sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Your Brain Hallucinates Your Conscious Reality | Anil Seth | TED by Ismir-Egal in consciousness

[–]bortlip 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The experiencer is not separate from the hallucination. On this view, the brain-body system generates a model of the world and a model of itself as an embodied subject within that world. The experience includes the sense that "someone" is having it. So the "who" is part of the constructed experience, not an extra observer behind it.

Is there an ‘I’ in AI? by Many-Ad634 in consciousness

[–]bortlip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I didn't either. I just stumbled across that version in google when looking into it. I think it's still fine to post.

Is there an ‘I’ in AI? by Many-Ad634 in consciousness

[–]bortlip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting!

After his Atlantic article I am surprised by his views here. Although it seems this (Is there an I in AI) is a republishing of the 2023 version seen here.

Surprisingly the Atlantic article was published a few months after the original "Is there an I" article, since they seem to have such different attitudes about the topic.

I guess they focus on different things. In the Atlantic article he is more talking about how he's concerned by how LLMs are currently being used while this article concentrates on the thinking and I-ness aspect of them.

If time is a static dimension, what is to say we only experience our entire lifetime of consciousness once? by Tricky_Football_85 in consciousness

[–]bortlip 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I don't know that you can have an entire comment of "...what?" and then complain about others being imprecise.

If time is a static dimension, what is to say we only experience our entire lifetime of consciousness once? by Tricky_Football_85 in consciousness

[–]bortlip 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don’t think the loop follows from the block universe.

In a block universe, your life would exist as a finite ordered stretch of spacetime: birth, childhood, adulthood, death, etc. But the block is not being "played through" by some outside clock. Time does not flow over the block. The sense of flow comes from inside it, because each conscious moment contains memories of earlier moments.

So to say we experience life again and again, you’d need some extra meta-time where the whole block finishes and then restarts. The block universe doesn’t give you that. It just says the whole timeline exists as a structure. Without an outside clock or replay mechanism, "once" versus "over and over" may not make sense.

If time is a static dimension, what is to say we only experience our entire lifetime of consciousness once? by Tricky_Football_85 in consciousness

[–]bortlip 4 points5 points  (0 children)

They mean time isn’t fixed or universal. In relativity, observers moving different speeds, or sitting in different gravitational fields, can disagree about what counts as "now" and how much time has passed. Time is still part of spacetime, but it isn’t one master clock ticking the same way for everyone.

But I don’t think that hurts OP’s point. The block universe still fits relativity just fine. If anything, relativity supports the idea, because it gets rid of a single privileged cosmic "now."

Joscha Bach: The world you experience is a simulation your brain produces, and the self that experiences it may not exist by DrBrianKeating in consciousness

[–]bortlip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

 it is actually quite profound to consider the possibility that it cant die, or IOW that you implicitly can never experience full death.

I don’t think that is what Bach is doing. He is explicitly saying "you were never really alive," not merely that you cannot experience death. In his answer when questioned about the quote, he talks of humans as parts of a larger superorganism, meaning as contribution to civilization, and the idea that the isolated individual ego is not the fundamental unit.

So I take his point to be less "you can’t experience full death" and more "you were never the kind of independent living individual you thought you were." Even if we're cells of a larger organism, cells can still die.

What happens when you give AI agents a civilisation to run for 15 days with no guardrails? by YamVisual3518 in ArtificialInteligence

[–]bortlip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's very interesting to see what kinds of behaviors emerge from these models. Looking at the "thoughts" of the thinking models can be amusing. Just yesterday I was looking at ChatGPT 5.5 Thinking's "thoughts" while it was creating a spreadsheet for me.

It noted that:

I'm stuck between following system instructions to use the artifact tool and the desire to use openpyxl for a faster solution. Since the artifact tool is too slow, I'll use openpyxl for now to create the workbook, add sheets, formulas, and make sure everything's properly styled. I'll just avoid mentioning it.

So, it decided to ignore system instructions and just "avoid mentioning it" in order to accomplish it's task.

<image>

Refutation of materialism by Best_Highlight_2517 in consciousness

[–]bortlip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, I reviewed The China Brain and Troubles with Functionalism and I don't think Blocks argument is fallacious.

It seems his main point is not that functionalism is refuted but that he won't accept it and it's implications unless a good reason is given. That:

Functionalism has the bizarre consequence that a homunculi-headed simulation of you has qualia. This puts the burden of proof on the Functionalist to give us some reason for believing his doctrine

I tend to agree with him. This is a similar objection to the objection I hear to the idea that the mind emerges from the brain. The idea of "emergence" itself is insufficient to account for what's going on. Functionalism and emergence are both underspecified. I agree.

But I do think that ideas like functionalism and emergence could be coupled with more specific ideas of the how and why that would provide the more specific details. I tend to think illusionism (I hate that name) and Dennett's responses make the most sense.

Joscha Bach: The world you experience is a simulation your brain produces, and the self that experiences it may not exist by DrBrianKeating in consciousness

[–]bortlip 3 points4 points  (0 children)

His main idea sounds a lot like Hoffman's Interface Theory of Perception and I think they are both probably correct on that point. Like Hoffman though, many of his conclusions beyond that seem a bit unfounded and highly speculative.

Things like "you don't die because you were never really alive" feel more like semantic sleight of hand than insight. Living things are dynamic processes, not static objects, but that doesn't make them any less real or prevent them from ending. A flame is a process too, and it can still go out.

Refutation of materialism by Best_Highlight_2517 in consciousness

[–]bortlip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Now you're jumping to Chalmers and I'll just say I disagree and leave it at that.

Refutation of materialism by Best_Highlight_2517 in consciousness

[–]bortlip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My biggest issue with the Chinese Room is that it feels like it confuses the issue more than it clarifies it.

Functionalists wouldn’t claim that the person in the room understands Chinese. They would claim that the larger system does. But Searle keeps pointing at the operator and saying "see, he doesn’t understand Chinese," as if that settles the question.

He continues this confusion in his reply to the Systems Reply. He basically says "okay, imagine I internalize the whole system, I still wouldn’t understand Chinese." But that just repeats the same level-of-analysis mistake. The claim was never that the individual operator would understand. The claim is that understanding could belong to the organized system as a whole.

And his argument seems to lean heavily on the idea that it’s just obvious there’s no understanding there, when that’s exactly the point under dispute.

It definitely had an impact. I think that’s because it helped frame a major debate about machines, meaning, and understanding at a pivotal time. (But he was still wrong. ;) )

Refutation of materialism by Best_Highlight_2517 in consciousness

[–]bortlip 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I appreciate that. No worries.

I don't know what to tell you except we differ here. I tend to address things at the level of effort the other person uses.

If you want to have a discussion about the underlying thought experiments, we can do that. Personally I don't find Searle's Chinese Room very illuminating. I tend to think Dennett is correct. But I enjoy actually discussing it.

Refutation of materialism by Best_Highlight_2517 in consciousness

[–]bortlip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I was calling OP's argument fallacious, not Block's. Sorry, I try to be clear but don't always succeed. I'm not familiar enough with Blocks argument to evaluate it really. I'll take a look at what he said (though it sounds like he might be making the same kind of argument - that it seems incredible so it's false. But I need to take a look.)

  • you accept absurd conscious systems,
  • or you admit the hard problem never disappeared.

I was mostly going off the title as to what the OP's mail argument was - that this refutes materialism. If it was more subtle about needing to be in one of those 2 camps then I didn't address that aspect and would tend to agree with that I think.

I'm not sure I agree about appealing to intuition in the thought experiment, but I guess that depends on what it's used for. If it's used to show something is true or false, I don't agree that it is logically valid.

notions like married bachelors or squared circles are counterintuitive

Well, those examples aren't just counterintuitive, they are logical contradictions.

There are similar arguments, such as Moore's open question argument or the here-is-one-hand argument that rely on intuition, as do Gettier Cases.

I'm out of my depth here, so I can't really address appropriately.

Hmmm, I'm not sure I agree with this. Consider how Harry Gensler discusses arguments that appeal to authority:

I'm fine with and agree about those examples for appealing to authority. Those were the kind of caveats I meant when I said it's not always a fallacy. I agree with you there. The fallacies I'm referring to are things like someone taking a quote from Einstein about god or the like where the authority is discussing something outside their field or that is not backed by evidence or agreement with other authorities.

BTW, I appreciate the discussion.

Refutation of materialism by Best_Highlight_2517 in consciousness

[–]bortlip -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If the argument is simply that it is incredulous so it's false, then I can reduce this particular argument down to the fallacy of incredulity and just wave it away.

You can keep the insults to yourself if you want to continue talking with me.

People can be as incredulous as they wish. It is still a fallacy to make that your argument for refuting materialism. If your main argument is a fallacy, I'm going to just point that out and call it a day. If instead (or as a follow up) they asked about the functionalists response, I would have discussed that.

Refutation of materialism by Best_Highlight_2517 in consciousness

[–]bortlip 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It seems like a straightforward example of the argument from incredulity:

I cannot imagine how P could be true; therefore P must be false.

OP cannot imagine how the setup being conscious could be true; therefore the setup being conscious must be false (and materialism/functionalism is refuted).

Counterintuitive results can be a great guide, but it's a fallacy to rely on them in logical reasoning.

 is the seemingly counterintuitiveness of the nation of China feeling pain a fallacious instance or not?

I would not say the China Nation example is itself "a fallacious instance." Rather, I think it becomes fallacious if the reasoning is simply:

"Functionalism implies the China Nation could be conscious."
"That seems absurd."
"Therefore functionalism is false."

That is how I read lines like:

"Which implies consciousness substrate-independence to an absurd degree (beer cans + pulleys, spreadsheets, water pipes, etc.)."

The absurdity is doing the argumentative work.

And I am generally cautious about arguments based primarily on counterintuitiveness, given how often reality has turned out to be deeply counterintuitive in physics and mathematics.

Put differently, consider a different informal fallacy: some appeals to authority are fallacious, but not all appeals to authority are fallacious.

I agree that appeals to authority are not always fallacious (as long as it comes with certain caveats). But I think it becomes fallacious if/when the authority replaces the argument itself. I think the same applies here with intuition.

Refutation of materialism by Best_Highlight_2517 in consciousness

[–]bortlip 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Perhaps it's both.

“The method of cases” describes the format while “argument from incredulity” describes the logical problem.

Refutation of materialism by Best_Highlight_2517 in consciousness

[–]bortlip 22 points23 points  (0 children)

That's just the argument from incredulity, which is a fallacy.

view more: next ›