3 ms·

I see people differently after reading Blindsight; The picture is much darker, concretely more accurate, with what light is there geared to all hell and so much

I see people differently after reading Blindsight; The picture is much darker, concretely more accurate, with what light is there geared to all hell and so much brighter. I'm better for it and at a greater peace.

ViscountPenguin 4mo ago
Eh, I love blindsight, but I really think it oversold the case against consciousness and for belligerent intelligent life.
- XorNot 4mo ago
  It wasn't a competition though just mutual incompatibility: aliens so alien that we can barely comprehend their motives and are implicitly regarded as hostile by our manner of existence. I'd say the case it was making has only become more relevant with the chatbot age.
  - gpderetta 4mo ago
    > I'd say the case it was making has only become more relevant with the chatbot age. Exactly. The central thesis, consciousness not being necessary for intelligence, is very relevant today. Of course, the existential horror background in the book was also quite well done.
    - XorNot 4mo ago
      Which reminds, generative AI means we should be able to get the book version of Chernoff faces into grafana now...
    - ViscountPenguin 4mo ago
      There's something interesting here, where the very thing that prompted the LLM boom (transformer networks) was the thing that introduced a higher level of information integration into neural networks; under the somewhat mainstream theory (not to say uncontroversial, though) that consciousness is a function of Integrative Information (IIT), it could be said that transformers are in a real way more conscious than previous architectures.
- AnthonBerg 4mo ago
  I have no conscious awareness of what I wrote, I just tried to be Peter Wattsy, haha (kidding! It's oversold, or beautiful artistic expression of something. Bleak, yes; Stark; Also beautiful. The thing it expresses is… a thing. We're not at all as conscious as… we think?, as we portray ourselves?, to others and/or ourselves? And it's magical to view people as… partially unconscious to a significant degree while also loving them and with respect.)
  - lanstin 4mo ago
    And knowing that another person sees you clearly and still loves you, that is magical. As well as useful since you can have discussions and make decisions based on the realities of your self without having to achieve some mythical self awareness.
- cfiggers 4mo ago
  I agree with you on that point. It seems to me that people who read Blindsight and get all existential are not thinking things through all the way. Blindsight poses the question, in essence, "What if consciousness is a competitive disadvantage, in which case non-consciousness would be Better™?" I can't make a conclusive case one way or the other w/r/t the premise—it may perhaps be the case that consciousness is a competitive disadvantage. I don't know how we could test that without something to compare ourselves against (which is why the book resorts to introducing vampires and aliens—this question is untestable otherwise). But the conclusion, that non-consciousness is somehow "Better™," falls absolutely flat for me. "Better™" is a value judgement. Values and Judgements are both features of consciousness. Without consciousness, there is no such thing as "better" or "worse", there is only "is" and "is not." So: speaking as a conscious being (you'll have to take my word for that), I'm quite comfortable saying that I like being conscious. And with unconscious living organisms—like, I don't know, coral reefs or whatever?—it's not so much that they like being unconscious as that they don't "like" anything at all. So I think I'm quite comfortable continuing on being a "competitively disadvantaged" thing (supposing that's even the case, which it just as plausibly is not), that is at least able to conceive of questions like this one and make value assessments of its own, rather than despair over the alleged competitive disadvantage inherent in the fact that I experience myself and the world. A computer can beat me at chess, sure, but it cannot care that it has done so.
  - gpderetta 4mo ago
    Better here is purely in evolutionary terms, i.e. would a sub- or non non-conscious life form out-compete conscious life forms in its niche.
  - throwway120385 4mo ago
    How do you know that values and judgements have anything to do with being conscious? A machine can act like it has values and judgements and we wouldn't attribute any consciousness to it. Or if you've seen a dog tear up a garbage can every time it's owner leaves, I wonder if you're watching an expression of dog values. Is the dog conscious?
    - 4mo ago
cdrini 4mo ago
I quite enjoyed Blindsight, but that was not my takeaway at all :P How do you see people differently after reading it?
- AnthonBerg 4mo ago
  Hard to pin into words! We're unconscious of how unconscious we are?, and it's good to… what's the term, suffer gladly and give gladly? To own one's unconsciousness and raise it, and expect and see others' unconscious going about major things in life - to see it coldly as well as warmly. I find this is more accurate and safer than assuming consciousness in everyone, and it also reveals so clearly people who do cast that light; and see. It's less desolate! I promise! Sounds like it's worse but it's not. That's the tricky-get-into-words part, you know?
  - dreamcompiler 4mo ago
    I like this. Most people are doing the best they can while running on autopilot most of the time. I think free will is possible but it requires a level of training and introspection and practice that most people find unpleasant, so most people revert to autopilot.
  - patcon 4mo ago
    thanks for finding these words! i find myself getting less "nice feelings" of any depth on the internet lately (perhaps I am complicit), but your words are a breath of fresh air :)
  - zehaeva 4mo ago
    Thank you for this! I have read Blindsight but I have long wondered why everyone thought it was so revolutionary. I kept thinking I was missing something. And I think this is it! In that I already thought/knew that everyone is basically sleepwalking through life and are not really conscious of what's going on. I came to my conclusions on this mostly through my own studies on Illusions and other studies on consciousness. Knowing basic facts of how we see, and all the ways that our sight, touch and hearing really, fail us. Seeing the studies of how people who have their hemispheres separated can have parts of their body act independently of each other really blew my mind when I first learned about it. Too many people believe that they themselves are sitting in a box and looking out through windows when really we're in a dark room reading a bunch of instruments and guessing what's out there. Plato's Cave is real and we are, all of us, already inside it.
dreamcompiler 4mo ago
"Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2308s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2308s

ViscountPenguin 4mo ago

Eh, I love blindsight, but I really think it oversold the case against consciousness and for belligerent intelligent life.

XorNot 4mo ago
It wasn't a competition though just mutual incompatibility: aliens so alien that we can barely comprehend their motives and are implicitly regarded as hostile by our manner of existence. I'd say the case it was making has only become more relevant with the chatbot age.
- gpderetta 4mo ago
  > I'd say the case it was making has only become more relevant with the chatbot age. Exactly. The central thesis, consciousness not being necessary for intelligence, is very relevant today. Of course, the existential horror background in the book was also quite well done.
  - XorNot 4mo ago
    Which reminds, generative AI means we should be able to get the book version of Chernoff faces into grafana now...
  - ViscountPenguin 4mo ago
    There's something interesting here, where the very thing that prompted the LLM boom (transformer networks) was the thing that introduced a higher level of information integration into neural networks; under the somewhat mainstream theory (not to say uncontroversial, though) that consciousness is a function of Integrative Information (IIT), it could be said that transformers are in a real way more conscious than previous architectures.
AnthonBerg 4mo ago
I have no conscious awareness of what I wrote, I just tried to be Peter Wattsy, haha (kidding! It's oversold, or beautiful artistic expression of something. Bleak, yes; Stark; Also beautiful. The thing it expresses is… a thing. We're not at all as conscious as… we think?, as we portray ourselves?, to others and/or ourselves? And it's magical to view people as… partially unconscious to a significant degree while also loving them and with respect.)
- lanstin 4mo ago
  And knowing that another person sees you clearly and still loves you, that is magical. As well as useful since you can have discussions and make decisions based on the realities of your self without having to achieve some mythical self awareness.
cfiggers 4mo ago
I agree with you on that point. It seems to me that people who read Blindsight and get all existential are not thinking things through all the way. Blindsight poses the question, in essence, "What if consciousness is a competitive disadvantage, in which case non-consciousness would be Better™?" I can't make a conclusive case one way or the other w/r/t the premise—it may perhaps be the case that consciousness is a competitive disadvantage. I don't know how we could test that without something to compare ourselves against (which is why the book resorts to introducing vampires and aliens—this question is untestable otherwise). But the conclusion, that non-consciousness is somehow "Better™," falls absolutely flat for me. "Better™" is a value judgement. Values and Judgements are both features of consciousness. Without consciousness, there is no such thing as "better" or "worse", there is only "is" and "is not." So: speaking as a conscious being (you'll have to take my word for that), I'm quite comfortable saying that I like being conscious. And with unconscious living organisms—like, I don't know, coral reefs or whatever?—it's not so much that they like being unconscious as that they don't "like" anything at all. So I think I'm quite comfortable continuing on being a "competitively disadvantaged" thing (supposing that's even the case, which it just as plausibly is not), that is at least able to conceive of questions like this one and make value assessments of its own, rather than despair over the alleged competitive disadvantage inherent in the fact that I experience myself and the world. A computer can beat me at chess, sure, but it cannot care that it has done so.
- gpderetta 4mo ago
  Better here is purely in evolutionary terms, i.e. would a sub- or non non-conscious life form out-compete conscious life forms in its niche.
- throwway120385 4mo ago
  How do you know that values and judgements have anything to do with being conscious? A machine can act like it has values and judgements and we wouldn't attribute any consciousness to it. Or if you've seen a dog tear up a garbage can every time it's owner leaves, I wonder if you're watching an expression of dog values. Is the dog conscious?
  - 4mo ago

cdrini 4mo ago

I quite enjoyed Blindsight, but that was not my takeaway at all :P How do you see people differently after reading it?

AnthonBerg 4mo ago
Hard to pin into words! We're unconscious of how unconscious we are?, and it's good to… what's the term, suffer gladly and give gladly? To own one's unconsciousness and raise it, and expect and see others' unconscious going about major things in life - to see it coldly as well as warmly. I find this is more accurate and safer than assuming consciousness in everyone, and it also reveals so clearly people who do cast that light; and see. It's less desolate! I promise! Sounds like it's worse but it's not. That's the tricky-get-into-words part, you know?
- dreamcompiler 4mo ago
  I like this. Most people are doing the best they can while running on autopilot most of the time. I think free will is possible but it requires a level of training and introspection and practice that most people find unpleasant, so most people revert to autopilot.
- patcon 4mo ago
  thanks for finding these words! i find myself getting less "nice feelings" of any depth on the internet lately (perhaps I am complicit), but your words are a breath of fresh air :)
- zehaeva 4mo ago
  Thank you for this! I have read Blindsight but I have long wondered why everyone thought it was so revolutionary. I kept thinking I was missing something. And I think this is it! In that I already thought/knew that everyone is basically sleepwalking through life and are not really conscious of what's going on. I came to my conclusions on this mostly through my own studies on Illusions and other studies on consciousness. Knowing basic facts of how we see, and all the ways that our sight, touch and hearing really, fail us. Seeing the studies of how people who have their hemispheres separated can have parts of their body act independently of each other really blew my mind when I first learned about it. Too many people believe that they themselves are sitting in a box and looking out through windows when really we're in a dark room reading a bunch of instruments and guessing what's out there. Plato's Cave is real and we are, all of us, already inside it.

dreamcompiler 4mo ago

"Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2308s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2308s