Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by mef » Mon, May 20, 2024, 2:49 AM UTC

moi2388 wrote: post #178

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.

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

without understanding the language, you still understand that it's a book, it has symbols which represent language, and those symbols can be replicated.

we don't understand what consciousness is or how it is achieved, so discussing how to recreate it isn't really a conversation we can have - we can only discuss how to create a simulacrum.

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

#422

Post by nicolodavis » Mon, May 20, 2024, 2:49 AM UTC

If we're talking about some sort of computational system achieving consciousness, I'm curious how you can escape the fact that computation is observer-relative, i.e. the underlying representation of a computation has no semantics, and requires an external entity to provide an interpretation.

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

#423

Post by Stem0037 » Mon, May 20, 2024, 2:50 AM UTC

While the mainstream view is that human consciousness is the gold standard AI aspires to, it's possible that artifical minds, not burdened by evolutionary baggage, could achieve higher forms of consciousness in some respects. For instance, an AI uninhibited by human attentional and working memory limits may attain greater metacognitive clarity.

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

#424

Post by rixed » Mon, May 20, 2024, 2:52 AM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #12

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #3

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…

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

Of course, any philosophical zombie could have invented it. Which makes clear for me how loosely consciousness is bound to senses, including that of introspection. It actually makes me feel that this consciousness we can barely describe is but a faint experience of a distant, largely foreign thing. Like we know the experience of matter that we get from our senses is a grossly simplified version of the real thing (that we still don't know exactly of course, but we already know enough to see how far away our immediate mental model is from the truth)

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

#425

Post by lofenfew » Mon, May 20, 2024, 2:56 AM UTC

RaftPeople wrote: post #356

tomrod wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Communication is about being understood. This assertion is in error. Communication is about transmitting information. What happens to that information after the transmissions is beyond scope of communication. Don't get me wrong -- we have communication companies and classes named "business communication" and fields of inquiry titled "communication." Yet, the common trend to each of these is wrapping the transmissio…

> This assertion is in error. Communication is about transmitting information. It seems like you might possibly be leaving out the other 50% of communication (hint: it starts with an "r" and ends with "eceiving")

"Transmission" is per se bidirectional. The individual on the other end has received it, whether they understand it or can do anything useful with it is up to them.

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

#426

Post by lofenfew » Mon, May 20, 2024, 2:58 AM UTC

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #366

soulofmischief wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some notes from the editor... I do think there is a middle ground. Look at Bukowski as a good example of effective terseness. On one hand, you can indeed rely on the precision of a large and unequivocal vocabulary, removing all doubt as to your intentions. On the other hand, you can also rely on context and find beauty in conveying advanced meaning within a simpler interface. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry says, "Perfec…

To quote the classic: "Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick"

"If I had more time I would have written a shorter letter"

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

#427

Post by nicolodavis » Mon, May 20, 2024, 3:11 AM UTC

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…

For academic literature, I would recommend reading:

1. James Ross: https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43151/ross-immateriali...

2. Edward Feser: https://www.newdualism.org/papers/E.Feser/Feser-acpq_2013.pd...

3. John Searle: https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Is%20the%2...

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

#428

Post by anon-3988 » Mon, May 20, 2024, 3:34 AM UTC

anon84873628 wrote: post #402

prolyxis wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am hopeful that advances in brain-computer interfaces will start to provide a partial answer to the question of "what's there" and why it's there. It seems to me the ability to controllably augment one's own consciousness with precision will tremendously clarify the necessary ingredients for consciousness.

Neuroscience has already done lots of investigations as to what's there and why. We know which structures in the brain do what (including "consciousness") at an increasingly fine level. We can observe all sorts of brain disorders and dysfunctions and their effect on consciousness. You can do drugs yourself to alter the ingredients of consciousness. I think people just don't like how boring the answer is.

No, I don't think you understand how fundamentally hard the question is. See the hard problem of consciousness[1]. When you think about gravity, you can imagine a universe where gravity is reversed. All of the physics seems mechanical, or probabilistics or whatever. But "there's there there" is a completely different phenomena that I think we will never have an answer for.

There doesn't seem to be a continuity, either something is there, or there isn't. You can be drunk, hallucinating, feel extremely dizzy, trapped in a vat, trapped inside another universe inside vat, trapped as a figment of reality of other beings, but the fact that "there's there there" is binary. It is something that cannot be divided or peeked into. A kind of fundamental atomic property.

1. https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/

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

#429

Post by thethimble » Mon, May 20, 2024, 3:35 AM UTC

fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #396

thethimble wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The brain is the seat of consciousness and the brain is material, therefore consciousness is emergent from material This is true from the standpoint of materialism but not necessarily fundamentally true. How do you know you have a brain? As you explore this question, you’ll realize that the knowledge that you have a brain only manifests as appearances within consciousness. It’s not necessary true that these appeara…

>it might be possible that your consciousness is a product of a simulation where your entire subjectivity - including the observation that you have a brain - is a manifestation of another mechanism that is outside of observability. Ok. But that is equally true for any observation. For example, I don't really know that the computer I'm using to write this post actually exists under that proposition, as perhaps by brai…

If observations imply that there’s a material universe that you are inspecting then I agree with your conclusion that the brain creates consciousness and it seems possible to replicate that consciousness artificially.

However, I am rejecting the idea that observations necessarily imply the existence of a material universe.

Actually rather than “rejecting”, I’m suggesting that it’s logically possible to take the “reverse” position: that consciousness is primary and we are experiencing what appears to be a material universe within that conscious experience. In this model it doesn’t make logical sense to be able to replicate consciousness with materials because materials seem to exist within consciousness as opposed to the other way around.

My overarching point is that most people here seem to believe that we’ll obviously replicate consciousness with more understanding of biology and I think that’s a bold claim because it’s not obvious that materialism is the “correct” framework to describe existence.

In any case, these frameworks are in the realm of non-falsifiability (axiomatic) so you can’t really claim either is fundamentally correct.

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

#430

Post by tomhoward » Mon, May 20, 2024, 3:36 AM UTC

Jevon23 wrote: post #243

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?

Video is not the standard medium of communication in academic philosophy. I imagine the GP mentioned youtube because most people are more likely to watch a video than read a paper. Bernardo Kastrup has a bunch of essays/books up for free at his website https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/papers.html?m=1

To be clear, I don’t sit there for hours watching videos on YouTube (I have a busy career and a family so that’s not an option these days).

I do consume a lot of YouTube content as audio-only when driving or exercising.

I find video particularly satisfying for this topic and these figures, because much of the most valuable insight emerges through discussion and debate.

I’ve read Kastrup’s book “Why Materialism is Baloney” and found it very satisfying - but I was already amenable to his position; I don’t imagine it would be persuasive to an entrenched skeptic.