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We Are Beast Machines

nautil.us

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Re: We Are Beast Machines

#21

Post by joeberon »

bondarchuk wrote: post #19
nickelpro wrote: post #3

Nothing in this essay addresses the single most prominent question of contemporary philosophy of mind, which is the hard problem of consciousness. It only addresses the soft problems, which everyone agrees are solvable "merely" with enough time, funding, and initiative. Nothing about the "beast machine" addresses how qualitative experience arises from physical phenomena, or as Chalmers puts it, "Why are we not philos…

If you are going to demand a precise, non-handwavey answer to the hard problem, then you must first give the hard problem in a precise, non-handwavey way, or at the very least prove in a precise, non-handwavey way that there even is such a thing as the hard problem. As far as I've seen nobody has really done this, it's always just "what breathes fire into the equations?" "what is it like to be a bat?" "I just feel it…

That's the problem and exactly why I say I don't think it can't be explained via a vague feeling. I've never seen someone who says there is a hard problem of consciousness adequately explain to someone why there isn't. The poster is now making what seem more like appeals to emotion throughout the thread now: "are you saying that sufficiently complicated blocks of matter are conscious?" and the like. This is what always happens.

While I personally believe there is a problem, I cannot explain why, and for a long time I didn't think there was a problem

Re: We Are Beast Machines

#22

Post by Zigurd »

nickelpro wrote: post #13
ivanbakel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble with the "hard problem" of consciousness is that it's predicated on the possibility of the existence of p-zombies. Even if you don't know how a complex physical system gives rise to consciousness, you understand that a block of steel is not a complex physical system - so the fact that it isn't conscious isn't that contentious. If p-zombies could exist as complex systems without consciousness, then there w…

Really? A sufficiently advanced computer is a perfect P-zombie to me. This is the Chinese Room problem restated. A computer is capable of behaving as a conscious actor without any concept of knowledge or qualia as we would recognize it. But again this gets into a faith-based discussion. To me a sufficiently complex computer doesn't suddenly cross a "consciousness threshold" of complexity, but if to you it does there'…

The problem with the Chinese Room formulation is there are arguments against the near term possibility of autonomous vehicles that go "It's the same as AGI." In other words, a "Chinese Room" driver is not good enough.

What the Chinese Room may really be telling us is that machine consciousness might be as far from us as usable ML was to 1970's AI researchers, or at least much farther than we think. And, on top of that, if and when it does appear, it won't look human. It won't even look like an animal because it isn't one.

Re: We Are Beast Machines

#23

Post by pitspotter2 »

nickelpro wrote: post #3

Nothing in this essay addresses the single most prominent question of contemporary philosophy of mind, which is the hard problem of consciousness. It only addresses the soft problems, which everyone agrees are solvable "merely" with enough time, funding, and initiative. Nothing about the "beast machine" addresses how qualitative experience arises from physical phenomena, or as Chalmers puts it, "Why are we not philos…

Check out Chapter 11 of The Hidden Spring by Mark Solms.

In it he identifies subjective experience, for example perceiving the colour red, as an observational perspective.

He reminds us that we can also experience vision objectively, with the right lab equipment, e.g. by listening to spike trains travelling from the retina down the optic nerve.

Say we do the latter. We can then legitimately ask what the same process looks like from the point of view of the system/subject/patient. Answer, vivid red.

So spike trains and redness are differing valid perspectives on the same underlying physical process, namely vision. One doesn't arise from the other; they are both products of vision.

Re: We Are Beast Machines

#24

Post by nickelpro »

bondarchuk wrote: post #19
nickelpro wrote: post #3

Nothing in this essay addresses the single most prominent question of contemporary philosophy of mind, which is the hard problem of consciousness. It only addresses the soft problems, which everyone agrees are solvable "merely" with enough time, funding, and initiative. Nothing about the "beast machine" addresses how qualitative experience arises from physical phenomena, or as Chalmers puts it, "Why are we not philos…

If you are going to demand a precise, non-handwavey answer to the hard problem, then you must first give the hard problem in a precise, non-handwavey way, or at the very least prove in a precise, non-handwavey way that there even is such a thing as the hard problem. As far as I've seen nobody has really done this, it's always just "what breathes fire into the equations?" "what is it like to be a bat?" "I just feel it…

Agreed, I somewhat address this in my follow on comment. In my mind rejecting the hard problem is the same as accepting the "consciousness is an illusion" answer to the problem. But I can see the point of view that views the entire conversation as a category error.

Re: We Are Beast Machines

#25

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

bondarchuk wrote: post #19
nickelpro wrote: post #3

Nothing in this essay addresses the single most prominent question of contemporary philosophy of mind, which is the hard problem of consciousness. It only addresses the soft problems, which everyone agrees are solvable "merely" with enough time, funding, and initiative. Nothing about the "beast machine" addresses how qualitative experience arises from physical phenomena, or as Chalmers puts it, "Why are we not philos…

If you are going to demand a precise, non-handwavey answer to the hard problem, then you must first give the hard problem in a precise, non-handwavey way, or at the very least prove in a precise, non-handwavey way that there even is such a thing as the hard problem. As far as I've seen nobody has really done this, it's always just "what breathes fire into the equations?" "what is it like to be a bat?" "I just feel it…

I find the classical argument with color qualia very convincing (in fact, I thought about it before even knowing what qualia were...). Nothing you can find out about wavelengths, cones, rods, neurons and so on will tell you why you see red the specific way you do, and whether my perception of red corresponds to yours or my "red" is actually your "green". So there is a gap there, something that doesn't follow from the mechanical state of the system.

Of course, I won't claim to be able to define that gap in a precise way (I'm not even a philosopher), but I think it's clear that it exists, and in my view the burden on proof is on those that claim the problem doesn't exist because no one can come up with a believable methodology (even supposing infinite time, infinitely precise measuring instruments, etc.) that would tell us the answer to questions like why my "red" feels like it does or whether my experience of red is different from yours.

Re: We Are Beast Machines

#26

Post by adriand »

nickelpro wrote: post #11
joeberon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well we do know emergent phenomena that occur as abstractions. Probably the most obvious example is a computer program. At a basic level, the computer really doesn't look like it's doing useful work, it just processes lists of rules and stuff, but actually the emergent behaviour is that I am browsing Hacker News. What is the difference between a computer and a rock? Well there isn't actually a fundamental difference,…

Exactly, you have a handwave. A vague idea that when a system becomes "complex" enough it suddenly becomes conscious. There's no mechanism, no rigor, no cause and effect. With the browser you can chase down every bit through the hardware, down to the quantum tunneling effect dictating what's happening in the silicon and come up with a concrete explanation based in physical laws. With the browser example, at no level…

One obvious difference between computers and humans is that only one of them is an animal. So far as we can tell, consciousness only arises in animals. This sounds like a truism, but I wonder if using phrases like “complex system“ masks it: both humans and computers are complex systems, and only one of them is conscious, and therefore what could possibly be the difference?

Well, the list of differences between the two is enormous. As the article discusses, some of those differences include embodiment, emotions and moods. So perhaps the “hard problem” is not a philosophical one but a question of detailed knowledge: if we had the ability to drill down to the underlying particle physics of bodies, emotions and moods, plus all the other things that comprise our animal natures, then perhaps the problem would be solved.

To put this another way: perhaps the issue with many approaches to understanding consciousness is that it assumes our animal nature doesn’t matter and that conscious minds can exist abstractly, or even be modelled in silicon. But maybe they can’t be, and so for us to truly understand consciousness we will need to truly understand the body, which we are very far away from.

To sum this up: consciousness, in this view, is not an emergent property of complex systems. Rather it is a fundamental property of animals.

Re: We Are Beast Machines

#27

Post by ganzuul »

pitspotter2 wrote: post #23
nickelpro wrote: post #3

Nothing in this essay addresses the single most prominent question of contemporary philosophy of mind, which is the hard problem of consciousness. It only addresses the soft problems, which everyone agrees are solvable "merely" with enough time, funding, and initiative. Nothing about the "beast machine" addresses how qualitative experience arises from physical phenomena, or as Chalmers puts it, "Why are we not philos…

Check out Chapter 11 of The Hidden Spring by Mark Solms. In it he identifies subjective experience, for example perceiving the colour red, as an observational perspective. He reminds us that we can also experience vision objectively, with the right lab equipment, e.g. by listening to spike trains travelling from the retina down the optic nerve. Say we do the latter. We can then legitimately ask what the same process…

Generally it is understood that qualia are not quantifiable.

Re: We Are Beast Machines

#28

Post by nickelpro »

joeberon wrote: post #17
nickelpro wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, you have a handwave. A vague idea that when a system becomes "complex" enough it suddenly becomes conscious. There's no mechanism, no rigor, no cause and effect. With the browser you can chase down every bit through the hardware, down to the quantum tunneling effect dictating what's happening in the silicon and come up with a concrete explanation based in physical laws. With the browser example, at no level…

I don't have it, because it's not my argument, it's their argument, and it's clearly making you emotional so I think it's better to stop it here.

Apologies if my language is emotional, I like this debate a lot and get rare few opportunities to discuss it with people who are familiar with all the background. I don't mean to invalidate anyone, I think all camps are equally valid regardless of my personal feelings.

Re: We Are Beast Machines

#30

Post by n4r9 »

adriand wrote: post #26
nickelpro wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, you have a handwave. A vague idea that when a system becomes "complex" enough it suddenly becomes conscious. There's no mechanism, no rigor, no cause and effect. With the browser you can chase down every bit through the hardware, down to the quantum tunneling effect dictating what's happening in the silicon and come up with a concrete explanation based in physical laws. With the browser example, at no level…

One obvious difference between computers and humans is that only one of them is an animal. So far as we can tell, consciousness only arises in animals. This sounds like a truism, but I wonder if using phrases like “complex system“ masks it: both humans and computers are complex systems, and only one of them is conscious, and therefore what could possibly be the difference? Well, the list of differences between the tw…

If we take a human and replace one of their neurons with a silicon chip that exactly replicates its electrical activity, is the human any less "conscious"? Presumably their conscious experience is the same (if not why not?) If the human is still conscious, what if we continue one by one to replace all the neurons with silicon chips in the same way? Where does this thought experiment fail?
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