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Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

nature.com

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Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#3
We still have no idea what mechanism causes consciousness. I bet in 25 years we'll be no closer to understanding it than we are today.

I think this is a good lesson for those watching LLMs and thinking we're on the cusp of imminent AGI.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#4
post #3

We still have no idea what mechanism causes consciousness. I bet in 25 years we'll be no closer to understanding it than we are today. I think this is a good lesson for those watching LLMs and thinking we're on the cusp of imminent AGI.

Depending on the definition of AGI you are using, you don’t need consciousness for it. I think most do not require it as of now.

Also; ‘it’ will know it has consciousness when it has it, arrogant humans will still deny it.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#5

> Christof Koch wagered David Chalmers 25 years ago that researchers would learn how the brain achieves consciousness by now. But the quest continues. Ehhhh the title is a click bait imho.

Agreed. The title makes it sounds like we've learned something about consciousness that somehow makes mainstream philosophical approach more correct than mainstream neuroscience approach. Instead, it's just about a neuroscientist making a stupid bet. I call it stupid because he's betting that he can predict than _something that never happened before in the history of mankind_ will happen in the next 10 years. That is very very unlikely.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#6

> Christof Koch wagered David Chalmers 25 years ago that researchers would learn how the brain achieves consciousness by now. But the quest continues. Ehhhh the title is a click bait imho.

Why is the title clickbait? What were you expecting - that the philosopher had proposed a model of consciousness that got experimental confirmation?

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#7
I wouldn't be surprised if consciousness ~conscience~ is just an emergent phenomenon resulting from any sufficiently powerful cognitive system (either biological or artificial) with sufficient inputs of its environment and, crucially, of itself. So as to be able to develop a rich model of itself and its relationship with its environment, and that thing will resemble a whole lot what we call consciousness ~conscience~. Then, of course, we will push the goalposts on what conscience is, so as to protect our fragile human egos.

EDIT: fixed spelling of consciousness. Apologies from an english second language speaker.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#8
post #3

We still have no idea what mechanism causes consciousness. I bet in 25 years we'll be no closer to understanding it than we are today. I think this is a good lesson for those watching LLMs and thinking we're on the cusp of imminent AGI.

Depending on the definition of AGI you are using, you don’t need consciousness for it. I think most do not require it as of now. Also; ‘it’ will know it has consciousness when it has it, arrogant humans will still deny it.

[dead]

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#9
post #3

We still have no idea what mechanism causes consciousness. I bet in 25 years we'll be no closer to understanding it than we are today. I think this is a good lesson for those watching LLMs and thinking we're on the cusp of imminent AGI.

While we don't understand all parts of consciousness, we understand an incredible amount compared to 25 years ago. So we are much closer today than 25 years ago.

There is a fallacy among non-scientists that if we don't understand absolutely all of it, it means we understand none of it. We understand most of it already.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#10
How droll, isn't this the equivalent of trying to figure out how an operating system works by trying to look at activity on an encrypted SSD?

And how exactly is this a win for philosophers? I'm not aware of any philosopher having made meaningful strides within the subject either.

I'm sure once someone figures out how consciousness works it'll be irrefutable while seeming incredibly obvious in hindsight. Which, honestly, just makes it more frustrating that there isn't a full accounting already. How many key insights are needed to fully describe consciousness and how many do you think have been found? Do you think anyone in the past has figured out how consciousness worked and taken it to their grave because of how obvious it seems?

Maybe it's like searching for the Dragon Balls, and you need to put all 7 key insights together to figure it out.

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