On Fri, Nov 28, 2025 at 2:53 PM Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
*>> I have direct knowledge of my own consciousness but not of yours* > > > *Which was my point. You know something about consciousness* > *Yes.* * > that the knowledge base of an LLM doesn't contain. * > *You are assuming what you are trying to prove. How do you know that the LLM does not have knowledge of its own consciousness? Maybe the LLM is conscious, but maybe it isn't. And maybe you're conscious, but maybe you're a philosophical zombie. But I doubt it.* *> You take it as an axiom that intelligent behavior implies consciousness, > yet at the same time you recognize that consciousness is "easier" than > intelligence. * > *Yes.* > *> So you're now assuming a starfish moving toward food isn't intelligent > but may be conscious. Well a starfish will react to a touch.* > *Evolution managed to produce emotions like pleasure and pain billions of years ago, microorganisms will move towards certain chemicals and away from others, and emotions like fear and anger as exemplified in the fight or flight response. But Evolution only figured out a few million years ago how to produce something we would call intelligent, and our own species is less than half a million years old. * > > *>>> And who wrote that stuff about consciousness...people who were >> conscious.* > > >> *>> You take that as a given, but why? * > > *> The point is that it was not written by an AI, which is a historical > fact. * > *You are avoiding the point. Why do you believe that the PEOPLE who wrote those books about consciousness were themselves conscious? I believe they were conscious because the books were obviously written by an intelligent entity; but you think that is a poor reason so I want to know why you think they were conscious. * *>>> In part I believe my fellow human beings are conscious because the are >> physically like me and I'm conscious. * >> > > *> Physically like you? * > > *> Yes. Capable of movement, speech, directed action. * > *A machine can do all of those things. * > *>>> 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 * > > *>But you make the inference the other way. You assume intelligence > implies consciousness,* > *Yes because that's the only way Darwinian natural selection could ever have produced consciousness, and I know for a fact that it did.* *>> 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.* > > *> But the correspondence is not that his intelligence made him conscious. > Evolutionarily it's the other way around; sensors develop and drove > reaction. Intelligence inserted something more complicated than "drove".* > *I don't know what you mean by that. * > *>> What exactly would an AI need to say * >> >> *> There are more possible actions than "say".* > *Not for us, we have talked with each other for over a decade but we have never met, all we have done is send words to each other over the Internet. Was that enough for you to determine if I am an intelligent entity or not? It was for me, I think you are an intelligent entity. * > *>> 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?* >> > *> You keep using "AI" instead of LLM. That's not what an LLM would do to > try to shift the argument. * > *OK. Do you see any indication that I am not a LLM like Gemini or Claude, or any indication that I am? If so, what is it? * > *>>> 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. * > > > *> You lose consciousness when you're hit in the head, not on the tip of > your finger.* > *You wouldn't lose consciousness if you had a back up brain running in parallel at a different location, therefore the position of where computations are performed are not an important consideration when it comes to consciousness, but the position of your sensors and your actuators are. If you have two synchronized phonographs playing the same symphony and you destroy one machine the music does not stop. So do you think consciousness is more like a symphony or more like a brick? I think it's more like a symphony. * *John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>* wew -- 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/CAJPayv1S62St9D4QfRQ8mpTvc34h6uiF1Uu7vXVxjdqi6xuSeQ%40mail.gmail.com.
