On Tue, 23 May 2023 at 15:58, Terren Suydam <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Tue, May 23, 2023 at 12:32 AM Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> >> >> On Tue, 23 May 2023 at 14:23, Terren Suydam <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On Tue, May 23, 2023 at 12:14 AM Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Tue, 23 May 2023 at 13:37, Terren Suydam <[email protected]> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 11:13 PM Stathis Papaioannou < >>>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Tue, 23 May 2023 at 10:48, Terren Suydam <[email protected]> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 8:42 PM Stathis Papaioannou < >>>>>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Tue, 23 May 2023 at 10:03, Terren Suydam < >>>>>>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> it is true that my brain has been trained on a large amount of >>>>>>>>> data - data that contains intelligence outside of my own. But when I >>>>>>>>> introspect, I notice that my understanding of things is ultimately >>>>>>>>> rooted/grounded in my phenomenal experience. Ultimately, everything we >>>>>>>>> know, we know either by our experience, or by analogy to experiences >>>>>>>>> we've >>>>>>>>> had. This is in opposition to how LLMs train on data, which is >>>>>>>>> strictly >>>>>>>>> about how words/symbols relate to one another. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> The functionalist position is that phenomenal experience supervenes >>>>>>>> on behaviour, such that if the behaviour is replicated (same output for >>>>>>>> same input) the phenomenal experience will also be replicated. This is >>>>>>>> what >>>>>>>> philosophers like Searle (and many laypeople) can’t stomach. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I think the kind of phenomenal supervenience you're talking about is >>>>>>> typically asserted for behavior at the level of the neuron, not the >>>>>>> level >>>>>>> of the whole agent. Is that what you're saying? That chatGPT must be >>>>>>> having a phenomenal experience if it talks like a human? If so, that >>>>>>> is >>>>>>> stretching the explanatory domain of functionalism past its breaking >>>>>>> point. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> The best justification for functionalism is David Chalmers' "Fading >>>>>> Qualia" argument. The paper considers replacing neurons with functionally >>>>>> equivalent silicon chips, but it could be generalised to replacing any >>>>>> part >>>>>> of the brain with a functionally equivalent black box, the whole brain, >>>>>> the >>>>>> whole person. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> You're saying that an algorithm that provably does not have >>>>> experiences of rabbits and lollipops - but can still talk about them in a >>>>> way that's indistinguishable from a human - essentially has the same >>>>> phenomenology as a human talking about rabbits and lollipops. That's just >>>>> absurd on its face. You're essentially hand-waving away the grounding >>>>> problem. Is that your position? That symbols don't need to be grounded in >>>>> any sort of phenomenal experience? >>>>> >>>> >>>> It's not just talking about them in a way that is indistinguishable >>>> from a human, in order to have human-like consciousness the entire I/O >>>> behaviour of the human would need to be replicated. But in principle, I >>>> don't see why a LLM could not have some other type of phenomenal >>>> experience. And I don't think the grounding problem is a problem: I was >>>> never grounded in anything, I just grew up associating one symbol with >>>> another symbol, it's symbols all the way down. >>>> >>> >>> Is the smell of your grandmother's kitchen a symbol? >>> >> >> Yes, I can't pull away the facade to check that there was a real >> grandmother and a real kitchen against which I can check that the sense >> data matches. >> > > The ground problem is about associating symbols with a phenomenal > experience, or the memory of one - which is not the same thing as the > functional equivalent or the neural correlate. It's the feeling, what it's > like to experience the thing the symbol stands for. The experience of > redness. The shock of plunging into cold water. The smell of coffee. etc. > > Take a migraine headache - if that's just a symbol, then why does that > symbol *feel* *bad* while others feel *good*? Why does any symbol feel > like anything? If you say evolution did it, that doesn't actually answer > the question, because evolution doesn't do anything except select for > traits, roughly speaking. So it just pushes the question to: how did the > subjective feeling of pain or pleasure emerge from some genetic mutation, > when it wasn't there before? > > Without a functionalist explanation of the *origin* of aesthetic valence, > then I don't think you can "get it from bit". > That seems more like the hard problem of consciousness. There is no solution to it. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAH%3D2ypWZz4fP1nS_uSNRS6%3Drp63cCpWRLt0_Oeq77Yrfi8WS_w%40mail.gmail.com.
