A general approach to this that frequently works is to examine the
definitions that you are using for ambiguity. Then to look for
operational tests. If the only clear meanings lack operational tests,
then it's probably worthless to waste computing resources on the problem
until those problems have been cleared up. If the level of ambiguity is
too high (judgment call) then the first order of business is to ensure
that you are talking about the same thing. If you can't do that, then
it's probably a waste of time to compute intensively about it.
Note that this works, because different people draw their boundaries in
different places, so different people spend time on different
questions. It results in an approximately reasonable allocation of
effort, which changes as knowledge accumulates. If everyone drew the
bounds in the same place, then it would be a lamentably narrow area
being explored intensively, with lots of double coverage. (There's
already lots of double coverage. Patents for the telephone, I believe
it was, were filed by two people within the same week. Or look at the
history of the airplane. But there's a lot LESS double coverage than if
everyone drew the boundary in the same place.)
As for "What is consciousness?"... DEFINE YOUR TERMS. If you define how
you recognize consciousness, then I can have a chance of answering your
question, otherwise you can reject any answer I give with "But that's
not what I meant!"
Ditto for time. Or I could slip levels and tell you that it's a word
with four letters (etc.).
Also, many people are working intensively on the nature of time. They
know in detail what they mean (not that they all necessarily mean the
same thing). To say that they are wasting their time because questions
about the nature of time are silly is, itself, silly. Your question
about the nature of time may be silly, but that's because you don't have
a good definition with operational tests. That says nothing about what
the exact same words may mean when someone else says them. (E.g. [off
the top of my head], "time is a locally monotonically increasing measure
of state changes within the local environment" is a plausible definition
of time. It has some redeeming features. It, however, doesn't admit of
a test of why it exists. That would need to be posed within the context
of a larger theory which implied operational tests.)
There are linguistic tricks. E.g., when "It's raining", who or what is
raining. But generally they are relatively trivial...unless you accept
language as being an accurate model of the universe. Or consider "Who
is the master who makes the grass green?" That's not a meaningless
question in the proper context. It's an elementary problem for the
student.
(don't peek)
(do you know the answer?)
It's intended to cause the student to realize that things do not have
inherent properties that are caused by sensations interpreted by the
human brain. But other reasonable answers might be "the gardener, who
waters and fertilizes it" or perhaps a particular molecule that
resonates in such a manner that the primary light that re-radiates from
grass is in that part of the spectrum that we have labeled green. And
I'm certain that there are other valid answers. (I have a non-standard
answer to "The sound of one hand clapping, as I can, indeed, clap with
one hand...fingers against the palm. I think it takes large hands.)
If one writes off as senseless questions that don't make sense to one,
well....what is the square root of -1? The very name "imaginary" tells
you how unreasonable most mathematicians thought that question. But it
turned out to be rather valuable. And it worked because someone made a
series of operational tests and showed that it would work. Up until
then the very definition of square root prohibited using negative
numbers. So they agreed to change the definition.
I don't think that you can rule out any question as nonsensical provided
that there are operational tests and unambiguous definitions. And if
there aren't, then you can make some. It may not answer the question
that you couldn't define...but if you can't sensibly ask the question,
then it isn't much of a question (no matter HOW important it feels).
Tudor Boloni wrote:
I agree that there are many better questions to elucidate the
tricks/pitfalls of language. but lets list the biggest time wasters
first, and the post showed some real time wasters from various fields
that i found valuable to be aware of
It implies it is pointless to ask what the essence of time is, but
then proceeds to give an explanation of time that is not
pointless, and may shed light on its meaning, which is perhaps as
much of an essence as time has..
i think the post tries to show that the error is that treating time
like an object of reality with an essence is nonsensical and a waste
of time;) it seems wonderful to have an AGI system answer such a
question with "time is a human label of arbitrary length based on
conventions among human subgroups"
what more needs to be said of time than that it is a label, allowing
the word essence creates a very hard and confusing and pointless
internal 'debate' in an AGI, essence means a further compression of
data or synopsis of concept or a deeper fundamental level of truth not
its meaning... so i would be happier hearing time has no essence, time
is defined as:
Similarly, it implies it is pointless to ask what is the nature of
consciousness, and then gives an explanation, that while not
necessarily correct, or even close to complete, has some meaning
about the nature of what we call consciousness.
same as above... having researchers looking around for something that
doesnt exist is a time waster. having word handles to easily move
abstract concepts about is a productivity enhancer IF and ONLY if
communicants share word definitions. since consciousness the word
needs to be defined as how many simple behaviors are we going to
require before we agree to call something conscious, this defining
stage is critical before any use of the word, so if an AGI is asked
the question 'what is consciousness' if would have to respond that its
defined differently by all askers, so it has no nature, its just a
variable that needs to be defined before its use in a conversation....
i guess the key here is that there is an important division between
legitimate language and nonsense, and i never see us try to protect
our systems from being burdened by the nonsense
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