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Any assertion has a burden of proof, you are likely referring to cultural/colloquial norms/beliefs on the matter. There is cultural/normative truth, and then t

Any assertion has a burden of proof, you are likely referring to cultural/colloquial norms/beliefs on the matter. There is cultural/normative truth, and then there are various stricter/technical interpretations (using forms of logic other than binary, which causes reality to appear very differently), and making such distinctions is typically culturally "discouraged" (it is rude, pedantic, not what HN is for, etc).

godelski 2y ago
Consciousness is not binary. The burden of proof does have direction. It's in the direction of the more complicated thing. Do you think a rock is conscious? What about lightning? If you're 99.999% of people, then the answer is no. So if you want to claim AI is conscious you need make the claim where inanimate becomes animate. And you know what they say about extraordinary claims... But personally I don't believe in ghosts, even those in machines
- mistermann 2y ago
  > It's in the direction of the more complicated thing. You are incorrect. Any claim of fact has a burden of proof. > So if you want to claim AI is conscious You made a claim that it is not. How did you determine that is True? Or did you?
- gaganyaan 2y ago
  See my other comment too, but I agree. Rocks and lightning aren't conscious of anything, because they have no state that represents anything. Amoeba are conscious of some things, because they have state that represents a tiny slice of the world. Cats are conscious of much more, then LLMs and humans in turn. It's not about animate vs inanimate, it's about models that represent something. There's also some confusion because we have limited language here. A person can be "unconscious", but that doesn't mean they've lost their world model. It's just currently not executing.
  - quantadev 2y ago
    Unconscious brains appear to be functioning normally as far as all of science can tell, except for one big difference: Brain Wave frequencies. Only the lower frequencies exist. Higher frequencies are scientifically proven to be required for consciousness. You can call that a meaningless correlation that happens to be totally inconsequential, but most neuroscientists strongly disagree with that. EDIT: I mean neuroscientists know brain frequency is more than an accidental correlation with consciousness.
    - gaganyaan 2y ago
      TBH, I don't really know what you're driving at with brain waves. They're not magic. I think you're trying to use "consciousness" to mean "high level brain activity", as opposed to something like the lizard brain? To which I say that you're making a distinction that isn't there. Your lizard brain is perfectly conscious of many things. It's just conscious of fewer things than your prefrontal cortex. I mention "unconscious" only to help disambiguate an overloaded word. It's used for both "this model includes something in its representation" as well as "this model is currently executing".
      - quantadev 2y ago
        I just don't think Qualia emerges from computations. I think it's a wave phenomena, because all the neuroscience evidence indicates that. There's nothing magical about EM waves. Waves are a well understood physics with well understood mathematics governing their behaviors. People often just hear the phrase "brain waves" and immediately think of "woo woo spirituality" because all the spiritual crack pots are constantly talking about waves without even having a physics background.
        godelski 2y ago
        What you keep describing is computation. Or as best as I can tell because "brain waves" and "em waves" aren't that detailed of descriptions. Luckily computation is just as vague

godelski 2y ago

Consciousness is not binary. The burden of proof does have direction. It's in the direction of the more complicated thing. Do you think a rock is conscious? What about lightning? If you're 99.999% of people, then the answer is no. So if you want to claim AI is conscious you need make the claim where inanimate becomes animate. And you know what they say about extraordinary claims... But personally I don't believe in ghosts, even those in machines

mistermann 2y ago
> It's in the direction of the more complicated thing. You are incorrect. Any claim of fact has a burden of proof. > So if you want to claim AI is conscious You made a claim that it is not. How did you determine that is True? Or did you?
gaganyaan 2y ago
See my other comment too, but I agree. Rocks and lightning aren't conscious of anything, because they have no state that represents anything. Amoeba are conscious of some things, because they have state that represents a tiny slice of the world. Cats are conscious of much more, then LLMs and humans in turn. It's not about animate vs inanimate, it's about models that represent something. There's also some confusion because we have limited language here. A person can be "unconscious", but that doesn't mean they've lost their world model. It's just currently not executing.
- quantadev 2y ago
  Unconscious brains appear to be functioning normally as far as all of science can tell, except for one big difference: Brain Wave frequencies. Only the lower frequencies exist. Higher frequencies are scientifically proven to be required for consciousness. You can call that a meaningless correlation that happens to be totally inconsequential, but most neuroscientists strongly disagree with that. EDIT: I mean neuroscientists know brain frequency is more than an accidental correlation with consciousness.
  - gaganyaan 2y ago
    TBH, I don't really know what you're driving at with brain waves. They're not magic. I think you're trying to use "consciousness" to mean "high level brain activity", as opposed to something like the lizard brain? To which I say that you're making a distinction that isn't there. Your lizard brain is perfectly conscious of many things. It's just conscious of fewer things than your prefrontal cortex. I mention "unconscious" only to help disambiguate an overloaded word. It's used for both "this model includes something in its representation" as well as "this model is currently executing".
    - quantadev 2y ago
      I just don't think Qualia emerges from computations. I think it's a wave phenomena, because all the neuroscience evidence indicates that. There's nothing magical about EM waves. Waves are a well understood physics with well understood mathematics governing their behaviors. People often just hear the phrase "brain waves" and immediately think of "woo woo spirituality" because all the spiritual crack pots are constantly talking about waves without even having a physics background.
      - godelski 2y ago
        What you keep describing is computation. Or as best as I can tell because "brain waves" and "em waves" aren't that detailed of descriptions. Luckily computation is just as vague