3 ms·

Consciousness and intelligence are orthogonal concepts. It's not the case that the more "intelligent" human is, the more "conscious" they are. Intelligence is

Consciousness and intelligence are orthogonal concepts. It's not the case that the more "intelligent" human is, the more "conscious" they are. Intelligence is the ability to abstractly reason and adapt to novel stimulus. Consciousness is the individual experience of the "interiority" of a world model constructed in the brain. Given we're all in the same evolutionary line, there nothing to make me believe that a Dog doesn't have the same sharpness of interior experience vs. a human. Dogs have wildly different sensory modalities, species specific social behavior, and aren't as intelligent, but that wouldn't "dull" their conscious experience.

kazinator 2y ago
> It's not the case that the more "intelligent" human is, the more "conscious" they are. Why not? > Consciousness is the individual experience of the "interiority" of a world model constructed in the brain. The more complex and detailed the model, the more conscious. Why not?
- taneq 2y ago
  Because that’s not what consciousness means! Because it never means anything, because it’s never defined in any useful way. ‘What is it like to be like a HN thread?’ This is just pushing the missing definition into ‘to be’ . (Metzinger’s transparent self-model description is the closest I’ve read to something actually useful.)
- whodidntante 2y ago
  Dogs can hear far better than people. They can see far better. They not only smell better, but they smell differently - two independent nostrils, with the ability to hold a smell across breaths - they smell in stereo and can sense past movements of animals by smell differential. They can also sense emotions, infer intent, and are very aware of, respond to, and participate in social interactions and hierarchies across species. Their sensory world is richer, deeper, and more complex than ours, and their ability to interact within that environment is, in many ways, quicker and more efficient than we are able to do in our environment. We obviously have far greater intellectual capability. And have created an environment where these capabilities are needed/required, one where dogs rely on us to survive. So, I would say that we are more conscious in some ways, dogs are more conscious in other ways.
  - sethammons 2y ago
    Consciousness is your mental model of your environment. Dogs have theirs and we have ours. That does leave the question on the scope of consciousness. More processing power equals more, expanded consciousness it would stand to reason.
sameoldtune 2y ago
I do think that in a kind of way intelligence and “interiority” are related. I might have the same “amount” of consciousness as a worm but my ability to investigate my experience is (I think) undoubtedly greater. “A dog can miss his master, but he can’t expect him to return on Wednesday”
- tzs 2y ago
  > “A dog can miss his master, but he can’t expect him to return on Wednesday” Wednesday might be pushing it, but I've seen dogs who expected their masters to return at specific times of the day.
  - mrkstu 2y ago
    Yep, have had cats and dogs that would wait at the door at specific times of day for my returning spouse.
  - themaninthedark 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D
czl 2y ago
> Consciousness is the individual experience of the "interiority" of a world model constructed in the brain. A better definition I think is to say an entity or system is conscious to the extent it’s world model is encompassing / “complete” and self-conscious when its world model includes itself and its own internal states. By this definition there are many continuous levels of consciousness and self-consciousness and these are not binary all vs nothing.
- brotchie 2y ago
  Yeah, I do agree with this. There must be some strong correlation there: where a better world-model allows you to be more intelligent. Especially if that world-model contains yourself (e.g. self-consciousness). I do, however, fundamentally believe that our interior conscious experience IS our world model: e.g. There's some property of the information system we live in* such that any tightly integrated and time-coherent partition of information has an interior experience. A good question: is it possible to build a system that has a highly sophisticated world model, but minimal intelligence, and vice versa? I think that highly sophisticated world model / low intelligence is possible (and it would have an amazing interior experience). A non-existent world model / high intelligence seems impossible, since you likely need a good world model to be able to generally reason. * Our universe / some exterior reality that's running our universe simulation / something weirder we can't even conceive.
  - czl 2y ago
    Intelligence can be defined as the ability to accurately predict the future consequences of one's actions. And the only way to make such predictions is by having an internal model of how the world works. Moreover, for social species that live and evolve in groups, like humans, this world-model must crucially include a model of oneself and other minds. We need to be able to predict how others will think and react to our own behaviors. This is what gives rise to self-consciousness and "theory of mind" - a world-model that is recursive and includes representations of itself. That said, while our conscious experience seems deeply linked to our world-model, the world-model likely encompasses much more than just conscious awareness. It runs in the background, guiding our reflexes, breathing, balance, and myriad other functions below the level of consciousness. It takes in raw sensory data and interprets it, and uses feelings and emotions as a communication channel to influence conscious thought. There are known critical developmental windows during which an animal's world-model is shaped by early sensory experiences and social interactions. If key stimuli are missing during these windows, the world-model may remain stunted in certain ways even if the missing stimuli are later provided. The animal may compensate through other means, but its overall intelligence - its ability to model and predict - will be constrained by the limitations of its world-model. So in that sense, a highly sophisticated but narrowly specialized world-model, as in a mathematical or musical savant, may produce an individual who is brilliant in one domain but quite limited in general intelligence. Whereas a broad but shallower world-model, as in many animals, can enable robust if limited intelligence that is well-adapted to the animal's ecological niche. Evolution tends to select for world-models and intelligence that are "just enough" for an animal's lifestyle and no more. The metabolic cost of excess intelligence makes it maladaptive. So we see each species with a world-model and associated intelligence that is tailored to its particular environment and survival needs.
paol 2y ago
If you enjoy fiction I urge you to read Blindsight by Peter Watts. One of the central concepts in the plot is "what if consciousness were unnecessary for intelligence"? Along the way it explores all sorts of angles on consciousness and cognition. Still ranks as one of the best SF works I've read this century.
- lordnacho 2y ago
  > what if consciousness were unnecessary for intelligence Kind of interesting given we are currently in the midst of a revolution in artificial intelligence. From my playing with it, it seems something like ChatGPT is intelligent in the GP sense of "can abstract stuff and respond to new stimulus" but isn't conscious in the sense of having an interior.

kazinator 2y ago

> It's not the case that the more "intelligent" human is, the more "conscious" they are. Why not? > Consciousness is the individual experience of the "interiority" of a world model constructed in the brain. The more complex and detailed the model, the more conscious. Why not?

taneq 2y ago
Because that’s not what consciousness means! Because it never means anything, because it’s never defined in any useful way. ‘What is it like to be like a HN thread?’ This is just pushing the missing definition into ‘to be’ . (Metzinger’s transparent self-model description is the closest I’ve read to something actually useful.)
whodidntante 2y ago
Dogs can hear far better than people. They can see far better. They not only smell better, but they smell differently - two independent nostrils, with the ability to hold a smell across breaths - they smell in stereo and can sense past movements of animals by smell differential. They can also sense emotions, infer intent, and are very aware of, respond to, and participate in social interactions and hierarchies across species. Their sensory world is richer, deeper, and more complex than ours, and their ability to interact within that environment is, in many ways, quicker and more efficient than we are able to do in our environment. We obviously have far greater intellectual capability. And have created an environment where these capabilities are needed/required, one where dogs rely on us to survive. So, I would say that we are more conscious in some ways, dogs are more conscious in other ways.
- sethammons 2y ago
  Consciousness is your mental model of your environment. Dogs have theirs and we have ours. That does leave the question on the scope of consciousness. More processing power equals more, expanded consciousness it would stand to reason.

sameoldtune 2y ago

I do think that in a kind of way intelligence and “interiority” are related. I might have the same “amount” of consciousness as a worm but my ability to investigate my experience is (I think) undoubtedly greater. “A dog can miss his master, but he can’t expect him to return on Wednesday”

tzs 2y ago
> “A dog can miss his master, but he can’t expect him to return on Wednesday” Wednesday might be pushing it, but I've seen dogs who expected their masters to return at specific times of the day.
- mrkstu 2y ago
  Yep, have had cats and dogs that would wait at the door at specific times of day for my returning spouse.
- themaninthedark 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D

czl 2y ago

> Consciousness is the individual experience of the "interiority" of a world model constructed in the brain. A better definition I think is to say an entity or system is conscious to the extent it’s world model is encompassing / “complete” and self-conscious when its world model includes itself and its own internal states. By this definition there are many continuous levels of consciousness and self-consciousness and these are not binary all vs nothing.

brotchie 2y ago
Yeah, I do agree with this. There must be some strong correlation there: where a better world-model allows you to be more intelligent. Especially if that world-model contains yourself (e.g. self-consciousness). I do, however, fundamentally believe that our interior conscious experience IS our world model: e.g. There's some property of the information system we live in* such that any tightly integrated and time-coherent partition of information has an interior experience. A good question: is it possible to build a system that has a highly sophisticated world model, but minimal intelligence, and vice versa? I think that highly sophisticated world model / low intelligence is possible (and it would have an amazing interior experience). A non-existent world model / high intelligence seems impossible, since you likely need a good world model to be able to generally reason. * Our universe / some exterior reality that's running our universe simulation / something weirder we can't even conceive.
- czl 2y ago
  Intelligence can be defined as the ability to accurately predict the future consequences of one's actions. And the only way to make such predictions is by having an internal model of how the world works. Moreover, for social species that live and evolve in groups, like humans, this world-model must crucially include a model of oneself and other minds. We need to be able to predict how others will think and react to our own behaviors. This is what gives rise to self-consciousness and "theory of mind" - a world-model that is recursive and includes representations of itself. That said, while our conscious experience seems deeply linked to our world-model, the world-model likely encompasses much more than just conscious awareness. It runs in the background, guiding our reflexes, breathing, balance, and myriad other functions below the level of consciousness. It takes in raw sensory data and interprets it, and uses feelings and emotions as a communication channel to influence conscious thought. There are known critical developmental windows during which an animal's world-model is shaped by early sensory experiences and social interactions. If key stimuli are missing during these windows, the world-model may remain stunted in certain ways even if the missing stimuli are later provided. The animal may compensate through other means, but its overall intelligence - its ability to model and predict - will be constrained by the limitations of its world-model. So in that sense, a highly sophisticated but narrowly specialized world-model, as in a mathematical or musical savant, may produce an individual who is brilliant in one domain but quite limited in general intelligence. Whereas a broad but shallower world-model, as in many animals, can enable robust if limited intelligence that is well-adapted to the animal's ecological niche. Evolution tends to select for world-models and intelligence that are "just enough" for an animal's lifestyle and no more. The metabolic cost of excess intelligence makes it maladaptive. So we see each species with a world-model and associated intelligence that is tailored to its particular environment and survival needs.

paol 2y ago

If you enjoy fiction I urge you to read Blindsight by Peter Watts. One of the central concepts in the plot is "what if consciousness were unnecessary for intelligence"? Along the way it explores all sorts of angles on consciousness and cognition. Still ranks as one of the best SF works I've read this century.

lordnacho 2y ago
> what if consciousness were unnecessary for intelligence Kind of interesting given we are currently in the midst of a revolution in artificial intelligence. From my playing with it, it seems something like ChatGPT is intelligent in the GP sense of "can abstract stuff and respond to new stimulus" but isn't conscious in the sense of having an interior.