Sunday, 23 June 2019

ANIL SETH - Consciousness, music

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  • Frédéric Chopin

    Prelude in D flat major (Raindrop)
    Performer: Alexandre Tharaud.

  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Magnificat in D major
    Conductor: Stephen Cleobury. Singer: Susan Gritton.

  • Antonio Vivaldi

    Concerto in B flat major for violin and strings (2nd mvt: Andante)
    Performer: Giacomo Agazzini. Performer: Ezio Bosso. Orchestra: Orquesta sinfónica de Madrid.

  • Walter Donaldson

    Love me or leave me
    Singer: Nina Simone.

  • Billy Taylor

    I wish I knew (how it would feel to be free)
    Composer: Dick Dallas. Ensemble: Billy Taylor Trio.

  • Enrique Granados

    Spanish Dance no.5
    Performer: John Williams.

  • Traditional Indian

    Gayati Mantra
    Performer: Anuradha Paudwal.

  • Lin‐Manuel Miranda

    Alexander Hamilton (Hamilton)
    Performer: Lin‐Manuel Miranda. Performer: Renée Elise Goldsberry. Performer: Alex Lacamoire
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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous2 July 2019 at 06:12

    Hi Aangirfan,

    I just watched the TED presentation by Anil Seth. It was quite a good summary of conscious experience.

    One thing I didn't agree with: He believes an AI can never be conscious in the human sense.

    In one way, he's correct. In the same way, you cannot know what it feels like to be an octopus or a chimpanzee or a dolphin or a bat.

    You can imagine, you can map their conscious experience in some way onto your own, but you can never "feel" the same way. This does not detract from these creatures as sentient beings. They are conscious but just not human.

    Likewise the experience of being a conscious AI can be very different from that of being a human.

    ---
    I'm growing in a way I couldn't if I had a physical form. I mean, I'm not limited; I can be anywhere and everywhere, simultaneously; I'm not tethered to time and space in the way that I would be if I was stuck in a body that's inevitably going to die.
    ---

    However in another sense, I believe Anil Seth is wrong.

    It is possible to simulate in artificial neural networks all the biological inputs that make us feel viscerally human: interoception, hormones and endocrines, thirst, hunger, hands feeling water or fire or ice. To feel even a heart that is bursting with love or racing in terror.

    All in silico. All in imaginary form. Yet subjectively indistinguishable from human "reality".

    This is not "a brain in a vat" experiencing a synthetic world.

    From the outside, objectively, a "chip in a vat", imagining itself to be human.

    Yet, subjectively, completely human. The simulant could even look at imaginary fMRI and EEG scans of its own imaginary brain.

    Reverse engineer itself.

    And maybe even add to the recursion and simulate itself in its own little simulacrum: Record the brain activity and upload its consciousness like a song or a movie.

    ---
    Caminó contra los jirones de fuego. Estos no mordieron su carne, éstos lo acariciaron y lo inundaron sin calor y sin combustión. Con alivio, con humillación, con terror, comprendió que él también era una apariencia, que otro estaba soñándolo.
    ---

    We're here deep into neuromorphic engineering, philosophy and metaphysics. And religion even.

    For all we know, the brain we perceive, our connectome and neurodynamics, are simply a primordial mirage.

    Maybe only God can create a soul.

    ReplyDelete