Moderator: yorick
Definition of SENTIENT
1: responsive to or conscious of sense impressions <sentient beings>
2: aware
3: finely sensitive in perception or feeling
Sri Lanky wrote:Computers do not nor will they ever have psychic abilities in my opinion.
Eli Pariser wrote:But as these systems become increasingly "intelligent," they also become harder to control and understand. It's not quite right to say they take on a life of their own--ultimately, they're still just code. But the reach a level of complexity at which even their programmers can't fully explain any given output.
This is already true to a degree with Google's search algorithm. Even to its engineers, the workings of the algorithm are somewhat mysterious. "If they opened up the mechanics," says search expert Danny Sullivan, "you still wouldn't know what to do with them." The core software engine of Google search is hundreds of thousands of line of code. According to one Google employee I talked to who had spoken to the search team, "The team tweaks and tunes, they don't really know what works or why it works, they just know the result."
Sri Lanky wrote:So we're left with atoms and molecules to play with...another cosmic joke. Look at the silly humans studying their molecules. hahahahahah
Jäeger wrote:While elephants, yeast and humans may reduce biologically to "code", the most sophisticated computer programme in the world is not capable (yet, I do not categorically rule out the potential in future) of experiencing the world in the way that a truly sentient being does.
Going back to the God argument as an example. A person who has an experience of "god" or the "supernatural" can be profoundly impacted. That is indisputable. A moment like Saul's on the road to Damascus is not rational and defies logic, yet the impact of the experience upon Saul, the world and history itself is immense. Whether we (or Saul for that matter) believe in god is irrelevant to fact of the experience of god that Saul experienced. People, cultures and life itself are changed by these "irrational" experiences. Trying to rationalise these beliefs (which in the area of "god" is really just a product of paganism, Roman popery and scholasticism in western thought) will always lead to an unsatisfying outcome one way or the other. Instead we must rationally embrace the irrationality of experience (and noncognitive action) as a larger part of our reality than the merely rational part of our nature. Not doing so leads to one metaphorically being half a person. That is why the most sophisticated google will remain half a "person" and will lack what we consider sentience.
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