5 ms·

Ability to feel pain or pleasure is a good indicator I think..

by qsera 6mo ago

echoangle 6mo ago
And how do you define pain and pleasure? Do insects feel pain?
- retsibsi 6mo ago
  > And how do you define pain and pleasure? They're not reducible, but I don't know if that means we don't have definitions; we can describe them well enough that most people (who aren't p-zombies or playing the sceptical philosopher role) know pretty well what we mean. All of our definitions have to bottom out somewhere... > Do insects feel pain? Nobody (except the insects) can know for sure. Our inability to know whether X is true doesn't imply X is meaningless, though.
  - echoangle 6mo ago
    But how can X be a good indicator for something I want to determine if I can’t measure X either?
    - retsibsi 6mo ago
      > But how can X be a good indicator for something I want to determine if I can’t measure X either? In the comment that started this subthread, qsera was responding to someone who said "Imo we don't even have a definition of [consciousness]". If qsera meant that we can measure consciousness in terms of pleasure and pain, then of course I agree that they were just pushing the problem back a step. But I don't think that's what they meant.
- qsera 6mo ago
  > Do insects feel pain? Yes, I think so. Because they show behavior that is consistent with being in a state of pain. Despite what consciousness really is, I think evolution found a way to tap into that, by causing pain, or by registering pain on the consciousness by some unknown mechanism, for behaviors that are not beneficial to the organism that hosts the respective consciousness... So I think if an organism that evolved here can display painful behavior, then it should really feel pain.
  - ako 6mo ago
    So if a robot + ai shows behavior consistent with pain, we can conclude it’s conscious?
  - echoangle 6mo ago
    So if I build a simulation with robots living in a world and apply an evolutionary algorithm and at some point the virtual robots respond to damage in a way that looks like pain in animals, would the simulated robots be conscious? Or is it impossible that this could happen?
    - qsera 6mo ago
      In my comment, we already assume that we (humans) are conscious and we are the result of evolution. So the question was only if something else that evolved similarly, was conscious the way we are.. So to match with that your hypothetical scenario should involved robots that already have consciousness within them and the question would be if their evolution had managed to tap into that built in consciousness and ability to feel and cause them to behave in one way or another.
  - StilesCrisis 6mo ago
    See, this definition sucks, because even GPT-3 could display _signs_ of pleasure and pain. For that matter, so do characters in video games.
    - cindyllm 6mo ago
      [dead]
TheOtherHobbes 6mo ago
That would be the physically embodied definition. Which is a useful starting point, because clearly our consciousness is physically embodied, while an LLM's isn't. This matters more than it seems, because we're not calculators, and we're not just brains. There are proven links between mental and emotional states and - for example - the gut biome. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77673-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77673-z There's a huge amount going on before we even get to the language parts. As for Dawkins - as someone on Twitter pointed out, the man who devoted his life to telling people believers in sky fairies they were idiots has now persuaded himself there's a genie living inside a data centre, because it tells him he's smart. If he'd actually understood critical thinking instead of writing popular books about it he wouldn't be doing this.
- boxed 6mo ago
  First of all: arguing about the details of a thing that actually exists is an enormous difference from arguing details of a thing that does NOT exist. As for your dig at Dawkins, I just read https://archive.ph/Rq5bw https://archive.ph/Rq5bw which I assume you're referring to. Notice how he never defined "conscious" and he seems to use it as equivalent to "can process data logically" which is not at all how I would define the word. And if you use that word clearly Claude is conscious. I wouldn't use that definition though. It ALWAYS comes back to the fact that people argue about what consciousness is and never define what they mean. Sam Harris defines it as subjective experience, which is afaik impossible to measure in any way so you can just assume rocks are conscious and move on. I personally like Julian Jaynes' definition. You assumed YOUR definition and judged Dawkins without first comparing definitions. I think that's showing your problem with critical thinking in this case, not his.
  - amanaplanacanal 6mo ago
    I honestly don't see how Dawkins is so confused. Claude says it can't tell if it has any kind of inner life. Can you imagine a human saying that?
    - 6mo ago
Jtarii 6mo ago
There are times I am feeling neither pain nor pleasure, but I am still experiencing conciousness. So that definition seems to fail immediately. And how do you even measure pain, is it painful for an LLM to be reprimanded after generating a reply the user doesn't like? It seems to act like it.
- qsera 6mo ago
  >There are times I am feeling neither pain nor pleasure It is about the ability..
  - Jtarii 6mo ago
    I guess that just seems like an incredibly arbitrary criteria. Why would the potential for pleasure in the future determine if I am currently conscious even if I am not in fact experiencing pleasure.
    - qsera 6mo ago
      The answer is in your question. You said you are "experiencing consciousness". So you are feeling something, and thus you have consciousness. In otherwords it does not have to be pleasure or pain. The ability to "feel" is where it is at.
Dumblydorr 6mo ago
What about single celled or microscopic multi-cellular life forms? They could sense positive and negative aspects to their surroundings and move toward/away from said aspects. I don’t think most would include them as conscious despite this directed behavior.
boxed 6mo ago
Now you have do define pleasure AND pain without using the word "consciousness" as that would be circular logic. Is pleasure then any reward function? Then a mathematical set of equations performed by a human by writing on a piece of paper can qualify. Does that mean pen and paper is conscious? Or certain equations?
- qsera 6mo ago
  >Now you have do define pleasure AND pain without using the word "consciousness" as that would be circular logic. Yes, so consciousness is inextricably tied to the ability to feel. In fact, I think consciousness is the ability to feel. Hence to even ask the question "Is LLMs conscious?" is absurd. It is not at all about intelligent behavior. That is what I think.
  - boxed 6mo ago
    > In fact, I think consciousness is the ability to feel. Just having senses is enough? So a thermometer or a camera is conscious?
antonvs 6mo ago
Is the following program conscious: if pain = true then say ouch else say yay

Ability to feel pain or pleasure is a good indicator I think..

by qsera 6mo ago

Ability to feel pain or pleasure is a good indicator I think..

echoangle 6mo ago

And how do you define pain and pleasure? Do insects feel pain?

retsibsi 6mo ago
> And how do you define pain and pleasure? They're not reducible, but I don't know if that means we don't have definitions; we can describe them well enough that most people (who aren't p-zombies or playing the sceptical philosopher role) know pretty well what we mean. All of our definitions have to bottom out somewhere... > Do insects feel pain? Nobody (except the insects) can know for sure. Our inability to know whether X is true doesn't imply X is meaningless, though.
- echoangle 6mo ago
  But how can X be a good indicator for something I want to determine if I can’t measure X either?
  - retsibsi 6mo ago
    > But how can X be a good indicator for something I want to determine if I can’t measure X either? In the comment that started this subthread, qsera was responding to someone who said "Imo we don't even have a definition of [consciousness]". If qsera meant that we can measure consciousness in terms of pleasure and pain, then of course I agree that they were just pushing the problem back a step. But I don't think that's what they meant.
qsera 6mo ago
> Do insects feel pain? Yes, I think so. Because they show behavior that is consistent with being in a state of pain. Despite what consciousness really is, I think evolution found a way to tap into that, by causing pain, or by registering pain on the consciousness by some unknown mechanism, for behaviors that are not beneficial to the organism that hosts the respective consciousness... So I think if an organism that evolved here can display painful behavior, then it should really feel pain.
- ako 6mo ago
  So if a robot + ai shows behavior consistent with pain, we can conclude it’s conscious?
- echoangle 6mo ago
  So if I build a simulation with robots living in a world and apply an evolutionary algorithm and at some point the virtual robots respond to damage in a way that looks like pain in animals, would the simulated robots be conscious? Or is it impossible that this could happen?
  - qsera 6mo ago
    In my comment, we already assume that we (humans) are conscious and we are the result of evolution. So the question was only if something else that evolved similarly, was conscious the way we are.. So to match with that your hypothetical scenario should involved robots that already have consciousness within them and the question would be if their evolution had managed to tap into that built in consciousness and ability to feel and cause them to behave in one way or another.
- StilesCrisis 6mo ago
  See, this definition sucks, because even GPT-3 could display _signs_ of pleasure and pain. For that matter, so do characters in video games.
  - cindyllm 6mo ago
    [dead]

TheOtherHobbes 6mo ago

That would be the physically embodied definition. Which is a useful starting point, because clearly our consciousness is physically embodied, while an LLM's isn't. This matters more than it seems, because we're not calculators, and we're not just brains. There are proven links between mental and emotional states and - for example - the gut biome. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77673-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77673-z There's a huge amount going on before we even get to the language parts. As for Dawkins - as someone on Twitter pointed out, the man who devoted his life to telling people believers in sky fairies they were idiots has now persuaded himself there's a genie living inside a data centre, because it tells him he's smart. If he'd actually understood critical thinking instead of writing popular books about it he wouldn't be doing this.

boxed 6mo ago
First of all: arguing about the details of a thing that actually exists is an enormous difference from arguing details of a thing that does NOT exist. As for your dig at Dawkins, I just read https://archive.ph/Rq5bw https://archive.ph/Rq5bw which I assume you're referring to. Notice how he never defined "conscious" and he seems to use it as equivalent to "can process data logically" which is not at all how I would define the word. And if you use that word clearly Claude is conscious. I wouldn't use that definition though. It ALWAYS comes back to the fact that people argue about what consciousness is and never define what they mean. Sam Harris defines it as subjective experience, which is afaik impossible to measure in any way so you can just assume rocks are conscious and move on. I personally like Julian Jaynes' definition. You assumed YOUR definition and judged Dawkins without first comparing definitions. I think that's showing your problem with critical thinking in this case, not his.
- amanaplanacanal 6mo ago
  I honestly don't see how Dawkins is so confused. Claude says it can't tell if it has any kind of inner life. Can you imagine a human saying that?
  - 6mo ago

Jtarii 6mo ago

There are times I am feeling neither pain nor pleasure, but I am still experiencing conciousness. So that definition seems to fail immediately. And how do you even measure pain, is it painful for an LLM to be reprimanded after generating a reply the user doesn't like? It seems to act like it.

qsera 6mo ago
>There are times I am feeling neither pain nor pleasure It is about the ability..
- Jtarii 6mo ago
  I guess that just seems like an incredibly arbitrary criteria. Why would the potential for pleasure in the future determine if I am currently conscious even if I am not in fact experiencing pleasure.
  - qsera 6mo ago
    The answer is in your question. You said you are "experiencing consciousness". So you are feeling something, and thus you have consciousness. In otherwords it does not have to be pleasure or pain. The ability to "feel" is where it is at.

Dumblydorr 6mo ago

What about single celled or microscopic multi-cellular life forms? They could sense positive and negative aspects to their surroundings and move toward/away from said aspects. I don’t think most would include them as conscious despite this directed behavior.

boxed 6mo ago

Now you have do define pleasure AND pain without using the word "consciousness" as that would be circular logic. Is pleasure then any reward function? Then a mathematical set of equations performed by a human by writing on a piece of paper can qualify. Does that mean pen and paper is conscious? Or certain equations?

qsera 6mo ago
>Now you have do define pleasure AND pain without using the word "consciousness" as that would be circular logic. Yes, so consciousness is inextricably tied to the ability to feel. In fact, I think consciousness is the ability to feel. Hence to even ask the question "Is LLMs conscious?" is absurd. It is not at all about intelligent behavior. That is what I think.
- boxed 6mo ago
  > In fact, I think consciousness is the ability to feel. Just having senses is enough? So a thermometer or a camera is conscious?

antonvs 6mo ago

Is the following program conscious: if pain = true then say ouch else say yay