5 ms·

I use the word "magic" a lot. If you really stop to consider how a computer works, multiple sticks of ram, registers, L1/L2/L3 cache, LRU cache, memory swapped

I use the word "magic" a lot. If you really stop to consider how a computer works, multiple sticks of ram, registers, L1/L2/L3 cache, LRU cache, memory swapped to disk, GPU memory, virtual memory, encrypted/compressed memory, x86/arm instructions, Unicode, and computation can span multiple computers. It seems insane to me to believe that consciousness can emerge from this mess, simply because "you performed the right computations", regardless of cpu architecture or operating system or programming language or whatever. If consciousness really could emerge from all this, interpret the CPU instruction set, parse virtual memory tables, dereference pointers, decrypt and uncompress memory, parse Unicode text, assemble all of the necessary information scattered all about in the system, then consciousness is magic, a miracle. Or, we could simply assume there's some unknown physical mechanism/process/activity in the brain that leads to conscious experience. Almost everything else in the universe is the result of a physical process, magnetic fields, a nuclear bomb exploding, even quantum entanglement. Why should consciousness be an exception?

The5thElephant 2y ago
I'm struggling to understand this argument. Our brain is just hardware. Even if there is a quantum effect we haven't discovered that is necessary for it, that effect is still running on regular old atoms and molecules. There is no inherent reason we couldn't just add that effect to our metal and silicon computers. Those atoms and molecules may just be bits of information themselves in some higher order computer. But there is nothing inherently "magical" about consciousness other than its uniqueness. Heck there are fairly convincing arguments for pan-consciousness where it is a fundamental part of any set of information and is simply as complex as that information system. If you have a highly complex, self referential information system like our brains, then the complexity of consciousness is equivalent to our experience. The chinese box would have its LLM-like consciousness, which we would not recognize as our own, but could still a qualitative experience born from objective information states. Think more about your last paragraph, it undermines your argument from the previous two. If everything is the result of a physical process, then how is that an argument for consciousness being somehow fundamentally different or exceptional in our ability to recreate or simulate it?
- poikroequ 2y ago
  > There is no inherent reason we couldn't just add that effect to our metal and silicon computers. Yes, I agree with that much. Hopefully I understand you, but I do believe we could create a "consciousness chip", so to speak, that performs the proper physical process to create real conscious experience, not just simulated. But it's unlikely to happen with existing computer hardware. (by "create", I'm not saying that consciousness emerges from nothing. Rather, there's this idea of "activating" consciousness, "turning the lights on".) > Those atoms and molecules may just be bits of information themselves in some higher order computer. But there is nothing inherently "magical" about consciousness other than its uniqueness. I don't buy the idea that the universe is a computer nor that we're living in a simulation. I do believe there is an objective reality. > Heck there are fairly convincing arguments for pan-consciousness where it is a fundamental part of any set of information and is simply as complex as that information system. If you have a highly complex, self referential information system like our brains, then the complexity of consciousness is equivalent to our experience. The chinese box would have its LLM-like consciousness, which we would not recognize as our own, but could still a qualitative experience born from objective information states. It's an idea that comes out of sci-fi. It's been used as a plot device in some episodes of Star Trek. But it's just that, science fiction. > Think more about your last paragraph, it undermines your argument from the previous two. If everything is the result of a physical process, then how is that an argument for consciousness being somehow fundamentally different or exceptional in our ability to recreate or simulate it? That's not what I said. What I'm saying is computers are not magically conscious. Could we recreate consciousness with the right hardware? Sure, I don't see why not, like what I said with a "consciousness chip" . But is consciousness magically going to emerge purely from a simulation without any special hardware? No, of course not.
  - The5thElephant 2y ago
    > It's an idea that comes out of sci-fi. It's been used as a plot device in some episodes of Star Trek. But it's just that, science fiction. I'm not talking about hand-wavy sci-fi or spiritual "the universe is a sentient being" stuff. I'm talking about one of the few solutions to what the nature of qualia is and why we aren't philosophical zombies. Why would the universe have some mechanism of consciousness available to it prior to those structures even existing? What is more convincing about a physical process being the literal mechanism for consciousness and not an informational process that has an abstracted physical basis? Could the literal mechanism not just be the information system considering you can create the same behaviors in a simulation as in reality? Consciousness being some thing that just appears in the universe all of a sudden because evolution happened on this "neat trick" in physics seems more "magical" than it being an emergent property of increasing more complex systems, but a property that has always been there. We see the same emergent behavior appear in all sorts of systems built using different parts and/or simulated as long as they are in the same context of rules. Why wouldn't that also hold true for the emergent behavior of consciousness? The argument for it being this unique thing that only can happen via a strict physical process strikes me as dualist. Why is it a unique thing?
seba_dos1 2y ago
I don't see why implementing consciousness in terms of RAM sticks, registers, cache and CPU instruction sets would be any more surprising or unbelievable than, say, implementing all those I mentioned inside a Game of Life field - which is perfectly possible, even if impractical.
- poikroequ 2y ago
  Perhaps you misunderstand. I'm saying that a computer (RAM sticks, registers, etc) is extremely unlikely to have actual conscious experience. At best, a computer can be a philosophical zombie. The point is, consciousness doesn't emerge purely from computation alone. You need the right physical process/activity/properties/whatever, which the brain has and computers do not. You can construct a computer using purely mechanical parts - gears, cams, springs, etc. The first calculators were purely mechanical. So imagine you built an absolutely massive computer, made purely out of mechanical parts, that was capable of performing matrix multiplication and therefore running LLMs. It's technically computation, but should we seriously expect real consciousness to emerge from a purely mechanical computer just because it performed the right computations? Of course not, that would literally be a miracle.
  - seba_dos1 2y ago
    > I'm saying that a computer (RAM sticks, registers, etc) is extremely unlikely to have actual conscious experience. And yet a bag of proteins, mitochondria, water etc. somehow isn't? > The point is, consciousness doesn't emerge purely from computation alone. [citation needed] > It's technically computation, but should we seriously expect real consciousness to emerge from a purely mechanical computer just because it performed the right computations? Of course yes. I don't see why consciousness couldn't theoretically emerge even from computations made by a really bored human placing stones on an endless beach, or in an anthill with any single ant being completely oblivious of what's going on. Such consciousness will only be conscious of data that's provided to it as its input, but conscious nevertheless - just like we are only conscious of a specific representation of the real world as perceived by our flawed senses. I don't expect any meaningful difference there, other than our minds being at least a few steps ahead of anything we can build at this moment, which is hardly surprising given how little we know about brains and bodies even today.

The5thElephant 2y ago

I'm struggling to understand this argument. Our brain is just hardware. Even if there is a quantum effect we haven't discovered that is necessary for it, that effect is still running on regular old atoms and molecules. There is no inherent reason we couldn't just add that effect to our metal and silicon computers. Those atoms and molecules may just be bits of information themselves in some higher order computer. But there is nothing inherently "magical" about consciousness other than its uniqueness. Heck there are fairly convincing arguments for pan-consciousness where it is a fundamental part of any set of information and is simply as complex as that information system. If you have a highly complex, self referential information system like our brains, then the complexity of consciousness is equivalent to our experience. The chinese box would have its LLM-like consciousness, which we would not recognize as our own, but could still a qualitative experience born from objective information states. Think more about your last paragraph, it undermines your argument from the previous two. If everything is the result of a physical process, then how is that an argument for consciousness being somehow fundamentally different or exceptional in our ability to recreate or simulate it?

poikroequ 2y ago
> There is no inherent reason we couldn't just add that effect to our metal and silicon computers. Yes, I agree with that much. Hopefully I understand you, but I do believe we could create a "consciousness chip", so to speak, that performs the proper physical process to create real conscious experience, not just simulated. But it's unlikely to happen with existing computer hardware. (by "create", I'm not saying that consciousness emerges from nothing. Rather, there's this idea of "activating" consciousness, "turning the lights on".) > Those atoms and molecules may just be bits of information themselves in some higher order computer. But there is nothing inherently "magical" about consciousness other than its uniqueness. I don't buy the idea that the universe is a computer nor that we're living in a simulation. I do believe there is an objective reality. > Heck there are fairly convincing arguments for pan-consciousness where it is a fundamental part of any set of information and is simply as complex as that information system. If you have a highly complex, self referential information system like our brains, then the complexity of consciousness is equivalent to our experience. The chinese box would have its LLM-like consciousness, which we would not recognize as our own, but could still a qualitative experience born from objective information states. It's an idea that comes out of sci-fi. It's been used as a plot device in some episodes of Star Trek. But it's just that, science fiction. > Think more about your last paragraph, it undermines your argument from the previous two. If everything is the result of a physical process, then how is that an argument for consciousness being somehow fundamentally different or exceptional in our ability to recreate or simulate it? That's not what I said. What I'm saying is computers are not magically conscious. Could we recreate consciousness with the right hardware? Sure, I don't see why not, like what I said with a "consciousness chip" . But is consciousness magically going to emerge purely from a simulation without any special hardware? No, of course not.
- The5thElephant 2y ago
  > It's an idea that comes out of sci-fi. It's been used as a plot device in some episodes of Star Trek. But it's just that, science fiction. I'm not talking about hand-wavy sci-fi or spiritual "the universe is a sentient being" stuff. I'm talking about one of the few solutions to what the nature of qualia is and why we aren't philosophical zombies. Why would the universe have some mechanism of consciousness available to it prior to those structures even existing? What is more convincing about a physical process being the literal mechanism for consciousness and not an informational process that has an abstracted physical basis? Could the literal mechanism not just be the information system considering you can create the same behaviors in a simulation as in reality? Consciousness being some thing that just appears in the universe all of a sudden because evolution happened on this "neat trick" in physics seems more "magical" than it being an emergent property of increasing more complex systems, but a property that has always been there. We see the same emergent behavior appear in all sorts of systems built using different parts and/or simulated as long as they are in the same context of rules. Why wouldn't that also hold true for the emergent behavior of consciousness? The argument for it being this unique thing that only can happen via a strict physical process strikes me as dualist. Why is it a unique thing?

seba_dos1 2y ago

I don't see why implementing consciousness in terms of RAM sticks, registers, cache and CPU instruction sets would be any more surprising or unbelievable than, say, implementing all those I mentioned inside a Game of Life field - which is perfectly possible, even if impractical.

poikroequ 2y ago
Perhaps you misunderstand. I'm saying that a computer (RAM sticks, registers, etc) is extremely unlikely to have actual conscious experience. At best, a computer can be a philosophical zombie. The point is, consciousness doesn't emerge purely from computation alone. You need the right physical process/activity/properties/whatever, which the brain has and computers do not. You can construct a computer using purely mechanical parts - gears, cams, springs, etc. The first calculators were purely mechanical. So imagine you built an absolutely massive computer, made purely out of mechanical parts, that was capable of performing matrix multiplication and therefore running LLMs. It's technically computation, but should we seriously expect real consciousness to emerge from a purely mechanical computer just because it performed the right computations? Of course not, that would literally be a miracle.
- seba_dos1 2y ago
  > I'm saying that a computer (RAM sticks, registers, etc) is extremely unlikely to have actual conscious experience. And yet a bag of proteins, mitochondria, water etc. somehow isn't? > The point is, consciousness doesn't emerge purely from computation alone. [citation needed] > It's technically computation, but should we seriously expect real consciousness to emerge from a purely mechanical computer just because it performed the right computations? Of course yes. I don't see why consciousness couldn't theoretically emerge even from computations made by a really bored human placing stones on an endless beach, or in an anthill with any single ant being completely oblivious of what's going on. Such consciousness will only be conscious of data that's provided to it as its input, but conscious nevertheless - just like we are only conscious of a specific representation of the real world as perceived by our flawed senses. I don't expect any meaningful difference there, other than our minds being at least a few steps ahead of anything we can build at this moment, which is hardly surprising given how little we know about brains and bodies even today.