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Try and imagine a system that could engage in a conversation like that. Like, really imagine it.

jpttsn 7y ago
What good is my imagination as a tool for measuring consciousness? Years ago I’d have a hard time imagining RESnet. I see what you’re going for, if I really try to imagine it my brain starts ascribing consciousness to it. But that’s my point. I ascribe it due to intutition, not reason. Nothing about my intuition gives me a solid argument for why your bot must be conscious, it only evokes an intuitive feel that it would be.
- codeulike 7y ago
  What I'm going for ultimately here is the idea that consciousness is an emergent property when a system is complex enough and has meta-knowledge about itself and so on. I mean, I get its a stretch. But duality and panpsychism are also a stretch. Ian M Banks said it well: ... Certainly there are arguments against the possibility of Artificial Intelligence, but they tend to boil down to one of three assertions: one, that there is some vital field or other presently intangible influence exclusive to biological life - perhaps even carbon-based biological life - which may eventually fall within the remit of scientific understanding but which cannot be emulated in any other form (all of which is neither impossible nor likely); two, that self-awareness resides in a supernatural soul - presumably linked to a broad-based occult system involving gods or a god, reincarnation or whatever - and which one assumes can never be understood scientifically (equally improbable, though I do write as an atheist); and, three, that matter cannot become self-aware (or more precisely that it cannot support any informational formulation which might be said to be self-aware or taken together with its material substrate exhibit the signs of self-awareness). ...I leave all the more than nominally self-aware readers to spot the logical problem with that argument. http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm
  - jpttsn 7y ago
    Why would you choose to believe in a stretch? I like to think there are a few ways it could be, and try to be comfortable with not knowing which one it is e g -emergent property -solipsism -panpsychism
    - codeulike 7y ago
      Great! Its a huge mystery thats sitting there right infront of and behind our eyes every minute of the day. I'm comfortable with not knowing the answer but I'm also fascinated by it all and I like to debate. Particularly as a displacement activity when I really need to be doing something else.

What good is my imagination as a tool for measuring consciousness? Years ago I’d have a hard time imagining RESnet. I see what you’re going for, if I really try to imagine it my brain starts ascribing consciousness to it. But that’s my point. I ascribe it due to intutition, not reason. Nothing about my intuition gives me a solid argument for why your bot must be conscious, it only evokes an intuitive feel that it would be.

codeulike 7y ago
What I'm going for ultimately here is the idea that consciousness is an emergent property when a system is complex enough and has meta-knowledge about itself and so on. I mean, I get its a stretch. But duality and panpsychism are also a stretch. Ian M Banks said it well: ... Certainly there are arguments against the possibility of Artificial Intelligence, but they tend to boil down to one of three assertions: one, that there is some vital field or other presently intangible influence exclusive to biological life - perhaps even carbon-based biological life - which may eventually fall within the remit of scientific understanding but which cannot be emulated in any other form (all of which is neither impossible nor likely); two, that self-awareness resides in a supernatural soul - presumably linked to a broad-based occult system involving gods or a god, reincarnation or whatever - and which one assumes can never be understood scientifically (equally improbable, though I do write as an atheist); and, three, that matter cannot become self-aware (or more precisely that it cannot support any informational formulation which might be said to be self-aware or taken together with its material substrate exhibit the signs of self-awareness). ...I leave all the more than nominally self-aware readers to spot the logical problem with that argument. http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm
- jpttsn 7y ago
  Why would you choose to believe in a stretch? I like to think there are a few ways it could be, and try to be comfortable with not knowing which one it is e g -emergent property -solipsism -panpsychism
  - codeulike 7y ago
    Great! Its a huge mystery thats sitting there right infront of and behind our eyes every minute of the day. I'm comfortable with not knowing the answer but I'm also fascinated by it all and I like to debate. Particularly as a displacement activity when I really need to be doing something else.