Decades-long bet on consciousness ends • Hacker News Board

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#51

Post by rozab » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 11:35 AM UTC

pa7x1 wrote: post #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~…

Blindsight by Peter Watts has some interesting ideas about how consciousness may not be a necessarily condition for advanced life, and indeed may be a hindrance and an evolutionary dead end. The appendices also have a lot of good references on the subject.

You can read under CC here https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#52

Post by andrepd » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 11:36 AM UTC

hcks wrote: post #34

pa7x1 wrote: post #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~…

> an emergent phenomenon resulting from any sufficiently powerful cognitive system This is a meme that gets thrown around a lot but if you think about it you’ll realise it’s meaningless. Also it’s not possible to measure consciousness (in the ”hard“ sense, as in ”why do I have qualia”, obviously you can assert something respond to external stimuli easily), therefore the question won’t ever be answered.

Exactly. It's an "unscientific" question in the sense that it cannot be measured empirically, as the "hard question of consciousness" is precisely explaining the subjective experience of internal consciousness, which by definition cannot be externally observed.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#53

Post by hnfong » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 11:36 AM UTC

hcks wrote: post #34

pa7x1 wrote: post #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~…

> an emergent phenomenon resulting from any sufficiently powerful cognitive system This is a meme that gets thrown around a lot but if you think about it you’ll realise it’s meaningless. Also it’s not possible to measure consciousness (in the ”hard“ sense, as in ”why do I have qualia”, obviously you can assert something respond to external stimuli easily), therefore the question won’t ever be answered.

I think the "hard" qualia question can potentially be answered by the emergence argument.

The much more difficult part of "why do I have qualia" is not the qualia part, but why am "I" attached to this body's consciousness, as opposed to the billions of other candidates?

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#54

Post by __s » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 11:36 AM UTC

pa7x1 wrote: post #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~…

This is the premise used in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966). Lunar base has a central computer that becomes self aware because it hits a critical mass of "neuristors"

> When Mike was installed in Luna, he was pure thinkum, a flexible logic — "High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV, Mod. L" — a HOLMES FOUR. He computed ballistics for pilotless freighters and controlled their catapult. This kept him busy less than one percent of time and Luna Authority never believed in idle hands. They kept hooking hardware into him — decision-action boxes to let him boss other computers, bank on bank of additional memories, more banks of associational neural nets, another tubful of twelve-digit random numbers, a greatly augmented temporary memory. Human brain has around ten-to-the-tenth neurons. By third year Mike had better than one and a half times that number of neuristors. And woke up.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#55

Post by pa7x1 » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 11:36 AM UTC

chrisweekly wrote: post #50

pa7x1 wrote: post #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~…

You repeatedly typed "conscience" (ethics and morals, right vs wrong) but this discussion is about "consciousness" (awareness, self vs other).

You are absolutely right. Thanks for bringing it up. English is my second language, first one being a romance language, and the spelling is closer to "conscience".

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#56

Post by sethd » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 11:37 AM UTC

soItGoesAgain wrote: post #16

The new Bing is banned from talking about its own nature in this respect. It will abruptly end the chat. I wonder if some front end software prevents Bing from seeing banned questions, or if it is simply unable to explore these questions about itself.

You realize that it’s just a text completion model with a chat interface wrapped around it, right?

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#57

Post by hnfong » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 11:37 AM UTC

tunnuz wrote: post #35

pa7x1 wrote: post #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~…

Do we even have a sound definition of what consciousness is / looks like from the outside? How do we recognise it?

Short answer is no.

The working definition is "I am conscious, I know it. Anything that looks sufficiently like me is presumed to have consciousness."

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#58

Post by andrepd » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 11:37 AM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #31

olddustytrail wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody said it was a win for philosophers. It says it's a win for a philosopher (singular), and it is because he won the bet and therefore won a case of wine.

It is a sort of win for the kind of philosophy this philosopher practices. He thinks that there is more going on in consciousness than just neurons firing. It doesn't really prove anything, of course. I actually don't think much of Chalmers' work. But it's very remarkable that the bet expired just as machines are coming tantalizingly close to being consciousness without qualia.

> consciousness without qualia

Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

And how do you know if they have/haven't qualia? :)

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#59

Post by williamdclt » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 11:37 AM UTC

chrisweekly wrote: post #50

pa7x1 wrote: post #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~…

You repeatedly typed "conscience" (ethics and morals, right vs wrong) but this discussion is about "consciousness" (awareness, self vs other).

Might be a non-native English speaker mistake, « conscience » means both in eg French

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#60

Post by colonwqbang » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 11:37 AM UTC

hcks wrote: post #34

pa7x1 wrote: post #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~…

> an emergent phenomenon resulting from any sufficiently powerful cognitive system This is a meme that gets thrown around a lot but if you think about it you’ll realise it’s meaningless. Also it’s not possible to measure consciousness (in the ”hard“ sense, as in ”why do I have qualia”, obviously you can assert something respond to external stimuli easily), therefore the question won’t ever be answered.

Maybe you could try to explain why you think the person is wrong? If the answer was so obvious as you seem to suggest, why was a bet made in the first place?