What exactly are we talking about when we say this? Is it something that can be described about matter alone?

What about computers, are they thinking? If so, is it fundamentally different than human thought?

It is a very good question. If we approach it from a psychological point of view we can say right off the bat it is an umbrella term for a wide degree of processes that for the sake of scientific method is easier to separate into different "boxes".

I'll explain using a very simplified model.

You perceive using sensory organs.
The signals are transformed into the body's/brain's information language (travelling through synapses
In your brain signals are interactioned between the regions responsible for emotions and cognition ("conscious thought") which adjusts your reactions to it based on previous patterns in the brain ("how much emotion, how much thought, how much action")
Your brain/body creates actions based on how this information is treated.


As for computers, yes they think differently than we do. It's probably best described using an analogy.

Imagine the human information travelling along something that looks like a forest of oak trees. Signals swoosh and wish along all the branches and leaves, bumping into eachother and changing eachother when they meet. There are "pathways" but they can subtly change over time leading to slighly different outcomes. A tree missing or a branch being broken only means a change in the signal, it takes extreme disaster to stop it.

Human thinking is a great method for handling information you're uncertain what to do with or where you don't need precision as much as you need effective processing.

Computer information you can imagine as travelling alongside an 8-field highway in strict patterns of order. Regulations of the highway are strict and if they fail the information will probably come to to a grinding halt. A highway is awesome if you know where you want to go, but if you don't a highway is not very good.

Computer thinking is great for handling extreme amounts of information you know what to do with or where you need extreme precision.

Computers are in development and as they grow in power we can make them more virtual (through programming) and this allows us to make machines that think differently. But I think these analogies are still decent.

I believe thinking involves a subjective element - to be thinking it has to "feel like" something while you're doing it. I dont think a materialist account of thinking is possible, even in principle.

I don't think you can make these "even in principle" type assertions, even in principle.

You dont think the OP wanted to hear opinions? Or you dont think there's a distinction to be made between "We'll never be able to do it" and "It's impossible to do"?

Oops I forgot the smiley.

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA003/...A003_pref.html

Now vhawk01 will think you're a christian.

REALLY!!!!

So if you met a p-zombie, you would have some conviction that it was incapable of thought?

I have an idea what a p-zombie is, but I could well be way off, so it might be best to enlighten me. However, I think they are incapable of thought.

In terms of my conviction, perhaps typically I will concede that I may be able to be tricked into thinking that something without the capability was, in fact, thinking.

If we are allowed a distinction between conscious thought and more primal forms of thought we can start a debate.

If we only allow self-referencing conscious biological thought, then what it means "to think" is whatever humans, and only humans, do when they think.

I don't believe computers think fundamentally different than humans. I am a proponent of strong AI, and my definitions of intelligence, thought and functional systems are comfortably wide and encompassing.

I think thoughts are either a by-product of symbol manipulation. Like the warmth of a reading lamp. Or thoughts are realizations of this symbol manipulations. Like we are able to observe our environment, we are able to observe our interior landscape, and acknowledge its meanderings. I think it's possible for a computer to attain this, if it has not reached very simple mental states of its own already.

I deem thoughts to have a measurable mass/vector or energy. I deem bigger functional systems like the economy or the western hemisphere to have thoughts. Very alien and incomprehensible to an individual, yet "thought" in all its symbol manipulating definitions. If a functional system is capable of holding mental states, it will be capable of a form of thought.

I dont always believe criminals when they claim: I wasn't thinking. I also don't feel the "thinking" referred to there is what is in debate when we talk about "thought". But I still say its a nice example to illustrate that action without thinking it over, is somewhat possible. A car driving into a wall will never claim: what was I thinking? A computer making a calculating error, because the programmer typed an error, will not think twice about it. Even though it might arrive at a contradiction, the error to the computer is still fundamental fact of reality.

It is when a computer programs himself, and has its own initiative, when the car can control its own gaspedal that we can start talking about thoughts that are similar to human thought. Human thought unquestionably incorporates an element of self-reflection. About own control. That is why mindcontrol and zombies holds such fascinating scare to us.

edit: oops. whatever Tame_deuces said.

Okay, but on what basis can you make the distinction?

i agree. this is a very very good question.

more things to consider:

if i touch something hot, and as a reflex, i pull my hand away before the signal ever reaches my brain, did it think? or am i just aware of what transpired after the fact?

if i am overcome with emotion and a make a bad decision, but then regret it later, and say, "ohhhhh ****, i wasn't thinking" isn't making bad decisions still classified as thinking?

and if decsions are based on emotion, are not emtions a form of thinking also?

when i first read desCartes, i instantly identified with virtually everything that he argued.

You mean how can I tell, faced with you and a p-zombie, which one is thinking and which one just looks like it?

Or do you mean what properties do you have that a p-zombie doesnt?

(And if you could define p-zombie in a sentence, it might help).

I mean, in terms of how you view the world (and the other people in it), how does the experiential reality of thinking even play a role?

How can you have any more confidence that I am thinking than you do that a rock is thinking? Or an AI, if nothing else.

It's the experiential aspect that makes me care when you say "ow". I dont have any qualms about unplugging an AI because I dont think it suffers and I dont think it "really" thinks. If I did, I would morally object to anyone switching it off, reprogramming it, examining its code, etcetera etcetera
It is difficult to say "How do you know what thinks?" - witness the dispute over whether animals are conscious, etcetera. So far, in life, I havent had much difficulty forming a view - whether that is an accurate view is hard to tell, nonetheless the confidence is there.

What do you think is conscious? I dont think the problem of answering "how can you be confident?" is peculiar to my position.

So you'd happily "unplug" a computer that expresses all the subtlety in emotional expression that a human does? And it wouldn't worry you that your treatment of the computer as unworthy of moral consideration is arbitrary?

Is the murderer's treatment of his victim as morally unworthy any more arbitrary?

I think that I am conscious, and my rule of thumb is that anything similar to me has a chance of being conscious (and thus, to be safe, I'll consider it conscious).

I dont think this is possible. I expect that, if artificial intelligence is possible (which I doubt), a computer would be able to persuade me that it was conscious.
I dont think it's arbitrary - I think there are moral laws imposed on me, which I am grasping towards, sometimes accurately, sometimes not. All I can do is to do my best - the fact I might make a mistake is neither here nor there - it's a fact of life. Similar to you, I too would err on the side of caution if there was some doubt since leaving a non-thinking computer running has no moral downside compared to switching off a thinking entity.
I think the murderer who considers his victim morally unworthy (I dont think this is true of all murderers) is making a mistake.

How can you be confident that it is any more likely that "things similar to you" are conscious than that a rock is? Isnt your criteria as arbitrary as anything else?

Okay, no major harm done, then.

But what mistake is he making?

Not necessarily.

If my consciousness results in any external, observable effects, then it's reasonable to imagine that other consciousness might produce similar observable effects.

If my consciousness does not result in any such effects, then I'm in more trouble. I have to make some leap. I can conclude that any determination will be arbitrary, but that it has serious consequences, and then make my (arbitrary) decision very carefully. But I have another out - I can consider the possibility that my intrinsic sense of moral consideration has some degree of accuracy, and then extend it. But my intrinsic sense of moral consideration is clearly based on similarity to me. And extension of it neatly ends up corresponding to those who share my attributes.

Plus, in order to make sense of the world I construct a physical model of it, and that physical model now includes explanations (albeit incomplete) of my consciousness and intrinsic moral sense, and the physical explanation for my consciousness would also theoretically be likely to apply to others exhibiting certain similarities to me.

He is failing to distinguish what is moral. His moral sense is going wrong.

Analogous to an optical illusion/mirage or perhaps to choosing not to look at something you'd rather not see.
I agree, of course. But isnt this an arbitrary position to take?

Oh? How are you sure you aren't the one choosing not to look at something you'd rather not see?

In the sense that all positions are arbitrary.

But mainly, if it cries out when it's in pain, then I don't want to hurt it.

I'm not sure in the same sense that I'm not sure I'm not hallucinating right now. I believe in absolute morality. I believe we can discern something about it through a faculty similar to sense. I also concede that we often make mistakes and that there isnt any objective way to see if we're right.

People make a big deal about the epistemological problems with an absolute morality and I just dont see it. So we can't know everything and we are inherently unsure of ourselves in regard to ethical or moral questions - so what? The questions of what exists and what we can know are separate. I have always conceded that absolute morality is a mystical belief (though I deny it's tied to theism).
Right. I dont understand why you asked "And it wouldn't worry you that your treatment of the computer as unworthy of moral consideration is arbitrary?" since all positions are arbitrary.
Surely you can at least sometimes distinguish between sounding like something's in pain from being in pain. Do you consider shooting the baddies in a computer game unethical? They sound like they're hurting.

But you're just describing morality as a mystical object that exists in some relation to us.

You aren't describing why we "should" act in any sort of harmonious relation with that object.

What would worry me is someone treating an AI with casual cruelty. For the same reason that someone treating a human (or other animal) with casual cruelty worries me.

Sure, and so do the actors pretending to be them. But I know exactly what they are and how they're represented. Unfortunately, I don't know the same things about the human mind, but if enemies in a computer game started acting and responding as real dynamic beings instead of just repeating the same old sound file over and over again, I would start to worry.