111–120 of 224 posts
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Brilliant. Roman numerals are, after all, just letters. The "why haven't they used them?" becomes pretty jarring once you think about it.
Roman numerals are not a place-value system and you can’t make a computer use Roman numerals just by switching to a custom font.
Somehow this is not surprising for me, I have heard about experiments related to free-will wherein the brain already made a decision even before the conscious mind became aware of it. Thus putting doubts on our conscious experience of free-will. Also, in terms of problem solving, there are experiments which show that the brain calculates the answers and "presents" the answers later on to the consciousness. It's not l…
All of the research you describe can be safely bundled into the same category as "dead salmon shows brain activity on an fMRI if you squint hard enough." It's phrenology for the 21st century, except with dyes and MRIs instead of head shaped calipers. The second you say the words "conscious mind", you leave the realm of science. At best, "consciousness" is an abstraction used by psychiatrists and laypeople over much d…
Is all mental health research unscientific based on the same logic?
My understanding is that it's conclusive that some of our brain's processes we feel we are controlling (conscious thinking), while others happen in the background without us realising. The fact that we don't understand everything that makes that the case doesn't stop that being the case.
The SF novel Blindsight by Peter Watts explores the idea of aliens that are cognizant but not conscious. Fascinating book. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)
Somehow this is not surprising for me, I have heard about experiments related to free-will wherein the brain already made a decision even before the conscious mind became aware of it. Thus putting doubts on our conscious experience of free-will. Also, in terms of problem solving, there are experiments which show that the brain calculates the answers and "presents" the answers later on to the consciousness. It's not l…
> the brain already made a decision even before the conscious mind became aware of it. Thus putting doubts on our conscious experience of free-will. Seems to conflate consciousness and free will. Just because you're not conscious of it, your brain still made that decision. And your conscious mind can still go back on the decision and "change your mind".
No, that's not possible. That's what those experiments are showing, you're just failing to grasp its consequences.
If later you report "changing your mind", that will also have happened unconsciously, and you wont' even know why in your conscious experience: but you will be convinced you chose that - when you really haven't.
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> By that definition, a GPS module with an SSD is an "I". No it's not. I didn't explain what I meant by "knowing your place in space and time", sorry about that, but this needs elaboration. I think we'll agree that consciousness (self-awareness) is not binary: it can be present in varying degrees in computer systems, animals and humans. The degree of self-awareness though I think is a function of how rich the model o…
Is your definition actually accurate enough to capture instances of intuitive judgements that "this is a conscious being" without being overly broad to include "obviously non-conscious" things? By calling it a spectrum, the already fuzzy definition becomes so broad as to be almost useless. Your spectrum and "knowing" model admits conscious GPS, albeit "low consciousness." What about spiders or GPT-3 or suitibly chose…
Somehow this is not surprising for me, I have heard about experiments related to free-will wherein the brain already made a decision even before the conscious mind became aware of it. Thus putting doubts on our conscious experience of free-will. Also, in terms of problem solving, there are experiments which show that the brain calculates the answers and "presents" the answers later on to the consciousness. It's not l…
You are thinking of Libet's famous experiments.
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet#Implications_o...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the brain already made a decision even before the conscious mind became aware of it. Thus putting doubts on our conscious experience of free-will. Seems to conflate consciousness and free will. Just because you're not conscious of it, your brain still made that decision. And your conscious mind can still go back on the decision and "change your mind".
> And your conscious mind can still go back on the decision and "change your mind". No, that's not possible. That's what those experiments are showing, you're just failing to grasp its consequences. If later you report "changing your mind", that will also have happened unconsciously, and you wont' even know why in your conscious experience: but you will be convinced you chose that - when you really haven't.
> In contrast, when shown numbers with embedded faces, the number’s effect apparently swamped that of the face: RFS reported seeing neither; everything looked like spaghetti. Yet an EEG still showed the characteristic N170 spike for registering faces. Somehow, his brain was still processing and identifying a face—a fairly high-level skill—even though his conscious mind was oblivious. This deficit shows high-level cog…
Makes me think of this silliness I saw today: https://mobile.twitter.com/BFriedmanDC/status/12892831187305... I recommend first watching it with you eyes closed and after that seeing how you can manipulate your perception. It was easy to hear “brain needle” with my eyes closed.
Somehow this is not surprising for me, I have heard about experiments related to free-will wherein the brain already made a decision even before the conscious mind became aware of it. Thus putting doubts on our conscious experience of free-will. Also, in terms of problem solving, there are experiments which show that the brain calculates the answers and "presents" the answers later on to the consciousness. It's not l…
All of the research you describe can be safely bundled into the same category as "dead salmon shows brain activity on an fMRI if you squint hard enough." It's phrenology for the 21st century, except with dyes and MRIs instead of head shaped calipers. The second you say the words "conscious mind", you leave the realm of science. At best, "consciousness" is an abstraction used by psychiatrists and laypeople over much d…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is your definition actually accurate enough to capture instances of intuitive judgements that "this is a conscious being" without being overly broad to include "obviously non-conscious" things? By calling it a spectrum, the already fuzzy definition becomes so broad as to be almost useless. Your spectrum and "knowing" model admits conscious GPS, albeit "low consciousness." What about spiders or GPT-3 or suitibly chose…
Hi, can you explain what a ' Yudkowsian self-optimizer ' is? I've googled it and the only page that it comes up with is this one! :-)
If you haven't heard of LessWrong before, then you have hit the motherload of all rabbit holes! That site is definitely worth the dive.
[0]:https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HFTn3bAT6uXSNwv4m/optimizati...