simonh

49 ms·

871.
by simonh 3y ago
>>"there's been an outbreak of Office Politics on LV-421" >"Nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure."
872.
by simonh 3y ago
Can you give an example? Not being self-evident isn't at all the same thing as not existing. They're not even in the same category.
873.
by simonh 3y ago
Just so you know. https://www.news24.com/amp/life/wellness/body/condition-cent...
874.
by simonh 3y ago
Nitpick. Fire probably goes back a million years or more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_fire_by_early_hum...
875.
by simonh 3y ago
So it seems like the argument is that consciousness didn’t exist because we didn’t have a word for it and the guy wrote a book and built a career with that as a premise. Honestly, can I even be bothered? Oh, alright then, just for fun. Yes
876.
by simonh 3y ago
The observation of our own consciousness, that is its self recursive nature while we’re in a conscious state, is what makes consciousness special. With other observations we receive a stimulus, we perceive it, and we either act on it, or me
877.
by simonh 3y ago
I wouldn’t say they are proven computational, but I would say they can be explained in terms of processes on information. Sense data, body awareness, perceptions, noticing things, evaluating situations and options all seem to me to relate t
878.
by simonh 3y ago
Whatever else is going on inside our brains, there's definitely information processing happening and we also know that we have a first person experience of it. Our perceptions are informational, they are experiences of data. Colour, fe
879.
by simonh 3y ago
I think the important thing is that people enjoy it. They may enjoy other things too, maybe more, and have other responsibilities and that's fine. One of my kids is obsessed with cars, she's a proper petrol head, but she's go
880.
by simonh 3y ago
Consciousness is simply the awareness of being a person, and of having experiences. Do you not have that? I mean you don’t always have it, sometimes you are asleep or maybe sedated, but right now (whenever that is for you) as you are readin
881.
by simonh 3y ago
I think for consciousness you need a sophisticated mental model of the world, but also a sophisticated mental model of other intentional agents and their mental processes. You need to be able to reason about the knowledge, beliefs and likel
882.
by simonh 3y ago
Of course there is a reality beyond the model. Our sense data comes from somewhere, it’s a model of something. I’m not sure quite what you’re talking about.
883.
by simonh 3y ago
And that person paid, someone, who, paid someone, etc, who paid them. As it happens, I’m directly paying people to work on my house right now. I’m reading definitions of appropriation, and I don’t see the applicability. The bit about ‘witho
884.
by simonh 3y ago
He seems to be saying that it is a physical process, but that it is not computational. My critique was that he does do while describing it entirely in terms of processing information.
885.
by simonh 3y ago
I did contribute it here in the comments, I just didn’t feel it appropriate to repeat it in multiple places.
886.
by simonh 3y ago
It also defines Roombas, and even simple sense/response feedback loop systems as conscious entities. Is a carburetor conscious?
887.
by simonh 3y ago
That’s the Ship of Theseus argument. I think there’s a reasonable argument that in fact we don’t have continuity of consciousness. Yes we are consistent persistent beings up to a point, but inky in the way that the ship of Theseus continues
888.
by simonh 3y ago
We have cultural artefacts of people reporting first person experiences going back as long as we have writing, and longer from oral traditions. These are in the form of narratives, poetry, songs, etc. What is the story of Narcissus about if
889.
by simonh 3y ago
I think that is in fact what we do. I think it is possible to build up a rational case for an objective universe starting with just perception. Firstly if the only thing that exists is conscious awareness, where does the informational conte
890.
by simonh 3y ago
Computation is more than silicon chips, more than digital circuits, or the Von Neumann architecture. It’s not inhibited by the code/data distinction. It’s a general model of information processing encompassing any conceivable physical
891.
by simonh 3y ago
Please refer to my reply to tekni5 for my take on how consciousness actually works.
892.
by simonh 3y ago
I wasn’t aware of that research, thanks, but I do agree most cognition is subconscious. When talking rapidly, the words seem to just spill out from nowhere. Ideas simply spring to mind. We have no direct awareness if the cognitive processes
893.
by simonh 3y ago
Ok, stimuli go in. The rest I’m on board with, more or less.
894.
by simonh 3y ago
I don’t buy this at all. We have experiences. It’s the one brute fact we are sure of, but it’s enough to build from that a coherent materialist model of the world that is consistent and testable. Everything we think and know is built up fro
895.
by simonh 3y ago
That is just a statement of what they hope to study and what they think they might find. It’s not an actual study and they have no evidence for the speculative goals. Conversely I linked to a case of an actual EEG recording of a dying patie
896.
by simonh 3y ago
I described my model of consciousness to tekni5 so won’t repeat it here.
897.
by simonh 3y ago
I think for consciousness you need a sophisticated mental model of the world, but also a sophisticated mental model of other intentional agents and their mental processes. You need to be able to reason about the knowledge, beliefs and likel
898.
by simonh 3y ago
Of course, there’s nothing it’s like to be data. Un-recalled memories are data, they only become experiences again when we recall them into our active minds. I don’t think consciousness is data, I think it’s a highly sophisticated process o
899.
by simonh 3y ago
That’s fine. Yes, you read my post, which consists of information, and formed a mental model of me and my opinions. That mental model is fundamentally informational. You're conflating me and your model of me though. The model isn’t me,
900.
by simonh 3y ago
This report of EEG activity in a dying patient contradicts that assertion about near death experiences and brain activity. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/researchers-scan-brai... I know people have these experi

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