What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#11

Post by pixl97 » Wed, May 03, 2023, 5:15 PM UTC

AlbertCory wrote: post #8

I've read this before. That's why I think the question "do animals have consciousness?" is meaningless, because "consciousness" usually implies "like ours." They have something that probably bears some relationship to ours. Some birds have a "theory of mind" where they know what you know, e.g. whether you saw them hide the food. It would be possible (maybe someone's already done it?) to enumerate the N tests of "cons…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox

This is the problem of describing if a gradient has something. Quite often the 'N tests' we make up end up excluding entire classes of humans (You're blind, oops!) by poor premise in our classifications.

People love black and white/binary classification systems, the problem with reality is it rarely gives a damn about giving us simple systems to classify that way.

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#12

Post by adamisom » Wed, May 03, 2023, 5:25 PM UTC

zvmaz wrote: post #7

One excellent book on consciousness is Mcginn's The Mysterious Flame [1]. I knew consciousness is a hard problem, but the book made it clear how baffling and utterly mysterious it is. I am still absolutely flabbergasted when I think about it (how on earth does consciousness arise from material "meat"?! [2] Where are pain and color and subjective experience really located in the material universe?). It also made me sk…

Ha, for me I'd invert your last sentence: I'm skeptical of being sure AI won't be sentient for the same reason.

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#13

Post by adamisom » Wed, May 03, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

AlbertCory wrote: post #8

I've read this before. That's why I think the question "do animals have consciousness?" is meaningless, because "consciousness" usually implies "like ours." They have something that probably bears some relationship to ours. Some birds have a "theory of mind" where they know what you know, e.g. whether you saw them hide the food. It would be possible (maybe someone's already done it?) to enumerate the N tests of "cons…

A disturbing extension of that is if there's some M>N such that only some humans possess M (and others N). I think this must be so (I have a Down's-syndrome relative), the disturbing question is if there's a distribution of humans on gradients from N to M (probably M close to N imo).

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#14

Post by kelseyfrog » Wed, May 03, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

I mean, what's it like to be you or me? How do we determine empathic distance and how is it related to phenomenological distance w.r.t. what-is-it-like-to-be-ness?

You can partially explore these spaces even within one's own mind, such as "what is it like to be me on DMT?" or "what is it like to be me in a week/month/year?"

We can even frame this as a Mary's Room[1] experiment in terms of, "Knowing everything there is to know about bats, would you learn anything new by being a bat?" If the answer is yes, then we can't, without being a bat, know everything there is to know about being a bat.

1. https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/JacksonWhatMaryDidntKnow...

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#15

Post by bondarchuk » Wed, May 03, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

I am increasingly of the opinion that the phrases "what it is like to be a bat", or "there is something it is like to be a bat", are simply a linguistic sleight of hand masking a plain old dualistic standpoint. Just because these sentences make sense in our everyday language, does not mean they are suitable for technical and rigorous philosophical discussions. For one, the "something" in the 2nd formulation (or simply the answer asked after by the 1st formulation) is most readily interpreted as an object, closing the door to any process-like interpretation of consciousness. Also, "being like something" is strictly a judgment made by a single subject regarding two experiences of that same subject, so it is not at all clear that this is a relation which can be validly posited to exist between two distinct subjects' experiences. I guess my point is I can easily imagine a complete physicalist explanation of consciousness which would still not lead to a valid answer of "what is it like to be a bat" due to quite obvious limitations of language or the plain invalidity of the question.

Edit: not to mention the reliance on a dummy pronoun: what is it like to be a bat - what is what like to be a bat?

Also, you'll notice in many subsequent discussions that refer back to this paper there's a strange reliance on repeating these exact formulations. If there really was some insight here it would be possible to phrase it in different ways.

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#16

Post by rhn_mk1 » Wed, May 03, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

adamisom wrote: post #12

zvmaz wrote: post #7

One excellent book on consciousness is Mcginn's The Mysterious Flame [1]. I knew consciousness is a hard problem, but the book made it clear how baffling and utterly mysterious it is. I am still absolutely flabbergasted when I think about it (how on earth does consciousness arise from material "meat"?! [2] Where are pain and color and subjective experience really located in the material universe?). It also made me sk…

Ha, for me I'd invert your last sentence: I'm skeptical of being sure AI won't be sentient for the same reason.

I'm skeptical of AI intentionally being made sentient, given how badly in the dark we are.

But this being in the dark also makes it hard to rule out AI accidentally becoming sentient.

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#17

Post by throw0101a » Wed, May 03, 2023, 5:56 PM UTC

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#18

Post by enkid » Wed, May 03, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

mjb wrote: post #4

> But bat sonar, though clearly a form of perception,is not similar in its operation to any sense that we possess, and there is no reason to suppose that it is subjectively like anything we can experience or imagine. Philosophy aside, bat sonar is different from the senses we possess in an really interesting way. Our eyes have excellent spatial resolution (up/down, left/right), some rough depth resolution (from stere…

Interestingly enough, humans have been able to use echo location, primarily in blind individuals. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_echolocation

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#19

Post by enkid » Wed, May 03, 2023, 5:59 PM UTC

bondarchuk wrote: post #15

I am increasingly of the opinion that the phrases "what it is like to be a bat", or "there is something it is like to be a bat", are simply a linguistic sleight of hand masking a plain old dualistic standpoint. Just because these sentences make sense in our everyday language, does not mean they are suitable for technical and rigorous philosophical discussions. For one, the "something" in the 2nd formulation (or simpl…

The paper is clearly asking what the difference in experience is between humans and bats. Whether a process is a "thing" or not is kind of beside the point. The core question is can we articulate how the core experience of being human is in comparison to the core experience of another creature that perceives the world in a fundamentally different way.

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#20

Post by mkehrt » Wed, May 03, 2023, 6:07 PM UTC

visarga wrote: post #10

zvmaz wrote: post #7

One excellent book on consciousness is Mcginn's The Mysterious Flame [1]. I knew consciousness is a hard problem, but the book made it clear how baffling and utterly mysterious it is. I am still absolutely flabbergasted when I think about it (how on earth does consciousness arise from material "meat"?! [2] Where are pain and color and subjective experience really located in the material universe?). It also made me sk…

> how on earth does consciousness arise from material "meat" Let me try. It is a way to perceive with goals in mind. Nothing special, just perception, future reward prediction conditioned on current state, and learning from outcomes. The whole specialness of consciousness is that it carries inside not just our external world, but also our plans and goals. So in this place where they meet, and where there are conseque…

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