Steve Klinko
Registered Senior Member
I have tried to avoid topics related to Knowledge, Knowing, Understanding, Recognition, Thinking, and etc., because it seemed difficult to define these things properly. In spite of that, I would now like to make an attempt at defining and talking about Knowledge and Knowing. Let us narrow the scope of the broader term Knowledge and define Knowledge as stored Information. In Computer Systems, Information would need to be Coded into a form of Data that the Computer can process. A Computer must have all Information converted into Data that consists of patterns of Ones and Zeros. In Brain Systems (Human or Animal), Information would need to be converted into a form of Data that a Brain can process. A Brain must have all Information Coded into Data that consists of Chemical Changes, Connection Changes, and any other changeable aspects related to Neural Plasticity. The important thing to understand is that for Computers and for Brains the actual Information must be Coded into some Physical Configurations in some sort of Physical Memory. With a Computer, the Physical Memory is the Hard Drive, RAM, or any other storage Media that can store the necessary Ones and Zeros. With a Brain, the Physical Memory seems to be distributed throughout the whole Brain and is implemented in the Neural Plasticity Changes of the Brain.
I think we can explore Knowledge and Knowing by submitting a test question to a Brain and then to a Computer. Let the question be: What kind of animal Meows? Putting aside the difficulties of parsing the Sentence, we can view this as a Memory Association Data Access operation, and the Brain and the Computer will produce the answer: Cat. But now let's examine the differences in the underlying processes that occurred. First for the Brain. We can say that the word Animal and then the word Meow will Associate in the Brain to eventually fire some Neurons that indicate Cat. But there is no Experience of Knowing that the answer is Cat, until the next Processing stage where a Signal of Cat and Knowingness is received by the Conscious Mind. The Knowing is in the Conscious Mind. The Physical Brain Knows nothing. It is just a processor. Now for the Computer. The Computer can have an Associative Database that will retrieve the text string Cat for the given input of Animal and Meow. But the Computer does not have the next processing stage of Knowingness that is implemented in a Conscious Mind. So we can conclude that the Computer never Knows it computed the answer of Cat. With a Computer it is always only Processing. There is never any Knowing. This might seem obvious, but a lot of people seem to think that Computers are operating like Brains and that Computers can in some way Know things. There is nobody home in a Computer, like there is in a Brain.
Now let's talk about this in terms of the Inter Mind Model (IMM). We will ignore details of the Processing that had to occur in the Brain or in the Computer, that was needed to arrive at the answer of Cat. For the Brian there will be Neural Activity that fire Neurons for Cat. For the Computer there will be Computational Activity that will load the text string "Cat" into three bytes of RAM designated as the location for the answer. In both cases there has been some sort of Activity that indicates the answer is Cat. Up to this point the Process has been mechanistic and Mindless for the Brain and for the Computer. There is no Knowing that it is Cat yet.
From the operation of the IMM we know that the Inter Mind (IM) is intimately Connected to the Brain, which in IMM terminology is the Physical Mind (PM). The IM is constantly monitoring the PM and is able to interpret the Neural Activity as referencing the word Cat. The IM converts this Neural Activity to the word Cat and to a Feeling of Knowing. The IM then sends the word Cat and the Feeling of Knowing to the Conscious Mind (CM). The Conscious Experience of the word Cat might consist of some vague Auditory Experience of the word Cat and maybe some hazy Visual spelling of the word Cat. Other related associations of everything you have ever Experienced related to Cats can arise. But the important thing is that you Know the answer is Cat in your Conscious Mind. You also have the Feeling of Knowing it. There was no Knowing with merely the Neural Activity of the Brain. From this we can understand that the Computer will not ever be abe to Know it has calculated or processed anything. There is no Connection to an IM or to a CM with Computers. But that is not to say that a Computer can not be designed to include such a Connection. The Technology is just not advanced to the point where we know how to do this yet.
We can now Logically say, because a Brain can Know the Information that it Processes, the Brain can have Knowledge. But since the Computer does not Know the Information it Processes, we can say a Computer can not have Knowledge, even though there is much stored Information. If a Computer is Programmed to Display the word Cat on a screen then the fact that the word is Displayed still does not indicate Knowing for the Computer. A Human Brain would be needed to read the screen and do some further Neural Processing to Know that the Computer computed Cat as the answer. The Computer still does not Know anything.
Let's see what a Cat can Know and what the IBM Watson can Know. The IBM Watson has access to much Information but it can not Know anything. A Cat only has a little Information but it can Know this Information. A Cat therefore can know more than the IBM Watson because, whatever a Cat Knows, is going to be more than what the IBM Watson Knows, which is nothing. Without Consciousness there is no Knowing.
I think we can explore Knowledge and Knowing by submitting a test question to a Brain and then to a Computer. Let the question be: What kind of animal Meows? Putting aside the difficulties of parsing the Sentence, we can view this as a Memory Association Data Access operation, and the Brain and the Computer will produce the answer: Cat. But now let's examine the differences in the underlying processes that occurred. First for the Brain. We can say that the word Animal and then the word Meow will Associate in the Brain to eventually fire some Neurons that indicate Cat. But there is no Experience of Knowing that the answer is Cat, until the next Processing stage where a Signal of Cat and Knowingness is received by the Conscious Mind. The Knowing is in the Conscious Mind. The Physical Brain Knows nothing. It is just a processor. Now for the Computer. The Computer can have an Associative Database that will retrieve the text string Cat for the given input of Animal and Meow. But the Computer does not have the next processing stage of Knowingness that is implemented in a Conscious Mind. So we can conclude that the Computer never Knows it computed the answer of Cat. With a Computer it is always only Processing. There is never any Knowing. This might seem obvious, but a lot of people seem to think that Computers are operating like Brains and that Computers can in some way Know things. There is nobody home in a Computer, like there is in a Brain.
Now let's talk about this in terms of the Inter Mind Model (IMM). We will ignore details of the Processing that had to occur in the Brain or in the Computer, that was needed to arrive at the answer of Cat. For the Brian there will be Neural Activity that fire Neurons for Cat. For the Computer there will be Computational Activity that will load the text string "Cat" into three bytes of RAM designated as the location for the answer. In both cases there has been some sort of Activity that indicates the answer is Cat. Up to this point the Process has been mechanistic and Mindless for the Brain and for the Computer. There is no Knowing that it is Cat yet.
From the operation of the IMM we know that the Inter Mind (IM) is intimately Connected to the Brain, which in IMM terminology is the Physical Mind (PM). The IM is constantly monitoring the PM and is able to interpret the Neural Activity as referencing the word Cat. The IM converts this Neural Activity to the word Cat and to a Feeling of Knowing. The IM then sends the word Cat and the Feeling of Knowing to the Conscious Mind (CM). The Conscious Experience of the word Cat might consist of some vague Auditory Experience of the word Cat and maybe some hazy Visual spelling of the word Cat. Other related associations of everything you have ever Experienced related to Cats can arise. But the important thing is that you Know the answer is Cat in your Conscious Mind. You also have the Feeling of Knowing it. There was no Knowing with merely the Neural Activity of the Brain. From this we can understand that the Computer will not ever be abe to Know it has calculated or processed anything. There is no Connection to an IM or to a CM with Computers. But that is not to say that a Computer can not be designed to include such a Connection. The Technology is just not advanced to the point where we know how to do this yet.
We can now Logically say, because a Brain can Know the Information that it Processes, the Brain can have Knowledge. But since the Computer does not Know the Information it Processes, we can say a Computer can not have Knowledge, even though there is much stored Information. If a Computer is Programmed to Display the word Cat on a screen then the fact that the word is Displayed still does not indicate Knowing for the Computer. A Human Brain would be needed to read the screen and do some further Neural Processing to Know that the Computer computed Cat as the answer. The Computer still does not Know anything.
Let's see what a Cat can Know and what the IBM Watson can Know. The IBM Watson has access to much Information but it can not Know anything. A Cat only has a little Information but it can Know this Information. A Cat therefore can know more than the IBM Watson because, whatever a Cat Knows, is going to be more than what the IBM Watson Knows, which is nothing. Without Consciousness there is no Knowing.
