5 ms·

This reminds me of an all-time favorite essay: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2756 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2756 "We can ask: if consciousn

This reminds me of an all-time favorite essay: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2756 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2756 "We can ask: if consciousness is reducible to computation, then what kinds of computation suffice to bring about consciousness? What if each person on earth simulated one neuron in your brain, communicating by passing little slips of paper around? Does it matter if they do it really fast? Or what if we built a gigantic lookup table that hard-coded your responses in every possible interaction of at most, say, 5 minutes? Would that bring about your consciousness? Does it matter that such a lookup table couldn’t fit in the observable universe? Would it matter if anyone actually consulted the table, or could it just sit there, silently effecting your consciousness? For what matter, what difference does it make if the lookup table physically exists—why isn’t its abstract mathematical existence enough?"

sorokod 5y ago
Isn't this the same construct as Searle's Chinese Room ?
- de_keyboard 5y ago
  It's the Chinese Mind thought experiment
  - goldenkey 5y ago
    It's the Oriental Oracle experiment
pantalaimon 5y ago
> What if each person on earth simulated one neuron in your brain, communicating by passing little slips of paper around? I do think this kind of group consciousness or meta consciousness exists, on many layers even. That's how society works.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  Yep. Anyone who's spent more than five minutes watching an anthill should understand that more or less intuitively. We're just bigger ants, is all.
- science4sail 5y ago
  That does raise the question of where group consciousness ends though: * Is my immune system conscious? * Is my family conscious? * Is my community conscious? * Is my country conscious? * Is the universe conscious?
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    Panpsychist and pantheist here: yes.
  - solipsism 5y ago
    Humans always looking for bright lines of demarcation. Consciousness is not a well defined concept. Any line you draw between conscious and non-conscious is arbitrary. So where do you want to draw the line?
  - p1mrx 5y ago
    > Is my immune system conscious? What's all this RNA doing in here? Why am I making so many of these stupid spiky things? Dammit, now I've got to clean up this mess. 3 weeks later: What the fuck, not this shit again.
- IIAOPSW 5y ago
  For that matter, does it make a difference if neurons are acoustically coupled or electrically coupled? Why do we think of brains as stopping at the skull?
  - pontifier 5y ago
    It all boils down to where you draw the border of "self". It's relatively easy to draw a gaussian shell around your brain, but do you also draw it around your physical body? Do you draw your shell around your children? What about your group identity such as your neighborhood, town, sports team, or country. Can you draw this shell around abstract ideas that you consider core to your being? Where you draw that shell might change your level of empathy for other people.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jlebar 5y ago
"If Materialism is true, the United States is likely conscious." http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconscious-140721.pdf http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconsci...
4bpp 5y ago
Greg Egan's Permutation City is a story that takes a pretty interesting approach (and, trying to not give away too much, extreme perspective) to this question. I would stop short of glowingly recommending it because I found the storytelling itself to be only okay, but the core idea and take on this matter itself was one of the most memorable concepts I've seen in hard scifi.
- Banana699 5y ago
  Permutation City is the most fresh and insightful view on consciousness I have ever read. Every page is mindblow after mindblow of ideas you thought you knew but have never seen them taken to those consequences. I look at computer science as a beautiful philosophical minefield of interesting takes on language, existence and consciousness, and Greg Egan is a huge part of that. I never found someone who writes like him.
- spindle 5y ago
  IMO, Greg Egan is one of the greatest geniuses I've ever come across, and I strongly recommend his novels and stories ... but I think it's worth noting that he's said that he doesn't believe that the theory of consciousness that Permutation City is based on can be true.
pontifier 5y ago
This table already exists somewhere in Pi. In fact, somewhere in there is an encoding of the entire universe as it exists at the moment you read this. It also contains this moment, and every other moment you ever have or will experience. If the flow of time was compared to a new deck of playing cards, would it matter if they were shuffled? Given any individual card, the previous and next cards can be determined. Heck, every event in the universe is there in Pi, in order too.
pontifier 5y ago
Ok, just read the linked article, and there was one part about putting a person in a superposition and what that might be like. I have a weird theory connected to the "one electron universe" that at the moment right before the big bang there was 1 particle. Because of relativity it's position and velocity must have been exactly 0, but this violates uncertainty, so the particle instantly becomes infinitely uncertain. Everything that happens in the universe is just part of the process of the waveform of that event collapsing.

sorokod 5y ago

Isn't this the same construct as Searle's Chinese Room ?

de_keyboard 5y ago
It's the Chinese Mind thought experiment
- goldenkey 5y ago
  It's the Oriental Oracle experiment

pantalaimon 5y ago

> What if each person on earth simulated one neuron in your brain, communicating by passing little slips of paper around? I do think this kind of group consciousness or meta consciousness exists, on many layers even. That's how society works.

CamperBob2 5y ago
Yep. Anyone who's spent more than five minutes watching an anthill should understand that more or less intuitively. We're just bigger ants, is all.
science4sail 5y ago
That does raise the question of where group consciousness ends though: * Is my immune system conscious? * Is my family conscious? * Is my community conscious? * Is my country conscious? * Is the universe conscious?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Panpsychist and pantheist here: yes.
- solipsism 5y ago
  Humans always looking for bright lines of demarcation. Consciousness is not a well defined concept. Any line you draw between conscious and non-conscious is arbitrary. So where do you want to draw the line?
- p1mrx 5y ago
  > Is my immune system conscious? What's all this RNA doing in here? Why am I making so many of these stupid spiky things? Dammit, now I've got to clean up this mess. 3 weeks later: What the fuck, not this shit again.
IIAOPSW 5y ago
For that matter, does it make a difference if neurons are acoustically coupled or electrically coupled? Why do we think of brains as stopping at the skull?
- pontifier 5y ago
  It all boils down to where you draw the border of "self". It's relatively easy to draw a gaussian shell around your brain, but do you also draw it around your physical body? Do you draw your shell around your children? What about your group identity such as your neighborhood, town, sports team, or country. Can you draw this shell around abstract ideas that you consider core to your being? Where you draw that shell might change your level of empathy for other people.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jlebar 5y ago

"If Materialism is true, the United States is likely conscious." http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconscious-140721.pdf http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconsci...

4bpp 5y ago

Greg Egan's Permutation City is a story that takes a pretty interesting approach (and, trying to not give away too much, extreme perspective) to this question. I would stop short of glowingly recommending it because I found the storytelling itself to be only okay, but the core idea and take on this matter itself was one of the most memorable concepts I've seen in hard scifi.

Banana699 5y ago
Permutation City is the most fresh and insightful view on consciousness I have ever read. Every page is mindblow after mindblow of ideas you thought you knew but have never seen them taken to those consequences. I look at computer science as a beautiful philosophical minefield of interesting takes on language, existence and consciousness, and Greg Egan is a huge part of that. I never found someone who writes like him.
spindle 5y ago
IMO, Greg Egan is one of the greatest geniuses I've ever come across, and I strongly recommend his novels and stories ... but I think it's worth noting that he's said that he doesn't believe that the theory of consciousness that Permutation City is based on can be true.

pontifier 5y ago

This table already exists somewhere in Pi. In fact, somewhere in there is an encoding of the entire universe as it exists at the moment you read this. It also contains this moment, and every other moment you ever have or will experience. If the flow of time was compared to a new deck of playing cards, would it matter if they were shuffled? Given any individual card, the previous and next cards can be determined. Heck, every event in the universe is there in Pi, in order too.

pontifier 5y ago

Ok, just read the linked article, and there was one part about putting a person in a superposition and what that might be like. I have a weird theory connected to the "one electron universe" that at the moment right before the big bang there was 1 particle. Because of relativity it's position and velocity must have been exactly 0, but this violates uncertainty, so the particle instantly becomes infinitely uncertain. Everything that happens in the universe is just part of the process of the waveform of that event collapsing.