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cf. the philosophical zombie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie We really have no idea whe

by jl6 2y ago

cf. the philosophical zombie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie We really have no idea whether consciousness is something that can arise from computation, or whether it is somehow dependent on the physical substrate of the universe. Maybe we can create a virtual brain that, from the outside, is indistinguishable from a physical brain, and which will argue vociferously that it is a real person, and yet experiences no more conscious qualia than an equation written on a piece of paper.

rpastuszak 2y ago
So a Chinese Room?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- slowmovintarget 2y ago
  Tell me you've read Blindsight... and if you haven't, go read it, I'll wait.
  - shagie 2y ago
    ... and then read The Freeze-Frame Revolution.
    - rpastuszak 2y ago
      Thanks, I've been looking for some recommendations actually. (It's been a few months since the last time I rambled aimlessly through my house muttering consciousness is a parasite under my breath.)
      - shagie 2y ago
        There's a sequence of stories by different authors that allude to one another that I find to be an interesting read in that order. First, there's the BLIT stories by David Langford. Several of these are online. https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm https://www.nature.com/articles/44964 https://www.nature.com/articles/44964 (did you know that Nature did science fiction short stories? https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=futures https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=futures ) https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-of-darkness/ https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-o... Then, you go to Accelerando https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/acceler... > Luckily, infowar turns out to be more survivable than nuclear war – especially once it is discovered that a simple anti-aliasing filter stops nine out of ten neural-wetware-crashing Langford fractals from causing anything worse than a mild headache. This is followed by its sequel-ish Glasshouse https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17866.Glasshouse https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17866.Glasshouse It's not technically a sequel, but one can see the universe of Glasshouse following from the ending of Accelerando. A quick diversion to Vernor Vinge with Peace War and Marooned in Realtime https://www.goodreads.com/series/57273-across-realtime https://www.goodreads.com/series/57273-across-realtime (there's a short story in there titled The Ungoverned) Implied spaces Walter Jon Williams https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2059573.Implied_Spaces https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2059573.Implied_Spaces which takes another approach to the unexplored events leading into Glasshouse and a possible path of escalation. The reference passage in this book is: > “I and my confederates,” Aristide said, “did our best to prevent that degree of autonomy among artificial intelligences. We made the decision to turn away from the Vingean Singularity before most people even knew what it was. But—” He made a gesture with his hands as if dropping a ball. “—I claim no more than the average share of wisdom. We could have made mistakes.” This then ends with... {spoilers}.
  - rpastuszak 2y ago
    Hehe, yes.
pwatsonwailes 2y ago
What you really mean is is there any meaningful difference in what can be processed by biological computing and non-biological computing. The answer to that would appear to be, no.
- necovek 2y ago
  What makes you claim that? I have not seen proof of that (on the contrary, we don't have smooth emulation of animal like movement yet, which brains figure out pretty fast)
  - pwatsonwailes 2y ago
    The question is, what evidence is there that the most simple structures we can call brains are doing something which is fundamentally impossible to do with something other than a brain. Given that brains are fundamentally governed by the same physical laws as everything else, there shouldn't be anything about them which cannot be replicated in some way by something sufficiently capable of emulation of their processes. That's not to say it's simple. Just that brains obey the laws of physics, and as long as that's true, they should be able to be replicable. Unless your contention is that brains are somehow able to operate outside the constraints of the laws of physics, in which case we're going to have a fundamental difference of opinion as to the nature of the universe and whether things with brains are particularly special.
    - intrasight 2y ago
      This 3 pounds of meat between my ears is certainly special (perhaps the most complicated thing in the known universe) but it certainly not magical.
      - ElevenLathe 2y ago
        Just because something is non-magical doesn't mean it can necessarily be simulated by a computer, especially a practical computer that we can actually build given our level of technology and available resources.
doctoboggan 2y ago
> We really have no idea whether consciousness is something that can arise from computation, or whether it is somehow dependent on the physical substrate of the universe. I don't understand this argument. How is the computer running the computation not part of the "physical substrate of the universe"? _Everything_ is part of the universe almost by definition.
- jl6 2y ago
  The computer is physical, but the computation is (at least) a level of abstraction above the physical layer. The physical process may be the important part, not just the (apparent) algorithm that the physical process executes.
  - glenstein 2y ago
    >but the computation is (at least) a level of abstraction above the physical layer I think you're kinda right, but the tricky thing here is that the computation itself is physical too. The abstraction may just be whatever it is that the computation has in common with the thing it's modeling in brains, which could mean it, too, has consciousness, or is 'doing' consciousness in some sense. If the physical process is "the important part" then that can be modeled in an abstract way, too.
    - jl6 2y ago
      We can run any algorithm using billiard balls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiard-ball_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiard-ball_computer What I’m saying is that we don’t know that consciousness is just an algorithm. If the physical implementation matters, then modelling it might be useful or interesting, but it wouldn’t actually create the real thing. Maybe consciousness arises from a specific pattern of movement of electrons, but not from any pattern of billiard ball movements.
      - glenstein 2y ago
        >What I’m saying is that we don’t know that consciousness is just an algorithm. I caught that, I think(?). I would flag that the upshot or implication can be (1) something outside of physics altogether which I think, while romantic, is at the extreme end of extreme in terms of tenuous and inviting bad metaphysics, bad notions of emergentism etc, but there's also (2) something about the difference between how something is "embodied" which, as you note, still is about billiard ball style simulation at the end of the day, but can raise interesting questions about what kinds of simulations work. I also do wonder of there's some kind of physicalist essentialism working its way in there. If there's something different about electrons that's importantly different, something about it (hopefully) is a physical property and as such able to be modeled. If consciousness is intrinsically and preferentially tied to a certain kind of matter, e.g. atoms, or brain-stuff, that starts to sound a little woo-ey.
necovek 2y ago
I think an even simpler argument can be made: our brain develops in response to the physical stimulus we experience from birth (earlier even). Basically, even if it's a simple computation engine, can we put that simulation through the stimulus our brain experiences (not easily) and will lack of that turn into entirely differently behaving system?

by jl6 2y ago

rpastuszak 2y ago

So a Chinese Room?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
slowmovintarget 2y ago
Tell me you've read Blindsight... and if you haven't, go read it, I'll wait.
- shagie 2y ago
  ... and then read The Freeze-Frame Revolution.
  - rpastuszak 2y ago
    Thanks, I've been looking for some recommendations actually. (It's been a few months since the last time I rambled aimlessly through my house muttering consciousness is a parasite under my breath.)
    - shagie 2y ago
      There's a sequence of stories by different authors that allude to one another that I find to be an interesting read in that order. First, there's the BLIT stories by David Langford. Several of these are online. https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm https://www.nature.com/articles/44964 https://www.nature.com/articles/44964 (did you know that Nature did science fiction short stories? https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=futures https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=futures ) https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-of-darkness/ https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-o... Then, you go to Accelerando https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/acceler... > Luckily, infowar turns out to be more survivable than nuclear war – especially once it is discovered that a simple anti-aliasing filter stops nine out of ten neural-wetware-crashing Langford fractals from causing anything worse than a mild headache. This is followed by its sequel-ish Glasshouse https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17866.Glasshouse https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17866.Glasshouse It's not technically a sequel, but one can see the universe of Glasshouse following from the ending of Accelerando. A quick diversion to Vernor Vinge with Peace War and Marooned in Realtime https://www.goodreads.com/series/57273-across-realtime https://www.goodreads.com/series/57273-across-realtime (there's a short story in there titled The Ungoverned) Implied spaces Walter Jon Williams https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2059573.Implied_Spaces https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2059573.Implied_Spaces which takes another approach to the unexplored events leading into Glasshouse and a possible path of escalation. The reference passage in this book is: > “I and my confederates,” Aristide said, “did our best to prevent that degree of autonomy among artificial intelligences. We made the decision to turn away from the Vingean Singularity before most people even knew what it was. But—” He made a gesture with his hands as if dropping a ball. “—I claim no more than the average share of wisdom. We could have made mistakes.” This then ends with... {spoilers}.
- rpastuszak 2y ago
  Hehe, yes.

pwatsonwailes 2y ago

What you really mean is is there any meaningful difference in what can be processed by biological computing and non-biological computing. The answer to that would appear to be, no.

necovek 2y ago
What makes you claim that? I have not seen proof of that (on the contrary, we don't have smooth emulation of animal like movement yet, which brains figure out pretty fast)
- pwatsonwailes 2y ago
  The question is, what evidence is there that the most simple structures we can call brains are doing something which is fundamentally impossible to do with something other than a brain. Given that brains are fundamentally governed by the same physical laws as everything else, there shouldn't be anything about them which cannot be replicated in some way by something sufficiently capable of emulation of their processes. That's not to say it's simple. Just that brains obey the laws of physics, and as long as that's true, they should be able to be replicable. Unless your contention is that brains are somehow able to operate outside the constraints of the laws of physics, in which case we're going to have a fundamental difference of opinion as to the nature of the universe and whether things with brains are particularly special.
  - intrasight 2y ago
    This 3 pounds of meat between my ears is certainly special (perhaps the most complicated thing in the known universe) but it certainly not magical.
    - ElevenLathe 2y ago
      Just because something is non-magical doesn't mean it can necessarily be simulated by a computer, especially a practical computer that we can actually build given our level of technology and available resources.

doctoboggan 2y ago

> We really have no idea whether consciousness is something that can arise from computation, or whether it is somehow dependent on the physical substrate of the universe. I don't understand this argument. How is the computer running the computation not part of the "physical substrate of the universe"? _Everything_ is part of the universe almost by definition.

jl6 2y ago
The computer is physical, but the computation is (at least) a level of abstraction above the physical layer. The physical process may be the important part, not just the (apparent) algorithm that the physical process executes.
- glenstein 2y ago
  >but the computation is (at least) a level of abstraction above the physical layer I think you're kinda right, but the tricky thing here is that the computation itself is physical too. The abstraction may just be whatever it is that the computation has in common with the thing it's modeling in brains, which could mean it, too, has consciousness, or is 'doing' consciousness in some sense. If the physical process is "the important part" then that can be modeled in an abstract way, too.
  - jl6 2y ago
    We can run any algorithm using billiard balls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiard-ball_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiard-ball_computer What I’m saying is that we don’t know that consciousness is just an algorithm. If the physical implementation matters, then modelling it might be useful or interesting, but it wouldn’t actually create the real thing. Maybe consciousness arises from a specific pattern of movement of electrons, but not from any pattern of billiard ball movements.
    - glenstein 2y ago
      >What I’m saying is that we don’t know that consciousness is just an algorithm. I caught that, I think(?). I would flag that the upshot or implication can be (1) something outside of physics altogether which I think, while romantic, is at the extreme end of extreme in terms of tenuous and inviting bad metaphysics, bad notions of emergentism etc, but there's also (2) something about the difference between how something is "embodied" which, as you note, still is about billiard ball style simulation at the end of the day, but can raise interesting questions about what kinds of simulations work. I also do wonder of there's some kind of physicalist essentialism working its way in there. If there's something different about electrons that's importantly different, something about it (hopefully) is a physical property and as such able to be modeled. If consciousness is intrinsically and preferentially tied to a certain kind of matter, e.g. atoms, or brain-stuff, that starts to sound a little woo-ey.

necovek 2y ago

I think an even simpler argument can be made: our brain develops in response to the physical stimulus we experience from birth (earlier even). Basically, even if it's a simple computation engine, can we put that simulation through the stimulus our brain experiences (not easily) and will lack of that turn into entirely differently behaving system?