111–120 of 604 posts
No mention of Julian Jaynes "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" here?
Well, mostly because, while an extremely entertaining idea, it's pretty clearly bogus science.
I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic. (To be clear, I’m not here to argue about the topic or try to persuade anyone of any position – that’s a waste of everyone’s time). I recommend seeking out discussions involving: - Federico Faggin: inventor of silico…
A philosophical framework in which creating an artificial entity that is conscious and self-aware in a human-like manner is as straightforward as modeling the human brain is monistic materialism. Of course, it’s not the only framework available. Among the modern takes, Donald Hoffman’s interface theory of perception (explored in, say, his Objects of Consciousness paper[0]) is an interesting one that appears to align…
Why then, not modelling such ebtity isn't creating a self-aware entity? After all, the outcome of a computation does not depend on whether it is actually done.
My mum is a shrink, and very old, and smart, and hates technology. I was talking her through how some primitive "AGI" could happen with 4o (basically just explained this: https://b.h4x.zip/agi ) That got us talking about consciousness, and at the end, she thought about it for about a minute and then said "if I can't give it lysergic acid and make it see god, it's not conscious" and went back to making her dinner.
Raising the temperature is probably a close analog to psychedelics.
Now I'm not 100% sure how temperature is implemented, but from what i recollect, might be a reasonable analogue indeed!
I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic. (To be clear, I’m not here to argue about the topic or try to persuade anyone of any position – that’s a waste of everyone’s time). I recommend seeking out discussions involving: - Federico Faggin: inventor of silico…
Julian Jaynes theory of consciousness is very interesting. At a high level, his thoery was that consciousness is A) much smaller in scope as far as what it actually is than a lot of people like to think, and B) it is not actually innate in humans, it is something we learn as we grow.
And finally...who never, when particularly tired or worried with something, left home, lost in their own thoughts, and in a fog...drove to work...just to realize when arriving its weekend? ;-)
I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic. (To be clear, I’m not here to argue about the topic or try to persuade anyone of any position – that’s a waste of everyone’s time). I recommend seeking out discussions involving: - Federico Faggin: inventor of silico…
"The argument from authority is a logical fallacy (also known as ad verecundiam fallacy), and obtaining knowledge in this way is fallible."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
The meta logical fallacy of treating Wiki itself as an authority isn't an intended pun.
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…
Another way of putting it is to use the primary versus secondary qualities. Primary qualities belong to properties of things we perceive. Secondary are properties that are part of the perceiving or experiencing subject. Shape, number, composition are properties of things. Sounds, colors, pains are properties of a perceiver.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It doesn't have a role ... Consciousness evolved, therefore it must have provided an advantage. We just have to find it. That's a pretty wild claim, considering that the only animal proven to have a consciousness is the apex-predator of the whole world.
It's a pretty out-there idea that we're the only conscious animals. Along the lines of "animals don't have feelings" which seems to be mostly pushed by Christians.
I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic. (To be clear, I’m not here to argue about the topic or try to persuade anyone of any position – that’s a waste of everyone’s time). I recommend seeking out discussions involving: - Federico Faggin: inventor of silico…
Please stop with the appeal to authority!! "The argument from authority is a logical fallacy (also known as ad verecundiam fallacy), and obtaining knowledge in this way is fallible." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority The meta logical fallacy of treating Wiki itself as an authority isn't an intended pun.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It's well defined in the philosophical literature as the felt experience of colors, sounds, pains, etc which make up our subjective experiences of perception, imagination, dreams, etc, Qualia is the technical word, but it's also controversial, depending on the philosopher's position on the hard problem and their views on perception (they might replace qualia with representational or relational properties). Another wa…