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It’s possible that all physical processes involve a sensory component. Maybe the subatomic particles’ fundamental drive is to shift to be more comfortable or to

It’s possible that all physical processes involve a sensory component. Maybe the subatomic particles’ fundamental drive is to shift to be more comfortable or to pivot away from pain or discomfort. I don’t know what the experience of a bit in memory flipping feels like. Maybe rapid changes in charge are excruciating, maybe they’re blissful. Do we at least know what a neuron looks like in states associated with pain? There might be more information in this case to work with, to ensure there is no hell on earth that’s being mass-produced.

morsecodist 3y ago
> It’s possible that all physical processes involve a sensory component Sure it is possible but we have way more evidence neurons have a sensory component, or at least things made of neurons.
eddd-ddde 3y ago
Instead of a hard coded scheduler brainPUs will rely on the user procrastination feelings to schedule different tasks automatically. If you get unlucky and your BPU is a little like me your compiler would stop working, oops.
virgildotcodes 3y ago
It seems to me that all sensation is predicated on the existence of properly-functioning components evolved specifically to gather that stimulus and then process it into an experience. We have at this moment countless processes happening in our bodies - cells dying and dividing, reacting to their environments, communicating amongst one another, and we are totally oblivious to nearly all of it, let alone do we experience a sensation of pleasure or pain in each of these processes. Not all matter, not all living cells or fully formed organisms even, have the ability to experience consciousness or sense pain and pleasure any more than they automatically have the ability to see, hear, or taste. It's all dependent on complex systems that evolved specifically to create each of those sensations, and even then on those systems functioning properly. In humans, consciousness can be totally disrupted by things like sleep or general anesthesia, disrupting any of the senses is as simple as cutting the nerves that feed these inputs into the brain or damaging the brain that is interpreting those inputs. It seems sensible to me that we would be more wary of growing literal brains on a chip as we know for certain that brains have the capacity to produce consciousness. It's also sensible to me that we should be somewhat wary of creating that same consciousness in non-biological systems, even though we aren't yet certain whether they're capable of it.
- b4ke 3y ago
  as long as we have had civilization scale organizing principles, we have had intelligence of a general nature. I feel much of the conversation at this point is litigating the past.... to what end though? you mention consciousness relative to organisms and their possession of it. Yet if it is not understood well-enough in ourselves, how can you say something does or does not possess it? back the original idea, if these intelligence of scale have existed as a guiding force (ONE can hope).... I imagine there is going to be a flag that will have to be flipped before there is the "imagined threat of doom timeline" transpiring.
- odyssey7 3y ago
  The trouble I see is that I don't believe that an entirely novel fundamental physical phenomenon could be created by the interaction of other fundamental physical phenomena. Fundamental phenomena would either exist or not exist, including the phenomenon of first-person experience. For example, matter isn't formed by the composition of atoms, atoms are already matter to begin with. And due to various physical properties of atoms, they compose together. This is reasoning by analogy, which is inductive, but at least the line of reasoning is more consistent with what I understand about other areas of physics and logic. It seems much more plausible to me that there would be some fundamental component of first-person experience. The sentient components could then compose together into complex sentient systems. Some supporting evidence is that first-person experience in sentient systems, as far as I've observed, is usually motivated to preserve sentient systems, which indicates an emergent behavior of sentience directing motion and energy to orchestrate a self-perpetuating system, rather than the reverse.
  - Bjartr 3y ago
    > Fundamental phenomena would either exist or not exist, including the phenomenon of first-person experience. Why do you think first-person experience is fundamental? It seems to me it's way more likely to be an aggregate phenomenon, like fire. There's no low level fundamental fireyness, it's a chemical reaction like any other, we humans just label reactions that meet certain criteria of scale, setting, and composition as "fires". > Some supporting evidence is that first-person experience in sentient systems, as far as I've observed, is usually motivated to preserve sentient systems I suspect this has more to do with the fact that you are far more likely to observe systems that seek to preserve themselves, since they are more likely to continue to exist. It doesn't indicate an emergent behavior of sentience, it's just observation bias.
aranchelk 3y ago
I don’t believe pain has any meaning at all on the level of a single neuron, just as temperature doesn’t have any meaning in the context of a single atom.
knodi123 3y ago
> I don’t know what the experience of a bit in memory flipping feels like. The "feeling" could only be "experienced" via an enormous number of other "bits" flipping. Neurons don't feel pain- they are how you experience pain. I've heard the phrase "don't confuse the medium with the message", but this is like wondering if a pencil prefers writing fiction vs non fiction.
- odyssey7 3y ago
  It's possible that every component of an organism is recursively its own sentient system. In symbiosis, each component's first-person experience directs coordinating behavior for mutual benefit, though each component may be unable to observe the first-person experience of the other.
  - knodi123 3y ago
    That's "possible" in the same way that wizards and vampires are possible - sure, I can't prove it's fake, but there's not a shred of evidence, plus it would upset everything we've learned about the universe.
    - odyssey7 3y ago
      Cells, tissues, and organs undertake a variety of self-maintenance behaviors without the direction of the brain. Although low-level behaviors like these are abundant, high-level examples also exist, like when an arm pulls away from a hot stove as soon as the signal reaches the spinal cord. The organism is a recursive system, with sub-systems behaving with varying degrees of autonomy while also depending on the larger system. The seat of consciousness possesses only a limited view.
      - jchanimal 3y ago
        You can use this approach to make complex behavior from simple rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsumption_architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsumption_architecture
boringuser2 3y ago
You're really off-base with this speculation.
kulahan 3y ago
"flipping a bit" isn't a thing in memory. Our brains are not computers, and work nothing like them. That's the problem with using a computer as an analogy; it's inaccurate and makes you think inaccurate things. This always just aligns with our understanding of various technologies. See: when we were understanding fluid dynamics and talked about the body's "humors". When you're throwing a ball in a computer simulation, it's performing millions of mathematical calculations to perfectly describe the result of your action. When you're throwing a ball in real life, your brain is basically going "Ok, so last time I did this it felt like X so I'm going to recreate X". Completely different. We know very little about consciousness and this is kinda scary to me.

morsecodist 3y ago

> It’s possible that all physical processes involve a sensory component Sure it is possible but we have way more evidence neurons have a sensory component, or at least things made of neurons.

eddd-ddde 3y ago

Instead of a hard coded scheduler brainPUs will rely on the user procrastination feelings to schedule different tasks automatically. If you get unlucky and your BPU is a little like me your compiler would stop working, oops.

virgildotcodes 3y ago

It seems to me that all sensation is predicated on the existence of properly-functioning components evolved specifically to gather that stimulus and then process it into an experience. We have at this moment countless processes happening in our bodies - cells dying and dividing, reacting to their environments, communicating amongst one another, and we are totally oblivious to nearly all of it, let alone do we experience a sensation of pleasure or pain in each of these processes. Not all matter, not all living cells or fully formed organisms even, have the ability to experience consciousness or sense pain and pleasure any more than they automatically have the ability to see, hear, or taste. It's all dependent on complex systems that evolved specifically to create each of those sensations, and even then on those systems functioning properly. In humans, consciousness can be totally disrupted by things like sleep or general anesthesia, disrupting any of the senses is as simple as cutting the nerves that feed these inputs into the brain or damaging the brain that is interpreting those inputs. It seems sensible to me that we would be more wary of growing literal brains on a chip as we know for certain that brains have the capacity to produce consciousness. It's also sensible to me that we should be somewhat wary of creating that same consciousness in non-biological systems, even though we aren't yet certain whether they're capable of it.

b4ke 3y ago
as long as we have had civilization scale organizing principles, we have had intelligence of a general nature. I feel much of the conversation at this point is litigating the past.... to what end though? you mention consciousness relative to organisms and their possession of it. Yet if it is not understood well-enough in ourselves, how can you say something does or does not possess it? back the original idea, if these intelligence of scale have existed as a guiding force (ONE can hope).... I imagine there is going to be a flag that will have to be flipped before there is the "imagined threat of doom timeline" transpiring.
odyssey7 3y ago
The trouble I see is that I don't believe that an entirely novel fundamental physical phenomenon could be created by the interaction of other fundamental physical phenomena. Fundamental phenomena would either exist or not exist, including the phenomenon of first-person experience. For example, matter isn't formed by the composition of atoms, atoms are already matter to begin with. And due to various physical properties of atoms, they compose together. This is reasoning by analogy, which is inductive, but at least the line of reasoning is more consistent with what I understand about other areas of physics and logic. It seems much more plausible to me that there would be some fundamental component of first-person experience. The sentient components could then compose together into complex sentient systems. Some supporting evidence is that first-person experience in sentient systems, as far as I've observed, is usually motivated to preserve sentient systems, which indicates an emergent behavior of sentience directing motion and energy to orchestrate a self-perpetuating system, rather than the reverse.
- Bjartr 3y ago
  > Fundamental phenomena would either exist or not exist, including the phenomenon of first-person experience. Why do you think first-person experience is fundamental? It seems to me it's way more likely to be an aggregate phenomenon, like fire. There's no low level fundamental fireyness, it's a chemical reaction like any other, we humans just label reactions that meet certain criteria of scale, setting, and composition as "fires". > Some supporting evidence is that first-person experience in sentient systems, as far as I've observed, is usually motivated to preserve sentient systems I suspect this has more to do with the fact that you are far more likely to observe systems that seek to preserve themselves, since they are more likely to continue to exist. It doesn't indicate an emergent behavior of sentience, it's just observation bias.

aranchelk 3y ago

I don’t believe pain has any meaning at all on the level of a single neuron, just as temperature doesn’t have any meaning in the context of a single atom.

knodi123 3y ago

> I don’t know what the experience of a bit in memory flipping feels like. The "feeling" could only be "experienced" via an enormous number of other "bits" flipping. Neurons don't feel pain- they are how you experience pain. I've heard the phrase "don't confuse the medium with the message", but this is like wondering if a pencil prefers writing fiction vs non fiction.

odyssey7 3y ago
It's possible that every component of an organism is recursively its own sentient system. In symbiosis, each component's first-person experience directs coordinating behavior for mutual benefit, though each component may be unable to observe the first-person experience of the other.
- knodi123 3y ago
  That's "possible" in the same way that wizards and vampires are possible - sure, I can't prove it's fake, but there's not a shred of evidence, plus it would upset everything we've learned about the universe.
  - odyssey7 3y ago
    Cells, tissues, and organs undertake a variety of self-maintenance behaviors without the direction of the brain. Although low-level behaviors like these are abundant, high-level examples also exist, like when an arm pulls away from a hot stove as soon as the signal reaches the spinal cord. The organism is a recursive system, with sub-systems behaving with varying degrees of autonomy while also depending on the larger system. The seat of consciousness possesses only a limited view.
    - jchanimal 3y ago
      You can use this approach to make complex behavior from simple rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsumption_architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsumption_architecture

boringuser2 3y ago

You're really off-base with this speculation.

kulahan 3y ago

"flipping a bit" isn't a thing in memory. Our brains are not computers, and work nothing like them. That's the problem with using a computer as an analogy; it's inaccurate and makes you think inaccurate things. This always just aligns with our understanding of various technologies. See: when we were understanding fluid dynamics and talked about the body's "humors". When you're throwing a ball in a computer simulation, it's performing millions of mathematical calculations to perfectly describe the result of your action. When you're throwing a ball in real life, your brain is basically going "Ok, so last time I did this it felt like X so I'm going to recreate X". Completely different. We know very little about consciousness and this is kinda scary to me.