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>I can put your brain in a vat and stimulate your sensory neurons with a statistical distribution with no actual meaning, and nothing about how your brain works

>I can put your brain in a vat and stimulate your sensory neurons with a statistical distribution with no actual meaning, and nothing about how your brain works would change either. The LLM and your brain would attempt to interpret meaning with referent from training, and both would be confused at the information-free stimuli. Because during "training" in both cases, the stimuli received from the environment is structured and meaningful. What an absurd response. Yes, you'd probably cause the human brain to start malfunctioning terribly at the form of consciousness it's well -accustomed to managing within the context of its normal physical substrate and environment. You'd be doing that (and thus degenerating it badly) because you removed it from that ancient context whose workings we still don't well understand. Your LLM on the other hand, has no context in which it shows such a level of cognitive capacity, higher-order reasoning, self direction and self awareness that we daily see humans to be capable of. >By the way, pretty sure a neuroscientist with 20 years of ML experience has a deeper understanding of what "meaning" is than you do. really? An appeal to authority? Many smart, educated people can still fall for utter nonsense and emotional attachment to bad ideas.

stevenhuang 2y ago
> Your LLM on the other hand, has no context in which it shows such a level of cognitive capacity Yes, it will be confused as well, and for all outwards observable signs will fail to make sense of the stimuli, yet it will "aware" of its inability to understand, much like a human brain would. If you doubt that, open a new session and type some random tokens, you will get the answer that it's confused. Any other statement as to "consciousness" verges into the philosophical and unanswerable via empirical means. And ah, to frame it as an appeal to authority when the topic is precisely the subject of a neuroscientist's study. Sounds like you know a thing or two about nonsense and emotional attachment to bad ideas.
- southernplaces7 2y ago
  You persist in talking nonsense. >Yes, it will be confused as well, and for all outwards observable signs will fail to make sense of the stimuli, yet it will "aware" of its inability to understand, much like a human brain would. >If you doubt that, open a new session and type some random tokens, you will get the answer that it's confused. There is no empirical evidence of any awareness whatsoever in any LLM, at all. Even their most immersed creators don't make such a claim. An LLM itself saying anything about awareness doesn't mean a thing. It's literally designed to mimic in such a way. And you speak of discussions of consciousness being about the philosophical and unanswerable? At least when talking about human awareness, one applies these ideas to minds that we personally as humans perceive to be aware and self-directed from our own experience (flawed as it is). You're applying the same notion to something that shows no evidence of awareness while then criticizing assumptions of consciousness in a human brain? Such a sloppy argument indeed does make appeals to authority necessary I suppose.
  - stevenhuang 2y ago
    It seems you've lost the train of your own argument. > has no context in which it shows such a level of cognitive capacity You claim LLMs have no context at all in which it shows a similar level of cognitive capacity. Yet clearly this claim is in contention with the fact that an LLM will indeed be able to evince this, much like a human brain would: by attesting to its own confusion. That is ostensibly empirical and evidential to a nonzero degree. Thus your claim is too strong and therefore quite simply wrong. Claim mimicry? Then prove human brain consciousness does not derive from the process of mimicry in any form. You can't. In fact, the free energy principle, neuroscience's leading theory of human consciousness, argues the opposite: that prediction and mimicry encompass the entirety of what brains actually do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding > There is no empirical evidence of any awareness whatsoever in any LLM, at all. And no such claim was made--"awareness" was quoted for a reason. > It's literally designed to mimic in such a way. And you speak of discussions of consciousness being about the philosophical and unanswerable? Yes, as this was parent's claim: "They are not cognizant let alone conscious'. And talking about sloppy argument--it may well turn out that something can be "designed to mimic" yet still be conscious. I'll leave that for you to puzzle out how on earth that might be possible. The exercise might help you form less sloppy arguments in the future. > You're applying the same notion to something that shows no evidence of awareness while then criticizing assumptions of consciousness in a human brain? No. But I suppose you've lost the plot a few inferential steps prior this so your confusion is not surprising. Protip, instead of claiming everything that goes against your sensibilities as nonsense, perhaps entertain the possibility that you might just not be as well informed as you thought.

stevenhuang 2y ago

> Your LLM on the other hand, has no context in which it shows such a level of cognitive capacity Yes, it will be confused as well, and for all outwards observable signs will fail to make sense of the stimuli, yet it will "aware" of its inability to understand, much like a human brain would. If you doubt that, open a new session and type some random tokens, you will get the answer that it's confused. Any other statement as to "consciousness" verges into the philosophical and unanswerable via empirical means. And ah, to frame it as an appeal to authority when the topic is precisely the subject of a neuroscientist's study. Sounds like you know a thing or two about nonsense and emotional attachment to bad ideas.

southernplaces7 2y ago
You persist in talking nonsense. >Yes, it will be confused as well, and for all outwards observable signs will fail to make sense of the stimuli, yet it will "aware" of its inability to understand, much like a human brain would. >If you doubt that, open a new session and type some random tokens, you will get the answer that it's confused. There is no empirical evidence of any awareness whatsoever in any LLM, at all. Even their most immersed creators don't make such a claim. An LLM itself saying anything about awareness doesn't mean a thing. It's literally designed to mimic in such a way. And you speak of discussions of consciousness being about the philosophical and unanswerable? At least when talking about human awareness, one applies these ideas to minds that we personally as humans perceive to be aware and self-directed from our own experience (flawed as it is). You're applying the same notion to something that shows no evidence of awareness while then criticizing assumptions of consciousness in a human brain? Such a sloppy argument indeed does make appeals to authority necessary I suppose.
- stevenhuang 2y ago
  It seems you've lost the train of your own argument. > has no context in which it shows such a level of cognitive capacity You claim LLMs have no context at all in which it shows a similar level of cognitive capacity. Yet clearly this claim is in contention with the fact that an LLM will indeed be able to evince this, much like a human brain would: by attesting to its own confusion. That is ostensibly empirical and evidential to a nonzero degree. Thus your claim is too strong and therefore quite simply wrong. Claim mimicry? Then prove human brain consciousness does not derive from the process of mimicry in any form. You can't. In fact, the free energy principle, neuroscience's leading theory of human consciousness, argues the opposite: that prediction and mimicry encompass the entirety of what brains actually do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding > There is no empirical evidence of any awareness whatsoever in any LLM, at all. And no such claim was made--"awareness" was quoted for a reason. > It's literally designed to mimic in such a way. And you speak of discussions of consciousness being about the philosophical and unanswerable? Yes, as this was parent's claim: "They are not cognizant let alone conscious'. And talking about sloppy argument--it may well turn out that something can be "designed to mimic" yet still be conscious. I'll leave that for you to puzzle out how on earth that might be possible. The exercise might help you form less sloppy arguments in the future. > You're applying the same notion to something that shows no evidence of awareness while then criticizing assumptions of consciousness in a human brain? No. But I suppose you've lost the plot a few inferential steps prior this so your confusion is not surprising. Protip, instead of claiming everything that goes against your sensibilities as nonsense, perhaps entertain the possibility that you might just not be as well informed as you thought.