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> you could argue a certain types of self-modifying or monitoring code has an awareness of itself. Having a representation of itself doesn't mean it has an awa

> you could argue a certain types of self-modifying or monitoring code has an awareness of itself. Having a representation of itself doesn't mean it has an awareness of itself.

kitd 5y ago
You say that as an outsider able to view both code and its representation. The code itself only 'sees' its representation as itself.
mach1ne 5y ago
Isn't that precisely what it means? You are aware of something, thus you can take it and its aspects into consideration in your calculations. You have a representation of yourself - same thing. Of course your representation may not be completely accurate, but what perception would be.
- andybak 5y ago
  > Isn't that precisely what it means? Maybe or maybe not. This is the nub of the debate. I would argue that answering "yes" to this is a partial endorsement of pan-psychism. If the ability to experience qualia is property of certain algorithms or types of information flow then it's a fundemental property of the universe. Thought experiments about p-zombies and mind simulation are an interesting litmus test to separate different points of view on this.
- jcims 5y ago
  Vegans entered the chat (sorry) This would mean, at a minimum, that every biological entity down to single cell organisms are conscious. They could be, I don't know.
- curryst 5y ago
  I don't think so. The concept of self is distinct from an image (or other representation). If I run pylint against the pylint source code, it has a representation of itself. It's not aware that those lines of code are in any way special to it. I don't think it mystically becomes self-aware because of that situation. In your lingo, something can know what it looks like without taking its aspects into consideration. I think the inverse is true, though: something that cannot perceive a representation of itself cannot be self-aware.

> you could argue a certain types of self-modifying or monitoring code has an awareness of itself. Having a representation of itself doesn't mean it has an awareness of itself.

kitd 5y ago

You say that as an outsider able to view both code and its representation. The code itself only 'sees' its representation as itself.

mach1ne 5y ago

Isn't that precisely what it means? You are aware of something, thus you can take it and its aspects into consideration in your calculations. You have a representation of yourself - same thing. Of course your representation may not be completely accurate, but what perception would be.

andybak 5y ago
> Isn't that precisely what it means? Maybe or maybe not. This is the nub of the debate. I would argue that answering "yes" to this is a partial endorsement of pan-psychism. If the ability to experience qualia is property of certain algorithms or types of information flow then it's a fundemental property of the universe. Thought experiments about p-zombies and mind simulation are an interesting litmus test to separate different points of view on this.
jcims 5y ago
Vegans entered the chat (sorry) This would mean, at a minimum, that every biological entity down to single cell organisms are conscious. They could be, I don't know.
curryst 5y ago
I don't think so. The concept of self is distinct from an image (or other representation). If I run pylint against the pylint source code, it has a representation of itself. It's not aware that those lines of code are in any way special to it. I don't think it mystically becomes self-aware because of that situation. In your lingo, something can know what it looks like without taking its aspects into consideration. I think the inverse is true, though: something that cannot perceive a representation of itself cannot be self-aware.