Topic: Will the bitcoin network ever become conscious? - page 2. (Read 3999 times)

Exactly.  It can't be proven, or even understood in the conventional sense ( that would be like a knife trying to cut itself or
trying to bite ones own teeth* ) but can only be experienced directly.   

And I try to avoid the use of the word "religion" in reference to such things as it tends to make one think of this or that
particular organized system of dogma derived from the type of 'second-hand' accounts dancupid mentioned... 
of course the word "spiritual" is problematic so I often try to avoid it too... 

Now that I think more on this it seems that the word "consciousness" can be defined many ways as well.
This link might help show what I mean by it here:

The Nondual Philosophy of Franklin Merrell-Wolff
http://www.integralscience.org/gsc/

It is certainly not the only one I could dig up to try and get across the 'mystic view' but it seems that because he was
also a mathematician and teacher of philosophy that Franklin Merrell-Wolff communicates this kinda stuff (which he directly
experienced himself) to modern western minds better than most. 


And the Hare Krishna putdown is rather disappointing to see and if things are going to go that way I will just bow out of this
whole conversation.

I have my views based on my experiences and that is good enough for me, and I am not interesting in pushing them on
anyone else, even if it was possible for me to adequately communicate such things... I just wanted to share my view on the
notion of whether machines could ever become conscious.  Nothing worth getting disrespectful over I didn't think... 


Thanks

*see that link for more info on that:
"Consciousness is original, self-existent, and constitutive of all things..."
"The Subject to Consciousness transcends the object of Consciousness..."  etc.

I will say this... if I were a consciousness looking for a host network to reside in.. I would choose the bitcoin network for sure. 

Isn't that the whole point of religion? That there is a reality outside of physical human consciousness (beyond death)?

Anyway, your argument is invalidated by the opposing viewpoint (no evidence that religion HASN'T achieved anything). Of course there isn't any evidence, because that evidence would need to be located in our 4 physical dimensions.

Yeah, but there's no evidence that any religious process ever actually really achieved anything ever, other then the 2nd hand accounts of people who didn't achieve Nirvana. It certainly hasn't happened within living memory. Hare Krishna

Nothing says intelligence has to be high speed.  Why couldn't a series of computers become self aware and communicate via the postal system?

Sure it can. And it feeds on new blocks.

EVERYONE STOP MINING!

Easy answer:  No.

Long answer:

The estimate of 15 petaflops is within the ballpark of what it takes to 'simulate' the human brain.  The problem is the human brain is VERY different then a digital computer.  In the brain you have billions of processing 'nodes' all running at a few hertz (like .5 to 4) compared to a cpu/gpu/shader running at hundreds of megahertz.  The brain has each node DIRECTLY connected to millions of other nodes, where all of the processing nodes of a GPU are not connected directly in such a way.  The only thing that the bitcoin network has is speed and size, but it does not have anything close to the right kind of connections.  You would need all of the miners connected to some crazy fast local network, all in one room. 

And then finally, and most importantly, there is a 'special sauce' that consciousness happen.  No one on the planet has a clue on that one.

What people forget is that putting together computing power is useless. If you want consciousness you need SOFTWARE too. And good luck with that.

Having thousands of computer crunching SHA-256 is just that, crunching SHA-256, nothing more nothing less.

Those transhumanists and similar types seem to like to believe that consciousness is just all that stuff which happens in ones brain.  I would invite them to have a long talk with mystics, and those who have spent their lives dedicated to "awakening" like Taoist meditation masters etc...   or else try a dose of 5-MeO-DMT...  or else just wait a few years or decades (depending on how old one is) ...     

This is just my view based on direct personal experience, which I won't even try to communicate beyond these few words, and has nothing to do with any kind of religious dogmatism...

I just feel computers will never become conscious... most humans barely are.   


 

Mr Scott from Star Trek (who was, coincidentally,  Scottish too. They called him Scotty I believe just to emphasis his Scottishness, and he also drank Scotch and used Scotch tape), once said something similar if I remember.

Only if you invert the polarity

It will happen on the same day that a large NYC garbage dump turns into a Terminator factory.

But a bunch of ion pumps can?

Lol, what are you speaking about?

A bunch of sha-256 hashing cannot be "conscious" 

Ray Kurzweil believes that the human brain is a 15 petaflop computer (though you wouldn't be be to model it with 15 petaflops) - according to bitcoin watch the network is running at about 165 petaflops.
Could the bitcoin network ever display consciousness?