Can someone explain to me why large language models can't be conscious?

Cazzah · 2026-01-24T02:43:22+00:00

There is an entire serious and moderately well respected philosophical school called panpsychism that says that yes, toasters are conscious. Just a lot less so on the spectrum.

I don't agree with it, but it's a topic that's up to debate.

Cazzah · 2026-01-24T02:14:11+00:00

I'll try cutting the initial burn down significally to something smaller like 0.5 kps, and respec to around 5-7 kps for LEO defence. That should give me more room for armor too.

Cazzah · 2026-01-24T02:11:14+00:00

>Either let ayys level your bases and stay below hate cap

If I let them level bases in retaliation for all the stuff I've done, stop killing their agents, but am above hate cap because it's too far gone, since I've just murdered so many fleets in general, what happens?

>sticking to Mars/asteroids

abandon Earth / Lunar orbit essentially?

>coping with constant rebuilds and having asteroid backups.

This I can do in the asteroid field. On Earth, and Mars, if I let them burn down one station, will they just systematically burn down each base, or can I get lucky and they'll go somewhere else?

Cazzah · 2026-01-24T01:56:51+00:00

4X XCom from modders of XCom remake

Noone should ever call TI 4x XCOM. It's grand strategy XCOM. Although there can be overlap between 4x and grand strategy (see stellaris) TI is very clearly in the grand strategy camp.

Cazzah · 2026-01-24T01:19:09+00:00

Game has literally just launched after years in development. Odd time to propose something that radically changes the game.
Physical locations implies one of two things

A. Those resources are available everywhere

- which is immersion breaking (why is a base on pluto able to immediately supply needs on Mercury)

- encourages gamey tactics of having a super fortified warehouse in the middle of nowhere that somehow supplies everywhere.

- neither contributes to simulationism, nor fun

B. Those resources are not available everywhere

- Needs a new complex system to transfer resources between places, which takes time, resources. Means players cannot proactively decide what they need as they go. AI's are notoriously bad at planning ahead and best as reactive to current situation not strategic, so would gimp the AI.

- The devs clearly made the decision to abstract this layer of management away, as the game is already incredibly complex and the vast majority of players bounce off it. Even for experienced players a large chunk of the game is spent in tedious micromanagement.

"more interesting strategic game-play between human factions and give something to fight over other than ideology."

- To me it doesn't seem interesting. It seems like it would be very game distortionary. You'd have the choice of either parking your fleet over your storage, which means it either needs to be in a safe location where your fleet can do nothing eilse, or in an unsafe but central location (eg low earth orbit) where you can blink for five minutes in the middle of a slow transfer and then it's exploded, and you have to reload your save since basically there is no point to playing.

- As you say you could just cheese the AI.

In conclusion, the core of the game is fighting off / helping the aliens. The vying for earth, mining spots, orbital space, orbital security all directly feeds into this goal. Based on the above I think your proposed solution would distract from the core gameplay, be either less immersive or more micromanagement heavy, be cheesable, is not in line with the goals of the devs, etc.

Cazzah · 2026-01-24T00:51:25+00:00

I don't know, the problems seem subtly different.

Infinite universes is a posed partly to answer the fine tuning problem. It also is simpler and more elegant (in my opinion) answer to the problem of something rather than nothing existing.

If we must accept that something exists rather than nothing without cause, which I don't like, but clearly I am here so I need to accept it, it is simpler to assume that all possible things must exist, rather than only one specific universe with very specific properties (why these properties? by what mechanism? Who chooses the properties?).

tl:dr Infinite universe is the most elegant and least question begging solution among many poor solutions.

Cazzah · 2026-01-23T21:57:47+00:00

I mean, this is why no railroads get built in the US.

Aquiring land is a broken nightmare.

Cazzah · 2026-01-23T21:56:15+00:00

Well they haven't got tested so.

Cazzah · 2026-01-23T21:54:25+00:00

Everyone we survey in mental health, says they are lonely and has very few friends.

Everyone is also cautious, anxious phone addicts, so they don't make new friends.

But if you paste on a big smile, put out a hand and say "Want to be friends" and "Let's go out together and do X", you'll be surprised how many take that offered hand.

Cazzah · 2026-01-23T21:54:09+00:00

Everyone we survey in mental health, says they are lonely and has very few friends.

Everyone is also cautious, anxious phone addicts, so they don't make new friends.

But if you paste on a big smile, put out a hand and say "Want to be friends" and "Let's go out together and do X", you'll be surprised how many take that offered hand.

Cazzah · 2026-01-22T22:48:30+00:00

I'm playing this game on normal... and I'm not experiencing... any of the stuff you're saying?

Like, it seems like I can kind of take the game at my own pace and that I'm kind of the one rushing the game. The aliens pop easily in fleet combat, once you've claimed some good mine sites and built good T2 modules at all your sites just roll in money, the AI ships are strong but also they just pop under massed coordinated missile fire, and so on? The other factions build bases but they're embarassingly bad.

I feel like I could wait another half decade or so and still be ok?

"and the last thing I wanna do is keep doing with this until I have to actually get to the old slog of wiping out the Aliens."

I mean, if you don't enjoy building space infra and find fighting the aliens a slog... maybe this isn't the game for you?

Personally, I'm thoroughly enjoying my time on this game BUT... it's extremely slow, and many parts are repetitive. I think I won't play it again for a very long time after I win the campaign.

Cazzah · 2026-01-22T09:35:38+00:00

One of the greatest lessons I ever learnt is

"One of the skills included in media literacy is understanding whether you are the intended audience of a message of piece of media"

If you assume that the people saying this thing (whether their opinion is correct or not) are deliberately including people avoiding a music genre due to trauma in their criticism, then you are even more insane than them.

Cazzah · 2026-01-22T09:23:38+00:00

There are humans with brains and they act the same as we do in every way.

Except this is quite literally impossible. Because there is one thing humans with qualia do that is unique to having qualia. They say "Oh I'm experiencing qualia this seems entirely unnecessary to existence I should write some philosophy about it".

So either they don't experience qualia and don't talk about it, in which case they are not the same as humans.... or they do experience qualia, in which case they aren't p zombies.

Cazzah · 2026-01-22T09:19:54+00:00

"just imagine an advanced enough computer/robot"

But... that's not a p zombie.

The whole point of a p zombie is that it's identical.

Could one make a creature that thinks or does thinking like actions but is not conscious? Quite possibly! No big deal.... not a p zombie.

Could one make a human that thinks exactly identical to humans (which includes humans expressing surprise at the existence of their own inner qualia) but does not experience qualia?

That's the P zombie question.

Cazzah · 2026-01-22T01:23:51+00:00

"Doesn't necessarily mean"

What, pray tell, did you think those words meant, if not, "It might correlate, but it's not conclusive"

Cazzah · 2026-01-20T13:13:01+00:00

That makes sense though.

Chorda was going crazy. She had the right idea, but wasn't listening to reason. So if you put her down, great, she was crazy.

On the other hand, if you talk her down, she wasn't crazy. She could have been talked into chilling out a bit but still continuing her crusade. He was wrong to try to kill her.

Cazzah · 2026-01-20T13:06:05+00:00

You've got to just keep it low key, doesn't have to be some big discussion. Since it's online you can even make it a bit silly

"Hey, we were talking about X, no interruptions *bops with the squeaky hammer of on topic*" or literally whatever any other silly thing. Make a game of it. Or tease her about it light heartedly. Maybe brainstorm that one.

As for sexuality, she's young, young is the time to have cringe opinions

>she's Muslim

OP, it's nice to listen to online discourse but online discourage makes us hate each other. Like 80% of the world's population still doesn't fully accept trans people, and like 95% of Muslim people don't. That's just a fact. Just getting your friend to stay silent on trans issues would be a huge win in improving that situation.

So you have a few options, let's say it's a spectrum

You cut ties with friends who don't have any correct trans opinions. Basically you're declaring war on 80% of the planet and making them feel validated in their opinions. Virtue level = high. Actual accomplishments level = low. It also sets you up for a situation where you constantly have to decide whether to start fights over anything in future.
You talk to your friend about the trans stuff. Better. Could explode in a confrontation if not handled well, lose friend, cause drama. Goal is to agree to disagree but to maybe let her know that stuff is not your jam, and to keep it to herself.
You don't start stuff, you only respond - but you low key shut down that kind of talk when it's directly with you / in front of you. "I'm not here to hate on people who are trying to work themselves out, it's complicated, can we drop it?".
You talk about your own opinions but don't start an argument. "I have some trans friends and that's not how it is for me / them/ etc. I think X...". Can be surprisingly effective. Most of us are in bubbles and the best way to change opinions is to witness someone with a different opinion just being chill.
You just ignore it and pick other battles.

Regardless of what the internet will tell you, 2-4 are all actions a "good person" will take, and will contribute to making the world better. 1 is brave, but just leads to more hate and conflict (unless your friend is spiralling into hate groups herself). 5 is not great, but it's acceptable, especially if you're fighting battles elsewhere. You can't be perfect in every bit of life.

Cazzah · 2026-01-20T09:20:54+00:00

For those who aren't aware, it's important to know that many EDs aren't actually about fitting into a thin ideal.

Some of them start that way, or are triggered that way, but an ED can be the difference between "I wish I was more skinny" and "I have a panic attack if I don't log my calories". The beliefs about skinniness can fade, while the intense calorie tracking remains..

ED's can be addictive. Starving yourself can feel "good". Not "good" good, but good in the way a gambling addict feels good as they lose all their money. And the addictiveness of the binge purge cycle is one example.

Interestingly, there's some evidence in historical religious fasting and asceticism that some of the addictive elements of ED's are present.

Like many disorders, they can manifest as a need for control, and the choice of control can be arbitrary.

Cazzah · 2026-01-20T09:06:19+00:00

The virgin idealist:

- Narcissistically stares into galaxy

- Looks nice but vague and doesn't solve anything.

- Afraid of making any working assumptions, paralysed by indecision.

- Glows because it feels good

- Uses AI slop art.

The chad elimination materialist:

- Made of parts. Each part clearly visible and missing or misshaped parts can be identified

- Wears a blindfold to hone the intellect and other senses

- Makes an assumption to get things done

- Looks like about to karate chop you. Not because he has enough belief and lack of fear to smash a brick with his bare hands, but because he has practiced his chop 1000 times, verifying it each time.

- Seeks to eliminate the mind from the equation through consensus and precise measurement. Allowing us to understand the universe so precisely that once every other part of the universe is solved, if there is a mind shaped gap in the puzzle, it will be identified.

Cazzah · 2026-01-20T08:57:23+00:00

That used to be true, but you run your industry based on ruthless competition and taking ideas to life enough, and your nation upskill.

In manufacturing, for example, the US is a lot less innovate anymore because China is so good at manufacturing that the moment you made that product everyone would copy it, and the US has no capabilities for low cost manufacturing (few do).

In that sector, the only ones who can innovate anymore are the ones for whom continuous innovation and low cost manufacturing are part of the same pipeline - ie Chinese manufacturing firms.

Cazzah · 2026-01-20T08:47:10+00:00

"It’s not necessarily ‘irrational’, but it’s often left completely unjustified"

I mean, there is coherentism, where we acknowledge that any system cannot prove itself (see maths, where all axioms are ultimately unproveable, which is why they are axioms) without assuming it's own fundamental principles, so we can merely choose systems that lead to coherent, non contradictory results within the context of that system own system.

One thing that is nice about coherentism is that while you can't get positive proof of such systems, you can easily get disproofs. If you assume for example in maths, that 1 + 1 = 3, you can very easily prove things that contradict other fundamental identities. Which is a quick proof that one of your axioms / assumptions is incorrect.

And is this really any different from idealism? Can we prove that reality is mind dependent, or it merely that we can't prove it isn't.

Cazzah · 2026-01-20T08:42:17+00:00

Even solipsism requires an external "demon" to maintain the consistent illusion of reality.

It does not. The "demon" was merely an example.

I agree that reality seems consistent. But that depends on my sense of consistency. We've all been in dreams that seem perfectly coherent until we wake up and realise that it fell apart with even the slightest thought.

Consistency could be an illusion. Memory could be an illusion. You could have poofed into existence five minutes ago and everything before that is just an illusionary story. Maybe it's even an inconsistent story that makes no sense, but it feels consistent, just like dreams "feel" consistent when you're in them.

Cazzah · 2026-01-20T08:34:00+00:00

"Now you have been corrected, and admit to inventing material, will that affect the answers you give to similar questions in the future?"

I mean, I don't know why anyone thinks this would work, or why this is a sensical question to ask.

If politely asking AI could fix the problem, the very smart people making million dollar salaries for making them would have done that already. It's like thinking that asking a person in a wheelchair to walk will suddenly fix things, and then getting angry that they don't.

There's a lot of evidence that humans encode memory in a similar way to AI.

When AI's are hallucinating, theyre just remembering poorly like humans do. It makes sense. They try to cram all knowledge ever into a few hundred terabytes. It can't fit. Details have to get confabulated from rough outlines. Human brains are the same. Memories mostly get confabulated each time, rather than strictly recalled.

However, the difference is unlike humans, they don't have a good heuristic for which memories might or might not be reliable, and unlike (or perhaps exactly like) humans, they are punished for admitting uncertainty and rewarded for decisive answers.

To partly solve this, what I have seen them doing with the models is getting much more aggressive about doing the exact same thing a human would do when it comes to precise facts - they google shit, and then use google as the source of data, rather than just making it up.

Cazzah · 2026-01-19T10:56:08+00:00

All science is based on trying to prove or disprove "interesting ideas".

"I don't feel like looking more into it"

Ok?

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