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If we wrote software to do this, but we were so incompetent that we couldn't fill in the model with correct data, we might just say "who gives a fuck, fill that

If we wrote software to do this, but we were so incompetent that we couldn't fill in the model with correct data, we might just say "who gives a fuck, fill that with random garbage and we'll fix it in a later version". And then we never do. Your subjective experience is that incompetent model. Your model doesn't know how to correctly judge human character, so you misread people and always wonder why they say one thing but another is true, and it doesn't click that they're lying the whole time. You can't keep track of time because the internal clock just isn't implemented, so the who day seems to drag on, or maybe fly by too quickly. It's all just really shitty software. Layers upon layers. And because humans believe this to be some mystical thing, rather than trying to fix it from the inside, they assume that it's awesome, necessary, and why would anyone want to fix it? No small fraction of it is simply because our memory is faulty. The only time you ever remember anything is the first time you remember it, every memory access of that is really you remembering the last time you remembered it. Each access is lossier than the last, and confabulation is guaranteed. This seems to be true even moments after the event. If it was anyone other than evolution who wrote your code, you could sue them for criminal negligence. And that's before we even get to the part where you find out you're not even you. Inside your skull is another being, an intelligent one, with desires and goals. But you can't see, hear, or feel this being. It's invisible. The "you" that I'm talking to, exists because this being once upon a time needed to simulate the other humans around him, so he could anticipate them well enough to not be out-competed. He has a pretty good idea what they'd say if he asked them questions, how they'd respond to threats and challenges, what sets them off (so he can avoid fights). And, by mistake or design, he used this simulator to simulate himself (maybe to bootstrap it? if the simulation's output matches his known answers, it's working correctly?). You're the simulation. When the judge asks the psycho teenager why he put the cat in the microwave and he says "I dunno" he's telling the truth. He does not know why. When your girlfriend cheats on you, and she's crying hysterically and can't tell you why she did it, she's not just lying (either to hurt you or to spare feelings)... she doesn't know. It was that other being in their skulls doing these things. They're just the simulations. Now, you've either been poking around in your own head, seeing little glimpses of what I'm talking about, making you wonder if I'm not on to something, or you're incapable of that. I've met both kinds of people. If you're the former, you're wondering just how much of it I understand, because some of the glimpses paint a slightly different picture from what I describe. That's because our minds weren't built the same way. No two are alike, not in a special snowflake way, but instead like no two shacks in shantytown have the same kind of leaky cardboard roofs. And, if you're the latter...

CamperBob2 3y ago
If we wrote software to do this, but we were so incompetent that we couldn't fill in the model with correct data, we might just say "who gives a fuck, fill that with random garbage and we'll fix it in a later version". Sounds like stochastic gradient descent. Start with random weights and fix them later. That kind of "incompetence" gets you a seven-figure paycheck these days...
sweetsocks21 3y ago
I buy into this theory, and the other one about consciousness being a step or two behind and fabricating some cohesive explanation for why you did what you did. If you are unfortunate enough to experience some human body failure modes you can get a glimpse into this process. The cohesive "veil" breaks down and you realize there's more "you" than that voice in your head. The distributed nature of the brain/body peeks through.
andoando 3y ago
I never bought into this subconscious thing. If my actions follow my internal voice, it seems unfathomable to me to say, "no you did that because of other reasons". A simple example is, I go to the fridge because I am hungry. If I were to cheat on somebody, there sure as hell was a lot of voices in my head that had to do with either lust, anger, feeling neglected/unloved or something. Sure, there are deeper reasons for my voice is what it is, but thats something else entirely. I think its more so that as we evolve, we forget our initial motivations for thinking the way we do so that when we do reflect on our past, and are honest with ourselves, they do somewhat remerge.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  Your internal voice is making up justifications after the fact. You ask yourself "why did I do that"... and it doesn't know, but has to have an answer anyway. You were taught well. Teachers and parents and adults don't like it when the child says "I don't know why I did it". They punish that answer. You learned the lesson soon, well, and maybe without even having to be punished. Oh, and your internal voice is just another one of those simulations. > A simple example is, I go to the fridge because I am hungry. Except many millions of people go to the fridge, and they're provably, objectively not hungry. They say "because I'm hungry" too. If you had to make up a fictitious-but-reasonable reason why people go to fridges, that would be at the top of the list. That's why you say it. Few people, if any at all, are even aware of their hunger. In the west, few have even ever experienced hunger, and if they have, almost certainly only a few times in their lives. None of this is anything that you are really aware of. You can't be. You can't even express how you think your mind works without using the word "voice". I used to think people like you were schizos when I was a child and hadn't figured all of this out yet. It was clear that it wasn't just a failure of vocabulary, I'd met many people even just out in public who didn't seem to know enough words to describe things, this wasn't that. And early on I could tell that it wasn't a joke, eventually that it wasn't even a metaphor. You do not know the reasons you do things, and when forced to explain, you make up stuff and choose to believe that's why. The "I don't know" answer becomes painful to adults. It nags at you. You're supposed to know yourself well enough to have reasons most of the time. It's one of those scary glimpses. There's a ghost inside your skull, moving the furniture around when you're not looking.

CamperBob2 3y ago

If we wrote software to do this, but we were so incompetent that we couldn't fill in the model with correct data, we might just say "who gives a fuck, fill that with random garbage and we'll fix it in a later version". Sounds like stochastic gradient descent. Start with random weights and fix them later. That kind of "incompetence" gets you a seven-figure paycheck these days...

sweetsocks21 3y ago

I buy into this theory, and the other one about consciousness being a step or two behind and fabricating some cohesive explanation for why you did what you did. If you are unfortunate enough to experience some human body failure modes you can get a glimpse into this process. The cohesive "veil" breaks down and you realize there's more "you" than that voice in your head. The distributed nature of the brain/body peeks through.

andoando 3y ago

I never bought into this subconscious thing. If my actions follow my internal voice, it seems unfathomable to me to say, "no you did that because of other reasons". A simple example is, I go to the fridge because I am hungry. If I were to cheat on somebody, there sure as hell was a lot of voices in my head that had to do with either lust, anger, feeling neglected/unloved or something. Sure, there are deeper reasons for my voice is what it is, but thats something else entirely. I think its more so that as we evolve, we forget our initial motivations for thinking the way we do so that when we do reflect on our past, and are honest with ourselves, they do somewhat remerge.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
Your internal voice is making up justifications after the fact. You ask yourself "why did I do that"... and it doesn't know, but has to have an answer anyway. You were taught well. Teachers and parents and adults don't like it when the child says "I don't know why I did it". They punish that answer. You learned the lesson soon, well, and maybe without even having to be punished. Oh, and your internal voice is just another one of those simulations. > A simple example is, I go to the fridge because I am hungry. Except many millions of people go to the fridge, and they're provably, objectively not hungry. They say "because I'm hungry" too. If you had to make up a fictitious-but-reasonable reason why people go to fridges, that would be at the top of the list. That's why you say it. Few people, if any at all, are even aware of their hunger. In the west, few have even ever experienced hunger, and if they have, almost certainly only a few times in their lives. None of this is anything that you are really aware of. You can't be. You can't even express how you think your mind works without using the word "voice". I used to think people like you were schizos when I was a child and hadn't figured all of this out yet. It was clear that it wasn't just a failure of vocabulary, I'd met many people even just out in public who didn't seem to know enough words to describe things, this wasn't that. And early on I could tell that it wasn't a joke, eventually that it wasn't even a metaphor. You do not know the reasons you do things, and when forced to explain, you make up stuff and choose to believe that's why. The "I don't know" answer becomes painful to adults. It nags at you. You're supposed to know yourself well enough to have reasons most of the time. It's one of those scary glimpses. There's a ghost inside your skull, moving the furniture around when you're not looking.