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Wouldn't you agree that it feels awfully "weird" to be a living, breathing human? Doesn't it seem to be beyond what can be expressed by mere computer algorithms

by drcode 17y ago

Wouldn't you agree that it feels awfully "weird" to be a living, breathing human? Doesn't it seem to be beyond what can be expressed by mere computer algorithms? I realize it is not a defensible argument to say that the human experience is just to "weird" to be computable- I wish I had a better argument for defending my position... Nonetheless, I find it hard to understand people, such as yourself, that are probably exposed to this same "weirdness" in their heads as I am and yet are so confident it is merely an illusion created by a sufficiently complicated computation.

kevbin 17y ago
Weird compared to what? I have no experience being anything other than a living, breathing human. Thomas Nagle wrote up the classic "qualia" argument you're making as "What is it like to be a Bat?" (here: http://www.clarku.edu/students/philosophyclub/docs/nagel.pdf)Intuitively http://www.clarku.edu/students/philosophyclub/docs/nagel.pdf..., it seems persuasive: that there is a certain subjective quality to consciousness & conscious experience— it must feel like something to be a bat, or a person, or whatever? Hofstadter's and Dennett's book, The Mind's I (http://www.amazon.com/Minds-Fantasies-Reflections-Self-Soul/dp/0465030912/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252543137&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Minds-Fantasies-Reflections-Self-Soul/...) is an interesting introduction to this kind of stuff, the authors have a lot of fun @ qualia's expense.
- bkovitz 17y ago
  The "weirdness" (or whatever you want to call the enormous explanatory gap between our mental lives and inanimate matter) deserves an answer. It's not something to sweep under the rug as "subjective" or "unscientific" or "poorly defined". I agree, though, Hofstadter and Dennett have done an extraordinary job of devising such an answer. There is lots more work to be done, of course.
  - ewjordan 17y ago
    The "weirdness" (or whatever you want to call the enormous explanatory gap between our mental lives and inanimate matter) deserves an answer. It's not something to sweep under the rug as "subjective" or "unscientific" or "poorly defined". But what if the answer to the "weirdness" question is, in fact, that it's just an ill-formed question? What if it's just an illusion, and your brain is tricked into seeing something magical about itself where there is nothing there? Apart from a mystical explanation, I cannot imagine any satisfying answer to the question (i.e. one that doesn't leave you feeling uneasy like Hofstadter's answer does to most people), which usually means that there's something wrong with what we're asking, not with how we're trying to answer it.
    - bkovitz 17y ago
      I would be satisfied with a good explanation of why the question is ill-formed, how the illusion comes about, etc. I really don't think the question is ill-formed, though. There is a big explanatory gap. Denying that is simply dishonest. It would be like, if you don't know why a bicycle is easier to balance when it's moving, pretending that there is nothing to explain. "Oh, it's just bicycle parts."
- ewjordan 17y ago
  If you're digging into Hofstadter (and if you aren't, you should be, whether or not you agree with him, almost every word he's ever written is worth reading, including the seemingly irrelevant stuff about translations), I Am A Strange Loop (http://www.amazon.com/Am-Strange-Loop-Douglas-Hofstadter/dp/0465030785 http://www.amazon.com/Am-Strange-Loop-Douglas-Hofstadter/dp/...) is a good read, as well.
Tichy 17y ago
"Wouldn't you agree that it feels awfully "weird" to be a living, breathing human?" From my perspective, being a computer would feel a lot weirder. I think drastically spoken, feelings are just firing neurons. I don't think there is really anything special about (apart from the degree of complexity of the human body). If a computer has an algorithm that says if(user hasn't typed anything for 14 days) lonely = true then it has feelings, too. It might sound absurd, but only because it looks so simple. But imagine an enourmously complex program, and the information "lonely" trickles through it. There might be a routine somewhere if lonely = true connect_irc_channel(#depression) and so on and so on. From a certain level of complexity onwards, it won't be so obvious anymore, and we won't be able to prevent feeling that the computer really feels.
jodrellblank 17y ago
Wouldn't you agree that it feels awfully "weird" to be a living, breathing human? No - it's just normal. I think it would be weirder if it wasn't some kind of computation, if I was a unique spirit out of several tens of billions that appeared from some unknowable place and origin, or whatever else 'i' might be. Doesn't it seem to be beyond what can be expressed by mere computer algorithms? I have no reason to think it is - I haven't felt what it's like to be a quicksort or a face recognition algorithm for comparison, but I certainly feel like a heap of evolved feedback loops at times - when I fear the dark in a room I know, when I catch sight of living shapes where there are none, when I feel fight-or-flight at certain caller ID numbers, when I desire things that I also don't want, when I feel judgements of people based on some trivial detail. Nonetheless, I find it hard to understand people, such as yourself, that are probably exposed to this same "weirdness" in their heads as I am and yet are so confident it is merely an illusion created by a sufficiently complicated computation. What else could it be? There isn't anywhere else it could reasonably be that we know of. You're either suggesting something unknowable (e.g. magic) or some kind of cruel joke (i.e. like a quine is a program that prints it's own source code, we could be a consciousness that sees the world except for the blind spot around the part that allows us to see how we work - and a cover over where that would be). I'm not confident that we are 'just' a computation, but I'm fairly confident that I am in accordance with the laws of physics (including any we don't know yet) and that places limits on what's possible with the amount of matter in my head, the energy input and output, the sensory input and output bandwidths, the timescales involved, the known behavioural results of varying localities of brain damage, etc. Besides, what do you mean illusion? Consciousness is not 'fake'.

by drcode 17y ago

kevbin 17y ago

Weird compared to what? I have no experience being anything other than a living, breathing human. Thomas Nagle wrote up the classic "qualia" argument you're making as "What is it like to be a Bat?" (here: http://www.clarku.edu/students/philosophyclub/docs/nagel.pdf)Intuitively http://www.clarku.edu/students/philosophyclub/docs/nagel.pdf..., it seems persuasive: that there is a certain subjective quality to consciousness & conscious experience— it must feel like something to be a bat, or a person, or whatever? Hofstadter's and Dennett's book, The Mind's I (http://www.amazon.com/Minds-Fantasies-Reflections-Self-Soul/dp/0465030912/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252543137&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Minds-Fantasies-Reflections-Self-Soul/...) is an interesting introduction to this kind of stuff, the authors have a lot of fun @ qualia's expense.

bkovitz 17y ago
The "weirdness" (or whatever you want to call the enormous explanatory gap between our mental lives and inanimate matter) deserves an answer. It's not something to sweep under the rug as "subjective" or "unscientific" or "poorly defined". I agree, though, Hofstadter and Dennett have done an extraordinary job of devising such an answer. There is lots more work to be done, of course.
- ewjordan 17y ago
  The "weirdness" (or whatever you want to call the enormous explanatory gap between our mental lives and inanimate matter) deserves an answer. It's not something to sweep under the rug as "subjective" or "unscientific" or "poorly defined". But what if the answer to the "weirdness" question is, in fact, that it's just an ill-formed question? What if it's just an illusion, and your brain is tricked into seeing something magical about itself where there is nothing there? Apart from a mystical explanation, I cannot imagine any satisfying answer to the question (i.e. one that doesn't leave you feeling uneasy like Hofstadter's answer does to most people), which usually means that there's something wrong with what we're asking, not with how we're trying to answer it.
  - bkovitz 17y ago
    I would be satisfied with a good explanation of why the question is ill-formed, how the illusion comes about, etc. I really don't think the question is ill-formed, though. There is a big explanatory gap. Denying that is simply dishonest. It would be like, if you don't know why a bicycle is easier to balance when it's moving, pretending that there is nothing to explain. "Oh, it's just bicycle parts."
ewjordan 17y ago
If you're digging into Hofstadter (and if you aren't, you should be, whether or not you agree with him, almost every word he's ever written is worth reading, including the seemingly irrelevant stuff about translations), I Am A Strange Loop (http://www.amazon.com/Am-Strange-Loop-Douglas-Hofstadter/dp/0465030785 http://www.amazon.com/Am-Strange-Loop-Douglas-Hofstadter/dp/...) is a good read, as well.

Tichy 17y ago

"Wouldn't you agree that it feels awfully "weird" to be a living, breathing human?" From my perspective, being a computer would feel a lot weirder. I think drastically spoken, feelings are just firing neurons. I don't think there is really anything special about (apart from the degree of complexity of the human body). If a computer has an algorithm that says if(user hasn't typed anything for 14 days) lonely = true then it has feelings, too. It might sound absurd, but only because it looks so simple. But imagine an enourmously complex program, and the information "lonely" trickles through it. There might be a routine somewhere if lonely = true connect_irc_channel(#depression) and so on and so on. From a certain level of complexity onwards, it won't be so obvious anymore, and we won't be able to prevent feeling that the computer really feels.

jodrellblank 17y ago

Wouldn't you agree that it feels awfully "weird" to be a living, breathing human? No - it's just normal. I think it would be weirder if it wasn't some kind of computation, if I was a unique spirit out of several tens of billions that appeared from some unknowable place and origin, or whatever else 'i' might be. Doesn't it seem to be beyond what can be expressed by mere computer algorithms? I have no reason to think it is - I haven't felt what it's like to be a quicksort or a face recognition algorithm for comparison, but I certainly feel like a heap of evolved feedback loops at times - when I fear the dark in a room I know, when I catch sight of living shapes where there are none, when I feel fight-or-flight at certain caller ID numbers, when I desire things that I also don't want, when I feel judgements of people based on some trivial detail. Nonetheless, I find it hard to understand people, such as yourself, that are probably exposed to this same "weirdness" in their heads as I am and yet are so confident it is merely an illusion created by a sufficiently complicated computation. What else could it be? There isn't anywhere else it could reasonably be that we know of. You're either suggesting something unknowable (e.g. magic) or some kind of cruel joke (i.e. like a quine is a program that prints it's own source code, we could be a consciousness that sees the world except for the blind spot around the part that allows us to see how we work - and a cover over where that would be). I'm not confident that we are 'just' a computation, but I'm fairly confident that I am in accordance with the laws of physics (including any we don't know yet) and that places limits on what's possible with the amount of matter in my head, the energy input and output, the sensory input and output bandwidths, the timescales involved, the known behavioural results of varying localities of brain damage, etc. Besides, what do you mean illusion? Consciousness is not 'fake'.