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> how does any of that show that “minds arise from chemistry”? That's too long a story for an HN comment (which is the reason I referred you to an entire field

by lisper 2y ago

> how does any of that show that “minds arise from chemistry”? That's too long a story for an HN comment (which is the reason I referred you to an entire field of study) but the TL;DR is that the only reason we have to believe that minds exist at all is the I/O behavior of things that purport to have them (i.e. people) and that I/O behavior can (as far as we can tell) be completely accounted for the the behavior of neurons, which can be completely accounted for by chemistry. > Replace the person with a powerful CPU. That completely eviscerates the experiment. The whole point of the Chinese Room is that there is a conscious person inside who does not speak Chinese. Without that, the Chinese Room is just a run-of-the-mill AI. > Showing that it is not a philosophical zombie would call for some conclusive evidence showing that the phenomenon of consciousness is caused by whatever entities feature in models from today’s natural sciences—so that manipulating them in a particular way is enough to cause consciousness to magically arise. Where is your "conclusive evidence" that this "phenomenon of consciousness" actually exists? If an AI exhibits I/O behavior that is indistinguishable from a human (i.e. can pass the Turing test) then on what basis can you call one a "philosophical zombie" and not the other? > they always strike me as inelegant and needlessly contrived What is your alternative?

strogonoff 2y ago
> that I/O behavior can (as far as we can tell) be completely accounted for the the behavior of neurons, which can be completely accounted for by chemistry Thing is, this can be explained the other way around. If neurons & chemistry were merely how conscious phenomena appear (a map of the territory), the observed outcome would not change. (Most of chemistry, physics, etc. all work equally well in that scenario, by the way, but there may be implications in other fields.) By the way, reducing everything to I/O behaviour is also a philosophical position, I believe it’s called behaviourism. > The whole point of the Chinese Room is that there is a conscious person inside who does not speak Chinese. Neither does a powerful CPU/an LLM—the point of putting a slow person that doesn’t speak the language is to illustrate on an intuitive level what happens with a fast program that does the same, just in the blink of an eye. > Where is your "conclusive evidence" that this "phenomenon of consciousness" actually exists? You want to attribute me a claim I do not make. There is no conclusive evidence either way, and it could be impossible to obtain any (at least within the framework of scientific method). However, a theory where it does not exist has major logical flaws in my view. > If an AI exhibits I/O behavior that is indistinguishable from a human (i.e. can pass the Turing test) then on what basis can you call one a "philosophical zombie" and not the other? Hinges on the hard problem. If you claim consciousness does not exist, then you have your answer and I have mine, but I would object to treating it as a fact. > What is your alternative? I would not claim to have my own, but variants of monistic idealism as I understand them presuppose the objective existence of consciousness and go from there. I find that way we may have to magically conjure out of nothing much fewer entities and arbitrary rules, and don’t have to explain away the only phenomenon we have direct access to.
- lisper 2y ago
  > this can be explained the other way around I suppose. So? Why do you think that matters? > reducing everything to I/O behaviour is also a philosophical position, I believe it’s called behaviourism I'm not "reducing everything to I/O behavior", I'm just saying that you have no evidence for the existence of consciousness in entities other than yourself other than their I/O behavior. > the point of putting a slow person You have completely misunderstood the point of the Chinese room. The speed at which the person operates is completely irrelevant to the argument, it is only relevant to my counter-argument. The whole point of my counter-argument is that the original argument is invalid because it ignores the speed at which a human can execute the rules. The speed matters. It's not the only thing that matters, but it's one of the things, and the fact that Searle ignores it enough to invalidate his argument. > There is no conclusive evidence either way There is for me. Consciousness is something I directly experience. Maybe it's different for you, but I'd be really surprised. But (and this is where I predict we will diverge) I believe that this experience is an illusion, just as my experience of motion when looking at Moving Snakes is an illusion. > If you claim consciousness does not exist I do not claim that it does not exist, I claim that it is an illusion. Illusions exist, they are just not what they naively appear to be. > we may have to magically conjure out of nothing much fewer entities and arbitrary rules What entities and arbitrary rules need to be "conjured out of nothing" to support Dennett's thesis? In fact, it's the exact opposite: presupposing the objective existence of something for which there is no evidence, and quite a bit of evidence that our perception of it is an illusion, that seems more like "conjuring something out of nothing" to me.
  - strogonoff 2y ago
    > I suppose. So? Why do you think that matters? Why do you think it matters? If you didn’t think so, presumably you would not yourself be arguing for a particular explanation (e.g., neurons causing consciousness). I can pick between a few reasons why it matters to me. One of them is probably similar to why you or I would think that believing or not believing in a deity matters. > you have no evidence for the existence of consciousness in entities other than yourself other than their I/O behavior. I don’t need that evidence if I assume consciousness exists in the first place. You need it if you believe it arises from some configuration of entities in external reality. > The whole point of my counter-argument is that the original argument is invalid because it ignores the speed at which a human can execute the rules Why does the speed matter? > I do not claim that it does not exist, I claim that it is an illusion. Illusions exist, they are just not what they naively appear to be. Would it be fair to say that time-space is an illusion? It seems that “it is not what it naively appears to be” is a true statement about it, doesn’t it? > presupposing the objective existence of something for which there is no evidence The evidence of consciousness is empirically supplied every moment of your existence, though. Empirical evidence of anything else by definition requires consciousness, too.

by lisper 2y ago

strogonoff 2y ago

> that I/O behavior can (as far as we can tell) be completely accounted for the the behavior of neurons, which can be completely accounted for by chemistry Thing is, this can be explained the other way around. If neurons & chemistry were merely how conscious phenomena appear (a map of the territory), the observed outcome would not change. (Most of chemistry, physics, etc. all work equally well in that scenario, by the way, but there may be implications in other fields.) By the way, reducing everything to I/O behaviour is also a philosophical position, I believe it’s called behaviourism. > The whole point of the Chinese Room is that there is a conscious person inside who does not speak Chinese. Neither does a powerful CPU/an LLM—the point of putting a slow person that doesn’t speak the language is to illustrate on an intuitive level what happens with a fast program that does the same, just in the blink of an eye. > Where is your "conclusive evidence" that this "phenomenon of consciousness" actually exists? You want to attribute me a claim I do not make. There is no conclusive evidence either way, and it could be impossible to obtain any (at least within the framework of scientific method). However, a theory where it does not exist has major logical flaws in my view. > If an AI exhibits I/O behavior that is indistinguishable from a human (i.e. can pass the Turing test) then on what basis can you call one a "philosophical zombie" and not the other? Hinges on the hard problem. If you claim consciousness does not exist, then you have your answer and I have mine, but I would object to treating it as a fact. > What is your alternative? I would not claim to have my own, but variants of monistic idealism as I understand them presuppose the objective existence of consciousness and go from there. I find that way we may have to magically conjure out of nothing much fewer entities and arbitrary rules, and don’t have to explain away the only phenomenon we have direct access to.

lisper 2y ago
> this can be explained the other way around I suppose. So? Why do you think that matters? > reducing everything to I/O behaviour is also a philosophical position, I believe it’s called behaviourism I'm not "reducing everything to I/O behavior", I'm just saying that you have no evidence for the existence of consciousness in entities other than yourself other than their I/O behavior. > the point of putting a slow person You have completely misunderstood the point of the Chinese room. The speed at which the person operates is completely irrelevant to the argument, it is only relevant to my counter-argument. The whole point of my counter-argument is that the original argument is invalid because it ignores the speed at which a human can execute the rules. The speed matters. It's not the only thing that matters, but it's one of the things, and the fact that Searle ignores it enough to invalidate his argument. > There is no conclusive evidence either way There is for me. Consciousness is something I directly experience. Maybe it's different for you, but I'd be really surprised. But (and this is where I predict we will diverge) I believe that this experience is an illusion, just as my experience of motion when looking at Moving Snakes is an illusion. > If you claim consciousness does not exist I do not claim that it does not exist, I claim that it is an illusion. Illusions exist, they are just not what they naively appear to be. > we may have to magically conjure out of nothing much fewer entities and arbitrary rules What entities and arbitrary rules need to be "conjured out of nothing" to support Dennett's thesis? In fact, it's the exact opposite: presupposing the objective existence of something for which there is no evidence, and quite a bit of evidence that our perception of it is an illusion, that seems more like "conjuring something out of nothing" to me.
- strogonoff 2y ago
  > I suppose. So? Why do you think that matters? Why do you think it matters? If you didn’t think so, presumably you would not yourself be arguing for a particular explanation (e.g., neurons causing consciousness). I can pick between a few reasons why it matters to me. One of them is probably similar to why you or I would think that believing or not believing in a deity matters. > you have no evidence for the existence of consciousness in entities other than yourself other than their I/O behavior. I don’t need that evidence if I assume consciousness exists in the first place. You need it if you believe it arises from some configuration of entities in external reality. > The whole point of my counter-argument is that the original argument is invalid because it ignores the speed at which a human can execute the rules Why does the speed matter? > I do not claim that it does not exist, I claim that it is an illusion. Illusions exist, they are just not what they naively appear to be. Would it be fair to say that time-space is an illusion? It seems that “it is not what it naively appears to be” is a true statement about it, doesn’t it? > presupposing the objective existence of something for which there is no evidence The evidence of consciousness is empirically supplied every moment of your existence, though. Empirical evidence of anything else by definition requires consciousness, too.