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The problem with consciousness is that the answer to the question "what is consciousness" is "it is an illusion". When you follow the existential line of quest

The problem with consciousness is that the answer to the question "what is consciousness" is "it is an illusion". When you follow the existential line of questions that the transporter paradox leads, you end up with the conclusion that humans are automatons. The thing we're trying to preserve is not the information of ourselves, but the physical brain and spinal column. What makes that special? Nothing. We're just operating at a relatively high level of self awareness. It's cool, to be sure, but if you keep making AI better it won't "wake up", it will just slowly open its eyes. It's best said in the words of Anthony Hopkins' character in Westworld: "There is no threshold that makes us greater than the sum of our parts, no inflection point at which we become fully alive. We can't define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there's something special about the way we perceive the world and yet, we live in loops as tight and as closed as the hosts do, seldom questioning our choices; content, for the most part, to be told what to do next." We should establish ethics around how we treat all other automatons, biological or otherwise, before we make ones more powerful than us and say "we just made the planet's most advanced slave".

danbruc 5y ago
The thing we're trying to preserve is not the information of ourselves, but the physical brain and spinal column. I have to disagree. If, while you are sleeping, someone replaced your brain with a processor capable of simulating your brain - whether at the physical level of quarks and electrons or at some higher level of abstraction - and connected it to your spine and whatever else is relevant, you would not even notice the difference until someone tried to image your brain. What makes you you is the information in your brain and its ability to process and update this information, not the brain itself as the substrate that stores the information and provides the ability to modify it.
- willis936 5y ago
  If you cloned yourself perfectly to cheat death you wouldn't think "I cheated death", you would think "I just made a copy and I'm still afraid of death". The best you can do is Ship of Theseus into a more robust medium, but that further highlights that there was nothing special there to begin with. The preservation urge is not rooted in reality.
  - danbruc 5y ago
    If you cloned yourself perfectly to cheat death you wouldn't think "I cheated death", you would think "I just made a copy and I'm still afraid of death". I the copy would certainly think I cheated death, I the original not so much. You are assuming your conclusion, you are assuming the continuity of your self is tied to the matter of your brain, so the original is you while the copy is not you. If the copying happened while you were unconscious, then two copies of you would eventually wake up and both would be unsure if they just cheated death or if they are going to die at some point.
    - Nursie 5y ago
      The two copies would then go on to live separate lives, the original would not experience the experiences of the immortal copy, and would die. To them, from their subjective viewpoint, they have not achieved immortality.
      - danbruc 5y ago
        Of course, but the copy is also you and has achieved immortality. willis936 has set this scenario up like this, to make you mortal and immortal at the same time. If you want to become immortal unconditionally, destroy the original after the copying process, then there will be only one you and you will be immortal.
        Nursie 5y ago
        > Of course, but the copy is also you Not in any way that's meaningful to me! But I guess we should leave it there, I'm not really adding to the debate.
        ASalazarMX 5y ago
        The copy isn't you, it is like you. If you disappeared and let it take over your life, no one would notice, but it would start diverging from you quickly because your life has changed very drastically.
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  I find these philosophy thought exercises profoundly useless. Even if copying a brain into a simulator, surgically replacing the brain with the simulator without the host noticing and without secondary effects, was somehow possible, they give the same vibe as "imagine an infinite rope", "imagine a perfectly spherical cow", etc. They're fun for discussing while having a few beers with your friends, but they don't help solve the problem they think they're helping solve.
soco 5y ago
There's not much of a consensus on what "ethics" should mean, even less thought on how to build it in those automatons. So if we're not holding even ourselves to those ethics, I don't think we can have any expectations on the behaviour of those "advanced slaves". It's gonna be all over the map...
- willis936 5y ago
  The golden rule is a good start. We have defined human rights. People care less about ants because they are not ants, but those ants are also automatons and deserve some minimum of rights. Wholesale committing genocide on them is unjust. Similarly if we made AI more advanced than humans they would have some minimum of rights. It seems reasonable that the number of rights should be proportional to the level of self awareness. To that end, we can't ethically make an AI as powerful as a human without giving it equal rights. Can we meet that criteria while still keeping it safely sandboxed? Billionaires have been saying "we need to figure out how to contain a hyperintelligence". They should be asking "should we contain a hyperintelligence". If we shouldn't and it's deemed too dangerous not to contain, then it shouldn't be made.
  - silicon2401 5y ago
    > The golden rule is a good start. We have defined human rights. People care less about ants because they are not ants, but those ants are also automatons and deserve some minimum of rights. Wholesale committing genocide on them is unjust. Now this is a consistent and coherent line of thought. This reminds me of Jains who don't even eat root vegetables because that kills the plant (as opposed to apples which naturally fall off and don't kill the plant), and even abstain from eating at certain times to avoid killing microscopic life. > They should be asking "should we contain a hyperintelligence". If we shouldn't and it's deemed too dangerous not to contain, then it shouldn't be made. This is similar to why I chose not to have children. I wouldn't be happy or satisfied with the decision to have kids unless they live their lives exactly how I want them to. Obviously that kind of pressure would result in a miserable life for them, but I'd also be miserable unless they lived their life a very specific way. Easy conclusion: no kids.
  - 5y ago
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
This is the natural conclusion of a purely empirical approach to understanding. However, the fact that we experience consciousness subjectively contradicts that conclusion. There would be nothing to experience the illusion of consciousness in the absence of consciousness. I take this as evidence that empirical philosophy is incomplete. Though it would take an impractical amount of time to explain why, my own conclusion is entirely the opposite of yours: consciousness is not the illusion, everything else is. So in that regard I agree: there is nothing special about us. Which, I think, is the most important take-away regardless.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  Where exactly is contradiction?

danbruc 5y ago

The thing we're trying to preserve is not the information of ourselves, but the physical brain and spinal column. I have to disagree. If, while you are sleeping, someone replaced your brain with a processor capable of simulating your brain - whether at the physical level of quarks and electrons or at some higher level of abstraction - and connected it to your spine and whatever else is relevant, you would not even notice the difference until someone tried to image your brain. What makes you you is the information in your brain and its ability to process and update this information, not the brain itself as the substrate that stores the information and provides the ability to modify it.

willis936 5y ago
If you cloned yourself perfectly to cheat death you wouldn't think "I cheated death", you would think "I just made a copy and I'm still afraid of death". The best you can do is Ship of Theseus into a more robust medium, but that further highlights that there was nothing special there to begin with. The preservation urge is not rooted in reality.
- danbruc 5y ago
  If you cloned yourself perfectly to cheat death you wouldn't think "I cheated death", you would think "I just made a copy and I'm still afraid of death". I the copy would certainly think I cheated death, I the original not so much. You are assuming your conclusion, you are assuming the continuity of your self is tied to the matter of your brain, so the original is you while the copy is not you. If the copying happened while you were unconscious, then two copies of you would eventually wake up and both would be unsure if they just cheated death or if they are going to die at some point.
  - Nursie 5y ago
    The two copies would then go on to live separate lives, the original would not experience the experiences of the immortal copy, and would die. To them, from their subjective viewpoint, they have not achieved immortality.
    - danbruc 5y ago
      Of course, but the copy is also you and has achieved immortality. willis936 has set this scenario up like this, to make you mortal and immortal at the same time. If you want to become immortal unconditionally, destroy the original after the copying process, then there will be only one you and you will be immortal.
      - Nursie 5y ago
        > Of course, but the copy is also you Not in any way that's meaningful to me! But I guess we should leave it there, I'm not really adding to the debate.
      - ASalazarMX 5y ago
        The copy isn't you, it is like you. If you disappeared and let it take over your life, no one would notice, but it would start diverging from you quickly because your life has changed very drastically.
ASalazarMX 5y ago
I find these philosophy thought exercises profoundly useless. Even if copying a brain into a simulator, surgically replacing the brain with the simulator without the host noticing and without secondary effects, was somehow possible, they give the same vibe as "imagine an infinite rope", "imagine a perfectly spherical cow", etc. They're fun for discussing while having a few beers with your friends, but they don't help solve the problem they think they're helping solve.

soco 5y ago

There's not much of a consensus on what "ethics" should mean, even less thought on how to build it in those automatons. So if we're not holding even ourselves to those ethics, I don't think we can have any expectations on the behaviour of those "advanced slaves". It's gonna be all over the map...

willis936 5y ago
The golden rule is a good start. We have defined human rights. People care less about ants because they are not ants, but those ants are also automatons and deserve some minimum of rights. Wholesale committing genocide on them is unjust. Similarly if we made AI more advanced than humans they would have some minimum of rights. It seems reasonable that the number of rights should be proportional to the level of self awareness. To that end, we can't ethically make an AI as powerful as a human without giving it equal rights. Can we meet that criteria while still keeping it safely sandboxed? Billionaires have been saying "we need to figure out how to contain a hyperintelligence". They should be asking "should we contain a hyperintelligence". If we shouldn't and it's deemed too dangerous not to contain, then it shouldn't be made.
- silicon2401 5y ago
  > The golden rule is a good start. We have defined human rights. People care less about ants because they are not ants, but those ants are also automatons and deserve some minimum of rights. Wholesale committing genocide on them is unjust. Now this is a consistent and coherent line of thought. This reminds me of Jains who don't even eat root vegetables because that kills the plant (as opposed to apples which naturally fall off and don't kill the plant), and even abstain from eating at certain times to avoid killing microscopic life. > They should be asking "should we contain a hyperintelligence". If we shouldn't and it's deemed too dangerous not to contain, then it shouldn't be made. This is similar to why I chose not to have children. I wouldn't be happy or satisfied with the decision to have kids unless they live their lives exactly how I want them to. Obviously that kind of pressure would result in a miserable life for them, but I'd also be miserable unless they lived their life a very specific way. Easy conclusion: no kids.
- 5y ago

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

This is the natural conclusion of a purely empirical approach to understanding. However, the fact that we experience consciousness subjectively contradicts that conclusion. There would be nothing to experience the illusion of consciousness in the absence of consciousness. I take this as evidence that empirical philosophy is incomplete. Though it would take an impractical amount of time to explain why, my own conclusion is entirely the opposite of yours: consciousness is not the illusion, everything else is. So in that regard I agree: there is nothing special about us. Which, I think, is the most important take-away regardless.

lostmsu 5y ago
Where exactly is contradiction?