[alancalverd]

In order to survive, those memes need to preserve conscious agents that bear them.

Beware! You are in danger of anthropomorphising an a posteriori observation!

Those behaviors, parasites, etc., that do not destroy their hosts, may propagate, and behaviors that are propagated are called memes by those of a pretentious disposition.. That's all there is to it.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Depends on your definition of intelligence. Mine is "the ability to surprise". A machine that prioritises the execution of one function above all else, cannot surprise its maker.

Water has the ability to surprise most people. We don't usually call it intelligent.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

In order to survive, those memes need to preserve conscious agents that bear them.

Beware! You are in danger of anthropomorphising an a posteriori observation!

Those behaviors, parasites, etc., that do not destroy their hosts, may propagate, and behaviors that are propagated are called memes by those of a pretentious disposition.. That's all there is to it.

My intention is to take general patterns from observations.
Standard definition of meme exclude genetic information.

meme
/miːm/

noun
1.
an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.
2.
an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I think you will find the Golden Rule underpins most if not all moral codes, but "tribal" loyalty can oppose it when there is a conflict between us and them. Sometimes the conflict is real (competition for essential resources) but the most damaging conflicts are those invented by the usual parasites.

If you want to redefine or narrow down the scope of morality to only cover things related to golden rule, then a lot of things most people consider as moral/immoral behaviors will be considered non-moral issues. I've mentioned some limitations of golden rule in previous post.

[alancalverd]

Water has the ability to surprise most people. We don't usually call it intelligent.

No. Although the behavior of ice is not fully understood, it is absolutely consistent and predictable. That's not the same as surprising, except to those who have never seen it before.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So, only intelligent things can have the ability to surprise, because non-intelligent things can't have the ability to surprise.
What about a quantum number generator whose wave equation is continuously changed by another quantum number generator, and so on until nobody can predict what the outcome will be?

[alancalverd]

That's just doing stuff at random. The only person who would be surprised by "25" would be an idiot who believed that the next number must be 13. Hence the abundance of "lottery theories". But every day there are newspaper reports of people who are surprised when a more intelligent species, like a dog, gets fed up with being teased and bites them. Nothing random: the dog chooses his moment.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The dog's behavior is not entirely surprising either. Especially if you have some future version of neuralink implanted on its head, or you are a veterinarian.

Here is the definition of intelligence accorsing to dictionary.

  the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.

Usually, it represents problem solving or information processing capability, but doesn't take into account the ability to manipulate its environment nor self awareness.
AlphaGo is considered intelligent since it can solve problem of playing go better then human champion. Alpha zero is even more intelligent since it can beat Alpha Go 100:0.
Even though they don't have the ability to move any piece of go.
On the other hand, consciousness covers more factors into account. For example, if you got paralyzed so you can't move your arms and legs, you are considered less conscious than your normal state, even though you can still think clearly.

[alancalverd]

There are no rules for biting an aggressor. The essence of a dogfight or a dog attacking its prey is the unpredictability of the attack. Go has formal rules and can thus be played by a machine with no intelligence. You can make a tic-tac-toe  machine with a bunch of relays, and in principle white will always win at chess - it's mathematically trivial.

But inventing any of those games is entirely the product of an intelligence, and from time to time you have to disengage the autopilot, which can fly by the rules a lot more accurately than any human, and make an intelligent decision about a circumstance that isn't covered by the rules.

if you got paralyzed so you can't move your arms and legs, you are considered less conscious than your normal state

considered by whom? Not by any anesthetist I know.
.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Go has formal rules and can thus be played by a machine with no intelligence.

Of course, but machine without intelligence would lose all of the time.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

considered by whom? Not by any anesthetist I know.

By anyone who want to use consciousness to put burden of responsibility upon a conscious agent.

[alancalverd]

Less able, certainly, but not less conscious. I am as fully aware of my environment and able to make decisions as anyone else, but I think my footballing days may be over and I can't bowl a cricket ball as fast as I used to. Does that make me less conscious than a teenager?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The universal morality based on universal terminal goal is somewhat pragmatic, just like anthropic principle.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Less able, certainly, but not less conscious. I am as fully aware of my environment and able to make decisions as anyone else, but I think my footballing days may be over and I can't bowl a cricket ball as fast as I used to. Does that make me less conscious than a teenager?

Here is Levels of Consciousness in Medicine : Patient Awareness, Alertness, and Wakefulness
https://www.verywellhealth.com/level-of-consciousness-1132154

Level of consciousness (LOC) is a medical term for identifying how awake, alert, and aware of their surroundings someone is.1 It also describes the degree to which a person can respond to standard attempts to get his or her attention. Consistent medical terms describing a person's level of consciousness help in communication between care providers, particularly when the level of consciousness fluctuates over time.

Inability to respond to a stimulation is clinically considered as reduced consciousness. If you can't move your muscle to respond to your care providers, although you are still fully aware of the stimuli, you are considered less conscious than normal. Reduced consciousness can also happen when we are drunk or sleepy which make us have slower response and harder to think.

Classifications of Coma
The states of coma and stupor may also be subdivided into levels or classifications that further clarify a person's degree of unresponsiveness. Several systems have been developed in order to standardize these classifications, which improves communication among healthcare providers and also aids in research. The most commonly used classification systems are the Grady Coma Scale and the Glasgow Coma Scale.

The Grady Coma Scale rates a coma in grades from I to V.5 The grades are determined based on a person's state of awareness and response to stimuli, such as response to the person's name being called, light pain, and deep pain. Grade I indicates confusion, while V indicates no response to stimuli (coma).
The Glasgow Coma Scale uses a score to identify the level of consciousness, from 1 to 15, with 15 being a normal state of consciousness. This scale takes into account verbal, motor, and eye responses to stimuli in determining the overall score.

There are also psychological terms used to describe consciousness (fully aware of one's intentions), in contrast to the subconscious (often describes deeper intentions), and preconscious (related to memory). There are also several other theories and definitions of consciousness describing stages of sleep, levels of self-awareness, and the relationship between humans and matter. While all of these definitions are certainly valid, they are not used to define medical states of consciousness.

[alancalverd]

Muscular movement isn't the criterion. Curare has been used to reversibly paralyse a patient for surgery without significantly affecting his level of attention and general brain response.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Where do you put the boundary between consciousness-related dysfunction and non-consciousness dysfunction? Is it only limited to neural activities?
is it limited to sensory and information processing abilities, i.e. excluding actuation abilities?
 Is memory loss considered as reduced consciousness?

[alancalverd]

Whatever your definition of consciouness, a conscious person is one whose brain responds in some way to a stimulus. So loss of memory wouldn't count:"what is your name" "I don't know" indicates full consciousness with lack of memory, and is surprisingly common.

"These things will not save your life: the sky above you, the runway behind you, the fuel you left in the pump, and anything that has already happened."    But consciousness of the present, likely future and immediate options is essential!

[Halc]

Go has formal rules and can thus be played by a machine with no intelligence.

Of course, but machine without intelligence would lose all of the time.

There are machines with no intelligence that can trounce me in Go. I'm not very good at it.
These machines just blindly execute algorithms programmed into them by expert Go players, similar to how the mechanical Dr Nim machine (a toy sold in the stores) that would defeat the average human Nim player.

On the other hand, the best Go computer was an intelligent device which had no specific algorithm at all programmed into it. Given only the rules, it learned to play the game the same way you and I do, with experience, and in short time it could defeat any opponent. The same computer could learn (and win) any such game, but Go was its stronghold because the game is particularly resistant to expression of a strategy in any set of instructions. I mean, Reversi is pretty trivial to learn.  I'm quite good at that one, but I stand little chance against any reasonable machine, intelligent or not since the limited fanout makes hard look-ahead an optimal strategy for a simple algorithm.

Here is Levels of Consciousness in Medicine : Patient Awareness, Alertness, and Wakefulness
https://www.verywellhealth.com/level-of-consciousness-1132154

Why would you reach for a definition like that one for a thread on morals?  My front yard motion detector is more conscious than I am by that definition since it never sleeps or lowers its awareness. Does it thus carry more moral responsibility than I do?

[alancalverd]

No problem accepting a high-level Go machine as a neural system which can learn the rules, but an intelligent machine would surprise its opponent by saying "this is a waste of time". 

Which is why I never play computer games.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Whatever your definition of consciouness, a conscious person is one whose brain responds in some way to a stimulus. So loss of memory wouldn't count:"what is your name" "I don't know" indicates full consciousness with lack of memory, and is surprisingly common.

That would require motoric ability preserved to move one's mouth.
Would you consider a brain in the vat as a conscious being?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat