A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter • Hacker News Board

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#81

Post by globnomulous » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 5:08 AM UTC

skissane wrote: post #61

Articles like this annoy me: it seems to want to comment on philosophy of mind, but shows zero awareness of the classic debates in that discipline - materialism vs idealism vs dualism vs neutral monism, and the competing versions of each of those, e.g. substance dualism vs hylemorphic dualism, eliminativist vs reductionist/emergentist materialism, property dualism, epiphenomenalism, panpsychism, Chalmers’ distinction…

Is there a philosopher or philosophical school that identifies intelligence as a being's capacity to deploy a capability towards some end with intention? If so, what is this called? Or who is associated with it?

Edit: I'd expect this thinker/school also to argue that the being needs to be able to experience its intention as an intention (as opposed to a dumb, inarticulate urge); in other words, intelligence would require an agent to be aware of itself as an intelligent agent.

Edit 2: I strongly recommend Peter Watts' Blindsight to anybody who's on the market for sci fi that deals with these issues.

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#82

Post by geuis » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 5:15 AM UTC

skissane wrote: post #61

Articles like this annoy me: it seems to want to comment on philosophy of mind, but shows zero awareness of the classic debates in that discipline - materialism vs idealism vs dualism vs neutral monism, and the competing versions of each of those, e.g. substance dualism vs hylemorphic dualism, eliminativist vs reductionist/emergentist materialism, property dualism, epiphenomenalism, panpsychism, Chalmers’ distinction…

[flagged]

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#83

Post by rramadass » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 5:23 AM UTC

protocolture wrote: post #65

skissane wrote: post #61

Articles like this annoy me: it seems to want to comment on philosophy of mind, but shows zero awareness of the classic debates in that discipline - materialism vs idealism vs dualism vs neutral monism, and the competing versions of each of those, e.g. substance dualism vs hylemorphic dualism, eliminativist vs reductionist/emergentist materialism, property dualism, epiphenomenalism, panpsychism, Chalmers’ distinction…

I bailed 10 words in and came to the comments to see if the article was worth reading. Thanks for confirming its a skip.

The gp is wrong. They are just being supercilious with a word salad of their own which is best ignored.

The article is pretty good making you rethink all your preexisting concepts of Mind/Intelligence based on what we know from Biology today. It is not an article on various theories of Mind but on how scientific research (conveyed through pointers from various researchers) is advancing rapidly on so many fronts that we are forced to confront our very fundamental beliefs.

Absolutely worth reading at least a couple of times.

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#84

Post by rramadass » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 5:33 AM UTC

geuis wrote: post #82

skissane wrote: post #61

Articles like this annoy me: it seems to want to comment on philosophy of mind, but shows zero awareness of the classic debates in that discipline - materialism vs idealism vs dualism vs neutral monism, and the competing versions of each of those, e.g. substance dualism vs hylemorphic dualism, eliminativist vs reductionist/emergentist materialism, property dualism, epiphenomenalism, panpsychism, Chalmers’ distinction…

[flagged]

Well said. The gp's comment was mere snobbish verbiage since the article is not about various theories of Mind, but on biological research which is making us rethink our very fundamental assumptions. It is a pretty good one.

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#85

Post by ivan_gammel » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 5:39 AM UTC

Intelligence is the ability of a system to make observations and adjust itself based on them (like our brain is changing while learning or our environment is changing with technological progress). It’s definitely not binary state. If we put the internal complexity of the system on one axis and external complexity (what can be observed and meaningfully processed) on another axis, there’s a circle on the plane representing what humans perceive as being intelligent. It intersects with a few other species so we do think now that they are intelligent. Everything else outside that circle is either too primitive or too complex for us, so we do not see e.g. plants as intelligent, but we also may not recognize aliens as intelligent because their existence is too complex for us to even notice it. Humans unlocked evolutionary path not based on DNA, so we evolve much quicker now through science and culture. Our circle is thus expanding and we start realizing how more primitive systems think and create new intelligent systems.

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#86

Post by DrFalkyn » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 6:02 AM UTC

geuis wrote: post #82

skissane wrote: post #61

Articles like this annoy me: it seems to want to comment on philosophy of mind, but shows zero awareness of the classic debates in that discipline - materialism vs idealism vs dualism vs neutral monism, and the competing versions of each of those, e.g. substance dualism vs hylemorphic dualism, eliminativist vs reductionist/emergentist materialism, property dualism, epiphenomenalism, panpsychism, Chalmers’ distinction…

[flagged]

So you’re an empiricist.

Is science “reality” or is it just a series of models/ conceptual frameworks ?

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#87

Post by skissane » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 6:05 AM UTC

geuis wrote: post #82

skissane wrote: post #61

Articles like this annoy me: it seems to want to comment on philosophy of mind, but shows zero awareness of the classic debates in that discipline - materialism vs idealism vs dualism vs neutral monism, and the competing versions of each of those, e.g. substance dualism vs hylemorphic dualism, eliminativist vs reductionist/emergentist materialism, property dualism, epiphenomenalism, panpsychism, Chalmers’ distinction…

[flagged]

Your position is self-refuting: you are dismissing philosophy, yet simultaneously making philosophical claims in doing so-claiming that all knowledge is empirical is itself a philosophical claim (empiricism)

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#88

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 6:20 AM UTC

geuis wrote: post #82

skissane wrote: post #61

Articles like this annoy me: it seems to want to comment on philosophy of mind, but shows zero awareness of the classic debates in that discipline - materialism vs idealism vs dualism vs neutral monism, and the competing versions of each of those, e.g. substance dualism vs hylemorphic dualism, eliminativist vs reductionist/emergentist materialism, property dualism, epiphenomenalism, panpsychism, Chalmers’ distinction…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#89

Post by ggm » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 6:30 AM UTC

mcswell wrote: post #71

skissane wrote: post #61

Articles like this annoy me: it seems to want to comment on philosophy of mind, but shows zero awareness of the classic debates in that discipline - materialism vs idealism vs dualism vs neutral monism, and the competing versions of each of those, e.g. substance dualism vs hylemorphic dualism, eliminativist vs reductionist/emergentist materialism, property dualism, epiphenomenalism, panpsychism, Chalmers’ distinction…

As a linguist, article like this also annoy me by the claims that "X [whales, dolphins, parrots, crows...] uses language." We have known since 1957 that there is a hierarchy of "grammars", with finite state "languages" being near the bottom, and transformational grammars at the top. Human languages are certainly at a minimum at the context free phrase structure grammar level. My point is that by using the word "langu…

This. it nicely encapsulates why AI aficionados use words like "hallucinate" which become secret clues to belief around the G part of AGI. If it's just a coding mistake, how can the machine be "alive" but if I can re-purpose "hallucinate" as a term of art, I can also make you, dear reader, embue the AI with more and more traits of meaning which go to "it's alive"

It's language Jim, but more as Chomsky said. or maybe Chimpsky.

I 100% agree with your rant. This time fly likes your arrow.

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#90

Post by grantcas » Thu, Feb 27, 2025, 6:33 AM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #32

heyjamesknight wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that's the same as giving up and saying "we don't understand." What is mind emerging into ? When a video game experience emerges from the combination of processing, display, sound, and controller input, it emerges into a level of organization that a mind can participate in. It emerges into a system of organization emanating downward from the mind experiencing it. It can't just "emerge" into existence on its o…

I agree with GP. Consciousness isn't so hard to explain if you don't enshroud it with mysticism. Consciousness is the emergent, graduated phenomenon of an information processing system when that information processing system has achieved significant complexity to model itself with relation to the various systemic inputs. It's not binary, it's a gradient. I have more developed consciousness than my dog, which has more…

[dead]