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> There’s nothing going on in a living thing that you can’t explain in terms of unliving things. There are myriads of things you can't explain about life in an

> There’s nothing going on in a living thing that you can’t explain in terms of unliving things. There are myriads of things you can't explain about life in any terms. Just that you did not go deep enough to experience them.

llamaimperative 2y ago
Provide examples. It’s chemical, electrical, and thermal reactions all the way down. The one exception is consciousness.
- mapcars 2y ago
  Samadhi, shoonya
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    So consciouness.
- ninkendo 2y ago
  Provide a definition of consciousness that isn’t circular and we can get a discussion going. That’s the thing that seems to be missing from every one of these discussions… everyone just seems to assume some vague, fuzzy definition of consciousness and nobody calls anyone on it. My 2¢: we don’t have a working definition of consciousness. Every attempt at doing so is self referential and/or completely subjective. The term is meaningless and every discussion on whether something is conscious or not is a complete waste of time and energy.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    > every discussion on whether something is conscious or not is a complete waste of time and energy Then don't participate! :)
    - ninkendo 2y ago
      Touché!
  - sambapa 2y ago
    "we don’t have a working definition of consciousness. Every attempt at doing so is self referential and/or completely subjective." What a great definition of consciousness!
  - temporarely 2y ago
    > please provide a definition There is no requirement for definition. Each and everyone of us (gpt bots excluded) experiences consciousness continually, in various modalities. The experience is shared. For example, considering the nature of consciousness and the possible mechanics behind it, we could consider sights. Seeing. We all see things in our minds (and only in our minds!) and we have the first 1/2 of the process pathway mapped out. Light hits a matrix of cells in the 'sensor' which then encodes the sensory data as chemical signals which then side-effect a neural net. Kindly explain -- using physics -- to YOURSELF how you got from a changed states to perception of light in your mind. The experience of consciousness is not a mystery nor is it 'obscure'. Follow up is to note that it is equally wrongheaded to ask if a rock or something/someone else is conscious. Can you explain what you experience in terms of known science and please no hand waving about 'the most complex structure in universe'. The said structure changes states. There is no 'projection room' in the "neural net". There is no decoding final stage that takes matrix input and maps it to a 2D representation (generative AI) etc.
    - ninkendo 2y ago
      > There is no requirement for definition. Sure there is. If the subject of discussion is “is X a kind of Y?”, you can’t proceed without defining Y. Saying “duh, you know what Y is” doesn’t change this. I could have a very different definition of Y in my head than you, and the discussion quickly spirals into madness as we all talk right past each other. > Each and everyone of us (gpt bots excluded) experiences consciousness continually, in various modalities. The experience is shared. If the definition of consciousness is simply “that thing that we in particular have”, then of course nothing else has consciousness, because you’ve excluded everything but us by definition! Yawn. What a boring discussion. The rest of your comment proceeds similarly, with the conclusion that we need to be able to explain our particular experiences. Of course nothing else has consciousness if this is our working definition. If “consciousness” is that thing that arises from what a human brain does, then yeah sure, only a human brain has it. But if you actually make an attempt to classify it by defining it in a non-trivial, non-circular way, you’ll find that nearly everything about it can be applied to non-humans too. Ho hum, I’m bored. These discussions are just pointless. (No, I’m not going to try and define consciousness, because I maintain that there is no definition. You can say anything you want about it and be equally wrong or right, it doesn’t really matter because it means whatever you want it to.)

llamaimperative 2y ago

Provide examples. It’s chemical, electrical, and thermal reactions all the way down. The one exception is consciousness.

mapcars 2y ago
Samadhi, shoonya
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  So consciouness.
ninkendo 2y ago
Provide a definition of consciousness that isn’t circular and we can get a discussion going. That’s the thing that seems to be missing from every one of these discussions… everyone just seems to assume some vague, fuzzy definition of consciousness and nobody calls anyone on it. My 2¢: we don’t have a working definition of consciousness. Every attempt at doing so is self referential and/or completely subjective. The term is meaningless and every discussion on whether something is conscious or not is a complete waste of time and energy.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  > every discussion on whether something is conscious or not is a complete waste of time and energy Then don't participate! :)
  - ninkendo 2y ago
    Touché!
- sambapa 2y ago
  "we don’t have a working definition of consciousness. Every attempt at doing so is self referential and/or completely subjective." What a great definition of consciousness!
- temporarely 2y ago
  > please provide a definition There is no requirement for definition. Each and everyone of us (gpt bots excluded) experiences consciousness continually, in various modalities. The experience is shared. For example, considering the nature of consciousness and the possible mechanics behind it, we could consider sights. Seeing. We all see things in our minds (and only in our minds!) and we have the first 1/2 of the process pathway mapped out. Light hits a matrix of cells in the 'sensor' which then encodes the sensory data as chemical signals which then side-effect a neural net. Kindly explain -- using physics -- to YOURSELF how you got from a changed states to perception of light in your mind. The experience of consciousness is not a mystery nor is it 'obscure'. Follow up is to note that it is equally wrongheaded to ask if a rock or something/someone else is conscious. Can you explain what you experience in terms of known science and please no hand waving about 'the most complex structure in universe'. The said structure changes states. There is no 'projection room' in the "neural net". There is no decoding final stage that takes matrix input and maps it to a 2D representation (generative AI) etc.
  - ninkendo 2y ago
    > There is no requirement for definition. Sure there is. If the subject of discussion is “is X a kind of Y?”, you can’t proceed without defining Y. Saying “duh, you know what Y is” doesn’t change this. I could have a very different definition of Y in my head than you, and the discussion quickly spirals into madness as we all talk right past each other. > Each and everyone of us (gpt bots excluded) experiences consciousness continually, in various modalities. The experience is shared. If the definition of consciousness is simply “that thing that we in particular have”, then of course nothing else has consciousness, because you’ve excluded everything but us by definition! Yawn. What a boring discussion. The rest of your comment proceeds similarly, with the conclusion that we need to be able to explain our particular experiences. Of course nothing else has consciousness if this is our working definition. If “consciousness” is that thing that arises from what a human brain does, then yeah sure, only a human brain has it. But if you actually make an attempt to classify it by defining it in a non-trivial, non-circular way, you’ll find that nearly everything about it can be applied to non-humans too. Ho hum, I’m bored. These discussions are just pointless. (No, I’m not going to try and define consciousness, because I maintain that there is no definition. You can say anything you want about it and be equally wrong or right, it doesn’t really matter because it means whatever you want it to.)