I'm a software engineer, completing 10 years of professional experience this year. I started my career as a web frontend engineer (it was easier for me to de...
You’re making a baseless assumption about the inner being of every process. If you simulate physics then you’re actually doing different physics, where the map is not the terrain. If the hardware is different then the inner being of the thing may very well be different.
You’re actually displaying a lack of imagination here. You’re not considering things other than consciousness. If you simulate the processes which on the surface resemble the processes that you see in the brain when observing from the outside, what you produce may be something equally interesting and yet totally different in-itself from subjective experience.
Woo-woo nonsense. Indefensible without invoking the supernatural.
Everyone you’ve ever met is a meat robot, and they run on physics. How they feel about it does not change that.
And I already said, we invented p-zombies. LLMs display intelligence without consciousness. Your hand-wavy what-if doesn’t work as a gotcha because we’re already there. Nonetheless - these shortfalls are a big fucking hint that magic isn’t real.
If consciousness is a physical process, then a different physical process (such as an intelligent process running on different hardware) cannot be assumed to produce the same result (the result of conscious experience).
Like planes don’t experience flight unless they flap.
This is stupid. I acknowledge that’s not an airtight logical counterargument, but just, come the fuck on. You are asserting that neurons made of silicon, with identical observable function, wouldn’t count somehow. Charitably: wouldn’t work, somehow. That at least distinguishes it from standard Chinese Room horseshit. But if we can fake every neuron to do the same thing, or simulate the entire physical environment to do the same thing, of fucking course it’s going to do the same thing. If the laws of the universe somehow mean only meat can experience being a true Scotsman, we can fake those laws.
You’ve picked a philosophical nit that is somehow at odds with Turing completeness. Unless you think physics are incomputable - it cannot matter what substrate they run on. It’s literally math.
Like planes don’t experience flight unless they flap.
Are you claiming that planes experience flight?
This is stupid.
k
come the fuck on
k
neurons made of silicon
Two problems with this: (1) The virtual neural net of LLMs don’t have neurons made of silicon. Their neurons are virtual, abstract, not physical phenomena. (2) Even if we move to the idea of a positronic brain like Data from Star Trek or the Terminator, it still isn’t our chemical-electrical brain which has different physical properties. This is very simple. It is a different physical object. It is different. It is not what we are.
Chinese Room horseshit
k
simulate the entire physical environment to do the same thing
If you are simulating it, it is a different thing.
It’s literally math.
This is a metaphysical assumption much closer to the “woo” that you keep accusing me of, and cursing at me about.
it cannot matter what substrate they run on
This contradicts your statement that “It’s literally math” because you can calculate the difference between substrates.
You want to make this a matter of philosophy, and then you suck at philosophy. Hey buddy, do you have facts about other real people’s experiences, or do you just have beliefs? Could you even demonstrate your own conscious experience to me?
And all of this is such tired Philosophy 101 crap, just so you can cling to ‘aha but what if,’ even though I have a concrete answer for what-if. Are we ruling out magic? Great, then physics can be simulated and a computer can host a mind that way. Its experiences would be identical to any free-range meatbag. If it wrote a book, you could read it. That would be real art. So in what fucking manner is its consciousness not real experience?
When you said, “If a simulated person experiences consciousness, that experience is real”, you’re just saying “If my statement is true then my statement is true.” You offer no basis for assuming that “a simulated person experiences consciousness” in the first place. You are simply assuming it. Your whole side of this entire conversation is just an assumption.
physics can be simulated
Yes and the simulation is a different physical process than the process that it’s simulating.
You’re making a baseless assumption about the inner being of every process. If you simulate physics then you’re actually doing different physics, where the map is not the terrain. If the hardware is different then the inner being of the thing may very well be different.
You’re actually displaying a lack of imagination here. You’re not considering things other than consciousness. If you simulate the processes which on the surface resemble the processes that you see in the brain when observing from the outside, what you produce may be something equally interesting and yet totally different in-itself from subjective experience.
You don’t know as much as you think you know.
Woo-woo nonsense. Indefensible without invoking the supernatural.
Everyone you’ve ever met is a meat robot, and they run on physics. How they feel about it does not change that.
And I already said, we invented p-zombies. LLMs display intelligence without consciousness. Your hand-wavy what-if doesn’t work as a gotcha because we’re already there. Nonetheless - these shortfalls are a big fucking hint that magic isn’t real.
that’s precisely what I’m saying
That’s precisely what I’m saying
Nobody said anything about a gotcha
Nobody said anything about magic.
If consciousness is a physical process, then a different physical process (such as an intelligent process running on different hardware) cannot be assumed to produce the same result (the result of conscious experience).
Like planes don’t experience flight unless they flap.
This is stupid. I acknowledge that’s not an airtight logical counterargument, but just, come the fuck on. You are asserting that neurons made of silicon, with identical observable function, wouldn’t count somehow. Charitably: wouldn’t work, somehow. That at least distinguishes it from standard Chinese Room horseshit. But if we can fake every neuron to do the same thing, or simulate the entire physical environment to do the same thing, of fucking course it’s going to do the same thing. If the laws of the universe somehow mean only meat can experience being a true Scotsman, we can fake those laws.
You’ve picked a philosophical nit that is somehow at odds with Turing completeness. Unless you think physics are incomputable - it cannot matter what substrate they run on. It’s literally math.
Are you claiming that planes experience flight?
k
k
Two problems with this: (1) The virtual neural net of LLMs don’t have neurons made of silicon. Their neurons are virtual, abstract, not physical phenomena. (2) Even if we move to the idea of a positronic brain like Data from Star Trek or the Terminator, it still isn’t our chemical-electrical brain which has different physical properties. This is very simple. It is a different physical object. It is different. It is not what we are.
k
If you are simulating it, it is a different thing.
This is a metaphysical assumption much closer to the “woo” that you keep accusing me of, and cursing at me about.
This contradicts your statement that “It’s literally math” because you can calculate the difference between substrates.
No.
If a simulated person experiences consciousness, that experience is real. That’s qualia, numbnuts. That is a mind.
I’m not gonna pick apart the word salad of ‘calculating the difference between substrates’ if you can’t even keep your philosophy straight.
k
You’re just throwing the assumption of experience into the sentence for no reason. You have beliefs about this stuff, not facts.
Do you know what if means?
You want to make this a matter of philosophy, and then you suck at philosophy. Hey buddy, do you have facts about other real people’s experiences, or do you just have beliefs? Could you even demonstrate your own conscious experience to me?
And all of this is such tired Philosophy 101 crap, just so you can cling to ‘aha but what if,’ even though I have a concrete answer for what-if. Are we ruling out magic? Great, then physics can be simulated and a computer can host a mind that way. Its experiences would be identical to any free-range meatbag. If it wrote a book, you could read it. That would be real art. So in what fucking manner is its consciousness not real experience?
Hello.
When you said, “If a simulated person experiences consciousness, that experience is real”, you’re just saying “If my statement is true then my statement is true.” You offer no basis for assuming that “a simulated person experiences consciousness” in the first place. You are simply assuming it. Your whole side of this entire conversation is just an assumption.
Yes and the simulation is a different physical process than the process that it’s simulating.