Is it possible for artificial intelligence (AI) to become conscious? What is the “mind-body” problem of explaining consciousness, and how does the theory of the Kabbalah of Information approach these issues? In consideration of these fascinating questions, this writer recently spoke with two of the leading researchers in their respective fields.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn, noted public intellectual and host of the PBS series Closer To Truth, the acclaimed TV series that features conversations with scientists, philosophers, theologians, and scholars on topics such as cosmology, foundations of physics, the philosophy of science, and consciousness; and Eduard Shyfrin, creator of the Kabbalah of Information, a prolific author, scientist, and musician.
Kuhn, who recently authored a 175,000-word monograph on the subject of the mind-body problem, entitled “A Landscape of Consciousness: Toward a Taxonomy of Explanations and Implications” in the journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, explains the issue.
“How is it possible to get mental states out of brain states?” he asks. “Brain states are flows of ions, electrical impulses, and all things that may be associated with it, but they are of a totally different character than the mental perceptions that we have – instances of subjective, conscious experience – the sight of your newly born granddaughter, the smell of garlic cooking in olive oil, or Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
“How do all of these experiences arrive from physical matter?”Adding to the difficulty, Kuhn notes that some well-known theorists have said, “It’s not only don’t we understand how you can get mental states out of physical states – we don’t even understand what it would be like to do something like that.”
In other words, he says, “we can’t even say that we don’t understand it. We can’t come up with an idea how we could even understand it, so it’s a double level of incomprehension.” Kuhn adds that thousands of years ago, when people believed in the concept of the immortal soul, this issue was less problematic.
However, he points out that by the 20th century, the traditional approaches to a soul or an immortal soul in scientific and philosophical circles had diminished substantially. Despite science’s skepticism about religion, he says that in his monograph he not only covered scientific theories about consciousness but also added the perspectives of the various religious traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and indigenous religions.
In answer to the aforementioned question, Shyfrin says that while no one has proven the existence of the immortal soul, no one has disproved it, either. “Since it was not disproved by science, yes, it’s an opinion, but there is no proof that the soul doesn’t exist.” The Kabbalah of Information is a theory of principles, says Shyfrin.
One principle is about information. “Everything is information, and information is irreducible. Absence of information is also a certain kind of information.” The second principle, he says, is that whatever phenomena we consider in creation, we should approach it from the point of view of why it was necessary for the creation of man.
From this point of view, he says, “Man was created in order to take part in the two-way communication with the creator. In order to be able to take part in the communication, man needs a structure that can comprehend the concepts of the information space and move in the information space from concept to concept.
Moving in the information space is a thinking process. “That’s how Kabbalah defined the thinking. It’s moving in the information space from one concept to another. “The soul can comprehend certain concepts. Different souls have different possibilities of comprehension. But what’s common to all of them is that they have a structure similar to the structure of the information space – the tree of Sefirot [the tree of concepts]. “That’s what I call vertical integration because the soul transcends the information space. It can move from one concept to another in the information space,” he explains.
“The movement of the soul in the information space is the thinking process. Horizontal integration is that in every part of the information space, the soul can actually cause information changes through the structure, which must be similar to the structure of the part of the information space.
That is the body. “In our world, the body is made of the same materials as the rest of the components of our world. That is why the body can interact with the rest of the world,” he says.
Interplay of AIOur discussion then progressed to AI and how it affects consciousness. Can AI have consciousness? Kuhn says that some schools of thought believe that AI can be conscious, but most people would agree that the current type of AI is not conscious.
“I think that the people in AI are overly optimistic even under their assumptions, but it could be within multiple decades that AI could get to the point where it would have the complexity and the structure where the question of consciousness would be there,” Kuhn says.
“Some say that for all practical purposes, AI will be conscious because there’ll be no distinction. It’ll be impossible to differentiate a conscious being from AI in terms of any test that you could put it to. It would become impossible in principle to even assess whether AI is conscious.”
Kuhn’s view is that AI consciousness cannot be assessed except in the light of particular theories of consciousness. With most theories, he says, “AI consciousness is in principle possible, but not with all theories.”In response to this question, Shyfrin expresses some doubts about AI.
“At the moment, I think the title ‘artificial intelligence’ is a bit misleading. It’s not really artificial intelligence today. “It has the ability to analyze large amounts of information, which is growing and growing, but that’s not intelligence. I believe that this ability will grow exponentially. But qualitatively, it’s still the ability to analyze what is there.”
Shyfrin compares AI today to a hammer. “A hammer is the extension of our hand. The question is – is AI the extension of our soul or our brain? If it’s an extension of our brain, it will not be conscious. At the moment, it is an extension of our brain.”
He adds that despite the best efforts of scientists, we know very little about the origins of our universe. “There is a Big Bang theory, but nobody can explain why it took place. Not knowing the initial stage, in principle, denies the possibility to produce a comprehensive physical picture of our universe.
“Science stumbles at the singularity points. Nobody knows what’s inside a black hole and whether all the physical laws cease to exist. There are many theories but no proofs.
“Another big problem is the reversibility of time. All the major scientific theories allow for the reversibility of time. In practice, we never observe it. Most important is the fact that science considers our universe as a closed system, which has never been proven.”
By contrast, he says, the Kabbalah of Information considers our universe as a part of the informational hierarchy. “From that point of view, you can explain many things, including singularities in black holes, the origin of our universe, and many other notions. The Kabbalah of Information can provide definitions.
“What is energy? What is mass? What is force? It can also explain some quantum phenomena through the hierarchy principles, such as entanglement. “Most importantly,” he affirms, “Kabbalah of Information considers time irreversible. That means that our physical theories are incomplete, and science cannot draw any conclusions about the existence or non-existence of the soul.”
This article was written in cooperation with Eduard Shyfrin.