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If a static blob of numbers can "feel" things, it would be a straightforward argument for panpsychism, which means the idea that consciousness is a universal pr

by api 2y ago

If a static blob of numbers can "feel" things, it would be a straightforward argument for panpsychism, which means the idea that consciousness is a universal property of all systems or of mass-energy itself. It would mean that consciousness and life are orthogonal phenomena, and as soon as you entertain the idea that non-living systems can be conscious it becomes hard or impossible to draw a line anywhere. Personally I think this is just self-delusion. We have machines that can produce patterns of language that resemble what humans might produce when uncomfortable or in pain. That doesn't mean they're uncomfortable or in pain. If they were more "alive" -- self-modifying, dynamic, exhibiting self-directed behaviors, I'd be more open to the idea that there is actual sentience here. How can something static and unchanging experience anything? I also have a very low opinion of "rationalism" and its offshoots as a school of thought. One of its defining characteristics seems to be to make a bold assertion, conclude that it sounds right and therefore is right, and then proceed as if it is correct without looking back, and to do this repeatedly and brazenly to build floating castles in the sky. Another is what I call intellectual edgelording, "argumentum ad edgeium," a fetishism for heterodoxy as a value in itself. "I assert that I am high IQ and edgy therefore I am right." There are some really fascinating philosophical questions here, but I don't trust "rationalists" to produce much in the way of useful answers.

card_zero 2y ago
Maybe the sort of suffering that deserves compassion is something high-level that only humans do. * If it's low-level, you get things like a damaged clockwork toy or a thwarted Roomba suffering. Maybe parking radar is transmitting pain signals. Silly things like that. But if not those, why an ant, or a whelk, or a dog? * Maybe, conversely, all of that should count, but why should any of it cause compassion, or confer rights? Surely those things have to do with relationships and society.
- danaris 2y ago
  ...I don't see how you can draw a comparison between the level of consciousness of a clockwork toy or an ant, and a dog. (I honestly have insufficient understanding of the biology of a whelk to know where to place it in this.) We have very clear research on dog psychology these days. (Nowhere near as much as we have on humans, but still quite a bit.) They are not as sapient as humans, but they are clearly sentient to at least a moderate degree. They feel pain in much the same way humans do. There's a much, much clearer line between the things in your bullet's first sentence and the ones in its last sentence than there is between a dog and a human.
  - card_zero 2y ago
    That was a deliberate jump, yes. Question is, what do you mean by "feel pain in the way", and why does that way make it matter morally - why doesn't the simpler way matter too, and just as much?
    - danaris 2y ago
      There is no way in which a clockwork toy feels pain. There is no way in which a Roomba feels pain. There is no way in which an LLM feels pain. Dogs feel pain "in the way" humans do because they have a central nervous system with pain receptors. They are mammals. We share a huge amount of our genetic code with them. Ants do not have a central nervous system. If they feel pain, it is in a different way. To a large extent, ants and similar insects are biological automata. They're fascinating, particularly the way they organize in groups, and we can learn a lot about biology and biochemistry from them, but an individual ant does not have anything resembling the consciousness and experience of the world that a mammal does. Unless, of course, there's some kind of "soul" at work that is completely immeasurable by scientific instruments. (And like I said in my previous post, I just don't know much about whelks.)
      - card_zero 2y ago
        Yes, and why does it matter? I went and read Jeremy Bentham's bit again: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham#:~:text=number%20of%20legs https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham#:~:text=number%... [villosity = hairiness, os sacrum = the bone above the tailbone] I think he has a lot of confusion to answer for. We've been focused on inner experience of people and animals, and in the spirit of utilitarianism, trying to micromanage our effects on all those unknown experiences on the basis that it's bad if suffering is happening. But maybe this is wrong-headed. Maybe "suffering" isn't even a thing, and the moral issue, the badness, is tied to ideas, knowledge, relationships, society, things like that. I'm being very vague because this is a half-formed idea. People are likely to come back with what about babies, or those with locked-in syndrome, or out-groups, or I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream? But I just think the focus on suffering, and experiences, and qualia, as a moral criterion, is a road to nowhere. Maybe those things aren't definable or meaningful except in the context of ideas (etc., as above). The wrangling, about what is or isn't having a morally significant experience, is an unresolved fudge that we live with and function under. I mean such is life, but it would be nice to find a way to escape from under some of life's fudge.

by api 2y ago

card_zero 2y ago

Maybe the sort of suffering that deserves compassion is something high-level that only humans do. * If it's low-level, you get things like a damaged clockwork toy or a thwarted Roomba suffering. Maybe parking radar is transmitting pain signals. Silly things like that. But if not those, why an ant, or a whelk, or a dog? * Maybe, conversely, all of that should count, but why should any of it cause compassion, or confer rights? Surely those things have to do with relationships and society.

danaris 2y ago
...I don't see how you can draw a comparison between the level of consciousness of a clockwork toy or an ant, and a dog. (I honestly have insufficient understanding of the biology of a whelk to know where to place it in this.) We have very clear research on dog psychology these days. (Nowhere near as much as we have on humans, but still quite a bit.) They are not as sapient as humans, but they are clearly sentient to at least a moderate degree. They feel pain in much the same way humans do. There's a much, much clearer line between the things in your bullet's first sentence and the ones in its last sentence than there is between a dog and a human.
- card_zero 2y ago
  That was a deliberate jump, yes. Question is, what do you mean by "feel pain in the way", and why does that way make it matter morally - why doesn't the simpler way matter too, and just as much?
  - danaris 2y ago
    There is no way in which a clockwork toy feels pain. There is no way in which a Roomba feels pain. There is no way in which an LLM feels pain. Dogs feel pain "in the way" humans do because they have a central nervous system with pain receptors. They are mammals. We share a huge amount of our genetic code with them. Ants do not have a central nervous system. If they feel pain, it is in a different way. To a large extent, ants and similar insects are biological automata. They're fascinating, particularly the way they organize in groups, and we can learn a lot about biology and biochemistry from them, but an individual ant does not have anything resembling the consciousness and experience of the world that a mammal does. Unless, of course, there's some kind of "soul" at work that is completely immeasurable by scientific instruments. (And like I said in my previous post, I just don't know much about whelks.)
    - card_zero 2y ago
      Yes, and why does it matter? I went and read Jeremy Bentham's bit again: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham#:~:text=number%20of%20legs https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham#:~:text=number%... [villosity = hairiness, os sacrum = the bone above the tailbone] I think he has a lot of confusion to answer for. We've been focused on inner experience of people and animals, and in the spirit of utilitarianism, trying to micromanage our effects on all those unknown experiences on the basis that it's bad if suffering is happening. But maybe this is wrong-headed. Maybe "suffering" isn't even a thing, and the moral issue, the badness, is tied to ideas, knowledge, relationships, society, things like that. I'm being very vague because this is a half-formed idea. People are likely to come back with what about babies, or those with locked-in syndrome, or out-groups, or I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream? But I just think the focus on suffering, and experiences, and qualia, as a moral criterion, is a road to nowhere. Maybe those things aren't definable or meaningful except in the context of ideas (etc., as above). The wrangling, about what is or isn't having a morally significant experience, is an unresolved fudge that we live with and function under. I mean such is life, but it would be nice to find a way to escape from under some of life's fudge.