Consciousness is what thinking feels like. Qualia is what sensory perception feels like. The hard question of consciousness is hard because of Wolpert's law. No computer can model itself. No computer can predict its own outputs. Therefore any computer, including your brain, will find its own inner workings to be mysterious.
Instead of asking if rocks or LLMs or insects are conscious, ask if they have feelings. Rocks do not. Animals have many feelings in common with humans. LLMs predict text, which means they can model all the human emotions, knowing how words affect feelings and feelings affect words. If an LLM is programmed to carry out in real time what it predicts a human would do, such as in the Turing test, then it is indistinguishable from having feelings. Feelings are computed states. But maybe it still matters because you would feel bad about crushing a rock or squashing a bug if you believed they were conscious and had feelings. Suppose that half of humans were conscious and half were philosophical zombies, but you couldn't tell them apart because that is the definition of a zombie. Would this excuse genocide, because you could declare the victims to be zombies whose feelings don't matter and nobody could prove you wrong? I mean, in a way this actually happens, right? I know that consciousness and qualia are illusions, but I am still controlled by emotions just like everyone else. I don't harm other people because that would make me feel bad. I also eat meat because it tastes good. And I believe it should be illegal to program AI to claim to be human or conscious or have feelings, because not doing this would end humanity and I don't want that to happen. -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] On Wed, Sep 2, 2026, 11:59 AM Quan Tesla <[email protected]> wrote: > LLMs are trained on 20 TB of text, which is 20,000 times as much conscious > experience as a human. If that's the definition you want to use. You tell > me. > > With regards consciousness experience, we may consider qualia as related > to states of consciousness, including for the possibility of a state where > consciousness cannot be measured. > > Your ontological argument is problematic, as it is strictly related to a > finite, measurable reality, not universal. I don't agree with your factual > statement where you quantify the limit of a human conscious experience. For > example, you seem to suggest how all human neural networks are equal, but > evidence have shown how persons with most of their brain missing could > fully experience consciousness. > > The human neural network represents a dynamical, dimensionally scalar > architecture. In theory, it has a universal limit to general information > processing, possibly between 1 Hz up to 1.999 THz, and more for some. > > With regards you relating storage capacity to conscious experience as a > metric of consciousness: if one integrated the E8× D5 selective lattice x > Higgs-field scalars and doubling complecity, when entropy may be > accelarating in complexity of 1.8 per cyclical step in the wavefunction, > relative to the saturation entropic limit per proto-conscious elemental > configuration object of no more than 388 steps per cycle, diffused > geometrically within an expansive topology folded upon itself as a single > spatial unification moment, one formulates an idea of the > information-processing and storage capacity inherent in a single instance > of proto consciousness unification. > > Next, imagine all of that activity atomically in a single human cell, > encapsulated in a single human neuron as bits. > > I can't even begin to imagine how AI as a non-biological entity could > compare to human consciousness. > > Hence, my concession at this stage could not be justified to allow for > possible AI awareness in J-space enabled LLM models. > > In conclusion, the definition you offered is comparing a clever computer > to the consciousness schema I circled, reducing it to a tiny number in > universal terms. > > I don't think general experienced conscious data is that simplisticly > reducible. What about the experienced conscious data not cognitive > acknowledged, yet biologically processed? > > How many bits of experienced consciousness in your decades of creative, > complex-adaptive reading with cognition, in every entropic step of any > systemic vibration you did not register cognitively? > > Is it defined by what you produced, and do you have a total count of every > complex-adaptive informational step of your life? > > Why should any data of what a single person's system produces as > consciousness matter to Earthkind and Earth itself? > > On Wed, 02 Sept 2026, 16:27 Quan Tesla, <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I acknowledge deterministic reactive states and resonance-based chemistry >> with observable effects. However, information on its own probably would not >> be sufficient evidence of qualia. >> >> With regards light-spectrum output. Light, as a phenomenon, a >> probabilistic manifestation of wave function dynamics, may be resident in >> qualia, not necessary qualia itself. Similar to time vector prevalence not >> equating qualia. >> >> Let me consider your definitial proposal separately. >> >> On Wed, 02 Sept 2026, 16:07 Matt Mahoney, <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> Back to your original question of whether rocks have qualia, what does >>> that mean? How would you know? What would be the difference if it did or >>> did not? >>> >>> If you use my definition of measuring consciousness in bits of >>> information in a storage device, then zinc sulfide doped with copper (used >>> in glow in the dark paint) will store photons of blue light by raising an >>> electron to a higher energy state and storing in a copper atom. After >>> several minutes it will release the electron and emit a 550 nm yellow green >>> photon. Likewise, light will convert silver iodide to tiny grains of silver >>> that appear black in photographic film for more permanent storage. >>> >>> LLMs are trained on 20 TB of text, which is 20,000 times as much >>> conscious experience as a human. If that's the definition you want to use. >>> You tell me. >>> >>> -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] >>> >>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2026, 9:52 AM Quan Tesla <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> Thanks for sharing. Most useful application. Reminds me of the shift >>>> to: noise = real signal. >>>> >>>> On Wed, 02 Sept 2026, 15:25 John Rose via AGI, <[email protected]> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On Wednesday, September 02, 2026, at 9:03 AM, Quan Tesla wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Can competitive commerce and tortoise-like human decision systems >>>>> afford to wait 3 to 10 months before starting to adapt to an "aware" >>>>> AI-corporate reality? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> No. For example things like this need to be scrutinized for rogue AI's >>>>> from a national security perspective: >>>>> >>>>> https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/Template:DatabaseUNID >>>>> >>>> *Artificial General Intelligence List <https://agi.topicbox.com/latest>* > / AGI / see discussions <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi> + > participants <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/members> + > delivery options <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription> > Permalink > <https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T906c878e4ba411be-M5236d69e15ec96f3ec37cadf> > ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T906c878e4ba411be-M487c501d647262f471f7d6ca Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
