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Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

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Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#251

Post by jpt4 »

aydyn wrote: post #245
jpt4 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any body of academic thought whose paradigmatic communication medium is video rather than text is prima facie suspect. Might you please link a written statement of the salient position(s) of any one of these gentlemen?

Just curious, why do you write like that? Reminds when I was 11 and wanted to sound smarter on the internet.

My reply is an attempt to address the original comment with precision. To diagram its intended meaning:

> alternative theories of consciousness

"Any body of academic thought" [I accede the scientific legitimacy of the domain of discourse, rather than dismissing it.]

> know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic.

"whose paradigmatic communication medium" [This is the beginning of my challenge to the Original Commenter, by granting the information provided authoritative status, which they perhaps cannot fully defend.]

> On YouTube you can find plenty of discussions

"is video rather than text"

> it’s particularly important to explore these discussions as dispassionately as possible if you regard materialism as the only theory of mind that has any scientific credibility or validity.

"is prima facie suspect" [The Original Commenter has asserted that discourse and engagement are important, yet provided only time consuming, low signal-to-noise sources of information.]

> As Christopher Hitchens reminds us in his legendary oration on John Stuart Mill and free speech [2]

"Might you please link a written statement of the salient position(s) of any one of these gentlemen?" [The only written citations are 1) generic and 2) ancillary to the core topic. I invite the Original Commenter to further his argument more substantively, without demanding exhaustive citations.]

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#252

Post by bgandrew »

aydyn wrote: post #245
jpt4 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any body of academic thought whose paradigmatic communication medium is video rather than text is prima facie suspect. Might you please link a written statement of the salient position(s) of any one of these gentlemen?

Just curious, why do you write like that? Reminds when I was 11 and wanted to sound smarter on the internet.

sorry, but it's just common sense

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#253

Post by dj_mc_merlin »

jpt4 wrote: post #251
aydyn wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, why do you write like that? Reminds when I was 11 and wanted to sound smarter on the internet.

My reply is an attempt to address the original comment with precision. To diagram its intended meaning: > alternative theories of consciousness "Any body of academic thought" [I accede the scientific legitimacy of the domain of discourse, rather than dismissing it.] > know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic. "whose paradigmatic communication medium" [This is the beginning of my challenge to the Or…

OK, let me rewrite it:

> Any body of academic thought whose paradigmatic communication medium is video rather than text is prima facie suspect. Might you please link a written statement of the salient position(s) of any one of these gentlemen?

> Academic content is usually in text, not video. Do you have links to written work from them?

Shorter and the exact same meaning. Also doesn't sound like you've been perusing your thesaurus all day.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#254

Post by mekoka »

tomhoward wrote: post #11

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…

As someone who's been engaged in this topic (the nature of reality and consciousness) over the past 3 years, it's very surprising to see this comment on HN. As I've suggested in a past comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36465928), this can potentially be one of the most transformative rabbit hole anyone can ever hope to enter.

It's been fascinating to observe the dichotomy between researchers who work on explaining consciousness, starting from a physicalist/materialist perspective, slowly being convinced away from that intuition with iron clad arguments, while laypeople lean further into it, deluded by what they perceive to be signs of it from recent AI progress.

Among former materialist academics that I expect to see publications from a more affirmed idealist position in the next 5 years, I count David Chalmers and Christof Koch. Perhaps Anil Seth too.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#255

Post by thethimble »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #175
jugg1es wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't replicate something we don't understand. The mechanism for consciousness is not understood at all right now and could actually be based on quantum effects that we haven't detected yet. It's also possible that it is only achievable in an organic machine. Until we understand how consciousness actually arises, the best we can do is a simulacrum of it.

We can’t replicate it now but it doesn’t means it’s impossible. Like no one thinks that humans visiting Pluto is impossible, it’s just not something we can feasibly do right now.

The framework of materialism posits that there’s a physical universe and consciousness is an emergent property of physical processes. This view is so prevalent in the western world it’s hard to imagine how it could be anything else.

As an alternative, imagine that consciousness is primary. After all, any evidence that you have about the material world happens as an appearance within consciousness. (See “brain in a vat” and related thought experiments for the legitimacy of this idea).

In this alternative model, the concept of replicating consciousness with material processes doesn’t make any sense because consciousness is primary.

To be clear I’m not making any assertions about which model is correct. Instead I’m suggesting that the model you choose is axiomatic - taken as given as opposed to inferred from evidence. And starting with the latter model means artificial replication of consciousness isn’t even a logical proposition.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#256

Post by davnicwil »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #236
moi2388 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? I can replicate a book in a foreign without understanding the language?

You can copy an existing book, word for word (maybe not even that if it uses a different character set, unless you're doing photocopies). Write a new book without understanding the language? No way - not one that makes any sense. Not unless you're going with the "million monkeys" approach (and if you did try that approach, you wouldn't live long enough to succeed in writing one actual coherent book in the foreign lan…

As a tangent on this, it'd be such an interesting experiment to see how far one could go in deciphering/understanding a new language and attempting to write a new book in that language based on the content of a single, probably fairly long, book.

It feels like it should be theoretically possible, but I doubt it's ever been tried.

Maybe something like understanding aincent languages from limited, fragmented sources is the closest natural experiment we have in practice to have tested it, but it's hardly the same as a full, substantial text in a consistent style.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#257

Post by groestl »

dist-epoch wrote: post #118
IshKebab wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 didn't say we're the only one. But that we are the one we know for a fact are conscious.

I know only for a fact that I'm conscious ;)

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#258

Post by jpt4 »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #253
jpt4 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reply is an attempt to address the original comment with precision. To diagram its intended meaning: > alternative theories of consciousness "Any body of academic thought" [I accede the scientific legitimacy of the domain of discourse, rather than dismissing it.] > know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic. "whose paradigmatic communication medium" [This is the beginning of my challenge to the Or…

OK, let me rewrite it: > Any body of academic thought whose paradigmatic communication medium is video rather than text is prima facie suspect. Might you please link a written statement of the salient position(s) of any one of these gentlemen? > Academic content is usually in text, not video. Do you have links to written work from them? Shorter and the exact same meaning. Also doesn't sound like you've been perusing…

At minimum, this does not capture that I _am_ challenging the Original Commenter ("prima facie suspect") to more rigorously defend his position, but doing so respectfully. "One salient" written source is a carefully chosen framing: the OC cannot meet it by replying with support peripheral or meta to the main argument, but neither can he dismiss my request as burdensome, demanding multiple links.

The proposed revision suffers from its terseness, losing both nuance and completeness.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#259

Post by smokel »

TaupeRanger wrote: post #157
smokel wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order for my definition to make sense, the organism or program must be able to observe the memory of the state. In the case of the bacteria and the Python program, I doubt they are able to do that in any meaningful way. But I would not mind if a slightly more involved program, or a system of plants for that matter, would be considered conscious. The basic definition seems fairly irrelevant, and it obviously matter…

Just handwavy nonsense. What counts as “observing”? Obviously the bacterial system will “observe” the memory when using it determine current behavior. If the basic definition is irrelevant, why did you post a comment outlining a claim of what consciousness is “nothing more than”? This is silly and not worth further engagement.

Note that I tried to counter the idea that an AI should presumably get human rights. In that context, I think a definition of consciousness is irrelevant.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#260

Post by Scarblac »

agumonkey wrote: post #246
aydyn wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, why do you write like that? Reminds when I was 11 and wanted to sound smarter on the internet.

Sidenote a lot of people get triggered by videos as information. Cause reading is indexable. I used to be a bit like that and ran into a few extremists.

Text is also much more dense. What videos spend 15 minutes on can be read in a few. You can also skim text first and then switch to deeper reading where desired, et cetera.
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