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Philosophers grapple with the problem the same way Greeks used mythology to grapple with the problem of reality. Thunder is not thrown by some god named Zeus. a

Philosophers grapple with the problem the same way Greeks used mythology to grapple with the problem of reality. Thunder is not thrown by some god named Zeus. and the impossibility of a mathematical model describing consciousness cannot be explained away by a Chinese room argument that has tons and tons of qualitative holes in it. If an atom can be described by a mathematical equation that means so can groups of atoms. If groups of atoms can be described math and if a neuron is simply a complex group of atoms then a neuron can be described by an equation. If neurons can be described by an equation then so can groups of neurons. If the brain is a group of neurons then the brain can be described by a mathematical equation. If consciousness is a physical phenomena produced by a mathematical brain then consciousness is a mathematical model. The only way you can believe that consciousness cannot ever by described by math is if you see some break in the previous chain of logic. Most likely it's in the linking of consciousness entirely with the physical brain. Likely you believe in a soul or something if you don't agree with the logic. Which just means you're using mythology and concepts outside of science to derive your conclusions. Again, lighting is not thrown down from the sky by a god named Zeus. It's clear a toaster is not conscious. But what chatGPT is, is not clear. Placing it in a category where we aren't sure is reasonable and also it's a category agreed upon by many people. It would be a bit uncharitable to demand that your categorization of chatGPT is more correct then other peoples. Even you must be be aware of the ambiguity associated with chatGPT despite your stubborn stance to the contrary.

dvt 4y ago
> But what chatGPT is, is not clear. I would posit that it is clear. It's simply a whole bunch of toasters put together (that is, a long list of if-then statements). If you're trying to argue that consciousness is merely a bunch of if-then statements, then yes, ChatGPT might be conscious. But then it's going to be much harder to argue that a toaster isn't conscious, which I thought we both agreed with. > Likely you believe in a soul or something if you don't agree with the logic. This seems a bit dismissive, and although I myself am a substance dualist (which is generally seen as a metaphysical position), most materialists aren't mechanistic in their interpretation of consciousness.
- kilgnad 4y ago
  >I would posit that it is clear. It's simply a whole bunch of toasters put together (that is, a long list of if-then statements). If you're trying to argue that consciousness is merely a bunch of if-then statements, then yes, ChatGPT might be conscious. But then it's going to be much harder to argue that a toaster isn't conscious, which I thought we both agreed with. The combination of multitudes of if-else statements forms a macro structure. It is this emergent macro structure that we call consciousness. As stated before the exact interconnect of this macro structure can't be fully articulated yet. >This seems a bit dismissive, and although I myself am a substance dualist (which is generally seen as a metaphysical position), most materialists aren't mechanistic in their interpretation of consciousness My arguments are based on likelihood derived from logic and evidence meaning While we don't fully know if a soul fits in this framework, we certainly do not yet have the capability to derive it's existence/likelihood from evidence or first principles. Thus there's really nothing to talk about as it's an argument outside of known logic. What is the point of arguing about topics we don't know about? There is no point. I'm being dismissive because there is literally nothing left to talk about for either of us. Logic and evidence is also the only shared principles that seem consistent across individuals so best keep discussions in that realm fully.
  - dvt 4y ago
    > The combination of multitudes of if-else statements forms a macro structure. It is this emergent macro structure that we call consciousness. As stated before the exact interconnect of this macro structure can't be fully articulated yet. It can be, and it's called the theory of computation. It's been extensively studied for the past century and a half, and, all-in-all, it's not even particularly strong. For example, most real numbers aren't even computable, Godel showed that consistent theories can't even prove their own consistency, and so on. In my view, our mind does not seem to compute things (though some, like Dennett and Putnam, would disagree). The claim that our mind computes things is a pretty strong one (and if correct, I think we'd all probably be much better at math). Penrose argues that whatever the mind does, it's (at least in part) a fundamentally unsound operation; this to me sounds way more correct than the idea that our mind operates algorithmically.

dvt 4y ago

> But what chatGPT is, is not clear. I would posit that it is clear. It's simply a whole bunch of toasters put together (that is, a long list of if-then statements). If you're trying to argue that consciousness is merely a bunch of if-then statements, then yes, ChatGPT might be conscious. But then it's going to be much harder to argue that a toaster isn't conscious, which I thought we both agreed with. > Likely you believe in a soul or something if you don't agree with the logic. This seems a bit dismissive, and although I myself am a substance dualist (which is generally seen as a metaphysical position), most materialists aren't mechanistic in their interpretation of consciousness.

kilgnad 4y ago
>I would posit that it is clear. It's simply a whole bunch of toasters put together (that is, a long list of if-then statements). If you're trying to argue that consciousness is merely a bunch of if-then statements, then yes, ChatGPT might be conscious. But then it's going to be much harder to argue that a toaster isn't conscious, which I thought we both agreed with. The combination of multitudes of if-else statements forms a macro structure. It is this emergent macro structure that we call consciousness. As stated before the exact interconnect of this macro structure can't be fully articulated yet. >This seems a bit dismissive, and although I myself am a substance dualist (which is generally seen as a metaphysical position), most materialists aren't mechanistic in their interpretation of consciousness My arguments are based on likelihood derived from logic and evidence meaning While we don't fully know if a soul fits in this framework, we certainly do not yet have the capability to derive it's existence/likelihood from evidence or first principles. Thus there's really nothing to talk about as it's an argument outside of known logic. What is the point of arguing about topics we don't know about? There is no point. I'm being dismissive because there is literally nothing left to talk about for either of us. Logic and evidence is also the only shared principles that seem consistent across individuals so best keep discussions in that realm fully.
- dvt 4y ago
  > The combination of multitudes of if-else statements forms a macro structure. It is this emergent macro structure that we call consciousness. As stated before the exact interconnect of this macro structure can't be fully articulated yet. It can be, and it's called the theory of computation. It's been extensively studied for the past century and a half, and, all-in-all, it's not even particularly strong. For example, most real numbers aren't even computable, Godel showed that consistent theories can't even prove their own consistency, and so on. In my view, our mind does not seem to compute things (though some, like Dennett and Putnam, would disagree). The claim that our mind computes things is a pretty strong one (and if correct, I think we'd all probably be much better at math). Penrose argues that whatever the mind does, it's (at least in part) a fundamentally unsound operation; this to me sounds way more correct than the idea that our mind operates algorithmically.