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> If anything, it appears that neural networks are far further along than any quantum mechanism for approximating whatever "consciousness" actually is? And neur
by danhau 2y ago
> If anything, it appears that neural networks are far further along than any quantum mechanism for approximating whatever "consciousness" actually is? And neural networks are absolutely not quantum mechanical.
I know next to nothing about either, but I wanna try to disagree with that.
LLMs fool people into believing they‘re conscious, because they‘ve been trained on extraordinary amounts of thoughts and data outputted by the world‘s top conscious creature. They appear conscious because consciousness is in the training data.
To me, neural networks more closely mimic the brain in what I would (poorly) call „bodily functions“. I include language processing and speech in this definition.
There are people that don‘t have an inner monologue - which is totally fascinating to me - who are perfectly conscious like everyone else. Simon Roper, who doesn‘t, has fascinating YouTube videos on these topics.
- ruthmarx 2y ago> There are people that don‘t have an inner monologue - I think it's more likely they do and just don't 'hear' it or 'verbalize' it.
- danhau 2y agoI guess that‘s more or less the definition. They don‘t hear a voice in their head when they think, but their thinking is completely „normal“ otherwise. I believe in a video, Simon mentions some examples where people with an inner monologue can experience a lack thereof. I think one is the moment _right_ after you wake up. You‘re able to think, but usually without a voice in your head. I could be misremembering that though.
- mewpmewp2 2y agoHow are people that do not have inner monologue able to write? And if they are capable of writing how does whatever they output as writing differ from inner monologue?
- danhau 2y agoThey write just like everyone else, there‘s no apparent difference. The parts of their brain responsible for speech works just fine, but it doesn‘t vocalize their thoughts „back to them“.
- mewpmewp2 2y agoBut then they must have a stream of thoughts that they can't "hear" in their mind themselves that only gets activated or becomes visible when they talk or write? There's no speech or invisible speech normally, that only appears when writing or talking? But if they were to talk out loud they could simulate the same thing? Could they simulate it if they just moved their mouth? What about if they imagined they were to move the mouth and what they would say? I have a hard time grasping this. Because if they can talk they probably should at least be able to simulate this in their mind. In which case - another topic - I guess if some people don't have it at all, then other people can also turn it on and off. I wonder if then when someone is supposed to meditate is it a very different experience and expectations for different people? So some guidance for some people would sound really weird or impossible? Because e.g. if somebody advices to let go of your thoughts or something, I have no idea what it means, because my thoughts are just coming, and there's nothing I can do about it. Then some people will say "You should not stop thinking or trying to control them, but instead just notice them, but don't get carried away by them" - which also doesn't make sense to me, because my thoughts are my thoughts, they keep coming, how do I not get carried away by them? They are just there in a continuous flow with me whereever I go.
- rbanffy 2y ago> LLMs fool people into believing they‘re conscious I can't prove I'm conscious either. I might just be fooling everyone around me.