4 ms·

let's say they succeed and copied the network of neurons of average Joe to a chip. Would this chip have consciousness?

by sAbakumoff 5y ago

yosito 5y ago
Does the average Joe have consciousness? The last few years have led me to doubt.
- carabiner 5y ago
  I don't have consciousness.
  - LeifCarrotson 5y ago
    You've heard of P-zombies, now observe the NP zombie! It can instill terror in philosophers, computer scientists, and moviegoers all at the same time.
- zspade 5y ago
  There are certainly varying degrees of baseline consciousness. I think you can pull many people out of their patterns into consciousness for a short time through the right engagement, but they'll just slip back into semi-oblivion when they go back to their daily life, social network, confirmation bias affirming news sources, etc...
LeifCarrotson 5y ago
The interesting question is where's the cutoff? If Joe met Jane and they had a baby together, everyone (except sibling commenter yosito, if the baby behaved irrationally during a time of political upheaval and global pandemics, and excepting maybe David Chalmers) would agree that Joe Junior would have consciousness. If we cloned Joe, and grew him from an infant, then aside from Jane's genetics, he'd be much the same as Joe Jr. I think it's pretty undeniable that Joe the Second would have consciousness. If we copied Joe's entire body down to the neuron - working molecule by molecule, 3D-printing him in a vat, and then defibrillated his heart into beating with a lightning strike, would you say that Dr. Joe's Monster had consciousness? I think the answer is probably yes. The human brain, like the heart, may require some initial pattern of activity - something stored in DRAM instead of FLASH, if you will - a self-perpetuating pattern of electrochemical action potentials that's not represented by the connectome of neurons; if you need to kick-start that in the same way you initialize the beating of the heart then that's simply part of the process of faithfully copying Joe. There may be some fast-moving chemical reactions and electrical potentials to duplicate, but they're measurable and physical; copy them and I think you'll have a consciousness. The question is whether a high-fidelity but non-biological simulation would have consciousness. I think Joe 2.0 might be in a rough state, really testing the chip's adaptability functions, if his sensory neurons were not appropriately stimulated as they're accustomed to or if his motor neurons were unable to produce the motions that he's accustomed to. But those seem like small tasks compared to faithfully simulating a network of hundreds of trillions of synapses. If you can do that, then yes, I believe your chip would have consciousness. I think that the cutoff where you cease to have a consciousness is when, rather than simulating Joe's connectome, you predict what Joe would have done. Consider the following conversation: >> Hi, Predicted Joe, what's your name? > My name is Eliza^W Joe. That predicted Joe, I would argue, does not have consciousness, no matter the accuracy of the prediction.

let's say they succeed and copied the network of neurons of average Joe to a chip. Would this chip have consciousness?

yosito 5y ago

Does the average Joe have consciousness? The last few years have led me to doubt.

carabiner 5y ago
I don't have consciousness.
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  You've heard of P-zombies, now observe the NP zombie! It can instill terror in philosophers, computer scientists, and moviegoers all at the same time.
zspade 5y ago
There are certainly varying degrees of baseline consciousness. I think you can pull many people out of their patterns into consciousness for a short time through the right engagement, but they'll just slip back into semi-oblivion when they go back to their daily life, social network, confirmation bias affirming news sources, etc...

LeifCarrotson 5y ago

The interesting question is where's the cutoff? If Joe met Jane and they had a baby together, everyone (except sibling commenter yosito, if the baby behaved irrationally during a time of political upheaval and global pandemics, and excepting maybe David Chalmers) would agree that Joe Junior would have consciousness. If we cloned Joe, and grew him from an infant, then aside from Jane's genetics, he'd be much the same as Joe Jr. I think it's pretty undeniable that Joe the Second would have consciousness. If we copied Joe's entire body down to the neuron - working molecule by molecule, 3D-printing him in a vat, and then defibrillated his heart into beating with a lightning strike, would you say that Dr. Joe's Monster had consciousness? I think the answer is probably yes. The human brain, like the heart, may require some initial pattern of activity - something stored in DRAM instead of FLASH, if you will - a self-perpetuating pattern of electrochemical action potentials that's not represented by the connectome of neurons; if you need to kick-start that in the same way you initialize the beating of the heart then that's simply part of the process of faithfully copying Joe. There may be some fast-moving chemical reactions and electrical potentials to duplicate, but they're measurable and physical; copy them and I think you'll have a consciousness. The question is whether a high-fidelity but non-biological simulation would have consciousness. I think Joe 2.0 might be in a rough state, really testing the chip's adaptability functions, if his sensory neurons were not appropriately stimulated as they're accustomed to or if his motor neurons were unable to produce the motions that he's accustomed to. But those seem like small tasks compared to faithfully simulating a network of hundreds of trillions of synapses. If you can do that, then yes, I believe your chip would have consciousness. I think that the cutoff where you cease to have a consciousness is when, rather than simulating Joe's connectome, you predict what Joe would have done. Consider the following conversation: >> Hi, Predicted Joe, what's your name? > My name is Eliza^W Joe. That predicted Joe, I would argue, does not have consciousness, no matter the accuracy of the prediction.