7 ms·

I never stopped learning from Daniel Dennett

147 points by dnetesn 2y ago

napierzaza 2y ago
[dead]
globalnode 2y ago
[flagged]
- Copenjin 2y ago
  It doesn't say much, it's an obituary from [1] for the author of [2] and other books, and it just vaguely refers to his ideas on consciousness and the brain. Too bad since the concepts seem very interesting. [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_your_brain_hallucinates_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained
  - andoando 2y ago
    I don't get it. Denying the existence of qualia is surely convenient but hardly convincing. Saying its a hallucination just sides steps the problem. What is this hallucination you're experiencing? Why hallucinate anything at all when it is not a necessary component of functioning? Why couldnt a hypothetical human like robot simply reply "I dont know what you mean by did that hurt, I simply know it could have damaged me so I know to avoid such scenarios" To believe we are all p zombies youd have to believe that a table you punched experienced the same thing as punching me. That, either a table has all the same experiences that I feel, or that I unlike yourself that I feel nothing at all. I am of the first opinion, that everything does experience some form of consciousness, and that we are a conglomeration of many individual pieces of it.
    - delichon 2y ago
      > Why hallucinate anything at all when it is not a necessary component of functioning? LLMs may be demonstrating that hallucination is indeed a necessary component of at least one kind of thinking.
      - andoando 2y ago
        Sure, but what I mean is 1. saying concious experience is just a hallucination implies something is being hallucinated. If there is no such thing as consciousness, how could we speak of it being a hallucination? Why would there be anything to have to explain in the first place? 2. LLMs hallucinate in the sense that they make up random, different ideas, which I agree is necessary for intelligence. In this case however, consciousness is something we all experience.
        delichon 2y ago
        I like the theory that consciousness is similar to the illusion of motion in film, constructed by a frame rate. Consciousness is a cognitive loop in which one frame is examining the senses, and then your reaction to them. Look outward, then inward. Like the illusion of motion, consciousness emerges when that frame rate exceeds a threshold of perception. We call it an illusion of motion so maybe it is also an illusion of consciousness. It's difficult to say whether the resulting consciousness is in some sense more real than the motion.
        HKH2 2y ago
        So what might control the frame rate? What happens when it's too slow? Does what you experience lose meaning?
        delichon 2y ago
        > What happens when it's too slow? Sleep?
        mtlmtlmtlmtl 2y ago
andsoitis 2y ago
https://archive.is/2024.05.02-182316/https://nautil.us/i-never-stopped-learning-from-daniel-dennett-569904/ https://archive.is/2024.05.02-182316/https://nautil.us/i-nev...
- mlv- 2y ago
  Or: https://github.com/bpc-clone?tab=repositories https://github.com/bpc-clone?tab=repositories
PeterStuer 2y ago
Only had the pleasure of lunching with him once as a young researcher at an a-life workshop. The man really had that gentle giant demeanor and impressed me as a true renaissance man with great breath of knowledge. ( And hi Anil, in case you stumble in here :)
cpeterso 2y ago
Just yesterday I watched the film “Victim of the Brain”, which includes Daniel Dennett playing himself. The film is an odd mashup of an interview with Douglas Hofstadter, ideas from Dennett and Hofstadter‘s “The Mind's I”, Stanislaw Lem’s “The Cyberiad”, and a tour of MIT’s AI lab in the 1980s. In the film, Dennett’s brain is transplanted to a vat so it (he?) can control his body remotely using a radio transmitter (to retrieve a subterranean ICBM). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_of_the_Brain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_of_the_Brain A (very low quality) copy of the film is available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_zM7VEhQh4w https://youtu.be/_zM7VEhQh4w
x3n0ph3n3 2y ago
I really appreciated Daniel Dennett's work, but I couldn't get past his compatiblist take on free-will. It seemed to just try to salvage a phrase for the sake of some fear of the mass's psychological break from believing they don't have free will, because people conflate that with not having a choice. If folks haven't heard Sam Harris' take on the topic, I encourage you to read his book or listen to one of his many podcast episodes on the topic.
- naasking 2y ago
  > I really appreciated Daniel Dennett's work, but I couldn't get past his compatiblist take on free-will I really don't understand people's objections to it. Free will never had a denotational definition that everyone agreed on, it had a set of vague, imprecise connotational meanings, and the free will debate has always been about determining whether we can devise a clear denotational definition that makes of agency and how we reason about moral responsibility. We can, and that's Compatibilism. Moreover, studies I empirical philosophy have validated that most lay people experimental on moral reasoning questions largely agree with Compatibilist reasoning: https://philarchive.org/rec/ANDWCI-3 https://philarchive.org/rec/ANDWCI-3 So I think Dennett has been vindicated.
  - x3n0ph3n3 2y ago
    > Free will never had a denotational definition that everyone agreed on, it had a set of vague, imprecise connotational meanings Agreed in that there is not a coherent definition of free will, but what most people think it means is that if time were wound back and replaced, a person could have made a different choice than they previously made. > the free will debate has always been about determining whether we can devise a clear denotational definition that makes of agency and how we reason about moral responsibility Clearly people make voluntary actions and we can influence the voluntary actions people take (through teaching, punishment, reward, etc). This can all be explained through a chain of cause and effect, by which we are all constrained and lack freedom from. Let me ask you to think of a movie. Now think of a 2nd movie. Now a 3rd. Did you think of the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York? Why not? Why did you think of the movies you thought of and in what sense did you choose which movies to think of? Of all the things humans consider free will, choosing a movie in your head as among the most uncontroversial personal choices. In what way were you free to choose one and not another? I contend that you are not free to choose what thoughts pop into your head. Where is free will then?
chewxy 2y ago
This is not a nice way to discover Dan Dennett died
ranjanprj 2y ago
Advaita Vedanta, a branch of Hindu Philosophy really goes deep into this.

147 points by dnetesn 2y ago

napierzaza 2y ago

[dead]

globalnode 2y ago

[flagged]

Copenjin 2y ago
It doesn't say much, it's an obituary from [1] for the author of [2] and other books, and it just vaguely refers to his ideas on consciousness and the brain. Too bad since the concepts seem very interesting. [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_your_brain_hallucinates_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained
- andoando 2y ago
  I don't get it. Denying the existence of qualia is surely convenient but hardly convincing. Saying its a hallucination just sides steps the problem. What is this hallucination you're experiencing? Why hallucinate anything at all when it is not a necessary component of functioning? Why couldnt a hypothetical human like robot simply reply "I dont know what you mean by did that hurt, I simply know it could have damaged me so I know to avoid such scenarios" To believe we are all p zombies youd have to believe that a table you punched experienced the same thing as punching me. That, either a table has all the same experiences that I feel, or that I unlike yourself that I feel nothing at all. I am of the first opinion, that everything does experience some form of consciousness, and that we are a conglomeration of many individual pieces of it.
  - delichon 2y ago
    > Why hallucinate anything at all when it is not a necessary component of functioning? LLMs may be demonstrating that hallucination is indeed a necessary component of at least one kind of thinking.
    - andoando 2y ago
      Sure, but what I mean is 1. saying concious experience is just a hallucination implies something is being hallucinated. If there is no such thing as consciousness, how could we speak of it being a hallucination? Why would there be anything to have to explain in the first place? 2. LLMs hallucinate in the sense that they make up random, different ideas, which I agree is necessary for intelligence. In this case however, consciousness is something we all experience.
      - delichon 2y ago
        I like the theory that consciousness is similar to the illusion of motion in film, constructed by a frame rate. Consciousness is a cognitive loop in which one frame is examining the senses, and then your reaction to them. Look outward, then inward. Like the illusion of motion, consciousness emerges when that frame rate exceeds a threshold of perception. We call it an illusion of motion so maybe it is also an illusion of consciousness. It's difficult to say whether the resulting consciousness is in some sense more real than the motion.
        HKH2 2y ago
        So what might control the frame rate? What happens when it's too slow? Does what you experience lose meaning?
        delichon 2y ago
        > What happens when it's too slow? Sleep?
        mtlmtlmtlmtl 2y ago

andsoitis 2y ago

https://archive.is/2024.05.02-182316/https://nautil.us/i-never-stopped-learning-from-daniel-dennett-569904/ https://archive.is/2024.05.02-182316/https://nautil.us/i-nev...

mlv- 2y ago
Or: https://github.com/bpc-clone?tab=repositories https://github.com/bpc-clone?tab=repositories

PeterStuer 2y ago

Only had the pleasure of lunching with him once as a young researcher at an a-life workshop. The man really had that gentle giant demeanor and impressed me as a true renaissance man with great breath of knowledge. ( And hi Anil, in case you stumble in here :)

cpeterso 2y ago

Just yesterday I watched the film “Victim of the Brain”, which includes Daniel Dennett playing himself. The film is an odd mashup of an interview with Douglas Hofstadter, ideas from Dennett and Hofstadter‘s “The Mind's I”, Stanislaw Lem’s “The Cyberiad”, and a tour of MIT’s AI lab in the 1980s. In the film, Dennett’s brain is transplanted to a vat so it (he?) can control his body remotely using a radio transmitter (to retrieve a subterranean ICBM). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_of_the_Brain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_of_the_Brain A (very low quality) copy of the film is available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_zM7VEhQh4w https://youtu.be/_zM7VEhQh4w

x3n0ph3n3 2y ago

I really appreciated Daniel Dennett's work, but I couldn't get past his compatiblist take on free-will. It seemed to just try to salvage a phrase for the sake of some fear of the mass's psychological break from believing they don't have free will, because people conflate that with not having a choice. If folks haven't heard Sam Harris' take on the topic, I encourage you to read his book or listen to one of his many podcast episodes on the topic.

naasking 2y ago
> I really appreciated Daniel Dennett's work, but I couldn't get past his compatiblist take on free-will I really don't understand people's objections to it. Free will never had a denotational definition that everyone agreed on, it had a set of vague, imprecise connotational meanings, and the free will debate has always been about determining whether we can devise a clear denotational definition that makes of agency and how we reason about moral responsibility. We can, and that's Compatibilism. Moreover, studies I empirical philosophy have validated that most lay people experimental on moral reasoning questions largely agree with Compatibilist reasoning: https://philarchive.org/rec/ANDWCI-3 https://philarchive.org/rec/ANDWCI-3 So I think Dennett has been vindicated.
- x3n0ph3n3 2y ago
  > Free will never had a denotational definition that everyone agreed on, it had a set of vague, imprecise connotational meanings Agreed in that there is not a coherent definition of free will, but what most people think it means is that if time were wound back and replaced, a person could have made a different choice than they previously made. > the free will debate has always been about determining whether we can devise a clear denotational definition that makes of agency and how we reason about moral responsibility Clearly people make voluntary actions and we can influence the voluntary actions people take (through teaching, punishment, reward, etc). This can all be explained through a chain of cause and effect, by which we are all constrained and lack freedom from. Let me ask you to think of a movie. Now think of a 2nd movie. Now a 3rd. Did you think of the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York? Why not? Why did you think of the movies you thought of and in what sense did you choose which movies to think of? Of all the things humans consider free will, choosing a movie in your head as among the most uncontroversial personal choices. In what way were you free to choose one and not another? I contend that you are not free to choose what thoughts pop into your head. Where is free will then?

chewxy 2y ago

This is not a nice way to discover Dan Dennett died

ranjanprj 2y ago

Advaita Vedanta, a branch of Hindu Philosophy really goes deep into this.