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> What is it that makes us more than just information processors with feet? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik
by didgeoridoo 8y ago
> What is it that makes us more than just information processors with feet?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
- mikeash 8y agoSeems like a reasonable question to beg. Unless you want to claim that CPUs are conscious or that humans are not, something is different.
- red75prime 8y agoThat's a false dichotomy. CPUs can run all sorts of programs, some of which can be self-aware agents for all we know.
- chris_wot 8y agoName one program that is a self-aware agent.
- rebuilder 8y agoHow would you know? ;)
- chris_wot 8y agoA fair point.
- red75prime 8y agoDoes it work that way? I think you need to prove that self-awareness requires super-Turing computations or is computationally intractable on classical computers to assert that no such program can ever exist.
- naasking 8y ago> Name one program that is a self-aware agent. Name one program that is written in the programming language that eventually displaces C/C++ as the system language of choice. Don't you see how inane this question is? On balance of evidence, consciousness is reducible to an algorithm unless you want to actually allow consciousness into your ontology.
- nsxwolf 8y agoWhat's the evidence that consciousness is reducible to an algorithm again?
- mikeash 8y agoKnown physics is computible, and consciousness appears to be a physical phenomenon (it changes or stops when various physical things are done to the brain).
- shanghaiaway 8y agoConsciousness does not appear to be a physical phenomenon because physics cannot explain it.
- simsla 8y ago"Name me one X" is not a proper counter to "X might be possible, we haven't ruled it out." There are tons of things that have been created/observed/proven only in the last 100 years. The fact that Bob from the year 1700 wasn't able to put on a demonstration didn't make them false.
- mistermann 8y ago> "Name me one X" is not a proper counter to "X might be possible, we haven't ruled it out." Is there a term for this (is it simply one of the items in the list of logical fallacies), because holy cow I find the need to point this out several times a day, and it seems to be becoming much more common recently.
- chris_wot 8y agoThere might be a term for it, but I didn't say there wasn't one, only I was curious what program was self-aware as I wasn't aware that one existed! If one does exist, then that would be truly remarkable.
- hliyan 8y agoNot unless we can reduce self-awareness to an algorithm, which I don't think we can. We can, however, reduce the appearance of self-awareness down to an algorithm.
- red75prime 8y agoI think there's nothing in self-awareness beyond specifically structured information processing, and such processing is self-awareness. But this position is hard to argue for or against, so I'll leave it at that.
- kazinator 8y agoThe fascinating thing is that complex information processing in the brain doesn't cease when you're unconscious.
- red75prime 8y agoIt changes though, and significantly so. Even EEG (which isn't neuron level precise) shows the changes.
- Mahn 8y agoThere's no evidence that we cannot reduce self-awareness to an algorithm.
- naasking 8y ago> Not unless we can reduce self-awareness to an algorithm, which I don't think we can. By the Bekenstein Bound, the human brain is at best a finite state automoton. Unless you wish to appeal to some supernatural element in consciousness, like dualism, consciousness is reducible to an algorithm.
- hliyan 8y agoa. I don't think the Bekenstein Bound is relevant here. b. The commenter below has a point. We don't know whether consciousness is theoretically reducible to an algorithm or not. All we know is that we can't at the moment, and we don't even know where to begin. So the answer is unknown.
- mikeash 8y agoThat just means the difference is what software it runs.
- pdpi 8y agoThe hidden assumption is that the difference is fundamental rather than circunstancial — maybe a sufficiently powerful computer running a sufficiently sophisticated program can be conscious.
- Omnus 8y agoThere is no such "hidden assumption" - the question is just literally asking what the difference is between the non-conscious program and the conscious one (in your case).
- aninhumer 8y ago>maybe a sufficiently powerful computer running a sufficiently sophisticated program can be conscious. Maybe it can. People presenting the hard problem of consciousness do not usually exclude such a thing. The question is, what causes human qualia? The actual experience of stimulus, rather than merely being a system reacting to them in a certain way. The only way I can understand someone rejecting this assumption is if they somehow do not actually experience qualia.
- mikeash 8y agoI don’t think that’s the case at all. No assumption is made as to the nature of the difference. All sorts of explanations are offered, from “emergent behavior” to supernatural phenomena.
- vertexFarm 8y agoYou can't claim that CPUs or humans have or do not have consciousness. You can only prove that you yourself have consciousness--every other instance of consciousness is essentially an unfalsifiable assumption on your part. This might seem pedantic but if you want to be scientific it's absolutely crucial to ruthlessly separate conjecture from evidence. It may seem solipsist, but if you want to make a rigorous reproducible experiment with empirical observations, we have just as much reason to assume a CPU has some form of animal sentience as we do with an insect or a bird which reacts in simple ways to external stimuli. As of yet there's no compelling reason to believe this is either correct or incorrect. Occam's razor doesn't even work very well here. Does it require fewer assumptions to say that a machine that reacts to external stimuli is less conscious than an equivalent animal, or does it require fewer assumptions to say that this behavior indicates consciousness regardless of the media it operates on? We have no idea if something is really different. We only have assumptions.
- mikeash 8y agoI disagree. The fact that humans other than myself came up with the idea of qualia is solid proof that they experience it.
- mcguire 8y agoWarning: solipsism ahead! Are you sure? Perhaps you came up with the idea of qualia?
- mikeash 8y ago“What if the whole world is just inside your mind?” is logically possible but essentially useless to consider. It can explain literally anything, which means it explains nothing.
- vertexFarm 8y agoI think Qualia is a similar concept, inherently unquantifiable and useless when it comes to making actionable predictions. Qualia is essentially what it feels like to experience data. When we see 700nm light, we experience red. When a computer sees 700nm light through a CCD or CMOS, it experiences #FF0000. Does this mean it has qualia? How do we make this distinction? Just from how convincing it sounds when they put it to words? If it's merely self-reporting, does that mean people weren't conscious until vocabulary for qualia existed? Because that was about 200,000 years for anatomically modern humans. How about animals? They can't report qualia. We essentially are no closer to explaining or defining consciousness at all thanks to qualia. If I may hazard a baseless conjecture, I'd bet qualia is an illusion. It's still only data. Just like when a thermistor measures some temperature, it's not really communicating the essence of Kelvin to a microprocessor. It's not communicating the frequency of the movement of molecules which is temperature. It's reporting a difference in voltage, which is read by an ADC, which gets assigned a hexadecimal value, which gets interpreted by all kinds of software in all sorts of ways. This sounds suspiciously like qualia, but of course we can't prove or disprove it any more than we can prove or disprove if other consciousness exists besides our own. Qualia is just data wearing intangible, spiritual clothes. This is just like the classic stoned college freshmen discussion of whether the colors I see are the colors you see, or if the way you perceive red is my green, or whatever. It produced nothing useful then and it produces nothing useful now. All impossible to prove either way, just like solipsism.
- taneq 8y agoAgreed. Which is the simpler proposition: That human minds aren't special and are just physical phenomena playing out, the same as everything else we see? Or that they're special and there's some magic woo going on?
- mmt 8y agoTo a human, that's a very loaded question. There are some emotionally compelling arguments for human exceptionalism, such as everything we've "accomplished" (space flight, global warming). Magic is remarkably simple, in its own way, sadly.
- taneq 8y ago> Magic is remarkably simple, in its own way, sadly. This reminds me of the discussion about why Occam's Razor doesn't just always favour the explanation of "a wizard did it". It only seems simple until you have to explain exactly what a wizard is, and what they did.
- didgeoridoo 8y agoHuh. A lot of mind-body dualists in the HN community. I genuinely never would have guessed.