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(Queue bar talk) Begs the question, what is intelligent behavior? Most of the time I see pretty anthropocentric interpretations of this (which are often well-r

(Queue bar talk) Begs the question, what is intelligent behavior? Most of the time I see pretty anthropocentric interpretations of this (which are often well-reasoned) but there has to be some degree of definition that we can agree to as a starting point. My current view is one of consciousness operating on a spectrum, some animals/creatures/entities are "more aware"[1] than others but then you have to ask whether that just leads to consciousness being a useful phenomenon for interaction with other creatures or if it's something more meaningful. Were humans conscious before the invention of language? Another aspect of this is if "Chat-GPT" isn't conscious it kind of proves your dog is right? You're saying language/interaction isn't that big of a deal, and so it's based on biology. Not a lot different between a cat and a person if you really take a step back, let alone a chimpanzee and a person. Or maybe we're all not conscious at all in the sense that we mean it. I.e. it's just a useful illusion/delusion and evolutionary adaptation for cooperative behavior. Then we have to insert free will, determinism, etc. The whole thing is a mess. Most likely we're not conscious at all, nor do we have free will, as typically described. But we're conscious in that we're perceiving and our body as a whole has some amount of degrees of freedom to operate, but we're not special. Maybe that's scary idk. [1] Whatever that means

throwaway173738 3y ago
I think part of what makes you conscious might be your relationship with the passage of time. If you experience it you’re probably conscious. If you can relate to things that have happened or to things that will happen then you’re more conscious. This definition requires you to be able to communicate somehow, which even animals are able to do in some limited way.
ineedasername 3y ago
You’re on the right track re: the book I recommended, it’s dense but you might enjoy. Heck the intro alone is interesting and you can probably get that through a Kindle “free preview”. As for my response to you, I think it’s simply “yes”. And also that we lack any sort of clear & universally greed upon definitions for many of the critical terms here. These were my areas of study, refining through ever more practical levels to cognitive science and then computational linguistics, so I know just enough to know I’m not an expert and true expertise doesn’t really exist yet for truly understanding any of this. (And my comp ling formal education has been made woefully obsolete since the time I began that path). For now, all we can do is chip away at the questions, as this linked article tries to do. Chip by chip.
edgyquant 3y ago
>Most likely we're not conscious at all, nor do we have free will, as typically described. No these aren’t likely. Consciousness is the human experience, there’s no way we aren’t conscious as that wouldn’t make sense linguistically. As for free will, anyone saying we don’t have it is doing bad science since every person knows they do. Trying to disprove humans having free will is mental masturbation and nothing more.
- ericmay 3y ago
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- _a_a_a_ 3y ago
  > As for free will, anyone saying we don’t have it is doing bad science since every person knows they do And entire pillars of philosophy, having stood for millennia, crumbled under that one masterful crushing blow.
  - feoren 3y ago
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- bbor 3y ago
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- flangola7 3y ago
  >As for free will, anyone saying we don’t have it is doing bad science since every person knows they do This is a statement spoken with an authoritativeness that it doesn't deserve. There has never been a time I can remember that "free will" ever seemed real to me much less something I inherently "know"; it is at best an imprecise phrase for something I don't have a word for. The physical body is going to do what it does, the thing experiencing qualia is just along for the ride. As for "bad science", free will as it is described seems that it would violate causality. That a macroscale effect can occur spontaneously without a paired action.
  - 3y ago
bbor 3y ago
This is typical internet behavior but I just have to link some Chomsky talks on the topic. One's 7 minutes, and the other's 85 - I recommend the second, of course ;) 7 minutes: The Concept of a Person https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0XdIT_Cn4E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0XdIT_Cn4E 85 minutes: Grammar, Mind and Body - A Personal View https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMQS3klG3N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMQS3klG3N0 Especially relevant if you read that article yesterday "disproving" Chomsky by noting that ChatGPT exists, and wanted to consider what his rebuttal might be. TL;DR: My current view is one of consciousness operating on a spectrum, He would definitely agree there has to be some degree of definition that we can agree to as a starting point He would definitely disagree, as I understand your sentiment; settling on a definition for the concept you're interested in is as impossible as settling on a definition for "meaning", "love", or "justice". it's just a useful illusion/delusion and evolutionary adaptation for cooperative behavior. Alternative hypothesis discussed in the 85min talk: what if cooperation is a useful corollary for consciousness/higher level reasoning via internal linguistic structures? The whole thing is a mess. Most likely... we're not special He would whole-heartedly agree, in the cosmic sense, and whole-heartedly disagree in the sense of our relation to animals.
- ericmay 3y ago
  Thanks, I want to reply but it would do the conversation a disservice without watching this video and getting on the same page. If I get some time to do so I'll try and reply. One thing I will just throw a bone on is this one: > what if cooperation is a useful corollary for consciousness/higher level reasoning via internal linguistic structures? Yes! Interesting! But what is cooperation? Is it mating? Are cats cooperating by mating and then parting ways? Are wolves (yes they are I think) cooperating? Different vocalizations from different animals mean different things and animals understand that. Is there a categorical difference between those patterns and the larger (although I don't know if this applies to the range of sounds) complexity of human language? Bonus question, how does this factor in to someone who is more well-read than someone else, or maybe knows more languages? If Chomsky or others were to suggest there's no difference and you just hit a threshold by being a human with language, it still seems a little anthropocentric to me. I'm guessing that (and it's probably a taboo subject) there is differences in consciousness between humans as well - i.e. some people are more conscious than other people. It's not binary.
yadingus 3y ago
To say consciousness doesn't exist is akin to taking a pen and writing "this is not ink".
- ericmay 3y ago
  Why can’t it just be a useful social abstraction? I’m not arguing scientifically that it doesn’t exist, just curious and have my own current thoughts about it. Your eyes only focus on a small part of what you are looking at and your brain fills in the rest of the details. I think you can construct an analogy here with your pen and your eyes too.
  - yadingus 3y ago
    > Why can’t it just be a useful social abstraction? Consciousness? It sounds like you're confusing consciousness with identity, there is no social component required for consciousness. > just curious and have my own current thoughts about it. And where exactly are those thoughts occurring?
    - ericmay 3y ago
      > there is no social component required for consciousness I didn’t suggest that it was required. I think? > And where exactly are those thoughts occurring? Idk but they sure never give me a choice in which ones I get! They’re also in English. I wonder what humans “thought” before the invention of language? Grunts? Hollers? Is it any different than w old thinking “bark”?
      - yadingus 3y ago
        You suggested that consciousness is no more than a useful social abstraction. You can examine consciousness without the need for words. This is the issue with this topic, people stay in the structure of language to try to define that which language is born out of, not realizing that you can take a step back and inhabit that very thing itself and observe it directly. It just takes practice.
softsound 3y ago
I don't think one can look at this as an either or thing but a spectrum of levels too. Almost nothing in life is 100% black and white, quite literally everything you study has more and more edge cases the more you study, even math breaks itself if you try and prove it. But we have reliable levels of math that function as we need it. And generally most things are good enough you can use it reliably. Just because something may break doesn't mean it's useless or anything. Free will is also a spectrum and we all have different levels and different experiences of it. We all have choices we make but we might not be even aware of them. Our body influences our choices and our thinking influences our body. A double edged sword. I remember reading an inspirational tale based on a real author who had to save himself because of his medical bills. He was completely disabled and would write blog posts with his eyes and eventually became such a good writer he was able to publish books and move to Mexico and get nurses to help care for him etc. This guy who has literally only a brain and functional eyes became some millionaire though sheer determination to save himself. Then you might find some rich well off person kill themselves because they can't find a reason to live. Two extremes. One with everything another with basically nothing, I mean would really want to live with that your whole life? Is the natural thought to reverse that? Then you have cats able to communicate quite well with in various ways. I could go on and on about my cat informing me when he is sick etc. I never even got into the whole thing about how your trillion of cells right now are making their own decisions in your body. I mean what even are you but a million things you'll never see or think about unless you get cancer or something when your cells decide not to die. What are you without their death? Also could go into how memories are stored outside the brain with worm studies etc, and how fungus solves mazes, how plants communicate by smell and sound, there is a lot of werid stuff the more you look. Bonus fun reference material: https://unstoppable.me/life-lessons/ https://unstoppable.me/life-lessons/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxana_Malaya https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxana_Malaya Teaching sign language to your cat https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/teaching-and-training-a-deaf-cat https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/teaching-and-training... https://phys.org/news/2013-07-flat-worms-retain-memories-decapitation.html https://phys.org/news/2013-07-flat-worms-retain-memories-dec... Plants have a clicking language etc https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/03/30/world/plants-make-sounds-scn/index.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/03/30/worl... Plants have all 5+ senses and can be trained which also is cool if you look into getting them over their fear of falling and other things etc https://theworld.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-intelligence-may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants https://theworld.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-i...

throwaway173738 3y ago

I think part of what makes you conscious might be your relationship with the passage of time. If you experience it you’re probably conscious. If you can relate to things that have happened or to things that will happen then you’re more conscious. This definition requires you to be able to communicate somehow, which even animals are able to do in some limited way.

ineedasername 3y ago

You’re on the right track re: the book I recommended, it’s dense but you might enjoy. Heck the intro alone is interesting and you can probably get that through a Kindle “free preview”. As for my response to you, I think it’s simply “yes”. And also that we lack any sort of clear & universally greed upon definitions for many of the critical terms here. These were my areas of study, refining through ever more practical levels to cognitive science and then computational linguistics, so I know just enough to know I’m not an expert and true expertise doesn’t really exist yet for truly understanding any of this. (And my comp ling formal education has been made woefully obsolete since the time I began that path). For now, all we can do is chip away at the questions, as this linked article tries to do. Chip by chip.

edgyquant 3y ago

>Most likely we're not conscious at all, nor do we have free will, as typically described. No these aren’t likely. Consciousness is the human experience, there’s no way we aren’t conscious as that wouldn’t make sense linguistically. As for free will, anyone saying we don’t have it is doing bad science since every person knows they do. Trying to disprove humans having free will is mental masturbation and nothing more.

ericmay 3y ago
[dead]
_a_a_a_ 3y ago
> As for free will, anyone saying we don’t have it is doing bad science since every person knows they do And entire pillars of philosophy, having stood for millennia, crumbled under that one masterful crushing blow.
- feoren 3y ago
  [dead]
bbor 3y ago
[dead]
flangola7 3y ago
>As for free will, anyone saying we don’t have it is doing bad science since every person knows they do This is a statement spoken with an authoritativeness that it doesn't deserve. There has never been a time I can remember that "free will" ever seemed real to me much less something I inherently "know"; it is at best an imprecise phrase for something I don't have a word for. The physical body is going to do what it does, the thing experiencing qualia is just along for the ride. As for "bad science", free will as it is described seems that it would violate causality. That a macroscale effect can occur spontaneously without a paired action.
- 3y ago

bbor 3y ago

This is typical internet behavior but I just have to link some Chomsky talks on the topic. One's 7 minutes, and the other's 85 - I recommend the second, of course ;) 7 minutes: The Concept of a Person https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0XdIT_Cn4E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0XdIT_Cn4E 85 minutes: Grammar, Mind and Body - A Personal View https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMQS3klG3N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMQS3klG3N0 Especially relevant if you read that article yesterday "disproving" Chomsky by noting that ChatGPT exists, and wanted to consider what his rebuttal might be. TL;DR: My current view is one of consciousness operating on a spectrum, He would definitely agree there has to be some degree of definition that we can agree to as a starting point He would definitely disagree, as I understand your sentiment; settling on a definition for the concept you're interested in is as impossible as settling on a definition for "meaning", "love", or "justice". it's just a useful illusion/delusion and evolutionary adaptation for cooperative behavior. Alternative hypothesis discussed in the 85min talk: what if cooperation is a useful corollary for consciousness/higher level reasoning via internal linguistic structures? The whole thing is a mess. Most likely... we're not special He would whole-heartedly agree, in the cosmic sense, and whole-heartedly disagree in the sense of our relation to animals.

ericmay 3y ago
Thanks, I want to reply but it would do the conversation a disservice without watching this video and getting on the same page. If I get some time to do so I'll try and reply. One thing I will just throw a bone on is this one: > what if cooperation is a useful corollary for consciousness/higher level reasoning via internal linguistic structures? Yes! Interesting! But what is cooperation? Is it mating? Are cats cooperating by mating and then parting ways? Are wolves (yes they are I think) cooperating? Different vocalizations from different animals mean different things and animals understand that. Is there a categorical difference between those patterns and the larger (although I don't know if this applies to the range of sounds) complexity of human language? Bonus question, how does this factor in to someone who is more well-read than someone else, or maybe knows more languages? If Chomsky or others were to suggest there's no difference and you just hit a threshold by being a human with language, it still seems a little anthropocentric to me. I'm guessing that (and it's probably a taboo subject) there is differences in consciousness between humans as well - i.e. some people are more conscious than other people. It's not binary.

yadingus 3y ago

To say consciousness doesn't exist is akin to taking a pen and writing "this is not ink".

ericmay 3y ago
Why can’t it just be a useful social abstraction? I’m not arguing scientifically that it doesn’t exist, just curious and have my own current thoughts about it. Your eyes only focus on a small part of what you are looking at and your brain fills in the rest of the details. I think you can construct an analogy here with your pen and your eyes too.
- yadingus 3y ago
  > Why can’t it just be a useful social abstraction? Consciousness? It sounds like you're confusing consciousness with identity, there is no social component required for consciousness. > just curious and have my own current thoughts about it. And where exactly are those thoughts occurring?
  - ericmay 3y ago
    > there is no social component required for consciousness I didn’t suggest that it was required. I think? > And where exactly are those thoughts occurring? Idk but they sure never give me a choice in which ones I get! They’re also in English. I wonder what humans “thought” before the invention of language? Grunts? Hollers? Is it any different than w old thinking “bark”?
    - yadingus 3y ago
      You suggested that consciousness is no more than a useful social abstraction. You can examine consciousness without the need for words. This is the issue with this topic, people stay in the structure of language to try to define that which language is born out of, not realizing that you can take a step back and inhabit that very thing itself and observe it directly. It just takes practice.

softsound 3y ago

I don't think one can look at this as an either or thing but a spectrum of levels too. Almost nothing in life is 100% black and white, quite literally everything you study has more and more edge cases the more you study, even math breaks itself if you try and prove it. But we have reliable levels of math that function as we need it. And generally most things are good enough you can use it reliably. Just because something may break doesn't mean it's useless or anything. Free will is also a spectrum and we all have different levels and different experiences of it. We all have choices we make but we might not be even aware of them. Our body influences our choices and our thinking influences our body. A double edged sword. I remember reading an inspirational tale based on a real author who had to save himself because of his medical bills. He was completely disabled and would write blog posts with his eyes and eventually became such a good writer he was able to publish books and move to Mexico and get nurses to help care for him etc. This guy who has literally only a brain and functional eyes became some millionaire though sheer determination to save himself. Then you might find some rich well off person kill themselves because they can't find a reason to live. Two extremes. One with everything another with basically nothing, I mean would really want to live with that your whole life? Is the natural thought to reverse that? Then you have cats able to communicate quite well with in various ways. I could go on and on about my cat informing me when he is sick etc. I never even got into the whole thing about how your trillion of cells right now are making their own decisions in your body. I mean what even are you but a million things you'll never see or think about unless you get cancer or something when your cells decide not to die. What are you without their death? Also could go into how memories are stored outside the brain with worm studies etc, and how fungus solves mazes, how plants communicate by smell and sound, there is a lot of werid stuff the more you look. Bonus fun reference material: https://unstoppable.me/life-lessons/ https://unstoppable.me/life-lessons/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxana_Malaya https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxana_Malaya Teaching sign language to your cat https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/teaching-and-training-a-deaf-cat https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/teaching-and-training... https://phys.org/news/2013-07-flat-worms-retain-memories-decapitation.html https://phys.org/news/2013-07-flat-worms-retain-memories-dec... Plants have a clicking language etc https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/03/30/world/plants-make-sounds-scn/index.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/03/30/worl... Plants have all 5+ senses and can be trained which also is cool if you look into getting them over their fear of falling and other things etc https://theworld.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-intelligence-may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants https://theworld.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-i...