Decades-long bet on consciousness ends • Hacker News Board

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#261

Post by Kim_Bruning » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 9:58 AM UTC

ttctciyf wrote: post #184

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You doubt the existence of thunder and lighting? But surely those prove the might of the great Jupiter! All joking aside : Of course I'm not particularly married to the position that "Consciousness doesn't exist". But it seems a bit suss that it has been so ill defined for so long. Some days I really do wonder if maybe it belongs in the same pre-scientific category as Vis Vitalis or Luminiferous Ether.

The link between the thunderstorms and Jupiter is theoretical, but our having conscious experience is directly given. The fact that something for which, unlike phlogiston or the Aether, we have direct incontrovertible evidence (denial of which evidence puts one on pain of having to justify one's own sanity and fitness for discourse), has yet so eluded definition in strict functional / scientific terms, points more to…

For my statistics, suddenly I really want to know what your (educational/professional) background is. Are you a philosopher, or a psychologist, or a sociologist, or ?

(I'm coming from biology, but that's a big field. Narrowing it down a bit: an eclectic mix of ethology, neurophysiology and bioinformatics)

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#262

Post by swayson » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 9:59 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #258

xmonkee wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will always fail because the premise is wrong. Consciousness does not arise in the brain. Brain activity correlates to impressions in consciousness, but consciousness is not a “thing”. Consciousness is equivalent to identity. You are that which sees all this that you see. Consciousness IS you. You don’t arise in your own brain.

This is nonsense. You don't lose your identity when you fall asleep. Consciousness is clearly a thing that you can have or not have. A brain can exist without it being conscious.

Have you ever met someone who recently had a severe stroke or suffers dementia? Their sense of self can be completely lost by such trauma. Sure they still have identity in the memories of others. But I'd say one must distinguish identity from Self.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#263

Post by denismenace » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 10:10 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #222

4ad wrote: post #20

It seems so obvious to me that consciousness (whatever it is) is essentially software so poking at the brain is looking at the wrong layer of abstraction.

Software can always be reverse engineered by looking at hardware. When you don't have the source code what else is there to do?

Software can't be reverse engineered by looking at hardware. The hardware that we use could run arbitrary software, so you wouldn't be able to find out which software it is running.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#264

Post by ttctciyf » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 10:18 AM UTC

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #261

ttctciyf wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The link between the thunderstorms and Jupiter is theoretical, but our having conscious experience is directly given. The fact that something for which, unlike phlogiston or the Aether, we have direct incontrovertible evidence (denial of which evidence puts one on pain of having to justify one's own sanity and fitness for discourse), has yet so eluded definition in strict functional / scientific terms, points more to…

For my statistics, suddenly I really want to know what your (educational/professional) background is. Are you a philosopher, or a psychologist, or a sociologist, or ? (I'm coming from biology, but that's a big field. Narrowing it down a bit: an eclectic mix of ethology, neurophysiology and bioinformatics)

Your statistics?! Please elaborate! You are exploring possible links between humanities engagement and pathologically convoluted sentence structure, eh? :)

But anyway, my bachelors degree was a "combined major" of comp. sci. / philosophy, several decades ago. I still have a strong interest in philosophy of mind but not in any professional capacity. Hope it helps.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#265

Post by kbrkbr » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 11:14 AM UTC

kuhewa wrote: post #233

mananaysiempre wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My philosophy professor had a multi-volume (non-English-language) textbook called “Introduction to the science of philosophy”, so, uh, I dunno. Claiming it’s complementary is also not benign—it brings along the burden of pointing out some holes in the scientific enterprise, a general conception of how to fill them, and at least some practical success in doing so. I don’t believe that to be impossible and have some th…

> My philosophy professor had a multi-volume (non-English-language) textbook called “Introduction to the science of philosophy”, so, uh, I dunno. I too am not sure what you are implying there. The enterprise, assuming it had some merit, sounds like evidence of complementarity? > it brings along the burden of pointing out some holes in the scientific enterprise, a general conception of how to fill them, and at least s…

I hold a master in philosophy and it was my first big love.

Over the years I came however to a conclusion opposite to yours.

> Also, philosophy underpins science. Whenever a hypothesis is tested, there is are philosophically-grounded assumptions being made. The epistemological implications for any given scientific finding depend on the underlying philosophical framework being assumed.

I think that is not true. Science does not get its merit from philosophical underpinnings, but from working in practice.

Methods that work to generate and test knowledge. Math is the precise language needed to speak about these methods and the knowledge. Also because it works. Look at the achievements of science. That is how you get convinced it gives us a grip on reality. Hic Rhodos, hic salta.

My working assumption at this time is that philosophy has no such methods. We are not further than when Kant said that no fighter ever won and could stand his ground in metaphysics on any topic.

The reason might be that philosophy is actually practically mostly irrelevant. I have not seen one undisputed statement of philosophy. And so it can neither test its statements, nor let others see their validity.

I concede it is practically relevant in another sense: world views have taken grip of groups and still do, and influence history one way or the other. But that seems at least to me more a social-anthropological phenomenon like support and resistance in trading.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#266

Post by pa7x1 » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 11:27 AM UTC

alienicecream wrote: post #147

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~…

Claiming something might be emergent is a way of hand waiving away your responsibility to explain the mechanism in your hypothesis. It means nothing.

I think you misunderstand what it means for a property to be emergent. It's not about hand waiving its origin, but about highlighting that the property progressively appears ("emerges") as the scale of the system changes in some direction.

What I'm suggesting with the above, is that there is nothing magical or distinctive about the mechanisms that generate consciousness vs. those that generate the understanding of semantics, grammar, syntax in a GPT or the ability to keep a pole in vertical position on a rolling cart with some reinforcement learning. Instead, it views consciousness as the mental model that is generated by a sufficiently complex intelligence (biological or not) when it has the ability to perceive inputs of its environment, and crucially, of itself. That is, a sufficiently complex brain with the ability to observe its environment and itself, will inevitably generate a model of both and their relationship. The model of itself and how it distinguishes itself from the environment is what I think is consciousness.

What I mean with emergent is that this mental model progressively becomes more and more rich ("emerges") as the cognitive abilities becomes more complex and the inputs of itself and the environment increase. A tapeworm with a very minimal central nervous system, scarce sensory inputs of the environment, and likely even less of itself will develop an excessively simple model that can hardly be recognized as consciousness. As you scale the cognitive abilities and the inputs it processes of both; environment and itself, a richer model of both will emerge. And that thing will start to look a whole lot like consciousness.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#267

Post by ethanbond » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 11:29 AM UTC

kbrkbr wrote: post #265

kuhewa wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My philosophy professor had a multi-volume (non-English-language) textbook called “Introduction to the science of philosophy”, so, uh, I dunno. I too am not sure what you are implying there. The enterprise, assuming it had some merit, sounds like evidence of complementarity? > it brings along the burden of pointing out some holes in the scientific enterprise, a general conception of how to fill them, and at least s…

I hold a master in philosophy and it was my first big love. Over the years I came however to a conclusion opposite to yours. > Also, philosophy underpins science. Whenever a hypothesis is tested, there is are philosophically-grounded assumptions being made. The epistemological implications for any given scientific finding depend on the underlying philosophical framework being assumed. I think that is not true. Scienc…

Here’s one way it’s relevant: universities are structured according to a philosophical opinion about the nature of the universe (or at least the nature of knowledge about the universe). That set of decisions in turn steers, at a very fundamental level, the path and velocity of scientific inquiry.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#268

Post by kbrkbr » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 12:05 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #267

kbrkbr wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hold a master in philosophy and it was my first big love. Over the years I came however to a conclusion opposite to yours. > Also, philosophy underpins science. Whenever a hypothesis is tested, there is are philosophically-grounded assumptions being made. The epistemological implications for any given scientific finding depend on the underlying philosophical framework being assumed. I think that is not true. Scienc…

Here’s one way it’s relevant: universities are structured according to a philosophical opinion about the nature of the universe (or at least the nature of knowledge about the universe). That set of decisions in turn steers, at a very fundamental level, the path and velocity of scientific inquiry.

I fail to see what you mean exactly. Could you explain?

Specifically why the opinion is philosophical and not just some historic-pragmatic pattern matching and grouping?

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#269

Post by mensetmanusman » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 12:25 PM UTC

hnfong wrote: post #53

hcks wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

:hand waves emergent:

:Solves everything complicated:

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#270

Post by spadros » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 12:27 PM UTC

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #84

9dev wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By implicitly assigning „it“ an identity, you’re simply anthromorphizing an LLM. Bing doesn’t see anything. It isn’t able to do anything. It’s a very convoluted and complex mathematical model of weighted terms that spits out text generated from a prompt. And nothing science-wise suggests anything else. People seem to keep forgetting that.

People also told me my pet couldn't think and couldn't feel pain when it died. It was only a convoluted and complex system of instincts. I now know they told this story to me (as a child) to make me feel better. It was one of those things like Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy to me. Later when I studied animal behavior, I found out science-wise that animals behave in ways that strongly suggest that in fact they do…

I agree with your sentiment that animals and maybe even plants can experience sentience. But that’s a far, far, faaaar cry from what ChatGPT is and is capable of. We don’t have “general” AI yet. ChatGPT’s intelligence is very narrow; it generates written content. That’s about it. I believe a lot of people are overhyping it this way.