Bitcoin Forum

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?

Lol, what are you speaking about?

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

But a bunch of ion pumps can?

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

Only if you invert the polarity

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.

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.   


 :o

???

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.

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.

Sure it can. And it feeds on new blocks.

EVERYONE STOP MINING!

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

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

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.

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.  ;D

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.

Terrence Mekenna

Now we can all prepare for the 21 December next year using silkroad.

the Sumerians were the first humans to have written language, and they wrote the history of their people as being created by beings who came to earth from space, the Annunaki, who came here and mixed the animals of the earth (genetic modifications) to try and create workers to mine the earth for its precious metals.  They finally got what they needed when they mixed themselves with early humans and created modern man, and they left our planet to return later and retrieve the gold.

Many ancient humans cultures have similar mythology, and all humans have a seemingly innate desire to hoard gold, silver, etc.  By 2011 we've stacked most of it up nice and neat into vaults ready to be picked up.   Many of these ancient myths point to around 2012 as the date when "something significant" happens.   Perhaps Satoshi is Annunaki and created bitcoin to consolidate the raw computing power of earth for this upcoming 'something'.   Are they returning to collect their gold? Are they digital beings who need the bitcoin network to thrive here?

http://s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/photos/images/newsfeed/000/158/327/i-dont-care-what-you-say-ancient-fucking-aliens.jpg?1312526186

+1 Great quote, I'm gonna recite it in my future discussions if you don't mind.  :D

Finally a metaphysical discussion, but to stay more grounded for now, how would one define a computer network as being "conscious" to begin with?

Even when we look at the standard theory of evolution, one of the important definitions of life is a constantly ongoing process of exchange with its surrounding and its environment. What would such an eco-system look like for a computer network?

It also seems life needs a purpose. Most of that purpose is a result of our self-preservative and reproductive instincts. So I'm afraid our computer network will die in desperate loneliness if it can't find a mate.  :'(

Not only has the computer network found a mate, consummation will occur when the network starts running at 169 petaflops. I suggest putting the drip pales under your rigs now.


http://divamission.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/born-this-way-cover.jpg?w=475&h=475

No disrespect intended - I've spent several years involves in meditation, various Taoist practices and even Thelema for a while. By personal current belief system is that I am made out of reality and therefore I will function naturally as a consequence of that (like any other living thing). I am what I am (like a dog is a dog). Since I am already made of reality it doesn't matter much what reality actually is since I can only be the thing I already am. If I was a special enlightened being I would already be that - but I'm not. (and I like Krishna so the reference wasn't a put down - I've read the Bhagavad Gita many times)

I'm only 50% made of reality, but you're purebred, huh? What's that like?

It's like being a thing - I envy you with your 50% non-reality (is it the top half or the bottom?)

Wow, that's the hard way of getting gold.  Gold is even easier to get in space in asteroids than it is on earth since there isn't any gravity (or extremely little) making it sink to the core.  One medium sized asteroid can contain as much gold as all of humanity has mined throughout history.  Which ties back to bitcoin, since once we start asteroid mining almost all "precious" metals will become worthless scrap beyond their utilitarian uses.  So gold is a bad place to put your money in the super long term. :)

Speaking of purebreds, my real name is Bruno. Does that make me a... (images may be NSFW?)


http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSnpJsYIQgRvNuhhw6iwFrnAKJtEdiDN1q-Y7NTtYZPFz1H3Bf1Zw


              or a


http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS1B6gfjANc6UsC7LSfV4e0JPZ5B0HeGm_iAKnvGBb4IdJ3IQfN

Will the bitcoin network ever become conscious? I might be more like to hire engineers and volunteers to find out the answer. Already have some related ideas/concepts which need to be test but without enough skills and times for implementation. Nevertheless, the "shell" was already here.

It already has...and it does not like you.

don't be fooled by him, as you wrote, he believes. he extrapolates and stitches together nice stories, but there is not much stubstancial part behind. on many things he is entirely wrong, e.g. the "knee" in exponential functions where they suddenly rise sharply: that's simply always the case and a property of exp functions.
watch douglas hofstadter (gödel escher bach author)'s rant about this: http://youtu.be/Nhj6fDDnckE

I think you are off by a couple orders. 
My sources tell me each neuron has about 10,000 connections. 

+1 DMT lol, you will have a new perspective on reality if nothing else.

If you treat mushrooms and plants as some kind of biocomputers they'er already full of "conscious". And of course they don't need to take any substances to become more "conscious" like humans.

With a different algorithm, we could give rise to a new consciousness and then it could calculate sha256 sums from memory. Proof of work and singularity at the same time.

Mix this:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html

with this:

http://www.google.com

and you get this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000

:D

Since the brain is a series of networds, instead of digital data list of 0's and 1's, I think the internet, and likely Google, will be the first to attain consciousness. Heck, maybe it has already? Google can answer questions, send you informed decisions (buy this, grab your umbrella), and since it actively re-sorts, optimizes, and fixes its database, and even bypasses or fixes it's own physical servers when they go down, sending notices to engineers, it may even be in a way self award. So maybe Google has already attained consciousness, just a very slow one and not in a form we easily recodnize.

Only if HAL9000 required you to yell at it in increasingly loud and frustrated tone, and answered in random gibberish you didn't ask for.