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When you consider that human behaviour is just trained by evolution and experience, with a bunch of stochastic effects in the mix, it’s hard to justify this mag

by epgui 2y ago

When you consider that human behaviour is just trained by evolution and experience, with a bunch of stochastic effects in the mix, it’s hard to justify this magical notion of agency. At best, agency could be seen as a “degree of indirectness” of some external influence.

h0l0cube 2y ago
I don’t believe in free will either. You might like Determined by Robert Sapolsky. That said there’s a difference between a CPU executing a static program, and a human with self modifiable programming and actual existential parameters. Is a computer with a survival instinct and the ability to meaningfully adapt to affect its own survival agentic? I’d say yes. Conscious? I couldn’t say for sure but I also couldn’t rule it out
- epgui 2y ago
  I don’t want to litigate “free will”, but a computer can be compared to an organism just fine if you stick to concrete terms like “complexity of behaviour” or “how directly its behaviour is programmed” (very directly) as opposed to indirect learning. People aren’t satisfied by such talk because people cling to their beliefs of self-importance: having some magic intangible property makes people feel better about their sense of importance and their place in the world. I think in general it’s best to avoid “arguments by incredulity” (eg.: how could it be this or that, it’s just a rock, that’s absurd), and to avoid value judgments, etc. We really need to humble ourselves as a species. It’s perfectly fine if humans are just (and I really do mean “just”) chemistry with some higher structure— it doesn’t change who we are, or our role in society. Even for religious people who believe in a god or in many gods— it’s fine if we’re not magical. We learned that we weren’t the center of the solar system, or the center of the universe, and everything was still just fine.
  - h0l0cube 2y ago
    I’ve never claimed consciousness is substrate dependent – I’m of the opposite belief actually – but I’m skeptical of the claim that it would emerge from running hello world. I’m of the strong opinion that self directed and adaptive behaviour is necessary. I’m not claiming hard determinism isn’t a thing here, as both humans and computers are just following chains of consequences. And even a static program with dynamic behaviour via memory could fulfil this requirement. But of course, our assertions here are impossible to verify due to the so-labelled Hard Problem of Consciousness
    - epgui 2y ago
      Yeah I'm with you-- my comment wasn't antagonistic, it was just an addendum along the same/similar line of thought :) Personally, I think the "hard problem of consciousness" is more or less just nonsense and can be safely ignored. It's about as scientific as asking questions about god(s). It's a question that seems and feels important and that we really want to have answers for, but it's not the right question to ask because it leads nowhere.

by epgui 2y ago

h0l0cube 2y ago

I don’t believe in free will either. You might like Determined by Robert Sapolsky. That said there’s a difference between a CPU executing a static program, and a human with self modifiable programming and actual existential parameters. Is a computer with a survival instinct and the ability to meaningfully adapt to affect its own survival agentic? I’d say yes. Conscious? I couldn’t say for sure but I also couldn’t rule it out

epgui 2y ago
I don’t want to litigate “free will”, but a computer can be compared to an organism just fine if you stick to concrete terms like “complexity of behaviour” or “how directly its behaviour is programmed” (very directly) as opposed to indirect learning. People aren’t satisfied by such talk because people cling to their beliefs of self-importance: having some magic intangible property makes people feel better about their sense of importance and their place in the world. I think in general it’s best to avoid “arguments by incredulity” (eg.: how could it be this or that, it’s just a rock, that’s absurd), and to avoid value judgments, etc. We really need to humble ourselves as a species. It’s perfectly fine if humans are just (and I really do mean “just”) chemistry with some higher structure— it doesn’t change who we are, or our role in society. Even for religious people who believe in a god or in many gods— it’s fine if we’re not magical. We learned that we weren’t the center of the solar system, or the center of the universe, and everything was still just fine.
- h0l0cube 2y ago
  I’ve never claimed consciousness is substrate dependent – I’m of the opposite belief actually – but I’m skeptical of the claim that it would emerge from running hello world. I’m of the strong opinion that self directed and adaptive behaviour is necessary. I’m not claiming hard determinism isn’t a thing here, as both humans and computers are just following chains of consequences. And even a static program with dynamic behaviour via memory could fulfil this requirement. But of course, our assertions here are impossible to verify due to the so-labelled Hard Problem of Consciousness
  - epgui 2y ago
    Yeah I'm with you-- my comment wasn't antagonistic, it was just an addendum along the same/similar line of thought :) Personally, I think the "hard problem of consciousness" is more or less just nonsense and can be safely ignored. It's about as scientific as asking questions about god(s). It's a question that seems and feels important and that we really want to have answers for, but it's not the right question to ask because it leads nowhere.