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What is it like to be a smartphone?

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Re: What is it like to be a smartphone?

#41

Post by tshaddox »

jprupp wrote: post #14

What is it like to be the Internet? That structure resembles our brain: a reactive, resilient, shifting network of connections among billions of individual human brains using smartphones and other technological devices, storing, aggregating and routing information in complex and arbitrary ways. If consciousness is to be found in our technology, I wouldn't look at the individual smartphone, but at the network of all s…

The internet isn’t exactly new in this regard. You could just as easily ask things like “what is it like to be European society?”

Re: What is it like to be a smartphone?

#43

Post by taneq »

JBiserkov wrote: post #3

Do smartphones "die" when they run out of battery or is that merely "sleep" for them? RAM needs power, but ROM is preserved so ... amnesia? Comma? I'm never letting my phone battery drain again.

Dying is irreversible cessation of function. Turning off a machine that can be restarted is more like suspended animation.

Re: What is it like to be a smartphone?

#45

Post by ineedasername »

taneq wrote: post #44
aidenn0 wrote: post #18

For the opposite take, I remember a short story with aliens that were intelligent, but not self aware. They instinctively attacked the humans because they interpreted entertainment broadcasts as a malicious attack.

Blindsight by Peter Watts.

Yep, great book. All of his work in fact is great. Checkout Echophraxia if you liked Blind sight.

Re: What is it like to be a smartphone?

#46

Post by ineedasername »

I think there's a few questions that need answering first. At least one of them is whether or not a non-stochastic system can be conscious.

To summarize the cutting edge state of understanding of consciousness,: "We don't know".

I'm not saying this isn't a fun little question to think about, but from the perspective of advancing knowledge, it's premature, and assumes an answer to a whole lot of questions.

Re: What is it like to be a smartphone?

#48

Post by p1mrx »

monocasa wrote: post #32
gruez wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In that conceptual framework it seems life doesn't have non volatile storage at all how so?

Do you have a counter example?

If piercings or tattoos occurred in nature, would they count as non-volatile memory?

Re: What is it like to be a smartphone?

#49

Post by tjpnz »

You'll spend every waking hour of your life being poked, thrown around, yelled at, dropped and sometimes drowned. If that doesn't kill you you'll spend the rest of eternity in a drawer. So hell maybe?

Re: What is it like to be a smartphone?

#50

Post by optimalsolver »

ineedasername wrote: post #46

I think there's a few questions that need answering first. At least one of them is whether or not a non-stochastic system can be conscious. To summarize the cutting edge state of understanding of consciousness,: "We don't know". I'm not saying this isn't a fun little question to think about, but from the perspective of advancing knowledge, it's premature, and assumes an answer to a whole lot of questions.

Am I correct in thinking that you presume humans to be stochastic systems?
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