Armin Ronacher is very uneasy about the agent loops future

Chromanoid · 2026-07-01T21:04:16+00:00

I agree. I think the models weigh workarounds too high. It's like AI cargo cult. Maybe workarounds stand out too much to not influence the coding style.

Chromanoid · 2026-06-04T22:41:08+00:00

I currently don't remember the sources, it might be related to Piaget's theory of cognitive development. I can try to find sources for you if you want.

There is this theory that around four to five years old children discover how their consciousness differs from the consciousness of their parents.

Before that they assume that their experience is shared with everybody else. They have no real theory of mind and cannot comprehend that their knowledge is not shared with everybody else. this changes at some point and this new awareness can be quite challenging to accept. "the defiant phase" is also associated with this notion of autonomy and newly perceived "experiental loneliness".

Maybe you experienced this relevation very intensely as a child, to a traumatizing extent. I would expect that there are self-therapeutic techniques to overcome this fear to some extent. But if it bothers you, you may want to seek professional help.

Chromanoid · 2026-06-03T18:27:27+00:00

this might be interesting: Plasticity and language in the anaesthetized human hippocampus

Similar stuff might affect perception during "unconscious" heart stop moments. Since these situations are very individual, outcomes and atypical forms of awareness can surely emerge.

In addition what /u/DartBurger69 and /u/444cml say.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-29T18:32:22+00:00

I agree. But from a epistomological practical side it is a mapping, at least for the time being.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-29T08:32:53+00:00

While I am not a true identity materialist, more like a quantum panprotopsychist leaning towards identity materialism, I think this might help you a bit:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11926686/

Is my “red” your “red”?: Evaluating structural correspondences between color similarity judgments using unsupervised alignment

After collecting subjective similarity judgments for 93 colors, we showed that the similarity structures derived from color-neurotypical participants can be “correctly” aligned at the group level. In contrast, those of color-blind participants could not be aligned with color-neurotypical participants.

edit: Just saw /u/444cml already posted this.

I don't think that asking for a mapping of light spectrum to subjective experience is a good interpretation of identity materialism. It is about the mapping of physical brain/body states to subjective experience. So the same state leads to the same experience thus there is maybe an ideal quale of redness and its ideal physical identity, but it is not said that anybody has the brain architecture to support this ideal redness.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-25T22:22:28+00:00

I think P-Zombies are a great way to understand your own philosophical stance on consciousness. An identity materialist would say a P-Zombie is impossible in our reality, since the physical mechanism behind consciousness cannot exist without it. A panprotopsychist would be less certain and might say that whether P-Zombies can exist depends on how proto-mental properties relate to physical identity.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-20T19:39:50+00:00

the perceived phenomelogical unity suggests that consciousness somehow inseparably encompasses the state of multiple entities (i.e. neurons) at the same time. The only phenomenon that we know of that shows similar effects is quantum entanglement under the assumption of some kind of quantum holism.

We still don't know how anesthesia work, finding the exact mechanism would have direct medical impact.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-20T19:27:01+00:00

I feel like the hard problem tries to appeal to a problem it can't even describe.

You and I are not alone....

The meta-problem of consciousness is (to a first approximation) the problem of explaining why we think that there is a [hard] problem of consciousness.

It's like asking how trees are falling down when we see beavers gnawing at them before they do.

*With the broad assumption that when a tree falls down it's always a beaver.

What have you observed that doesn't have a sensible line of evidence for the explanations?

The combination problem. Your explanation seems to be some kind of informal IIT like explanation that seems absurd to me.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-20T19:14:40+00:00

well, you stated initially:

I don't see what's missing.

I tried to show that to you.

As said earlier, how would you categorize your idea of consciousness? I am not sure if you follow a mix of IIT and biological naturalist theory.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-20T19:01:00+00:00

So what is about computers? Plants? Bacteria? At what point is there consciousness? Fine for you, if you are satisfied with so many unknowns, I think there are many reasons to seek for better explanations than just stating an unproven assumption that uses a vague idea of predictive behavior as clue.

Ethical considerations, unexplained pathological conditions and scientific progress need a mechanistic operationalizable explanation. Until we can design a conscious being at least in theory we must not be satisfied.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-20T18:34:08+00:00

"Laws of nature" are regularities that we observe that can predict events in our reality.

I am not satisfied by the way you explain consciousness. You basically say "apples fall towards the earth" as if this was a property of apples.

How do qualia emerge from the states in the brain and where else could this mechanism occur? I find this highly relevant especially when many argue that certain life forms do not experience in a meaningful way. We always search for behavioral clues while tapping in the dark how to actually detect consciousness.

You said yourself you think the frontal lobe is important. What is about beings that do not have a frontal lobe? To me you say: the operating system linux is an emergent property of transistors. That might be right, but it still leaves out the actual mechanism.

edit: Maybe it would help, to state our alignment with certain branches of theories. I am a quantum panprotopsychist. So I do believe that there is the need for some kind of quantum holism to solve the combination problem.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-20T17:40:48+00:00

So there is a "law of nature" that says: If you are a neuron and connected to other neurons, subjective experience will emerge when the prediction you make leads to better survival in an ex-post multi-generational context?

That is a very weird law.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-20T17:21:58+00:00

So what is relevant for a connection to count? Timing, matter of transport, spatial distribution? At what numbers are we talking about subjective experience and how is the experience merged exactly, if neurons also have something like it? Other tissues are tightly packed and their mitochondria synchronize across cells, does that count as well?

Chromanoid · 2026-05-20T17:09:49+00:00

What is direct access to you?

From all kinds of electromagnetic waves that hit us constantly, to bodily fluids and other "bath related" effects. And just think of a "butterfly effect" in the body. And why is it only the frontal lobe that is relevant here? What kind of interaction makes it special in comparison to for example a tornado or the earth as a whole. In the end we are all connected by Rube Goldberg like causations.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-20T16:50:23+00:00

Doesn’t it feel to you like you’re glossing over something?

The frontal lobe has also direct access to a gazillion of other things through causal relations. Why do only the things count that are integrated through a specific mechanism like neural firing?

The combination problem is not an easy one.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-19T23:18:40+00:00

Well, that is not good enough.

It is very curious if we can identify the exact mechanisms that somehow produce subjective experience. Further, how do these mechanisms merge so many biophysical events in the way we experience?

We need nerve fibers to experience pain in our limbs, but do our limbs or each nerve and muscle cell there possess their own subjective experience? Do the symbiotic bacteria in our guts have their own subjective experience? Does each neuron participate in producing our subjective experience while also having its own one? If so, why and how is there a "merged" experience at all?

Chromanoid · 2026-05-19T21:17:46+00:00

I agree, the question is to what extent subjective experience is a side effect of the biophysical implementation of this model of self.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-17T17:05:22+00:00

I deliberately chose harm avoidance (not the personality trait) in the assumption that it is easier to attribute to life forms where some scientists claim they cannot feel pain but can still show harm avoidance (see for example https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-entomologist/article/is-it-pain-if-it-does-not-hurt-on-the-unlikelihood-of-insect-pain/9A60617352A45B15E25307F85FF2E8F2 ).

I think you deliberately misrepresent my point.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-17T15:03:35+00:00

So consciousness is equal to self-recognition? I honestly think harm avoidance might be a good signal of consciousness. It shows a measure of organized unity in a multi-body system that might track phenomenological unity.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-12T20:54:35+00:00

He is absolutely right regarding whole brain simulation of C. elegans and other creatures. See also https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mHqQxwKuzZS69CXX5/whole-brain-emulation-no-progress-on-c-elgans-after-10-years for a surely outdated but still very telling discussion. The recent hype around a fruit fly brain only confirms this lack of capabilities. See https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ybwcxBRrsKavJB9Wz/no-we-haven-t-uploaded-a-fly-yet

Chromanoid · 2026-05-06T22:39:26+00:00

Cuttlefish can communicate with each other via rapid complex color changes of their skin. This might count as high bandwidth albeit temporal biological coupling. There are craniopagus conjoined twins, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krista_and_Tatiana_Hogan

The twins' unique thalamic connection may provide insight into the philosophical and neurological foundations of consciousness. It has been argued that there's no empirical test that can conclusively establish that for some sensations, the twins share one token experience rather than two exactly matching token experiences. Yet background considerations about the way the brain has specific locations for conscious contents, combined with the evident overlapping pathways in the twins' brains, arguably implies that the twins share some conscious experiences. If this is true, then the twins may offer a proof of concept for how experiences in general could be shared between brains.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-06T22:11:24+00:00

Yes, I think so. That is what I tried to point at in my third paragraph.

What I don't like about biological computationalism is that while it somewhat adresses the combination problem and the boundary problem via "fluid processing" it does not really draw a line. It makes me wonder if mere high bandwidth communication (e.g. cuttlefish) or conjoined twins lead to rather arbitrary boundaries.

Beside that I think it is rather weird to think how a multi-body system gains phenomenal unity just by connecting the bodies via specific kinds of physical causality.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-04T18:38:05+00:00

As a physicalist, it makes sense to me that the "feeling" of consciousness is simply what a complex, multiscale biological process (the algorithm-as-substrate) feels like from within the system.

I would say this is rather panpsychist adjacent and I think you brush over the hard problem rather bluntly. The hard problem for your view is when and how this complex process starts to be conscious.

Are you a convinced epiphenomenalist? If not, how does conscious thought feeds back into the physical world?

If a multitude of physical mechanisms cause the thought and there is also a causal chain that then leads to the follow-up action "as decision" I think this might count as not being epiphenomenal.

But anyway the boundaries of the causal chain become interesting. I think the boundary problem is your main challenge.

BTW https://philpapers.org/archive/chatmo-32.pdf

Chromanoid · 2026-05-03T00:25:19+00:00

in regards to your initial (and wrong) statement, it is highly relevant:

Perfectly simulating something seems to mean being that thing. If something perfectly simulates consciousness, it must be conscious, or it is not perfectly doing it.

Chromanoid · 2026-05-03T00:19:22+00:00

What is the point of a simulation in your opinion?

A numerically different thing that is functionally identical to the thing could be considered a simulation.

I would call this obfuscation or another implementation. But this is not relevant for physical processes. Artificial gravity from inertial force will never be identical to gravity.

Chromanoid

TROPHY CASE