, and an objectification of a mental state when experienced from the 3nd person view. But why would this preclude the possibility of us producing such dissociation by artificial means? We are doing it all the time via biological procreation, which is the natural process of it, but why would it be impossible to figure out a way to do it without sexy time?
Of course I get it that it's not going to happen in the way that AI researches currently expect it to happen, i.e. by merely expanding computational capacities to a certain point, where sentience should magically appear. I get that. But unless I'm missing something, it is not logical to postulate that it cannot happen by any other means.

Another way to consider what I wrote above - what is this "3rd person view" that BK relies on to formulate 'objective idealism'? There is no such thing. But everyone in the modern age began feeling that this non-existent perspective was necessary to have "objective" truth. Why? Because the role of Thinking in the world processes was diminished and nearly eliminated. It was felt that the relational meaning discerned by Thinking cannot be the sound basis for objectively verifiable processes. But there is no logical basis for that feeling. In fact, all systematic inquiries presuppose the opposite, but have simply abstracted out so far from concrete Thinking that the presupposition has been practically forgotten, which relates to Cleric's latest post about Memory as thinking-gestures in the other thread. Scientific endeavors of humanity practically conduct symphonies by thinking-gestures without realizing or remembering doing so. The progressions towards 'sentient AI' is a stark reminder of how abstracted Thinking has become - if we fail to see this dynamic of Spirit (Thinking) at work in the world, then we are basically seeking to transfer our own Thinking into machine entities so that they can do all the "thinking" for us. We can already see that happening around us to a great extent. AI algorithms already know much more about our subconscious soul-life than we do.

[Starbuck]

At first glance this seemed logical, but as I thought a bit about it, I don't get why it would be impossible to create sentient AI. In Bernardo's view, life is a dissociation when experienced from the 1st person view, and an objectification of a mental state when experienced from the 3nd person view. But why would this preclude the possibility of us producing such dissociation by artificial means? We are doing it all the time via biological procreation, which is the natural process of it, but why would it be impossible to figure out a way to do it without sexy time?
Of course I get it that it's not going to happen in the way that AI researches currently expect it to happen, i.e. by merely expanding computational capacities to a certain point, where sentience should magically appear. I get that. But unless I'm missing something, it is not logical to postulate that it cannot happen by any other means.

Another way to consider what I wrote above - what is this "3rd person view" that BK relies on to formulate 'objective idealism'? There is no such thing. But everyone in the modern age began feeling that this non-existent perspective was necessary to have "objective" truth. Why? Because the role of Thinking in the world processes was diminished and nearly eliminated. It was felt that the relational meaning discerned by Thinking cannot be the sound basis for objectively verifiable processes. But there is no logical basis for that feeling. In fact, all systematic inquiries presuppose the opposite, but have simply abstracted out so far from concrete Thinking that the presupposition has been practically forgotten, which relates to Cleric's latest post about Memory as thinking-gestures in the other thread. Scientific endeavors of humanity practically conduct symphonies by thinking-gestures without realizing or remembering doing so. The progressions towards 'sentient AI' is a stark reminder of how abstracted Thinking has become - if we fail to see this dynamic of Spirit (Thinking) at work in the world, then we are basically seeking to transfer our own Thinking into machine entities so that they can do all the "thinking" for us. We can already see that happening around us to a great extent. AI algorithms already know much more about our subconscious soul-life than we do.

Please can we protect the purpose of this subforum thank you.

[Cleric K]

At first glance this seemed logical, but as I thought a bit about it, I don't get why it would be impossible to create sentient AI. In Bernardo's view, life is a dissociation when experienced from the 1st person view, and an objectification of a mental state when experienced from the 3nd person view. But why would this preclude the possibility of us producing such dissociation by artificial means? We are doing it all the time via biological procreation, which is the natural process of it, but why would it be impossible to figure out a way to do it without sexy time?
Of course I get it that it's not going to happen in the way that AI researches currently expect it to happen, i.e. by merely expanding computational capacities to a certain point, where sentience should magically appear. I get that. But unless I'm missing something, it is not logical to postulate that it cannot happen by any other means.

The question is whether the structure of physical stuff, as accessible through the sensory spectrum worked upon by the intellect, is a complete image of the full spectrum of reality. If it is, then things are quite much a form of pan-pyschism and in that case, setting material stuff in specific motion, should 'feel' as something from the 'inside'.

Pan-psychism tells us that if we put C, H, N, O and microelements in the correct configuration, this is all that's needed to create the proper conscious complementary image. But what if there are other ingredients which are not sense perceptible but nevertheless make the different between a corpse (which has the proper chemical structure) and a living creature? And we can't simply take these other ingredients with our tweezers and put them on the petri dish?