I think "consciousness" is such a fuzzy term that talking about is at best premature when we are still trying to understand more fundamental things which underlie cognition, such as how human (or mice) memory works, or how the "cognitive maps" which drive spatial navigation generalize to navigation in abstract "concept spaces", how these "concepts" are represented, or how networks of neurons communicate and synchroni…
I send "AI" to the spam folder in general. No one who is actually doing AI calls it AI. It's only called AI in glossy consultant brochures with stock images of a man in a business suit surfing through a tunnel of glowing blue numbers.
Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy
11–20 of 102 posts
Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy
#12I found the article very interesting and thought provoking. Some points from it -
> We see the world not as it is, but as it’s useful for us to do so.
> A computer that plays chess is actually playing chess. But a computer simulation of a weather system does not generate actual weather. Weather is substrate-dependent.
> This is why I tend toward the substrate-dependent view. This imperative for self-organization and self-preservation in living systems goes all the way down: Every cell within a body maintains its own existence just as the body as a whole does. What’s more, unlike in a computer where you have this sharp distinction between hardware and software — between substrate and what “runs on” that substrate — in life, there isn’t such a sharp divide. Where does the mind-ware stop and the wetware start? There isn’t a clear answer. These, for me, are positive reasons to think that the substrate matters; a system that instantiates conscious experiences might have to be a system that cares about its persistence all the way down into its mechanisms, without some arbitrary cutoff. No, I can’t demonstrate that for certain. But it’s one interesting way in which living systems are different from computers, and it’s a way which helps me understand consciousness as it’s expressed in living systems.
> I think the situation we’re much more likely to find ourselves in is living in a world where artificial systems can give the extremely compelling impression that they are conscious, even when they are not. Or where we just have no way of knowing, but the systems will strongly try to convince us that they are.
Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy
#13I found the article very interesting and thought provoking. Some points from it - > We see the world not as it is, but as it’s useful for us to do so. > A computer that plays chess is actually playing chess. But a computer simulation of a weather system does not generate actual weather. Weather is substrate-dependent. > This is why I tend toward the substrate-dependent view. This imperative for self-organization and…
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Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy
#14I think "consciousness" is such a fuzzy term that talking about is at best premature when we are still trying to understand more fundamental things which underlie cognition, such as how human (or mice) memory works, or how the "cognitive maps" which drive spatial navigation generalize to navigation in abstract "concept spaces", how these "concepts" are represented, or how networks of neurons communicate and synchroni…
I agree with this. There are so many philosophical debates out there regarding what happens after we die, if animals are "conscious", if computers or AI could have "consciousness", but in my opinion it's all a big illusion created out of our own egos as a rationalization for our existence. We are biological machines. Sure, we have an awareness of ourselves, but so do computers in some contexts; for example you could…
There is actual an obvious point…
Everytime you wake up in the morning.
Some work detecting it as well for medical reasons https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.3006294
Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy
#15I think "consciousness" is such a fuzzy term that talking about is at best premature when we are still trying to understand more fundamental things which underlie cognition, such as how human (or mice) memory works, or how the "cognitive maps" which drive spatial navigation generalize to navigation in abstract "concept spaces", how these "concepts" are represented, or how networks of neurons communicate and synchroni…
I send "AI" to the spam folder in general. No one who is actually doing AI calls it AI. It's only called AI in glossy consultant brochures with stock images of a man in a business suit surfing through a tunnel of glowing blue numbers.
OpenAI?
Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy
#16Does anyone else feel like Quanta is mostly a hype machine? I hear about seemingly earth shattering research there and never hear about it again.
No.
Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
yes, the 2nd law applies within closed systems. You can cheat in reality (where closed systems don't actually exist) by taking energy from outside a bounded territory (say, a human body) and using it to resist entropy. He doesn't call it by name, but he's referencing autopoiesis (or, continuous self-creation) and homeostasis (self-regulation of properties through balancing feedback loops). Both of these processes con…
Which means that ordered systems must create disorder in order to maintain their own order, and the place where you find the greatest order to disorder is in other actively ordered systems. I blame entropy for the existence of evil, if there is a sentient omniscient creator, there better be a good reason for it, and if the reason turns out to be that entropy is the ongoing cost of His omniscient observation of every…
But life probably wouldn’t exist if entropy wasn’t increasing
Life exists because it increases the entropy in the universe
Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy
#18I found the article very interesting and thought provoking. Some points from it - > We see the world not as it is, but as it’s useful for us to do so. > A computer that plays chess is actually playing chess. But a computer simulation of a weather system does not generate actual weather. Weather is substrate-dependent. > This is why I tend toward the substrate-dependent view. This imperative for self-organization and…
> Weather is substrate-dependent.
That's true, but it doesn't mean that the simulation doesn't have desired effects in the real world. The simulation will not make you wet, but it will keep you dry if you use its predictions and take your umbrella with you.
If consciousness is related to assessment of predictions and their effect on the organism, then those predictions can be assessed by living "through" them in the real or simulated world and there are significant advantages in doing this in simulation.
Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy
#19“ Well, it must minimize the uncertainty of the states that it’s in. I have to actively resist the second law of thermodynamics, so I don’t dissipate into all kinds of states. “ People often make this rhetorical mistake when speaking about the second law. Entropy is increasing full steam ahead, and what looks like a small bit of order is revealed to be hiding ‘the man behind the curtain’ i.e. a massive increase in en…
Is that not what 'actively resist' means?
Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I send "AI" to the spam folder in general. No one who is actually doing AI calls it AI. It's only called AI in glossy consultant brochures with stock images of a man in a business suit surfing through a tunnel of glowing blue numbers.
https://aaai.org https://www.ijcai.org It is used by researchers.
The exceptions that prove the rule. These are the most consultant-surfing-glowing-blue-number-flavored conferences.