4 ms·

> qualia will arise in a modelled substrate. End of discussion. > I don't need to introduce formalism and the like, use the numbers and your head. > everyone

by GuiA 10y ago

> qualia will arise in a modelled substrate. End of discussion. > I don't need to introduce formalism and the like, use the numbers and your head. > everyone else is simply wrong, there is nothing to be discussed Got to hand it to you, hadn't seen a troll of this magnitude on HN in a while :)

logicallee 10y ago
This is very unfair and I would prefer for you to edit it to be more substantive, in line with HN policies. The way it reads now is an ad hominem attack and derails the conversation: I'm a user with a long posting history here and the comment is made in earnest. You quote me without including any context at all, and don't add anything substantive other than literal name-calling. In particular please note that I give a complete model under which my suggestion fails. If God perturbed quantum effects to cause people to report being conscious (like perturbing dice rolls to report "I'm human!"), it could formally be a method to communicate between an ethereal soul plane and our reality, which would not translate to being modelled: the minute you modelled it, God would stop perturbing the physical substrate (stop perturbing the model) and the model would "break" or fail to have the emergent properties that the physical substrate has; the dice would stop saying "I'm human". Since there is no obvious way to refute this scenario, by giving it I have given a very strong argument against my claim. Obviously I feel strongly about the issue, but only because the conclusion is certain for me. I have shown fairly rigorously (I didn't exactly spell it out) how a model is possible under which I am wrong (i.e. God) so I don't see what else you could expect of me: I've given the strongest possible case against my model. My model is still right, I simply don't want to be distracted by noise. I think you see this is the case, or you would not have responded in this way. There is not really anything to argue about here. I guess we could agree to disagree if you don't see things this way.
- GuiA 10y ago
  Questions about the model are addressed with handwaving such as "use numbers and your head" or "this is obvious and everyone else is wrong"; no existing literature or prior work is cited; rather, thought experiments that completely evade the points raised by others are built out of thin air. The core point is that qualia emerges out of perception, and therefore that any system that can perceive in a broad sense, even if that perception is merely simulation of perception, will effectively experience consciousness. But there isn't any reference to proven scientific models for any of the parts at play here; posts treat the core premises as ultimate truths and then spin around that. Regarding your mention of your posting history and complaining of ad hominem, this is completely disingenuous given the way you have responded to other posters. If you wish a better response to your future posts, I suggest making your posts shorter, supporting your core points with references to existing work, and not use at all the "everyone but me is wrong" style of discourse.
  - logicallee 10y ago
    if you meant to summarize my ultimate truth via "The core point is that qualia emerges out of perception, and therefore that any system that can perceive in a broad sense, even if that perception is merely simulation of perception, will effectively experience consciousness" then you didn't understand. The ultimate truth or core point is that qualia emerges as an emergent property of what the parts are doing, and if you simulate those parts with enough fidelity consciousness still emerges. Certainly lots of things could perceive without being conscious - a roomba vacuum cleaner for one thing. So this argument about simulating parts -- it's like a fine mechanical watch that tells time: if you simulate it with enough precision the simulation can "tell time" only rather than telling time, the emergent property of the clockwork is "be conscious". you may not get my analogy and that's fine. I'm not here to convince anyone. it's not worth discussing in my opinion. I've given a very explicit model under which I'm wrong. if you disagree with me that's fine.
    - nkurz 10y ago
      it's not worth discussing in my opinion. No, I think it's worth discussing. I may not have understood you completely, but I for one appreciated reading your explanation. You may or may not be right, but I thought your exposition was coherent and worth reading. GuiA: Perhaps you could be a little more rigorous yourself. Where in here do you start to disagree: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12878939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12878939? Presumably you agree that you could replace all the muscles and bones of a bird and it would still fly, but you feel it is not obvious that you could replace all the neurons in a brain and it would still think. Why not? what's different? What's missing?
      - GuiA 10y ago
        > Presumably you agree that you could replace all the muscles and bones of a bird and it would still fly Well here's the thing, I think I have a problem with that premise in itself. Theoretically that idea seems easy to agree with. But in practice, has it ever been done? The answer is a resounding no. Can we make things fly? Of course, but only by being insanely inefficient at it. Humans have never built something like a common swift, which can fly for 10 months without landing (http://phys.org/news/2016-10-ten-months-air.html http://phys.org/news/2016-10-ten-months-air.html). Can we reach that point one day? Maybe yes, maybe no, I have no clue. But if we are to reach that point, we need to build sound formal models to get there. Until we have such models for reasoning with things at that scale, I don't think claiming vehemently that these things are 100% known is intellectually honest.

by GuiA 10y ago

logicallee 10y ago

This is very unfair and I would prefer for you to edit it to be more substantive, in line with HN policies. The way it reads now is an ad hominem attack and derails the conversation: I'm a user with a long posting history here and the comment is made in earnest. You quote me without including any context at all, and don't add anything substantive other than literal name-calling. In particular please note that I give a complete model under which my suggestion fails. If God perturbed quantum effects to cause people to report being conscious (like perturbing dice rolls to report "I'm human!"), it could formally be a method to communicate between an ethereal soul plane and our reality, which would not translate to being modelled: the minute you modelled it, God would stop perturbing the physical substrate (stop perturbing the model) and the model would "break" or fail to have the emergent properties that the physical substrate has; the dice would stop saying "I'm human". Since there is no obvious way to refute this scenario, by giving it I have given a very strong argument against my claim. Obviously I feel strongly about the issue, but only because the conclusion is certain for me. I have shown fairly rigorously (I didn't exactly spell it out) how a model is possible under which I am wrong (i.e. God) so I don't see what else you could expect of me: I've given the strongest possible case against my model. My model is still right, I simply don't want to be distracted by noise. I think you see this is the case, or you would not have responded in this way. There is not really anything to argue about here. I guess we could agree to disagree if you don't see things this way.

GuiA 10y ago
Questions about the model are addressed with handwaving such as "use numbers and your head" or "this is obvious and everyone else is wrong"; no existing literature or prior work is cited; rather, thought experiments that completely evade the points raised by others are built out of thin air. The core point is that qualia emerges out of perception, and therefore that any system that can perceive in a broad sense, even if that perception is merely simulation of perception, will effectively experience consciousness. But there isn't any reference to proven scientific models for any of the parts at play here; posts treat the core premises as ultimate truths and then spin around that. Regarding your mention of your posting history and complaining of ad hominem, this is completely disingenuous given the way you have responded to other posters. If you wish a better response to your future posts, I suggest making your posts shorter, supporting your core points with references to existing work, and not use at all the "everyone but me is wrong" style of discourse.
- logicallee 10y ago
  if you meant to summarize my ultimate truth via "The core point is that qualia emerges out of perception, and therefore that any system that can perceive in a broad sense, even if that perception is merely simulation of perception, will effectively experience consciousness" then you didn't understand. The ultimate truth or core point is that qualia emerges as an emergent property of what the parts are doing, and if you simulate those parts with enough fidelity consciousness still emerges. Certainly lots of things could perceive without being conscious - a roomba vacuum cleaner for one thing. So this argument about simulating parts -- it's like a fine mechanical watch that tells time: if you simulate it with enough precision the simulation can "tell time" only rather than telling time, the emergent property of the clockwork is "be conscious". you may not get my analogy and that's fine. I'm not here to convince anyone. it's not worth discussing in my opinion. I've given a very explicit model under which I'm wrong. if you disagree with me that's fine.
  - nkurz 10y ago
    it's not worth discussing in my opinion. No, I think it's worth discussing. I may not have understood you completely, but I for one appreciated reading your explanation. You may or may not be right, but I thought your exposition was coherent and worth reading. GuiA: Perhaps you could be a little more rigorous yourself. Where in here do you start to disagree: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12878939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12878939? Presumably you agree that you could replace all the muscles and bones of a bird and it would still fly, but you feel it is not obvious that you could replace all the neurons in a brain and it would still think. Why not? what's different? What's missing?
    - GuiA 10y ago
      > Presumably you agree that you could replace all the muscles and bones of a bird and it would still fly Well here's the thing, I think I have a problem with that premise in itself. Theoretically that idea seems easy to agree with. But in practice, has it ever been done? The answer is a resounding no. Can we make things fly? Of course, but only by being insanely inefficient at it. Humans have never built something like a common swift, which can fly for 10 months without landing (http://phys.org/news/2016-10-ten-months-air.html http://phys.org/news/2016-10-ten-months-air.html). Can we reach that point one day? Maybe yes, maybe no, I have no clue. But if we are to reach that point, we need to build sound formal models to get there. Until we have such models for reasoning with things at that scale, I don't think claiming vehemently that these things are 100% known is intellectually honest.