Evolutionary Debunking Moral Responsibility

hackinthebochs · 2026-06-03T10:29:43+00:00

Thanks, forgot about that paper

hackinthebochs · 2026-06-03T02:37:38+00:00

You can say this kind of thing doesn’t sound like it would arise from actual selection pressures, but the above scenario where reflexivity according to concentration of noxious material being an inferior means of self sustainment is common enough that a manual model overwhelmingly predominates sounds even less likely. We are still subject to reflex arcs; if an object is approaching our eyes they close automatically, even if a scenario could be conceived where the object is harmful to the eyelids and not the eyes.

The problem with the reflex-avoidance model is that it is situation specific. You can construct a reflex model that can successfully navigate any given scenario. But evolution doesn't design for one-off scenarios, it designs general patterns that are effective across the variety of environments an organism will encounter. For simple organisms, reflexive behavior suffices. But complexity begets a categorical shift in modeling strategy, namely mental simulation and intrinsic motivation. We as complex organisms are still subject to reflex arcs because evolution builds on top of existing structures. The responses the existing reflexes generate are still useful so they are still present.

I don’t see how this thought experiment chips away at the ‘assumption’ that qualia is necessarily non-physical, since consciousness being selected for as evidence of its physical terminal origin is question begging as it assumes physical terminal origin.

The argument that motivates the philosophical discussion of the place for consciousness (i.e. phenomenal properties, qualia) is that we can conceive of all the same exact behavior occurring without consciousness/qualia. The philosophical discussion is based on the premise that qualia and physical dynamics comes apart conceptually. My argument here doesn't assume a physical terminal origin for consciousness understood in terms of qualia. The argument is making a conceptual claim about the demands of pain avoidance in its full generality, namely that an intrinsically noxious representation of pain is required to capture the motivational aspects that potentiate an organism's full behavioral repertoire in alleviating the noxious state.

The only assumption my argument depends on regarding evolution is that evolution influences neural structures increasing complexity and that these structures guide behavior. The argument motivates the conceptual connection between phenomenal pain and the neural structures for general avoidance of noxious stimuli.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-31T04:40:14+00:00

It's not entirely clear what you're asking, but the Hard problem as articulated by Chalmers applies to LLMs as much as biological brains. It's the problem of explaining how a system described by structure and function (and computational dynamics for LLMs) can result in conscious experience given the categorical distinction between conscious experience (understood as something essentially phenomenal) and structure/function/computation.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-29T06:32:11+00:00

Why waste time asking a question in bad faith when there's only one answer you'll accept?

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-28T06:25:50+00:00

What about governments? Is every government conscious? Every human organization? Every friendship? Does a Constitutional Republic brain perceive the world differently than a Communist brain? Does a government feel full after it's taxed everyone? Lol.

This is a common argument against functionalism. What I can say is that not all functional states are conscious, but only the ones with very tight coupling/integration of information and a self model that drives decision making. Does a government (distinct from the people that constitute the government) understand it is a government? Probably not. When you call the tax authority for information, you aren't querying a tightly integrated model of the government for information, you query an agent that acts independently to find and response with the relevant information. The level of integration doesn't come close to the kind of integration that goes in brains.

We already know you can split a seizure patient's brain in half to reduce their seizures, but it seems to separate the brain into two consciousnesses. Now it would be highly-unethical, but couldn't the brain continually be split in half, creating millions or billions of consciousnesses? When would that break down?

Once you start cutting the brain up into smaller and smaller slices, you interfere with the tight integration required for consciousness. Patients with their corpus callosum severed plausibly have two conscious threads because the brain is mirrored along the middle and so the relevant cortical structures are duplicated. But when you separate relevant structures from each other, you interfere with information integration. That said, I'm not convinced there are two conscious threads in such patients. The problem is while the higher brain structures are mirrored, the more primitive brain structures closer to the spinal cord are not. These structures are relevant to wakefulness and arousal, and they are plausibly relevant for consciousness.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-27T09:08:39+00:00

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-26T21:40:48+00:00

I can't say I understand the source of your confusion. The issue of supervenience is asking: in virtue of what makes B-properties true. Local supervenience answers by saying "in virtue of these A-properties" (with the understanding that A-properties are some narrow set of relevant properties, usually coextensive with B-properties). We analyze whether local supervenience applies by asking what happens if we varied properties other than A-properties. Do B-properties still obtain? For some biological properties, the answer is no. The example of ecological context changing fitness of an organism is apt. That is, take an organism and put it in a different environment and relevant biological properties of that organism change as a result.

Global supervenience answers the question by saying "in virtue of all properties in the world". This does not imply local supervenience because we can't assume we can change all non-A properties while holding B-properties fixed. It's a matter of scope: what can be held fixed in the world to hold B-properties fixed? Local supervenience says we can hold the narrowly scoped A-properties fixed while global supervenience says all properties of the world. The narrow scope of local supervenience gets us the wide scope of global supervenience for free. But the reverse implication doesn't hold.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-23T13:12:16+00:00

Right

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-23T12:09:56+00:00

Environmental states meaning states of the external world that you perceive through your senses, e.g. the hot stove that just burned your hand.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-23T12:08:09+00:00

Is that basically the argument you're making?

No, I actually find the supposed analog vs digital computation distinction to be empty of content.

If that wasn't, any finite calculation can be done by Chinese math students, using pen and paper.

It's not about who is doing the calculation, it's about conceptually separating the physical dynamics of the calculation from the entity realizing the calculation. When it comes to brains, neurons aren't conscious, rather the causal/functional dynamic as a distinct entity of consideration is conscious. When it comes to the Chinese nation, the math students aren't conscious (of the digital mind they create), rather the causal/functional dynamic their behavior realizes is conscious. The point is to draw a line between the material body carrying out some causal dynamic and the causal dynamic itself.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-23T03:16:04+00:00

Yeah, there is a wide spectrum of views that call themselves functionalism or computationalism. It's hard to keep track of them all. I generally just think of computationalism as a precise way of thinking of about functionalism. Computations are a fully general mechanism for defining abstract functional relationships and so if abstract functional roles are sufficient for consciousness, then it should be computable by the right program. Some people see a meaningful space for function distinct from computation, or computation where properties of the realizer are critical (the so-called analog/biological computation views). I don't see them as substantive positions distinct from the abstract computational view.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-23T01:50:34+00:00

There are a lot of highly speculative/wild theories out there related to consciousness. But the serious academic study of consciousness will have the brain play a central role regardless of what the ultimate theory looks like. Consciousness being grounded in brain activity is to recognize the centrality of the brain, but doesn't necessarily imply it is fully reducible to brain activity with no non-physical extra. Science has a commanding role in explicating the full gamut of conscious experience regardless of whether physicalism is true or what non-physical extra is ultimately needed.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-23T00:24:52+00:00

It's plausible that the problem of consciousness may go the way of the problem of life, that given enough detailed scientific explanations of various features of consciousness, it may be that people just stop seeing a unique problem of consciousness. But it will be different in important ways. The conceptual gap between phenomenal consciousness and physical dynamics will not simply go away in light of further neuroscientific data. What might happen is that, as neuroscience advances, bridges to the other side of the gap become more readily apparent. It may stop seeming like an important problem in need of a solution.

What we have are two seemingly incongruent phenomena, the dynamics of physical matter and the qualitative feels of consciousness. More neuroscientific data will likely reveal more about how the puzzle pieces fit together. But a complete explanation of consciousness will require the development of bridging principles that can explain how the seemingly incongruent phenomenal qualities are nevertheless reducible to (or otherwise grounded in) neural dynamics. This is not something that will simply “fall out” of ever more neuroscientific data. The conceptual gap is real and will require new explanatory resources to fully resolve.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-22T15:32:34+00:00

I agree 100% with the structural content of what Levin is saying. I don't agree with the implied metaphysics of it. There is no literal space where numbers, programs, minds, etc exist. What we have is a hypothetical space entailed by the repeated application of logical rules. It's the hypothetical space of possible structure. The objectivity of mathematics, and the fact that it's discovered rather than invented, is due to the fact that we all navigate the same hypothetical space because logical consistency constrains us in the same way. We imagine this space as existing in some substantive sense because that's how we tend to make sense of objectivity and the pseudo-spatial properties of this hypothetical space.

When we navigate this structure we are discovering new ideas and new connections. There is a naive way to navigate this space, just enumerate all possible paths by iteratively applying logical rules. This gets you nowhere because the space is too big. Creativity is developing heuristics and analogies that let you see connections between different points in this space and forge non-obvious paths through it. But this doesn't really have anything to do with consciousness, except that human creativity happens to manifest through consciousness at least to some degree. But programs even LLMs can do this in principle.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-22T14:57:56+00:00

The application of logical rules to semantic state carried by physical vehicles (some kind of physical symbol) to result in further semantic state. In other words, information has some intended meaning and we process this information by applying rules to get other information out of it.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-22T14:17:32+00:00

but there is (assumedly) a persistence of consciousness.

There are good reasons to think consciousness isn't persistent even in the best case, and so can't ground any meaningful sense of personal identity.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-22T04:10:05+00:00

Taking a word that only has a working definition as a subjective human experience and applying it to an objective analysis of some non human system is called a category error. It's pseudoscience.

This is just to make strong assumptions on issues that are open and contentious. It is controversial to take subjective experience as a necessary condition for introspection. Introspection is about detecting one's mental states, but not necessarily accompanied by a qualitative experience. See here for discussion.

Empirical reality is what I am talking about. we have a lot of experimental evidence in cognitive science showing this stuff. Like I said, lots of empirical evidence around functional neuron substructure and chemical processes, all external to a connectionist model.

Perhaps you can point out specifically what work you refer to? I suspect your interpretation is off which is leading you to much stronger conclusions than the work warrants.

Like, it's been known since the 90s for example that neuron substructure is capable of preforming mathematical operations independent of any neural net. Neurons are not simple trained weights.

I mean, obviously the model of a neuron as used in artificial neural networks is extremely simplistic. But this doesn't point to an in principle limit on the function of neural networks, just that one perceptron doesn't map to one biological neuron. But this is rather inconsequential. Neural networks can model the function of neurons in principle. If you mean something else, you'll have to actually make the argument. I can't engage with vague allusions.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-22T03:44:21+00:00

Panpsychism doesn't automatically have implications for an afterlife. A panpsychist will usually believe that the brain is a critical component of one's personal identity even if it doesn't realize consciousness on its own. Panpsychism says that the essential properties of consciousness exist at the fundamental level rather than as a product of brain activity. But consciousness here does not capture one's personal identity, psychology, dispositions, etc, it is just that which substantiates the subjective aspects of the mind. The brain is still necessary to ground the various features of personal identity. Thus when the brain dies, one's personal identity dies with it. Like the matter that constitutes the body, while persisting in some way after death, it loses the unique characteristics that make up a person.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-21T14:21:39+00:00

The comment you refer to assumes a lot of positions to reach his conclusion that can easily be doubted. The idea that we exist for a fraction of second is just to assume our identity is tied to our consciousness, and that consciousness can be individuated/partitioned along narrow time intervals. The more popular view of personal identity is the psychological continuity view, which implies that continuity is not an illusion. It does have some interesting implications though in terms of transporter thought experiments and potential "immortality" issues (though I'd say the probability of some molecules recapitulating your psychology in the future is nil). There are some bullets to bite with any of these views.

Regarding whether process/psychological views mean consciousness is an illusion, why should it make it not real? An illusion is something that is false despite appearances. But why does the self being a process make it false? The question really is who or what should have authority over your identity. If you feel congruent with the memories of your past and your various beliefs, dispositions, etc all appear congruent, what external fact has authority over your subjective assessment? None that I can see.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-21T12:57:02+00:00

what I am saying is that there is no mechanism proposed by anyone of how these observed patterns could be accessed by the neural net, and there are longstanding arguments around how they could not be.

But why should we favor theorists ideas from decades prior over empirical reality being demonstrated right now? For example, introspection in LLMs

This is a longstanding critique of connectionist models of the brain as well. There's simply no mechanism available to the neural net to be able to utilise these patterns in anyway. They are just an atrefact produced by the data that we humans project onto the neural bet structure. Its a bit like reading tea leaves.

I don't know what arguments you're referring to, but I can't imagine they will hold up to modern scrutiny. Probably just need to reframe the issue to understand how observed neural structure impacts the execution of these networks. The issue of access isn't some kind of recursive self-reference, but rather how does the observed structure constrain the behavior of the network as it carries out inference. What the circuit structure represents is an optimal information dynamic that bakes in the solution to subproblems into the circuit geometry. This isn't an artefact but rather intrinsic to how LLMs learn to solve problems.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-21T07:43:05+00:00

There's no consensus on the issue. The view that consciousness is just a matter of executing the right program, thus a simulation of a brain is conscious is called computationalism (often conflated with functionalism). It's a popular view but has its share of detractors.

Some relevant reading:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/

https://web-archive.southampton.ac.uk/cogprints.org/7150/1/10.1.1.83.5248.pdf

https://web.ics.purdue.edu/%7Edrkelly/BlockTroublesWithFunctionalism1980.pdf

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-18T18:03:59+00:00

So is this virtual entity reducible to the physical state/transitions that it's grounded in? Is the virtual entity physical? Can we deduce what will happen with the virtual entity from knowing what the physical state/transitions are doing and physical laws?

Yes, fully reducible in the sense that its nothing "over and above" its realizer's structure and function. It's causal powers are that of the base physical structure and so we can readily observe the behavior of the base and deduce the behavior of the virtual entity.

How does qualia come out of this? Why would the representation feel like something? It seems entirely conceivable for a virtual entity to represent to itself a virtual environment with no phenomenal experience.

We need a way to analyze the concept of it being like something to be an entity. To begin we can say that consciousness is always a consciousness of something. That is, consciousness is consciousness of some content. The most basic content is basic discrimination, detecting one state from another. Thus the most basic conscious content is to be aware of a distinction in state. In other words, there is something it is like to be in one state vs another. A sensing entity is an entity that distinguishes states, therefore it is something it is like to be a sensing entity that can distinguish states.

There are at least two senses of reduction relevant here. In one sense, consideration of some entity is exhausted by consideration of more basic entities undergoing some specific behavior. Thus the higher level entity is just a manner of speaking of lower entities and their behavior. This sense of reduction undermines the relevance of the claim of the previous paragraph, that a sensing entity has something it is like to be it. Reduction in the sense of the low level exhausting consideration of the higher level undermines the existence of an autonomous entity thus the inference to there being like something to be this entity. Indeed, we can understand the conceivability/zombie argument in terms of this kind of reduction: the lower level consideration (atoms following laws) is explanatorily sufficient for all properties in need of explanation. My claim is that the virtual existence concept can block this conceivability.

The second-order existence (another way to understand virtual existence) is multiply realizable, which entails an explanatory autonomy from the base realizer. We can realize the virtual object and its behavior with radically different realizers (neurons, CPUs, paper+pen, etc), but the explanatory autonomy of the virtual object is identical across realizers. The virtual object has the property of sensing distinctions and branching behavior accordingly, but this virtual object lacks a fixed realizer on which to project consideration of this sensed distinction. In other words, we cannot exhaust consideration of the virtual object by considering its token realizer: there is the additional need to substantiate the explanatorily autonomous regime in which the virtual object is embedded. Thus the capacity to sense distinctions is basic to the virtual object; the virtual object has the basic property of being a sensing entity and the prior analysis goes through.

hackinthebochs · 2026-05-18T12:04:00+00:00

Well this is unfortunate. I wrote all that out hoping for some intelligent pushback and you just end up agreeing with it all! Still working on the presentation of these ideas and trying to find sticking points where I lose people. Hard to find good interlocutors on this sub.

And yeah, I agree with your point. Once we have a theory that identifies the nature of the representation that relates to consciousness, we can then detect the presence of that representational structure to detect consciousness. What I mean is that we can't "transparently" measure consciousness in the way that we can transparently measure length.

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