On 4/26/2021 10:07 PM, Terren Suydam wrote:
On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 10:08 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
It certainly seems likely that any brain or AI that can perceive
sensory events and form an inner narrative and memory of that is
conscious in a sense even if they are unable to act. This is
commonly the situation during a dream. One is aware of dreamt
events but doesn't actually move in response to them.
And I think JKC is wrong when he says "few if any believe other
people are conscious all the time, only during those times that
corresponds to the times they behave intelligently." I generally
assume people are conscious if their eyes are open and they
respond to stimuli, even if they are doing something dumb.
Or rather, even if they're doing nothing at all. Someone meditating
for hours on end, or someone lying on a couch with eyeshades and
headphones on tripping on psilocybin, may be having extraordinary
internal experiences and display absolutely no outward behavior.
But I agree with his general point that consciousness is easy and
intelligence is hard.
It depends how you look at it. JC's point is that it's impossible to
prove much of anything about consciousness, so you can imagine many
ways to explain consciousness without ever suffering the pain of your
theory being slain by a fact.
However, in a certain sense, intelligence is easier because it's
constrained. Intelligence can be tested. It's certainly more
practical, which makes intelligence easier to study as well. You're
much more likely to be able to profit from advances in understanding
of intelligence. In that sense, consciousness is harder to work with
than intelligence, because it's harder to make progress. Facts that
might slay your theory are much harder to come by.
What I mean by it is that if you can engineer intelligence at a high
level it will necessarily entail consciousness. An entity cannot be
human-level intelligent without being able to prospectively consider
scenarios in which they are actors in which the scenario is informed by
past experience...and I think that is what constitutes the core of
consciousness.
Brent
I think human consciousness, having an inner narrative, is just an
evolutionary trick the brain developed for learning and accessing
learned information to inform decisions. Julian Jaynes wrote a
book about how this may have come about, "The Origin of
Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". I don't
know that he got it exactly right, but I think he was on to the
right idea.
I agree!
Terren
Brent
On 4/26/2021 4:07 PM, Terren Suydam wrote:
So do you have nothing to say about coma patients who've later
woken up and said they were conscious? Or people under general
anaesthetic who later report being gruesomely aware of the
surgery they were getting? Should we ignore those reports? Or
admit that consciousness is worth considering independently from
its effects on outward behavior?
On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 11:16 AM John Clark <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 10:45 AM Terren Suydam
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> It's impossible to refute solipsism
True, but it's equally impossible to refute the idea that
everything including rocks is conscious. And if both a theory
and its exact opposite can neither be proven nor disproven
then neither speculation is of any value in trying to figure
out how the world works.
/> It's true that the only thing we know for sure is our
own consciousness,/
And I know that even I am not conscious all the time, and
there is no reason for me to believe other people can do better.
/> but there's nothing about what I said that makes it
impossible for there to be a reality outside of ourselves
populated by other people. It just requires belief./
And few if any believe other people are conscious all the
time, only during those times that corresponds to the times
they behave intelligently.
John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis
<https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>
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