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What is it like to be a crab?

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Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#71

Post by pixl97 »

The_Colonel wrote: post #68
messe wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, you can't look at them and positively measure their identicalness, but they're being generated with the same hardware. But to continue your analogy, after so many years of experiencing the world differently—different pasts, upbringings, worldviews—are they being interpreted by the same software? And that's the question that the paper really poses: are qualia real, and if so, is it ever possible to conclude th…

My intuition says yes, they are basically perceived the same way. Color recognition is so elementary it seems more hardware-based than software-based. I think there are better examples for the point (which I assume it's trying to make). Take a piece of rock, does it look the same way to different people? (there the answer is IMHO no).

I would assume the answer is probabilistic and likely follows something like a bell curve.

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#72

Post by pixl97 »

truculent wrote: post #36
linkjuice4all wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the physical adaptations critters on this planet have made were in response to evolutionary pressure. Eat or die. Reproduce or your bloodline dies. Get those resources before something else does or die. At the moment AI doesn’t really face these pressures. They don’t need to get better at “getting electricity” - something else does that for the AI systems so there is no pressure to “be aware of where your nex…

How would consciousness present an evolutionary advantage? Wouldn’t a non-conscious agent with the same behaviour be just as fit? So it seems to me that consciousness is more likely an emergent property of certain kinds of computation.

>Wouldn’t a non-conscious agent with the same behaviour be just as fit?

So what would that entail. A complex organism needs to be 'aware' of its actions and the outcome of those actions versus the actions of 'non-self'. When you start internally modeling the complex behavior of self versus others it starts looking a lot like consciousness.

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#73

Post by pixl97 »

asQuirreL wrote: post #48
MichaelRo wrote: post #45

Well, I suppose there's a simple "rule of thumb" way to respond to all these "What is it like to be an X?" questions (with X defined as "non human"). So here it is: take the lowest of the lowest IQ but still functional human being, I dunno, IQ in the 40-50 range. I mean someone who's definitely not a rocket scientist but are still not mentally ill and can still tie their shoes and wipe their own a*s. You can probe fo…

I'm not sure if this is a serious suggestion or not, but I don't think trying to measure intelligence gives a full picture of consciousness. I can't know for sure but I also don't believe that if a living being is assessed to be less intelligent, that it feels less or is in some way less conscious. I guess this all speaks to a troubling line of thought that justifies treating other beings as lesser for being less int…

Comparison is the theft of joy.

Without understanding what smarter is, how can you feel dumb?

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#74

Post by dl9999 »

BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #69
dl9999 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a similar interest in NDEs. 30 years ago I "knew" what they were. Now I'm not so sure. Do you have any links to articles about the blind people knowing what color clothes people were wearing? Thanks.

I'm pretty sure it is from David Suich, and I believe I have heard him make the claim more than once in interviews, however since I have his book "God took my clothes" (rating 3 out of 5, had higher hopes) the only thing I found was: Of the hundreds of near-death experiences that I have heard, two of them were from people who were blind since birth. During their experiences, they could see for the first time. They we…

Thanks for the references. I will check out David Suich and his Youtube interviews!

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#75

Post by BoardsOfCanada »

dl9999 wrote: post #62
BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #42

I have a very alternative perspective, especially coming from an applied physics background. I don’t know if anyone has experienced what it is like to be a crab, but I know that there are people who claim to have experienced events from other animals perspective, and hundred of thousands that claim to have done so from other humans' perspective, in near death experiences. A few years ago I thought that NDEs basically…

I have a similar interest in NDEs. 30 years ago I "knew" what they were. Now I'm not so sure. Do you have any links to articles about the blind people knowing what color clothes people were wearing? Thanks.

I'd also like to add that the other stats about blind people seeing, and more examples of blind from birth people describing colors, are from:

Ring K, Cooper S. Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind. Palo Alto, CA: William James Center for Consciousness Studies, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology; 1999

Vicki was married and wearing rings, but of course had never seen them. Here are her recollections of her rings:

I think I was wearing the plain gold band on my right ring finger and my father’s wedding ring next to it. But my wedding ring I definitely saw… That was the one I noticed the most because it’s unusual. It has orange blossoms on the corners of it.

What is so remarkable about Vicki’s recollection of these visual impressions is that she had never before understood the concept of vision. “This was,” she said, “the only time I could ever relate to seeing and to what light was, because I experienced it.

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#77

Post by kirkules »

causi wrote: post #44
fsckboy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just to add on with a slant toward the types of things HN is interested in, the point of "what is it like to be a bat" is essentially, you can't know what it's like to be a bat unless you are a bat (and I don't mean the paper should be read for that conclusion, you develop far more insight thinking your way through it) The old "how do I even know my red is your red" is a little piece of this puzzle. Perhaps someday t…

how do I even know my red is your red I get why kids ask this. I don't get why adults ask this. If you have normal color vision and don't have a tumor in your visual cortex your red is as close to my red as the red subpixels are on two units of the same television. Sure, you can't look at them and positively measure their identicalness, but they're being generated with the same hardware.

The existence of "The dress", which is seen by different people or the same person in different states of mind as white/gold or blue/black, and other such illusions, would seem to invalidate your perspective.

Or if that's not persuasive, just consider different software versions, different video drivers, etc. running on the same hardware.

Or consider that if you believe a tumor in your visual cortex could meaningfully change color perception in your model, then why wouldn't a difference in cortex structure have some effect too? I'm willing to bet no two humans have ever had or probably will ever have the same arrangement of visual cortex neurons and other relevant brain biology. Do you think you know enough to say any such variation is irrelevant?

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#78

Post by kirkules »

timeagain wrote: post #4

Somehow I find it harder to imagine what it “would be like” to be even simpler creatures. As a crab I can kind of imagine having more legs and probably having a great sense of smell. I can imagine the excitement and urgency of spawning. How it would feel to think that a sea floor carcass would be tasty. In the other hand, what the hell would it feel like to be a worm? Would I have an inherent sense of “left” and “rig…

You're imagining something you think is what it's like to be a crab, or what you think it's like to have more legs, etc., but why do you have any confidence that's what it actually is like?

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#79

Post by ForHackernews »

pixl97 wrote: post #72
truculent wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would consciousness present an evolutionary advantage? Wouldn’t a non-conscious agent with the same behaviour be just as fit? So it seems to me that consciousness is more likely an emergent property of certain kinds of computation.

>Wouldn’t a non-conscious agent with the same behaviour be just as fit? So what would that entail. A complex organism needs to be 'aware' of its actions and the outcome of those actions versus the actions of 'non-self'. When you start internally modeling the complex behavior of self versus others it starts looking a lot like consciousness.

> When you start internally modeling the complex behavior of self versus others it starts looking a lot like consciousness.

Does it? This is another attempt to sidestep the "hard problem" of consciousness.

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

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#80

Post by jcul »

taneq wrote: post #26
jcul wrote: post #14

I am a strange loop...

The neat thing is, you're not actually conscious, you just think you are. Well, you think you think you are. Think you think you think you think you... and yep, this is what we call consciousness. I finished reading Strange Loop recently, I think 'Being No One' by Metzinger is more pithy though.

Oh thanks, goin to add "Being No One" to my reading list.
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