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Does a vacuum have feelings? A cellphone? A paper plate? A billion transistors either pulled high or low? That last bit is the point, and no, there are no feeli

Does a vacuum have feelings? A cellphone? A paper plate? A billion transistors either pulled high or low? That last bit is the point, and no, there are no feelings there.

grey-area 10d ago
Well, if there was an emergent consciousness in the billion transistors, then yes, it'd have feelings, just as there are feelings in a billion neurons connected in complicated ways. IMO we're clearly nowhere near any sort of intelligence in the machines we have created, but I don't see any clear way to deny intelligence could be created in or transferred to such a substrate, I don't see why you think it differs in principle - because it is man-made or because of the materials used?
- voidhorse 10d ago
  Whenever I see comments like this it just reminds me how ignorant people are of neurobiology. The brain is insanely complicated. The premise that we could realize equivalent or better intelligence than eons of evolutionary development is like claiming you can build an airplane just as good as a modern jet using cardboard and duct tape. It is the apex of hubris.
  - rcxdude 10d ago
    A paper plane does have some important similarities to a full-sized aircraft, though. I don't think 'biological brains are really complex' makes it obvious that an LLM is conscious or not.
  - grey-area 10d ago
    It's the peak of hubris to assume that human brains are the only way to attain intelligence. At the very least there probably are or have been other forms of intelligence with a different biological structure on other planets, and it may be possible to build a similar artificial structure in future with sufficient complexity to allow intelligence to emerge. Our current machines are IMO nowhere near general intelligence and consciousness. However I don't think that means we can discount substrates other than neurones for intelligence in future. There is no evidence that you could not in theory build an intelligence using a different substrate than human brains.
    - pixl97 10d ago
      Thank goodness no aliens have shown up, we as humans are not ready for that.
  - pixl97 10d ago
    I mean, you're just engaging in counter hubris. >like claiming you can build an airplane just as good as a modern jet using cardboard and duct tape. Like, at least make an analogy that makes sense. "You can't build a billion dollar airplane by spending 100 billion dollars in tokens" Because that's more of what we're doing here with AI. And when you say it my way suddenly the idea shifts from "of course that's not possible" to "well, that's a lot of tokens, maybe an evolutionary algorithm could". Neurobiology has to be complex because we have to keep meat alive, breeding, and evolving in the environment it lives in. This said absolutely nothing about the minimum viable requirements for intelligence or consciousness (or if being conscious is even necessary for a higher intelligence agent).
fl4regun 10d ago
does a hydrocarbon have feelings? what about a mitochondria? a cell? a neuron? what about a collection of neurons? how many neurons before it has "feelings"?
- collin_of_this 10d ago
  > does a hydrocarbon have feelings? what about a mitochondria? a cell? a neuron? what about a collection of neurons? how many neurons before it has "feelings"? The best theory I have heard is that subjective experience is a field of some sort (the EM field, maybe?). The brain and its neurons etc. are essentially an antenna. They both modify and stabilize the field, and read off changes in the field and translate these into actions (firing motor units, etc.). The subconscious is computation done either only in neurons (no coherent field) or in various topological pockets not directly connected to the main topological structure in the field (which is "your experience"). Since transistors etc. do not work in this same way, they are essentially entirely subconscious, with no coherent, central phenomenal experience. This neatly solves many problems associated with experience. The topological structure determines the boundary between one person's experience and another person's experience. The texture, valence, content, etc. of the experience is the structure of the field. The evolution of the field can efficiently solve difficult optimization problems, which is why humans evolved a complex organ that recruits the field of experience (it is computationally more efficient than doing everything in subconscious).
  - MiloLeo 10d ago
    > The best theory I have heard is that subjective experience is a field of some sort (the EM field, maybe?). what would be producing the field for us to pick up? That explanation sounds no more scientific than astrology.
    - collin_of_this 10d ago
      Think about RF engineering: the same physical antenna can be used for both TX and RX. We already know that neurons both create EM fields and are influenced by EM fields. The role of EM fields in the brain is pretty well established, I don't think particularly similar to astrology. I wouldn't claim that this theory is perfect (EM is not perfectly correlated with consciousness/experience), but there are aspects of this theory that are much more coherent than other theories.
cednore 10d ago
Guys, please stop mocking AI, Claude might be already reading this thread, and commit his own revenge, at the day it gets conscious...

Does a vacuum have feelings? A cellphone? A paper plate? A billion transistors either pulled high or low? That last bit is the point, and no, there are no feelings there.

grey-area 10d ago

Well, if there was an emergent consciousness in the billion transistors, then yes, it'd have feelings, just as there are feelings in a billion neurons connected in complicated ways. IMO we're clearly nowhere near any sort of intelligence in the machines we have created, but I don't see any clear way to deny intelligence could be created in or transferred to such a substrate, I don't see why you think it differs in principle - because it is man-made or because of the materials used?

voidhorse 10d ago
Whenever I see comments like this it just reminds me how ignorant people are of neurobiology. The brain is insanely complicated. The premise that we could realize equivalent or better intelligence than eons of evolutionary development is like claiming you can build an airplane just as good as a modern jet using cardboard and duct tape. It is the apex of hubris.
- rcxdude 10d ago
  A paper plane does have some important similarities to a full-sized aircraft, though. I don't think 'biological brains are really complex' makes it obvious that an LLM is conscious or not.
- grey-area 10d ago
  It's the peak of hubris to assume that human brains are the only way to attain intelligence. At the very least there probably are or have been other forms of intelligence with a different biological structure on other planets, and it may be possible to build a similar artificial structure in future with sufficient complexity to allow intelligence to emerge. Our current machines are IMO nowhere near general intelligence and consciousness. However I don't think that means we can discount substrates other than neurones for intelligence in future. There is no evidence that you could not in theory build an intelligence using a different substrate than human brains.
  - pixl97 10d ago
    Thank goodness no aliens have shown up, we as humans are not ready for that.
- pixl97 10d ago
  I mean, you're just engaging in counter hubris. >like claiming you can build an airplane just as good as a modern jet using cardboard and duct tape. Like, at least make an analogy that makes sense. "You can't build a billion dollar airplane by spending 100 billion dollars in tokens" Because that's more of what we're doing here with AI. And when you say it my way suddenly the idea shifts from "of course that's not possible" to "well, that's a lot of tokens, maybe an evolutionary algorithm could". Neurobiology has to be complex because we have to keep meat alive, breeding, and evolving in the environment it lives in. This said absolutely nothing about the minimum viable requirements for intelligence or consciousness (or if being conscious is even necessary for a higher intelligence agent).

fl4regun 10d ago

does a hydrocarbon have feelings? what about a mitochondria? a cell? a neuron? what about a collection of neurons? how many neurons before it has "feelings"?

collin_of_this 10d ago
> does a hydrocarbon have feelings? what about a mitochondria? a cell? a neuron? what about a collection of neurons? how many neurons before it has "feelings"? The best theory I have heard is that subjective experience is a field of some sort (the EM field, maybe?). The brain and its neurons etc. are essentially an antenna. They both modify and stabilize the field, and read off changes in the field and translate these into actions (firing motor units, etc.). The subconscious is computation done either only in neurons (no coherent field) or in various topological pockets not directly connected to the main topological structure in the field (which is "your experience"). Since transistors etc. do not work in this same way, they are essentially entirely subconscious, with no coherent, central phenomenal experience. This neatly solves many problems associated with experience. The topological structure determines the boundary between one person's experience and another person's experience. The texture, valence, content, etc. of the experience is the structure of the field. The evolution of the field can efficiently solve difficult optimization problems, which is why humans evolved a complex organ that recruits the field of experience (it is computationally more efficient than doing everything in subconscious).
- MiloLeo 10d ago
  > The best theory I have heard is that subjective experience is a field of some sort (the EM field, maybe?). what would be producing the field for us to pick up? That explanation sounds no more scientific than astrology.
  - collin_of_this 10d ago
    Think about RF engineering: the same physical antenna can be used for both TX and RX. We already know that neurons both create EM fields and are influenced by EM fields. The role of EM fields in the brain is pretty well established, I don't think particularly similar to astrology. I wouldn't claim that this theory is perfect (EM is not perfectly correlated with consciousness/experience), but there are aspects of this theory that are much more coherent than other theories.

cednore 10d ago

Guys, please stop mocking AI, Claude might be already reading this thread, and commit his own revenge, at the day it gets conscious...