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The word consciousness, as most people seem to use it, is not defined in a way that science can touch it. It only makes sense from a certain perspective, and th

The word consciousness, as most people seem to use it, is not defined in a way that science can touch it. It only makes sense from a certain perspective, and that is not the perspective of science. Asking "is some entity X conscious?" is sort of like asking "last December 6, what were the chances of there being a big earthquake in Indonesia the following day?" The only way to answer a "what are the chances?" type question is from the perspective of someone with limited knowledge. From the point of view of us, today, we don't have limited knowledge, we know the earthquake happened. So the question doesn't make sense. Likewise with consciousness. You can't analyze it from a perspective other than that of the entity in question. It doesn't make sense. There are plenty of other ways of defining consciousness that make it more accessible to science. But you might find it difficult to make sure it isn't inclusive of things that you don't consider conscious, like a self driving car or even your phone.

mikeash 10y ago
I think this is not quite true. If an entity describes its own consciousness without any outside prompting, I think that's pretty good evidence that it actually is conscious. The odds of a non-conscious entity acting that way are minimal. This is why I'm pretty sure other people are conscious, for example. Of course, it doesn't work so well with animals....
- robbrown451 10y ago
  Ok, so say a self driving car has a natural language interface. It can describe everything it knows about its environment, its relationship to its environment, and so on. And pretty much anything else that a decent phone or computer could talk about, given a few more years of advances in natural language processing, machine learning, etc. What are examples of things it might say that would cause you to conclude it must be "conscious", by your definition? Also, you seem to have ruled out animals like dogs or chimps. I've never heard of one them them describing their own consciousness. Are you saying they aren't conscious if they can't describe it? (should we not be concerned if an animal is in pain, if it can't describe pain to your satisfaction?)
  - mikeash 10y ago
    A self-driving car built by humans would convince me of its own consciousness if it started describing to me its own consciousness, the idea of qualia, etc. But, crucially, only if it could be demonstrated that it had never been exposed to these concepts. Which is probably impossible. I'm not saying animals aren't conscious. I'm saying they can't prove it. Remember, if A implies B, then not-A does not imply not-B. I'm saying that if a creature can describe its own consciousness without having learned of the concept elsewhere, that's good evidence that it's conscious. If it can't, that doesn't mean it's not.
    - drjesusphd 10y ago
      > But, crucially, only if it could be demonstrated that it had never been exposed to these concepts. Which is probably impossible. Not at all. I remember having qualia-like questions at 5 or 6. Particularly, "do you see red the same way or do we just have the same name for that color?" An AI could definitely ask these kinds of questions without prompting.
      - mikeash 10y ago
        How certain are you that you were never exposed to those idea previously, possibly in passing or even without explicitly stating them?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - robbrown451 10y ago
      Are you aware of a human ever describing their own consciousness or qualia without having been exposed to the idea first? I understand your "can't prove it" regarding animals, but if your only way of "proving it" doesn't work for most examples, I would continue to say the concept is one that is not defined in a meaningful way, at least not meaningful when it comes to any sort of scientific analysis or even being able to say whether an entity other than yourself has it.
judahmeek 10y ago
I once read someone theorize that the terms "consciousness" and "artificial intelligence" are much like the dragons & sea monsters that used to be drawn on ancient maps. "Consciousness" is what we don't know about how the human mind works and "artificial intelligence" is what we don't know about how to get a computer to work like the human mind. Once we learn something new about the human mind or getting a computer to act like the human mind, it is no longer "consciousness" or "artificial intelligence", but is filed away as psychology, neuro-biology, machine learning, or some other field of study. Basically, because science can not define terms like "consciousness", because the term represents what we don't know and we can not define what we don't know.
- pixl97 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect
rubberstamp 10y ago
Even amongst same species things might be different. Take humans for example. Women and men have no clue how each other think about certain things that are very closely related to gender because they don't experience what other gender go through and experiences everyday. Some ant species farm coffee trees. Many rear aphids. It is very good enough evidence that they are conscious. Similarly animals and birds. They all know enough about their environment to identify their family/tribe, find food, etc. We may never understand ways of a cat unless we become one and live as a cat. Human kernal is incompatible with cat kernal and so for many inputs native to a cat we may not even know those exists. Like we didn't knew about animals communicating in frequency outside our freq etc until we developed tech to detect such sound. Its so amazing.

mikeash 10y ago

I think this is not quite true. If an entity describes its own consciousness without any outside prompting, I think that's pretty good evidence that it actually is conscious. The odds of a non-conscious entity acting that way are minimal. This is why I'm pretty sure other people are conscious, for example. Of course, it doesn't work so well with animals....

robbrown451 10y ago
Ok, so say a self driving car has a natural language interface. It can describe everything it knows about its environment, its relationship to its environment, and so on. And pretty much anything else that a decent phone or computer could talk about, given a few more years of advances in natural language processing, machine learning, etc. What are examples of things it might say that would cause you to conclude it must be "conscious", by your definition? Also, you seem to have ruled out animals like dogs or chimps. I've never heard of one them them describing their own consciousness. Are you saying they aren't conscious if they can't describe it? (should we not be concerned if an animal is in pain, if it can't describe pain to your satisfaction?)
- mikeash 10y ago
  A self-driving car built by humans would convince me of its own consciousness if it started describing to me its own consciousness, the idea of qualia, etc. But, crucially, only if it could be demonstrated that it had never been exposed to these concepts. Which is probably impossible. I'm not saying animals aren't conscious. I'm saying they can't prove it. Remember, if A implies B, then not-A does not imply not-B. I'm saying that if a creature can describe its own consciousness without having learned of the concept elsewhere, that's good evidence that it's conscious. If it can't, that doesn't mean it's not.
  - drjesusphd 10y ago
    > But, crucially, only if it could be demonstrated that it had never been exposed to these concepts. Which is probably impossible. Not at all. I remember having qualia-like questions at 5 or 6. Particularly, "do you see red the same way or do we just have the same name for that color?" An AI could definitely ask these kinds of questions without prompting.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      How certain are you that you were never exposed to those idea previously, possibly in passing or even without explicitly stating them?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - robbrown451 10y ago
    Are you aware of a human ever describing their own consciousness or qualia without having been exposed to the idea first? I understand your "can't prove it" regarding animals, but if your only way of "proving it" doesn't work for most examples, I would continue to say the concept is one that is not defined in a meaningful way, at least not meaningful when it comes to any sort of scientific analysis or even being able to say whether an entity other than yourself has it.

judahmeek 10y ago

I once read someone theorize that the terms "consciousness" and "artificial intelligence" are much like the dragons & sea monsters that used to be drawn on ancient maps. "Consciousness" is what we don't know about how the human mind works and "artificial intelligence" is what we don't know about how to get a computer to work like the human mind. Once we learn something new about the human mind or getting a computer to act like the human mind, it is no longer "consciousness" or "artificial intelligence", but is filed away as psychology, neuro-biology, machine learning, or some other field of study. Basically, because science can not define terms like "consciousness", because the term represents what we don't know and we can not define what we don't know.

pixl97 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect

rubberstamp 10y ago

Even amongst same species things might be different. Take humans for example. Women and men have no clue how each other think about certain things that are very closely related to gender because they don't experience what other gender go through and experiences everyday. Some ant species farm coffee trees. Many rear aphids. It is very good enough evidence that they are conscious. Similarly animals and birds. They all know enough about their environment to identify their family/tribe, find food, etc. We may never understand ways of a cat unless we become one and live as a cat. Human kernal is incompatible with cat kernal and so for many inputs native to a cat we may not even know those exists. Like we didn't knew about animals communicating in frequency outside our freq etc until we developed tech to detect such sound. Its so amazing.