4 ms·

Question: would such a simulation be conscious? If not, why not?

by HL33tibCe7 2y ago

jncfhnb 2y ago
Also, would it be quorled?
- fellerts 2y ago
  What now?
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    Precisely
- GlenTheMachine 2y ago
  This, exactly. Nobody can defined what consciousness is in terms that can be experimentally validated. Until that happens not only can the question not be answered, it isn't even a question that makes any sense.
  - bqmjjx0kac 2y ago
    There are more questions that make sense than those that can be tested. To the point, I have a convincing experience of consciousness and free will — qualia — and I suspect a digital clone of my brain would have a similar experience. Although this question is not testable, I think it's inaccurate to say that it doesn't make sense.
    - jncfhnb 2y ago
      It’s not really the testableness that makes the problem. It’s the fact that you’re asking about X where X is undefined. If you can provide a satisfying definition of X it’s very clear
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  How would you operationalize quorledness?
Vampiero 2y ago
Answer: no one knows how consciousness works
fallingknife 2y ago
If you accept the two premises: 1. A human brain has consciousness 2. The device is a perfect digital replica of a human brain I can't think of any argument that the device does not have consciousness that doesn't either rely on basically magic or lead to other ridiculous conclusions.
- Vampiero 2y ago
  The argument is that if you accept your precondition then you must also accept superdeterminism and that free will does not exist. Because physicalism implies that the mind is an emergent phenomenon, and because quantum physics is a linear theory, there's simply no place for free will unless you go down some weird/unfalsifiable rabbit holes like the MWI. So a lot of people prefer to latch onto the idea that there is a soul, because if there wasn't one, then they wouldn't be special anymore.
  - webmaven 2y ago
    > there's simply no place for free will unless you go down some weird/unfalsifiable rabbit holes like the MWI. I don't follow. Quantum mechanics means that physics is stochastic, and only approximates classical determinism in aggregate. Meanwhile, brains seem to operate in a critical state that can be tipped to different phase transitions by small perturbations, so there is potential for a quantum event to influence the brain as a whole in a nondeterministic fashion. This means that strict physicalism still leaves the door open to our behavior being stochastic rather than deterministic, doesn't it?
    - Vampiero 2y ago
      Quantum events may be stochastic (there's still some hope for hidden variables though from what I understand -- either way, as far as the macroscopic world is concerned, it's basically random) but that doesn't mean that somewhere in that randomness a cosmic YOU is deciding anything. It just means it's random. Anything that follows after that is perfectly causal and determined and can be understood in the context of chaos theory. So in this view consciousness is better explained as an illusion than as the seat of your will. Because you can't really have a will if every interaction that led to your existence can, in principle, be computed forward in time from the big bang. Physicalists see it as a complex emergent phenomenon akin to a run of Conway's Game of Life that started from a random seed.
namero999 2y ago
Of course not. A simulation is not the process itself. So even provisionally granting that consciousness is magically created by the brain (for which we have no evidence), a computer simulation would still not be a brain and therefore not create consciousness. You would not expect your computer to pee on your desk if you were to simulate kidney function, would you?
- lucasoshiro 2y ago
  > You would not expect your computer to pee on your desk if you were to simulate kidney function If my computer is connected to actuators that opens a pee valve like a brain is, then I expect. The main point, in think, is that we can't say precisely what consciousness is. Everything definition on that that I can imagine is something that can be replicated in a computer or that relies on belief, like the existence of a soul... I hope that we have answers for that before the technology that allow us to do that
- IAmYourDensity 2y ago
  > A simulation is not the process itself. Sometimes a simulation IS the thing. A simulation of a wall clock IS a functioning clock (e.g. the clock icon on our smartphones). An autopilot that can takeoff, fly, and land an airplane IS a pilot. Chess engines that can beat grandmasters are chess players. A computer simulation of a teacher that can educate students is a teacher. Sometimes these simulations lack some of the capabilities of their human counterparts, and sometimes they far exceed them. > You would not expect your computer to pee on your desk if you were to simulate kidney function, would you? You would not reject a computer-controlled dialysis machine as "just a simulation" if you had kidney failure would you?
  - namero999 2y ago
    > You would not reject a computer-controlled dialysis machine as "just a simulation" if you had kidney failure would you? Except that's not a simulation, that's the actual process of dialysis in action (which we fully understand, contrary to consciousness). And coincidentally, a dialysis machine _does not_ look like a kidney, not even remotely, and any homomorphism one can point to, is such only through a great deal of layers of abstraction. I would totally reject a simulation of a kidney. We are talking about a computer simulation like a neural network. We detect topological relationships in neurons and we are led to believe or entertain the possibility that all there is to it is such topological description, hence any substrate will do. This is completely arbitrary and leads to all sort of phantasies such as "qualities emerge from quantities" and "a simulation of a brain behaves like a brain". A computer simulation of a kidney won't produce urine just like a simulation of a brain won't produce whatever the brain produces, if anything. Now, to build on your dialysis machine analogy, if we were to understand how consciousness work, and if we were to understand what relationships it holds with the brain and the body, then I submit that anything artificial we will produce will look like biology.
geor9e 2y ago
Just like the thousands of times this has been asked in the last century of sci-fi novels, the answer to such semantic questions depends on the mood of the audience for how approximate of a copy they need the ship of Theseus to be before they're comfortable using a certain word for it.
bossyTeacher 2y ago
Bit hard to answer that since there is no definition of consciousness, is there? If I gave you access to the brain of some living animal, you wouldn't be able to tell whether it was "conscious" would you? Not sure, how can we expect that from an artificial and highly simplified version of a neural network
aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
The real problem is that this uses a very a crude and inadequate model for neurons: it ignores neurotransmitters, epigentics, or the dendritic complexity of cortical neurons. There’s no chance this system will ever come close to simulating an actual brain.
- RaftPeople 2y ago
  And it ignores that neurons are dynamically inhibited/excited by the astrocytes at the synapse. The network itself is shifting constantly as it processes information.

Question: would such a simulation be conscious? If not, why not?

jncfhnb 2y ago

Also, would it be quorled?

fellerts 2y ago
What now?
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  Precisely
GlenTheMachine 2y ago
This, exactly. Nobody can defined what consciousness is in terms that can be experimentally validated. Until that happens not only can the question not be answered, it isn't even a question that makes any sense.
- bqmjjx0kac 2y ago
  There are more questions that make sense than those that can be tested. To the point, I have a convincing experience of consciousness and free will — qualia — and I suspect a digital clone of my brain would have a similar experience. Although this question is not testable, I think it's inaccurate to say that it doesn't make sense.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    It’s not really the testableness that makes the problem. It’s the fact that you’re asking about X where X is undefined. If you can provide a satisfying definition of X it’s very clear
kelseyfrog 2y ago
How would you operationalize quorledness?

Vampiero 2y ago

Answer: no one knows how consciousness works

fallingknife 2y ago

If you accept the two premises: 1. A human brain has consciousness 2. The device is a perfect digital replica of a human brain I can't think of any argument that the device does not have consciousness that doesn't either rely on basically magic or lead to other ridiculous conclusions.

Vampiero 2y ago
The argument is that if you accept your precondition then you must also accept superdeterminism and that free will does not exist. Because physicalism implies that the mind is an emergent phenomenon, and because quantum physics is a linear theory, there's simply no place for free will unless you go down some weird/unfalsifiable rabbit holes like the MWI. So a lot of people prefer to latch onto the idea that there is a soul, because if there wasn't one, then they wouldn't be special anymore.
- webmaven 2y ago
  > there's simply no place for free will unless you go down some weird/unfalsifiable rabbit holes like the MWI. I don't follow. Quantum mechanics means that physics is stochastic, and only approximates classical determinism in aggregate. Meanwhile, brains seem to operate in a critical state that can be tipped to different phase transitions by small perturbations, so there is potential for a quantum event to influence the brain as a whole in a nondeterministic fashion. This means that strict physicalism still leaves the door open to our behavior being stochastic rather than deterministic, doesn't it?
  - Vampiero 2y ago
    Quantum events may be stochastic (there's still some hope for hidden variables though from what I understand -- either way, as far as the macroscopic world is concerned, it's basically random) but that doesn't mean that somewhere in that randomness a cosmic YOU is deciding anything. It just means it's random. Anything that follows after that is perfectly causal and determined and can be understood in the context of chaos theory. So in this view consciousness is better explained as an illusion than as the seat of your will. Because you can't really have a will if every interaction that led to your existence can, in principle, be computed forward in time from the big bang. Physicalists see it as a complex emergent phenomenon akin to a run of Conway's Game of Life that started from a random seed.

namero999 2y ago

Of course not. A simulation is not the process itself. So even provisionally granting that consciousness is magically created by the brain (for which we have no evidence), a computer simulation would still not be a brain and therefore not create consciousness. You would not expect your computer to pee on your desk if you were to simulate kidney function, would you?

lucasoshiro 2y ago
> You would not expect your computer to pee on your desk if you were to simulate kidney function If my computer is connected to actuators that opens a pee valve like a brain is, then I expect. The main point, in think, is that we can't say precisely what consciousness is. Everything definition on that that I can imagine is something that can be replicated in a computer or that relies on belief, like the existence of a soul... I hope that we have answers for that before the technology that allow us to do that
IAmYourDensity 2y ago
> A simulation is not the process itself. Sometimes a simulation IS the thing. A simulation of a wall clock IS a functioning clock (e.g. the clock icon on our smartphones). An autopilot that can takeoff, fly, and land an airplane IS a pilot. Chess engines that can beat grandmasters are chess players. A computer simulation of a teacher that can educate students is a teacher. Sometimes these simulations lack some of the capabilities of their human counterparts, and sometimes they far exceed them. > You would not expect your computer to pee on your desk if you were to simulate kidney function, would you? You would not reject a computer-controlled dialysis machine as "just a simulation" if you had kidney failure would you?
- namero999 2y ago
  > You would not reject a computer-controlled dialysis machine as "just a simulation" if you had kidney failure would you? Except that's not a simulation, that's the actual process of dialysis in action (which we fully understand, contrary to consciousness). And coincidentally, a dialysis machine _does not_ look like a kidney, not even remotely, and any homomorphism one can point to, is such only through a great deal of layers of abstraction. I would totally reject a simulation of a kidney. We are talking about a computer simulation like a neural network. We detect topological relationships in neurons and we are led to believe or entertain the possibility that all there is to it is such topological description, hence any substrate will do. This is completely arbitrary and leads to all sort of phantasies such as "qualities emerge from quantities" and "a simulation of a brain behaves like a brain". A computer simulation of a kidney won't produce urine just like a simulation of a brain won't produce whatever the brain produces, if anything. Now, to build on your dialysis machine analogy, if we were to understand how consciousness work, and if we were to understand what relationships it holds with the brain and the body, then I submit that anything artificial we will produce will look like biology.

geor9e 2y ago

Just like the thousands of times this has been asked in the last century of sci-fi novels, the answer to such semantic questions depends on the mood of the audience for how approximate of a copy they need the ship of Theseus to be before they're comfortable using a certain word for it.

bossyTeacher 2y ago

Bit hard to answer that since there is no definition of consciousness, is there? If I gave you access to the brain of some living animal, you wouldn't be able to tell whether it was "conscious" would you? Not sure, how can we expect that from an artificial and highly simplified version of a neural network

aithrowawaycomm 2y ago

The real problem is that this uses a very a crude and inadequate model for neurons: it ignores neurotransmitters, epigentics, or the dendritic complexity of cortical neurons. There’s no chance this system will ever come close to simulating an actual brain.

RaftPeople 2y ago
And it ignores that neurons are dynamically inhibited/excited by the astrocytes at the synapse. The network itself is shifting constantly as it processes information.