On Thu, Nov 27, 2025 at 10:15 PM Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
*>>> and you were asked about your consciousness you'd find what you'd read >>> about consciousness and use it to reply.* >> >> *>>So would a human being, although a human's knowledge base would be far >> far smaller. * > > > > *Smaller, but also including direct knowledge of consciousness.* > *I have direct knowledge of my own consciousness but not of yours, nevertheless I believe you are conscious because I have accepted the axiom that intelligent behavior implies consciousness, and I did that because I could not function if I really believe that solipsism is true. * *>>> And who wrote that stuff about consciousness...people who were > conscious.* > *>> You take that as a given, but why? Because it took intelligence to > write that stuff about consciousness and you implicitly assume that > intelligence implies consciousness. * *> No, you assume that. But you wouldn't if you reflected on how the LLM > seems intelligent* > *You assumed the people that wrote those books about consciousness were themselves conscious, but why did you make that assumption? If it wasn't that the books themselves proved that the authors had the ability to behave intelligently, then what on earth was it? And what's the difference between something that seems intelligent and something that is intelligent? There isn't any, I don't think it would make any sense to claim that Einstein wasn't intelligent, he just seemed to be intelligent. And how can you tell the difference between something that seems conscious and something that is conscious ? There is no way, not even in theory. * > *> In part I believe my fellow human beings are conscious because the are > physically like me and I'm conscious. * > *Physically like you? Does that mean only males are conscious? Does the physical skin color of others need to match your physical skin color for you to consider them to be conscious? And when they are sleeping or under anesthesia or dead the brains of your fellow human beings **behave quite differently than the way your brain is behaving right now. * > *> You seem to think intelligence is the end all and be all of > consciousness. * > *I do. If it were otherwise, if consciousness wasn't an inevitable byproduct of intelligence then I don't see any way that Darwinian Evolution could ever have produced consciousness, and yet I know for a fact that it did at least once and probably many billions of times. I also think that consciousness is easy but intelligence is hard. * > *> I think my dog is conscious, even though he's not very intelligent.* > *You're never going to be able to teach General Relativity to your dog, but your dog is a lot more intelligent than a rock, and correspondingly is a lot more conscious than a rock.* *> What exactly would an AI need to say for you to think there were >> indications of self-consciousness? Do you see any indications of >> self-consciousness in this email that I have written? **Do you see any >> indications that I am not an AI?* > > *> I'd like it to tell me where it was located,* > *Asking where consciousness is located is like asking where the integer 4 is located. I don't believe your consciousness is inside a container made of bone for the simple reason that you are not conscious of it being there. When you're repairing a watch with your hands where is your consciousness? The least bad answer would be at the tip of your fingers. When your brain and body is in Seattle and you're watching a football game on TV from Atlanta but you're thinking about the Great Wall Of China, where is your consciousness? The least bad answer would be China. * *John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>* efe > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv0Cwdsh8FnQu_6vZosAnOUT%3DkGerKhZn4wPucE2y1i_3Q%40mail.gmail.com.
