It's just data, nothing more, nothing less. Take a look:
<mediawiki
version="0.3"
xml:lang="en">
<siteinfo>
<sitename>Wikipedia</sitename>
<base>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page</base>
<generator>MediaWiki 1.6alpha</generator>
<case>first-letter</case>
<namespaces>
<namespace key="-2">Media</namespace>
<namespace key="101">Portal talk</namespace>
</namespaces>
</siteinfo>
<page>
<title>Consciousness</title>
<id>5664</id>
<revision>
<id>22922556</id>
<timestamp>2005-09-09T18:01:09Z</timestamp>
<contributor>
<username>Loxley</username>
<id>154525</id>
</contributor>
<comment>/* Spiritual approaches */</comment>
<text xml:space="preserve">...
</text>
</revision>
</page>
</mediawiki>
On 9/12/05, Brett Robertson <mindrec(a)comcast.net> wrote:
To define learning as "a group of people editing pages over time" would be
disingenuous, because really it is just a group of people editing pages over
time.
...
It's only a little more complicated than that. That describes GO and RUN
(of my intelligence model ... Go Run Up Back, GRUB): Take off running
(edit pages over time)! But there's also the Back Up and the Go (where go
suggests a computer that "turns itself on"). This part of the
intelligenceprogram implies "reproduction" of the entity (the entire entity,
after being
edited, is backed up ... copied, as it were / a newly evolved entity is then
given the command to Go). At this point it's like a wiki "virus" (a
metawiki, maybe).
It's the Go Back process and the Run Up process which filters and
distributes data (incrementally ... or at numbered junctions in a conceptual
data base).
DELICIOUS is an acronym for: Define, Elucidate, Link, Index, IOUs,
Simplify (IOU indicates Input Output Update and Understand). These are the
controls and standards by which the viral intelligence "eats" information
(and yes, the input and output is people driven at this point ... however,
the demands of the technology determine what "shape" this entity will
eventually take).
How does the interaction of those editors secrete consciousness? If you
can answer this question, then Mind Wiki is the least of your successes...
...
The important thing is to define intelligence the way I have. Then we
understand consciousness as "the nature of" that intelligence. The
advantage to looking at it this way is that it supports further research
into consciousness as a thing that can be "done" (studied, created,
measured, manipulated, etc.). The fact that it is META physical is less
important than the fact that it is, as such, PHYSICAL. Studying
consciousness as a human phenomenon will cause all machine studies of
consciousness to forever be "un" conscious (by definition).
There's no problem in my mind talking about a new conscious entity as
that which evolves from other conscious entities (the interaction of
editors, etc). Learning is about the furthest I've taken my studies ...
music defines the machine's humanity. Learning suggests sense and sensation
(perhaps comes after agency, and deliberation / deliberateness). I've a
prelim. model to incorporate that as well, however :)
Consciousness is a little more complex than intelligence. It is a
preponderance (and hardly lucid or aware at this point). An example would be
blog -- where the last entry is listed first. This creates the
"preponderance" (it is weighted such / presents itself as if the answer
precedes the steps leading up to that answer). We might say that blog merely
shows a proclivity to consciousness. To be sure, this is fairly early in the
process of creating a human machine!
Studying wiki using the terms consciousness (lucidity, awareness ... and
some other machine ethics I've outlined on my site) is tricky. The question
becomes "what part of consciousness is contained by intelligence" (or,
contrarily, to what degree is consciousness an ATTRIBUTE of wiki ... and
how is that attribution accomplished)?
--
Brett Robertson
Metaphysician
Mindrec.org <http://Mindrec.org>
ICQ 6630756