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Philosophy is just thoughts and thoughts about thoughts. To really understand consciousness researchers should study meditation (for direct experience) and trad

Philosophy is just thoughts and thoughts about thoughts. To really understand consciousness researchers should study meditation (for direct experience) and traditions such as Buddhism that have been studying consciousness for millenia. See for example, the Buddhist descriptions of the jhanas, progressive levels of consciousness in which meditators peel back the layers of their personality, human awareness and end up in pure awareness and beyond. It's hard to read (and experience, albeit only the initial stage in my case) such things and not be left in little doubt that consciousness doesn't derive from thought like philosophers like to believe (no, Descarte, you are not just because you think). It's for this reason I don't buy the AGI hype. Maybe after fundamental breakthroughs in computation and storage allow better simulations, but not any time soon since these traditions tell us consciousness isn't emergent. Most AGI researchers are barking up the wrong tree. Still, the hype boosts valuations so perhaps it's in their best interests anyway. Philosophers can get so wrapped up in thoughts they say nonsense like "I can't comprehend not having an internal monologue", which you can experience any time you watch a film, listen to music, etc. Someone with only the smallest experience of meditation shouldn't fall into such thought traps.

rl3 2y ago
>Philosophy is just thoughts and thoughts about thoughts. This is my beef with the field in its entirety as well. Stupid philosophers. >... and traditions such as Buddhism that have been studying consciousness for millenia. As opposed to say, philosophy?
- nprateem 2y ago
  No because their insights are through firsthand direct experience. Of course they may just be experiencing convincing simulations, but then everything might be anyway.
chromoblob 2y ago
How is consciousness relevant to creating AGI? > Philosophy is just thoughts and thoughts about thoughts. I think these thoughts contain (in an ideal variant of philosophy which doesn't exist yet) enough "philosophical content" to directly help create AGI. Why do you think philosophy is so irrelevant here? > Philosophers can get so wrapped up in thoughts they say nonsense If someone says nonsense, that should not discredit the general ideas/foundation.
- nprateem 2y ago
  I just don't believe it's possible to reason without consciousness. Combined with intelligence, memory, etc it leads to actual understanding rather than just imitation, which is where AI is today.
  - keiferski 2y ago
    I just don't believe it's possible to reason without consciousness. This is called an argument. It's what philosophers make. Your attitude is a pretty typical one: "Philosophy is stupid, but this philosophical viewpoint that I have is special and somehow not bound to the things that apply to philosophy." It's a very common and predictable move from those that lack knowledge of the subject; the New Atheists and the philosophy of religion are a very prominent example.
  - mdp2021 2y ago
    > I just don't believe Is it possible to compute without consciousness? (Yes.) Is it possible to perform calculation over ideas without consciousness? Apparently so. > understanding You should prove that a "formal" form of understanding would be insufficient for reasoning.
  - chromoblob 2y ago
    so what is that "etc"?
- coretx 2y ago
  If someone demeans the importance of philosophy, it teaches you a lot about the person doing so. In the western tradition, early philosophy and what we now call math where more or less the same. Look at the original meaning of the Greek word Logic/Logos for illustration. The world as we know it can't exist without it.
muzani 2y ago
Modern philosophy in its philosophical classes might be, but it's originally meant to be truth seeking. Pragmatic philosophy has simply evolved into math. You have math, you prove the logic. Everything outside philosophy and science is religion. Not to say it's necessarily wrong. But with religion you start with a dogma. With philosophy you start with none. And you have to prove everything according to the dogma. If the dogma seems incorrect, then the assumptions that lead to this dogma are wrong; so you have sects around which parts of the dogma are most correct, and so on. Buddhism is, to my understanding, something where the dogma is easily proven or disproven by doing the meditation, but doing that much meditation is not accessible to everyone. And so it lies in the realm of religion where you trust in the monks who have done it and build off that.
- jrflowers 2y ago
  > Buddhism is, to my understanding, something where the dogma is easily proven or disproven by doing the meditation This makes sense because it is trivial to empirically measure if a person has achieved the cessation of dukkha and escaped the wheel of rebirth

rl3 2y ago

>Philosophy is just thoughts and thoughts about thoughts. This is my beef with the field in its entirety as well. Stupid philosophers. >... and traditions such as Buddhism that have been studying consciousness for millenia. As opposed to say, philosophy?

nprateem 2y ago
No because their insights are through firsthand direct experience. Of course they may just be experiencing convincing simulations, but then everything might be anyway.

chromoblob 2y ago

How is consciousness relevant to creating AGI? > Philosophy is just thoughts and thoughts about thoughts. I think these thoughts contain (in an ideal variant of philosophy which doesn't exist yet) enough "philosophical content" to directly help create AGI. Why do you think philosophy is so irrelevant here? > Philosophers can get so wrapped up in thoughts they say nonsense If someone says nonsense, that should not discredit the general ideas/foundation.

nprateem 2y ago
I just don't believe it's possible to reason without consciousness. Combined with intelligence, memory, etc it leads to actual understanding rather than just imitation, which is where AI is today.
- keiferski 2y ago
  I just don't believe it's possible to reason without consciousness. This is called an argument. It's what philosophers make. Your attitude is a pretty typical one: "Philosophy is stupid, but this philosophical viewpoint that I have is special and somehow not bound to the things that apply to philosophy." It's a very common and predictable move from those that lack knowledge of the subject; the New Atheists and the philosophy of religion are a very prominent example.
- mdp2021 2y ago
  > I just don't believe Is it possible to compute without consciousness? (Yes.) Is it possible to perform calculation over ideas without consciousness? Apparently so. > understanding You should prove that a "formal" form of understanding would be insufficient for reasoning.
- chromoblob 2y ago
  so what is that "etc"?
coretx 2y ago
If someone demeans the importance of philosophy, it teaches you a lot about the person doing so. In the western tradition, early philosophy and what we now call math where more or less the same. Look at the original meaning of the Greek word Logic/Logos for illustration. The world as we know it can't exist without it.

muzani 2y ago

Modern philosophy in its philosophical classes might be, but it's originally meant to be truth seeking. Pragmatic philosophy has simply evolved into math. You have math, you prove the logic. Everything outside philosophy and science is religion. Not to say it's necessarily wrong. But with religion you start with a dogma. With philosophy you start with none. And you have to prove everything according to the dogma. If the dogma seems incorrect, then the assumptions that lead to this dogma are wrong; so you have sects around which parts of the dogma are most correct, and so on. Buddhism is, to my understanding, something where the dogma is easily proven or disproven by doing the meditation, but doing that much meditation is not accessible to everyone. And so it lies in the realm of religion where you trust in the monks who have done it and build off that.

jrflowers 2y ago
> Buddhism is, to my understanding, something where the dogma is easily proven or disproven by doing the meditation This makes sense because it is trivial to empirically measure if a person has achieved the cessation of dukkha and escaped the wheel of rebirth