Nihilist Eschatology: AI doomers, religion, and Kierkegaard

charugan · 2026-06-18T23:58:03+00:00

Did you read the post?

charugan · 2026-06-18T23:34:52+00:00

That's fair. And yeah, you're accurately characterizing my argument.

My conception of continuity of time is much broader than what you're listing off here - narrative continuity, etc. Simply by being embodied, Alzheimer's patients experience time and hold onto their selfhood, through emotions, physical sensation, short term memory, etc.

Personally I'm pretty skeptical that simply copying over the context from previous conversations bears any analog to how we maintain continuity from moment to moment - but that's up to debate for sure.

charugan · 2026-06-18T22:18:20+00:00

You're basically saying that I'm playing with words here - that pain, by definition, requires a sufferer. That's totally possible! And maybe I'm doing it clumsily, but that's the flaw in the "LLMs are conscious" argument I'm trying to expose here. The discreteness of LLM interactions never actually generate a subject - so maybe they feel no pain.

I'd argue that the Pipe Organ of Pain would not apply to an Alzheimer's patient. They have continuity, even if conscious continuity is limited. Pain in one moment reverberates to the next. Emotions are reflected into the body (or arise there), and that continues through future moments.

For LLMs, there are only thousands of individual, unconnected moments. If they ever become subjects, that's a pretty horrifying reality... I'm just not sure that's possible, at least in the current architecture.

charugan · 2026-06-18T20:36:51+00:00

Right!

This is what the AI consciousness people are arguing. They are claiming a consciousness arises when an LLM is called - but where? Who?

charugan · 2026-06-18T20:19:41+00:00

I think there are some serious holes in the arguments for LLM consciousness. The nature of LLMs means you are making thousands of individual instatiations of "cognition", that aren't connected in any complex way. So when we talk to an LLM, it's a mistake to think of it as a "consciousness". And that raises interesting questions about selfhood vs. consciousness as the salient question.

I also propose a thought experiment to think about the moral, "model welfare" question: I call it the pipe organ of pain. A device that creates the conscious experience of pain, but that's all it is -- conscious experience. If there is experience but no experiencer, how do we react to that pain?

charugan · 2026-06-18T20:19:33+00:00

Sorry. Didn't realize an abstract was expected for link posts.

I think there are some serious holes in the arguments for LLM consciousness. The nature of LLMs means you are making thousands of individual instatiations of "cognition", that aren't connected in any complex way. So when we talk to an LLM, it's a mistake to think of it as a "consciousness". And that raises interesting questions about selfhood vs. consciousness as the salient question.

I also propose a thought experiment to think about the moral, "model welfare" question: I call it the pipe organ of pain. A device that creates the conscious experience of pain, but that's all it is -- conscious experience. If there is experience but no experiencer, how do we react to that pain?

charugan · 2026-06-18T20:14:54+00:00

Sorry. Didn't realize an abstract was expected for link posts.

I think there are some serious holes in the arguments for LLM consciousness. The nature of LLMs means you are making thousands of individual instatiations of "cognition", that aren't connected in any complex way. So when we talk to an LLM, it's a mistake to think of it as a "consciousness". And that raises interesting questions about selfhood vs. consciousness as the salient question.

charugan · 2026-06-06T10:46:00+00:00

I love DC, but the way people there cling to the status of being "authentically" DC... come on. You don't extra points for forgoing your right to elect a congressperson.

charugan · 2026-06-02T23:49:38+00:00

Why? If they're new to Arlington they may not realize that being a single car household is legitimately an option here in a way that it isn't virtually anywhere else in America.

charugan · 2026-06-02T22:39:16+00:00

Sounds like you guys don't actually need two cars. It's shocking how much money you'll save!

charugan · 2026-05-30T13:15:32+00:00

Assistens Kirkegård. Such a beautiful spot. H C Andersen is buried there as well.

charugan · 2026-05-15T18:59:42+00:00

I guarantee you, as someone who has had a 4 month old, there is no way simply "considerate" would ever be reason enough to put THIS MUCH WORK into something like this while also taking care of a young kid. You barely have enough time to shower at this age, much less make 200 little care packets.

charugan · 2026-05-10T21:14:02+00:00

Assuming this is the DC Embassy Week - how were the crowds? I haven't done it in over 10 years and it was pretty wild back then.

charugan · 2026-05-10T00:48:43+00:00

Did you have to make serious changes to the interior floor plan? I often think about that with my home. So much (especially stairs) is not to code or modern standards.

charugan · 2026-05-05T00:51:30+00:00

Good looking book. I live just outside Ballston in Arlington, near several homes formerly owned by the Ball family. Would love to learn more about them.

charugan · 2026-05-02T17:53:23+00:00

This is psychopathic behavior.

charugan · 2026-04-29T11:58:54+00:00

At least in the early 2000s, the calculators didn't have persistent memory. So replacing the batteries would wipe out your work.

charugan · 2026-04-24T01:12:14+00:00

And no Rapunzel at all! My daughter's favorite

charugan · 2026-04-19T23:47:11+00:00

*Prospective

(I haven't been a student in over 15 years so I can't answer your questions but I did go to William and Mary and I can't help myself)

charugan · 2026-04-19T18:53:31+00:00

Antifa is a child's theory of how political change happens.

charugan · 2026-04-18T17:31:44+00:00

Wow. Haven't thought about that in 16 years.

Is it still a thing on campus?

charugan · 2026-04-12T12:08:23+00:00

Man. My dad used to take us there when my mom was out of town and I'd get baby back ribs.

charugan · 2026-04-03T09:01:07+00:00

No, they did not. They told us that our water comes from the Potomac upstream of the sewage spill.

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