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>I don't understand how you can be so confident of this. [...] How are you measuring it? What makes you believe with such emphatic certainty that I am a conscio

by Retra 12y ago

>I don't understand how you can be so confident of this. [...] How are you measuring it? What makes you believe with such emphatic certainty that I am a conscious being and not a p-zombie? Because p-zombies are self-contradictory. The definition of a p-zombie is a contradiction. It's like saying "suppose 1 = 2 and 1 != 2. Call this a p-zombie quality." When you suppose that the behavior of a thing is separate from the reality of a thing, you are failing to account for how the words 'behavior' and 'reality' acquire meaning -- through observation. They cannot be different because the processes that establish their meaning are identical. To suppose that a p-zombie could be different from a person, yet measurably identical in all aspects is a contradiction. >How are you defining consciousness? There is a big difference between meaning and definition. I don't have to define consciousness, I only need to know what it means. I only need to identify the use-cases where it is appropriate. >There is nothing behavioral about your inner experience as a conscious entity. Yes there is: behavior is the activity that you measure, and you can measure brain activity.

ForHackernews 12y ago
> yet measurably identical in all aspects > behavior is the activity that you measure, and you can measure brain activity. You've shifted your definition of "behavior" now. I thought we were talking about behaviors that impact survival and are acted on by natural selection, not minute differences in MRI scans. For purposes of the thought experiment, I certainly don't care if the p-zombie has a slightly different brain-wave. Let's say they're permanently sleepwalking, then. I really feel like you're hand-waving at supposed contradictions here, rather than engaging with why this is a difficult problem. If you firmly reject the idea of a p-zombie, let's leave that aside for now. Do you believe that it would be possible, in principle, to build a robot that looked and acted extremely similar to a human being? It could carry on conversations, make decisions, defend itself against antagonists, etc. in a similar manner to a human being? In your view, would such a robot be necessarily a conscious entity?
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Does this unit have a soul? I answer, yes.
- nicklaf 12y ago
  Do you believe that it would be possible, in principle, to build a robot that looked and acted extremely similar to a human being? It could carry on conversations, make decisions, defend itself against antagonists, etc. in a similar manner to a human being? In your view, would such a robot be necessarily a conscious entity? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708807/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708807/
- deciplex 12y ago
  > Do you believe that it would be possible, in principle, to build a robot that looked and acted extremely similar to a human being? It could carry on conversations, make decisions, defend itself against antagonists, etc. in a similar manner to a human being? In your view, would such a robot be necessarily a conscious entity? I don't even know that other humans are conscious entities. At least not with the level of rigor you seem to be demanding I apply to this hypothetical robot. However, if you and I were to agree upon a series of test that, if passed by a human, we would assume for the sake of argument that that human was a conscious entity, and if we then subjected your robot to those same tests and it also passed, then I would also assume the robot was also conscious. You might have noticed I made a hidden assumption in the tests though, which is that in establishing the consciousness or not-consciousness of a human they do not rely on the observable fact that the subject is a human. Is that reasonable?
  - ForHackernews 12y ago
    Sure, absolutely. I agree that we could construct a battery of tests such that any entity passing should be given the benefit of the doubt and treated as though it were conscious: granted human (or AI) rights, allowed self-determination, etc. > I don't even know that other humans are conscious entities Exactly. Note that the claim Retra is making (to which I was responding) was very much stronger than this. He is arguing not just that we should generally treat beings that seem conscious (including other people) as if they are, but that they must by definition be conscious, and in fact that it is a self-contradictory logical impossibility to speak of a hypothetical intelligent-but-not-conscious creature.
- Retra 12y ago
  >I thought we were talking about behaviors that impact survival and are acted on by natural selection, not minute differences in MRI scans. I was talking about the stupidity of p-zombies. Either way, those 'minute' differences in MRI scans build up in such a way to determine the survival of the mind being scanned. >Do you believe [...] such a robot be necessarily a conscious entity? Yes, it would. Because in order to cause such behavior to be physically manifest, you must actually construct a machine of sufficient complexity to mimic the behavior of a human brain exactly. It must consume and process information in the same manner. And that's what consciousness is: the ability to process information in a particular manner. Even a "sleepwalking zombie" must undergo the same processing. That processing is the only thing necessary for consciousness, and it doesn't matter what hardware you run it on. As in Searle's problem: even if you run your intelligence on a massive lookup table, it is still intelligence. Because you've defined the behavior to exactly match a target, without imposing realistic constraints on the machinery.
  - ForHackernews 12y ago
    > Yes, it would. [...] that's what consciousness is: the ability to process information in a particular manner. Then this is our fundamental disagreement. You believe consciousness is purely a question of information processing, and you're throwing your lot in with Skinner and the behaviorists. I believe that you're neglecting the "the experience of what it's like to be a human being"[0] (or maybe you yourself are a p-zombie ;) and you don't feel that it's like anything to be you). There are many scientists who agree with you, and think that consciousness is an illusion or a red herring because we haven't been able to define it or figure out how to measure it, but that's different than sidestepping the question entirely by defining down consciousness until it's something we can measure (e.g. information processing). I posted this elsewhere, but I highly recommend reading Chalmers' essay "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness"[1] if you want to understand why many people consider this one of the most difficult and fundamental questions for humanity to attempt to answer. [0] http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/ahyvarin/teaching/niseminar4/Nagel_WhatIsItLikeToBeABat.pdf http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/ahyvarin/teaching/niseminar4/Nag... [1] http://consc.net/papers/facing.html http://consc.net/papers/facing.html
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  >For purposes of the thought experiment, I certainly don't care if the p-zombie has a slightly different brain-wave. Yes, you do. Because if the p-zombie has a slightly different brain-wave, it remains logically possible that p-zombies and a naturalistic consciousness can both exist. The goal of the thought-experiment is to prove that consciousness must be non-natural -- that there is a Hard Problem of Consciousness rather than a Pretty Hard Problem. Make the p-zombie physically different from the conscious human being and the whole thing fails to go through. Of course, Chalmers' argument starts by assuming that consciousness is epiphenomenal, which is nonsense from a naturalistic, scientific point of view -- we can clearly observe it, which means it interacts causally, which renders epiphenomenalism a non-predictive, unfalsifiable hypothesis.

by Retra 12y ago

ForHackernews 12y ago

> yet measurably identical in all aspects > behavior is the activity that you measure, and you can measure brain activity. You've shifted your definition of "behavior" now. I thought we were talking about behaviors that impact survival and are acted on by natural selection, not minute differences in MRI scans. For purposes of the thought experiment, I certainly don't care if the p-zombie has a slightly different brain-wave. Let's say they're permanently sleepwalking, then. I really feel like you're hand-waving at supposed contradictions here, rather than engaging with why this is a difficult problem. If you firmly reject the idea of a p-zombie, let's leave that aside for now. Do you believe that it would be possible, in principle, to build a robot that looked and acted extremely similar to a human being? It could carry on conversations, make decisions, defend itself against antagonists, etc. in a similar manner to a human being? In your view, would such a robot be necessarily a conscious entity?

TeMPOraL 12y ago
Does this unit have a soul? I answer, yes.
nicklaf 12y ago
Do you believe that it would be possible, in principle, to build a robot that looked and acted extremely similar to a human being? It could carry on conversations, make decisions, defend itself against antagonists, etc. in a similar manner to a human being? In your view, would such a robot be necessarily a conscious entity? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708807/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708807/
deciplex 12y ago
> Do you believe that it would be possible, in principle, to build a robot that looked and acted extremely similar to a human being? It could carry on conversations, make decisions, defend itself against antagonists, etc. in a similar manner to a human being? In your view, would such a robot be necessarily a conscious entity? I don't even know that other humans are conscious entities. At least not with the level of rigor you seem to be demanding I apply to this hypothetical robot. However, if you and I were to agree upon a series of test that, if passed by a human, we would assume for the sake of argument that that human was a conscious entity, and if we then subjected your robot to those same tests and it also passed, then I would also assume the robot was also conscious. You might have noticed I made a hidden assumption in the tests though, which is that in establishing the consciousness or not-consciousness of a human they do not rely on the observable fact that the subject is a human. Is that reasonable?
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  Sure, absolutely. I agree that we could construct a battery of tests such that any entity passing should be given the benefit of the doubt and treated as though it were conscious: granted human (or AI) rights, allowed self-determination, etc. > I don't even know that other humans are conscious entities Exactly. Note that the claim Retra is making (to which I was responding) was very much stronger than this. He is arguing not just that we should generally treat beings that seem conscious (including other people) as if they are, but that they must by definition be conscious, and in fact that it is a self-contradictory logical impossibility to speak of a hypothetical intelligent-but-not-conscious creature.
Retra 12y ago
>I thought we were talking about behaviors that impact survival and are acted on by natural selection, not minute differences in MRI scans. I was talking about the stupidity of p-zombies. Either way, those 'minute' differences in MRI scans build up in such a way to determine the survival of the mind being scanned. >Do you believe [...] such a robot be necessarily a conscious entity? Yes, it would. Because in order to cause such behavior to be physically manifest, you must actually construct a machine of sufficient complexity to mimic the behavior of a human brain exactly. It must consume and process information in the same manner. And that's what consciousness is: the ability to process information in a particular manner. Even a "sleepwalking zombie" must undergo the same processing. That processing is the only thing necessary for consciousness, and it doesn't matter what hardware you run it on. As in Searle's problem: even if you run your intelligence on a massive lookup table, it is still intelligence. Because you've defined the behavior to exactly match a target, without imposing realistic constraints on the machinery.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  > Yes, it would. [...] that's what consciousness is: the ability to process information in a particular manner. Then this is our fundamental disagreement. You believe consciousness is purely a question of information processing, and you're throwing your lot in with Skinner and the behaviorists. I believe that you're neglecting the "the experience of what it's like to be a human being"[0] (or maybe you yourself are a p-zombie ;) and you don't feel that it's like anything to be you). There are many scientists who agree with you, and think that consciousness is an illusion or a red herring because we haven't been able to define it or figure out how to measure it, but that's different than sidestepping the question entirely by defining down consciousness until it's something we can measure (e.g. information processing). I posted this elsewhere, but I highly recommend reading Chalmers' essay "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness"[1] if you want to understand why many people consider this one of the most difficult and fundamental questions for humanity to attempt to answer. [0] http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/ahyvarin/teaching/niseminar4/Nagel_WhatIsItLikeToBeABat.pdf http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/ahyvarin/teaching/niseminar4/Nag... [1] http://consc.net/papers/facing.html http://consc.net/papers/facing.html
eli_gottlieb 12y ago
>For purposes of the thought experiment, I certainly don't care if the p-zombie has a slightly different brain-wave. Yes, you do. Because if the p-zombie has a slightly different brain-wave, it remains logically possible that p-zombies and a naturalistic consciousness can both exist. The goal of the thought-experiment is to prove that consciousness must be non-natural -- that there is a Hard Problem of Consciousness rather than a Pretty Hard Problem. Make the p-zombie physically different from the conscious human being and the whole thing fails to go through. Of course, Chalmers' argument starts by assuming that consciousness is epiphenomenal, which is nonsense from a naturalistic, scientific point of view -- we can clearly observe it, which means it interacts causally, which renders epiphenomenalism a non-predictive, unfalsifiable hypothesis.