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>How do we know that other H sapiens have the same kind of experiences of existing as you have? Best I can do is that "I know, right?" This was answered in a d

by bumby 3y ago

>How do we know that other H sapiens have the same kind of experiences of existing as you have? Best I can do is that "I know, right?" This was answered in a different comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39103099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39103099 I think the point is that we agree that I (as the individual asking) has consciousness, then we can infer that others have consciousness based on similarity. Another H sapiens is very much like me, so they are very likely to have similar experiences. Chimpanzees less so, but still similar enough to infer they are more likely than not to be have similar experience. And on down the line, through dogs, earthworms, plants, and bacteria...each getting potentially less likely the further from similitude they become.

082349872349872 3y ago
I prefer using my definition because it offers something more testable than just some (arbitrary?) degree of similarity. For instance, cows have been shown to spend (significantly) more time standing near (randomly placed) pictures of smiling farmers than pictures of frowning farmers, which suggests that they have enough of a theory of mind to prefer farmers who appear to be in good moods to those who appear to be in poor ones. That, of course, doesn't say anything about whether cows have a theory of their own mind, nor did that study do the (perhaps not so obvious?) step of recording picture placement relative to the cow's "bubble" (a curious bovine approaches head on; a frightened bovine leaves head first; a skeptical bovine places itself sideways to the object at a distance, with one eye upon it, so it can change to either of the first two if it comes to a decision either way), but at least it offers something more quantifiable than "I believe this thing to be more like me than that thing".
- bumby 3y ago
  >I prefer using my definition because it offers something more testable than just some (arbitrary?) degree of similarity. That's fine to have a preference, but we must also concede that many (most?) human classification ontologies are arbitrary. Even in your example of what constitutes a "smiling" or "frowning" farmer is a somewhat arbitrary definition. What you might call a frown, I may call a smiling 'smirk.' I think this testable framework preference may border on a reductionist perspective that dismisses the hard problem of consciousness on the assumption that if it can't be measured, it's not real (see also my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39103504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39103504). Consider the perception of muscle fatigue/burning; in the context of a workout it may be found to be pleasurable, but in the context of an illness it might be felt as suffering. An MRI may "test" and show both have the same neural circuits activated but yet the subjective experience is vastly different. Just because we don't (yet...maybe?) have the tools to test for it, would we conclude that differences in subjective experience don't exist?

by bumby 3y ago

082349872349872 3y ago

I prefer using my definition because it offers something more testable than just some (arbitrary?) degree of similarity. For instance, cows have been shown to spend (significantly) more time standing near (randomly placed) pictures of smiling farmers than pictures of frowning farmers, which suggests that they have enough of a theory of mind to prefer farmers who appear to be in good moods to those who appear to be in poor ones. That, of course, doesn't say anything about whether cows have a theory of their own mind, nor did that study do the (perhaps not so obvious?) step of recording picture placement relative to the cow's "bubble" (a curious bovine approaches head on; a frightened bovine leaves head first; a skeptical bovine places itself sideways to the object at a distance, with one eye upon it, so it can change to either of the first two if it comes to a decision either way), but at least it offers something more quantifiable than "I believe this thing to be more like me than that thing".

bumby 3y ago
>I prefer using my definition because it offers something more testable than just some (arbitrary?) degree of similarity. That's fine to have a preference, but we must also concede that many (most?) human classification ontologies are arbitrary. Even in your example of what constitutes a "smiling" or "frowning" farmer is a somewhat arbitrary definition. What you might call a frown, I may call a smiling 'smirk.' I think this testable framework preference may border on a reductionist perspective that dismisses the hard problem of consciousness on the assumption that if it can't be measured, it's not real (see also my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39103504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39103504). Consider the perception of muscle fatigue/burning; in the context of a workout it may be found to be pleasurable, but in the context of an illness it might be felt as suffering. An MRI may "test" and show both have the same neural circuits activated but yet the subjective experience is vastly different. Just because we don't (yet...maybe?) have the tools to test for it, would we conclude that differences in subjective experience don't exist?