51–60 of 604 posts
For all we know, it might be that consciousness is not fully contained in the physical structure of the brain. It might as well be something that partially exists on another layer of reality we have no idea about yet.
Maybe we could create a synthetic artificial conscious mind. At worst we could simulate a full human brain at whatever level is necessary. I can accept that.
What's crazy to me is the following: It's not the computer that's conscious. Instead, the computation itself is conscious. And the computation is obviously matter-independent. As a thought experiment it would be possible to compute it on paper and those pen and paper calculations would be conscious. Or pebbles in a desert XKCD style.
Like… what?
Yes, the beauty of nature is, there is no magic. Everything is governed by laws, when we uncover it, we can replicate it.
We don't even know whether other human beings are conscious, man. The only thing which we might say with much certainty is that things which are more "like us" along some metric are more likely to be actually conscious, and things which are less "like us" are less likely to be so. Maybe everything is conscious. Maybe nothing except one's own self. But you'll never truly know one way or another, even if humanity inven…
Consciousness seems to be a word that is poorly defined. You see this a lot, and one of the more popular instances are questions like "is cereal a salad?" It plays on the fact that the definition of a salad is relatively loose, and because it's loose items which aren't usually associated with the word do actually fit the definition. Consciousness feels much the same way: there's a very loose definition which is collo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> we may have conscious software, which presumably should be granted human rights A dog (most likely) has consciousness, but no human rights.
It has animal rights, which are broadly commensurate with the level of consciousness and agency it’s deemed to have. Mammals and other animals have legal protections not afforded to fish and insects.
Artificial consciousness is a better term for what's often called AI in science fiction.
We don't even know whether other human beings are conscious, man. The only thing which we might say with much certainty is that things which are more "like us" along some metric are more likely to be actually conscious, and things which are less "like us" are less likely to be so. Maybe everything is conscious. Maybe nothing except one's own self. But you'll never truly know one way or another, even if humanity inven…
Consciousness seems to be a word that is poorly defined. You see this a lot, and one of the more popular instances are questions like "is cereal a salad?" It plays on the fact that the definition of a salad is relatively loose, and because it's loose items which aren't usually associated with the word do actually fit the definition. Consciousness feels much the same way: there's a very loose definition which is collo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know that at least one other human is conscious, otherwise the term would never have been invented. But you have no way to tell if I am as conscious as I claim to be, or if I'm just a large language model trained by humanity :P
Can you provide proof for the first claim?
"I know" is unprovable to others, unless you examine the wiring of my brain. (But then, what is "knowledge"?)
"at least one other human is conscious, otherwise the term would never have been invented." — it's always possible that I'm a Bolzmann brain and this was just luck.
I don't see how the term could have been invented by a mind that didn't actually have it, except with astronomical low probably random events.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It has animal rights, which are broadly commensurate with the level of consciousness and agency it’s deemed to have. Mammals and other animals have legal protections not afforded to fish and insects.
In some countries… some countries hardly observe basic human rights much less any animal rights. Some have none on the books.
(As I was writing the comment I thought “ugh will someone chime in and point out that not all countries have strong animal protection laws? Do I really need to preempt that in my comment?”)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I m still conflicted what we do with the bag of flesh after the fact. Are we bag holding forever?
what do you mean? the bag is useful for going around, but it's frail and needs replacing every few decades.