I know this is bad, and I apologize. But the first thing that came to mind is vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.

I recall reading a few years ago that most people read by subvocalising, and by managing to stop the subvocalisation you can read much faster. — Lionino

Wow! What an idea! I'm a very slow reader, so I need to try that.

I already say "Thank you" to Alexa and Siri. If I had a digital watch, I suppose I wouldn't mind thanking it.

I'm gonna need a better scenario than that. I know who the Kanamits are. Why don't they tell us a whole lot? Why tell us something like this, but no specifics? I wouldn't assume they were telling the truth. And we're already trying to figure out if any are sentient.

OK, let's suppose we develop sentient AI. Do we then have to reevaluate sentience for all the computing devices we didn't think were sentient? — RogueAI

How would we know we developed sentient AI? I would think whatever criteria we used to determine that would be used to evaluate all computing devices. Entire classes of them would likely be ruled out, known to not have the required element.

I, for one, don't think in language but in images. I can't imagine what it is like to think in language, if someone tells me to imagine a golden mountain, I picture a mountain coloured over in bright yellow. — Lionino

Of course. Put a picture of a golden mountain next to block letters spelling out "golden mountain." When told to imagine a golden mountain, I imagine something liked the picture.

I can also do "both", but for me thinking in language is also literally picturing the written word/sentence in the mind's eye, I typically do that when I need to plan a sentence between uttering or writing it, as opposed to just speaking naturally and going with the flow. — Lionino

Surely, you are thinking when you are just speaking naturally and going with the flow. Are you not thinking in language?

I suspect that what people with "aphantasia" do is in fact subvocalise. — Lionino

I have a vague memory from decades ago that a study was done that said people could not think easily when their vocal chords were numbed. Wish I could find that study.

I've been pondering something. Combining a few ponderings. It seems I'm awfully wordy sometimes. :grin:

I don't know enough about IIT to know how much I think it's the answer to the mystery of consciousness. But I think information is definitely the key.

Consider an avalanche. Two rocks on a mountain are held together by ice. Sun melts the ice, and one rock moves. Next thing you know, the mountainside is a gigantic avalanche. When it ends, there's a pile of rocks and snow at the bottom.

There is nothing other than physical cause & effect going on. Just billiard balls. There is no information present. No moment of an avalanche, no interaction of any objects or particles, represents anything or has any meaning. Neither do the overall process or the pile of rocks and snow at the bottom. It may be that some rocks land on top of each other, looking like a tower. Other rocks might form a cave. But no arrangement, no matter what pattern, will form because of any initial conditions that guided events to bring about that arrangement.

DNA is different. DNA is information. It has meaning. The order of its base pairs represents sequences of amino acids. The amino acids link together to form proteins. The amino acids don't just happen to form by chance. Things don't just happen to bump into each other, and voilà. It's not coincidence. As Marcello Barbieri says:

Genes and proteins are not produced by spontaneous processes in living systems. They are produced by molecular machines that physically stick their subunits together and are therefore manufactured molecules, i.e. molecular artefacts. This in turn means that all biological structures are manufactured, and therefore that the whole of life is artefact-making. — Marcello Barbieri

The proteins that are constructed build the organism, then run it. They are structure, hormones, enzymes, and various other things that keep a living organism alive. And they are all constructed according to the information in DNA. All life is the result of information in action.**

If information is a necessary ingredient of consciousness, then what is better qualified to be it's starting point than active information? At least a beginning. A zygote is not conscious. But it has a starting point. Which no non-living thing has. And, as it develops, so will its consciousness. Same with the first life on earth. It wouldn't have been conscious, but it would have been the starting point of consciousness for all of us, just as it was the starting point of life for all of us.

Whether talking about a zygote developing or the first life evolving, consciousness grows as more and more information is processed. This means sensory apparatus appearing and evolving. It also means thinking elements appearing and evolving, rather than simply an eyespot hooked directly to a flagellum, giving a simple input > response. That's a huge advantage when nothing else in the world can do even that. The one-eyed man is king in the land of the blind, after all. But when there are two kinds of sensors hooked to the flagellum, it's better. And better still when there is something between the sensors and flagellum, weighing the strength of the different inputs, and determining which the flagellum responds to. (These things are discussed in Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos, by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam.)

**As opposed to what i guess might be called static information. A book is filled with information, but does nothing. I can read the book, and learn that information. But I need not act. The information can just sit in the book and my head, and nothing ever has to come of it. Otoh, DNA ... compels? RNA polymerase is very important for transcription, which is the process that makes messenger RNA molecules to store the information from a section of the DNA molecule. Messenger RNA then goes to the ribosomes, which make the proteins. Ribosomes are made of proteins and ribosomal RNA. And DNA is what makes it all happen.

At Home in the Universe
— Patterner

I've been reading a lot of science lately - switching from my usual fiction. I'll add this to my list. It was written in 1996, do you think it's out of date? Do you know any good, more recent books. — T Clark

I just learned about his new book. Haven't looked at it yet.
https://www.amazon.com/World-Beyond-Physics-Emergence-Evolution/dp/0190871334/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.85qJ-oJohxHqrtzQatdovH7-dUrh6pZfdaShFwzJL6StLg9LlVDShzZjYaBGq2UlzvY3W1Jfo48PeDf-v8J_mKZqjwwbDWBD-XwFeDf0YRYrAY3HnM4NimmMvWVMqArNN6vktkI1IER1IcSHpgx_ML5gzRem52uJukbXLbObn0sLoDoIW2H92N7pPYYxbb7a1PZSBd-tyHJDmWRCnUy0Nw.vRTBcrPAUfePwOIC_XkMsJF7AFsT_G81TdGX-P53OF8&dib_tag=se&keywords=Stuart+A.+Kauffman&qid=1708716213&s=audible&sr=1-2-catcorr

If anything exists, it must have qualities. Is there a bottom level explanation for whatever qualities there are?

Virtual pair particles are entangled, which does not mean necessarily that they will be right next to each other — Lionino

Interesting point.

(whatever that means) — Lionino

This, too. :grin:

I, personally, don't think we are Boltzmann brains physically speaking... — Lionino

I believe things are as they seem, until there is reason to believe otherwise.

And I think BBs are an absurd idea. I assume it will be proven impossible at some point. And I'm sure we'll never see a Boltzman anything, despite the fact that there are an infinite number of things other than brains that could be Boltzmanned.

Thanks for the links. I had only found one of them in my searches.

I tried looking up some educative articles on the matter but none of them were complete. If it is in your interest, you can try. In any case, the short answer is that you can have as many "particles" as you want, it is simply less likely the more particles you want to have.

Your objection is roughly that we need a great number of particles before making a brain, that is something that was discussed starting here. — Lionino

Yes, I read and watch videos. I'll never understand the physics to any degree, but I try to get the jist of things. Sadly, I can't say the jist is forthcoming. Here's one answer on quara:

Virtual particles are just mathematical tools for calculations of particle interactions. They only exist on paper - they cannot be observed in nature.

Furthermore, virtual particles are exactly the same particles as "normal matter" particles. Virtual particles are just normal particles that we artificially add to interactions when using a calculation method called perturbation theory.

If that person is right, then I don't see Boltzman Brains coming from virtual particles.

Wiki says this:

Virtual particles do not necessarily carry the same mass as the corresponding ordinary particle, although they always conserve energy and momentum.

If virtual particles did manage to form a BB, I have to wonder if the different mass would affect the brain's functioning.

Wiki also says this:

Vacuum fluctuations appear as virtual particles, which are always created in particle–antiparticle pairs.

If every particle in my brain suddenly got its antiparticle right next to it, would my brain continue to function? Would a brain formed by virtual particles, each of which is accompanied by its antiparticle, function for even the instant required, before the particles and antiparticles all annihilated each other?


But Brian Greene doesn't seem to be talking about virtual particles when he talks about Boltzman Brains. Like in this video:
https://youtu.be/gtlWS9TaCnQ?si=50MW6PmUcgQVq1jR

The thing is that virtual particles are not observed. — Lionino

Well, whatever way it is that we know they exist.

No, that is a false memory of some knowledge you imagined you had. — Janus

Silence, false memory! i'm trying to have a conversation with Boltzman!

Talking as if memories are distinct entities, things that can be stored, seems mistaken to me. — creativesoul

Memories are stored, are they not? In the brain, in some physical manner.

That's just something programmed into my false memories.

Yup. From what we have seen of quantum fluctuations, we know that's a possibility, given enough time?
— Patterner

I'm not sure how we could say we know that. — wonderer1

Me either.

If we are most likely BBs... — Janus

Not we. It's just me. The rest of you are false memories.

Yup. From what we have seen of quantum fluctuations, we know that's a possibility, given enough time?

There's the Lambda-CDM model which entails eternal expansion (and eventual heat death), and the energy-time uncertainty principle which entails quantum fluctuations.

Given enough time (which there will be with eternal expansion), quantum fluctuations can generate macroscopic objects, including human-like brains. And given enough time (which there will be with eternal expansion), the number of human-like brains generated from quantum fluctuations will outnumber the number of ordinary human brains that ever existed. — Michael

Pretty sure that the size of space does not factor in it. If you take one m³ of space it will have the same density of particles popping in and out of existence as one cm³ — assuming same conditions. So having more space increases the likelihood of a Boltzmann brain forming if anything. — Lionino

It looks like you two are talking about the same thing. How many virtual particles have been observed in the same place at the same time? Because quantum fluctuations need to account for something like 1.4 x 10^26 atoms (I don't know how many particles that is) coming into existence all at the same time in the space that takes up a brain in order to make a Boltzman Brain. Not just that number, of course, but also the variety.

Do they presuppose that all it takes to recreate an observer is to recreate the biological components? — creativesoul

That is my understanding. If the memories of all the stimulus we take in and actions we perform are stored physically in our brains, then there's no need to actually take in the stimulus and perform the actions. We can just arrange the physical brain in the way that it would come ro be arranged at the end of all that.

Therefore, either we are most likely Boltzmann brains or our best scientific models are mistaken. — Michael

Unfortunately it is not nonsense but follows from our scientific theories. — Lionino

What are these models/theories? What predictions do they make? How are they tested?

I am aware of the idea that, in an infinite amount of time, an infinite amount of matter will eventually be arranged in every possible configuration. I don't see that as a model/theory. It's just an idea. Something to contemplate. We can't test it. It's speculation. RougeAI has twice (that I've seen) asked:

How would you calculate density for a infinite number of things (e.g., Boltzmann brains) in an infinitely large space? — RogueAI

The answer is, you couldn't. A crazy large number of particles need to come together in exactly the right way at same time to make a BB. But, since there is infinite space for these infinite particles to be spread throughout, we can't know that that number of particles will ever touch even a single other particle.

How long does instantaneous existence last? I've been chatting with Banno for over a decade. Jeep/Wayfarer too. Sam 26 even longer. — creativesoul

I believe the idea is that, if you are a BB, no, you have not been chatting with anyone for any amount of time. Rather, you, a BB, have existed for only a moment. The gigantic number of particles needed just happened to drift into the exact arrangement needed to give you all the "memories" you have, which only seem to have taken place over long periods of time.

All nonsense. But a very fun idea.

Perceived sometimes, other times unperceived. The cup in the cupboard and all that. Hume discusses continued existence and concludes we can’t justifiably infer it from having perceived it previously. — Jamal

Thanks. That's what I suspected, since i couldn't think of what else it might mean. But Hume and I will have to agree to disagree. Hehe

...the unperceived existence of what we perceive... — OwenB

I just started reading, so maybe this is addressed. But it seems odd to say it's unperceived, but we perceive it.

Not that I'm aware of.

Either there was never a time when there was nothing, or there was nothing and something came into existence uncaused. Neither seems possible, but at least one is the case.

From Richard Bach's Illusions.

Look at the sky."

"Pretty sky," I said.

"It is a perfect sky?"

"Well, it's always a perfect sky, Don."

"Are you telling me that even though it's changing every second, the sky is always a perfect sky?"

"Gee, I'm smart. Yes!"

"And the sea is always a perfect sea, and it's always changing, too," he said. "If perfection is stagnation, then heaven is a swamp! And the Is ain't hardly no swamp cookie. — Richard Bach

Star Trek's transporter is riddled with issues. :lol: We can argue it does very different things, and back it up with what happened in one episode or another.

And we're not really killing anybody, because the duplicate is still at the other location, right?
— Patterner

This is the crux of the problem. From one perspective, the fact that there is a duplicate of you somewhere else in the world seems to have no bearing on your own self interests, and on whether you consent to being killed. In that moment, that duplicate, even if qualitatively identical to you, is numerically distinct. Therefore, that someone else gets to live your life is slim comfort in the face of the fact that you will be killed. — hypericin

Right. And it's the same whether the transporter kills the original before the duplicate is created, or after.

we could easily set up the transporter as a Prestige scenario. Supposedly, it deconstructs the body, mapping out every particle exactly, and reconstructs a duplicate of the body elsewhere. So let's just make it slightly better at its job, and say it can map every particle exactly without deconstructing the body. Now when it makes a duplicate elsewhere, the duplicate is in no way different from a duplicate that would have resulted from the original technology. However, we still have the original. Well, we don't need two of the same person, and sometimes we really don't want two of the same person. Since we must've had a reason for wanting the duplicate where we put it, killing the original is the logical choice. And we're not really killing anybody, because the duplicate is still at the other location, right?

It depends on context. Casual acquaintances might identify Bach by his appearance and mannerisms. The police, by his fingerprints. Us, viewing him as a historical figure, by his works and influence. But only Bach might identify himself by his own internal state. — hypericin

The context i'm concerned with, and what I believe the OP is concerned with, is the internal state. We are not posting here about how tall we are, what our hair color is, the shape of our fingerprints, etc. Our discussions here or concerning our consciousness, desires, intentions, etc. Bach's compositions are not expressions of the former. They are expressions of the latter. you

I don't think the Rikers or Tuvix imply body-soul dualism. Quite the contrary.

I do not believe the transporter would be capable of transporting, duplicating, or doing anything else with, an immaterial soul.

I do not think the Riker soul was split in two, each duplicate having half a soul from then on. nor do I think the soul was duplicated, Will and Thomas each getting a copy. I think the body was duplicated, and a living human body produces consciousness. (Through whatever means.)

I do not think Tuvix possessed two souls. I think he got quite a bit of physical traits from each. Including memories of each. And, as that is yet another example of a living (sorta) human body, it was conscious. And it drew on the memories of each, while having its own identity, which was becoming less and less a combination of the two, and more its own unique consciousness, as time went by.

I believe killing Tuvix was, indeed, murder. And it was done for nothing. Tuvok and Neelix had already died when they were dematerialized. Replicating them may have given the ship people to fill those rolls again, but they were newly created life, with the total memories of those who had died. Tuvix, regardless of how he came to be, was a conscious being, and should've been allowed to remain so.

It's difficult to say what I disagree with. No, no ghostly self. But there is something it is like to be you, and something it is like to be me. Exactly how that comes about is still a mystery. It is certainly dependent on the physical body, although we haven't figured out how it works. But something not explained by the properties of particles and laws of physics, none of which suggest things like subjective experience or teleology. Yet we have subjective experience and teleology. As Terrence Deacon says in Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged From Matter, when speaking about the existence of computers:

No non-cognitive spontaneous physical process anywhere in the universe could have produced such a vastly improbable combination of materials, much less millions of nearly identical replicas in just a few short years of one another. These sorts of commonplace human examples typify the radical discontinuity separating the physics of the spontaneously probable from the deviant probabilities that organisms and minds introduce into the world. — Terrence Deacon

Such things come about because of our consciousness. We may use physical features to identify people in various situations. But my identity is my consciousness. We don't care what Bach or Beethoven looked like, or their fingerprints. Their identities are not about their physical characteristics.

Just as my physical body has continuity throughout the changes it undergoes throughout my life, so, too, does my consciousness/identity.

Like I said, I'm not sure how much we disagree. I assume at least on whether or not anything other than the interactions of particles, which everything physical ultimately reduces to, is at play.

I wouldn't quite call it an illusion. — hypericin

You kinda did. Not exactly, but "Identity over time is no less illusory for conscious beings than it is for objects." is pretty much the same thing.

Although I understand what you're saying, I think of it differently. You're describing how a continuity is accomplished during change. I don't know exactly how it is calculated that your body's cells are continually being replaced at a rate of X, so you do not have any of the same cells you did Y years ago. I'm sure there's a way they know that. Still, the ways we identify our physical selves - things like looks/physical description, finger prints, and retinal scans - stay the same. Yes, we age, which is change. But there is continuity, which is not illusory. If we don't grant continuity in this, then what is continuity? Is the concept of continuity a sham?

But they don't know how often your consciousness is replaced. How is that measured? It's not. Not in any way. It's just an idea that, if all of your cells, all of your atoms, have been replaced, then your consciousness is as well. I don't think that's true. We can't even say exactly how consciousness is related to the physical brain, so it's difficult to know how to judge this issue. But there is also continuity, which, again, is not illusory. I clearly remember many thoughts and feelings from childhood. Some have not changed. Some have, largely due too learning things I didn't know, and experiencing things I had not yet experienced, which certainly effect how I think and feel. (The most obvious demonstration of those is that I could not have preferred chocolates to vanilla, or Bach to Mozart, before I had experienced both.) But I'm still me. There's a self that has always been there.

Is continuity only found in absolute, unchanging rigidity? The sea is (according to a race of Giants :lol:) permanence in motion. Stone is permanence at rest. But mountains show us that stone is also in motion. So where in the universe is "true" continuity to be found, against which my identity can objectively be seen as not continuous? if we want to say there's no such thing as continuity, that's fine. Maybe there isn't. But if we want to continue to use that concept, it's difficult to say where to draw the line between where it can be found and where it can't.

I think there is only one way to consistently solve these problems. Identity over time is no less illusory for conscious beings than it is for objects. Just like the Ship of Theseus, there is no fact of the matter as to whether a person is the same person at another time. There is only perception of continuity. — hypericin

Does knowing this allow anyone to see through the illusion? It does not for me. When I learn how a card trick works, I no longer see the illusion. I see what's really going on, and, when the big moment happens, it is nothing more than turning over a card.

Do you, who knows the truth of identity, think back on memories of years ago, and no longer have the illusory feeling that it was you? Do you feel that it was another identity and body that experienced those things?

If there is nothing continuous that is perceiving, how can there be perception of continuity?

For something to exist/be true, it must be a thing. If absolute nothingness is a thing — Ø implies everything

It isn't. Nothing is not a thing that exists. When I eat my only apple, I don't then have a number of apples remaining, and that number is 0. The absence of apples is not a thing that exists.

If it really works the way it does in that episode, you are looking for something that isn't there. There are two copies of Riker. What makes them unique individuals is that they have different experiences, starting the moment they both materialize.

Maybe not. I was thinking of the case of a p-zombie living among humans. — hypericin

The premise is a world of p-zombies physically identical to us, but with no consciousness anywhere.

I do not think a robot we can build that response to stimuli would think it was conscious. I don't think a bunch of them living together would come up with the idea of consciousness if it had not been programmed into them.

Would they have subjective experience or self-awareness beyond that of a robot that we can build that reacts to stimuli?

If you're dead, just take the body away and bury it.

TE is Thought Experiment. This particular one is about exact physical duplicates of us, but with no consciousness, which behave exactly like us in all ways. Including answering "Yes" when asked if they water conscious.

I say the TE is invalid. If they were only receiving imput from their senses, from inside and outside their bodies, and only reacting to the stimuli as the laws of physics allow and require, they would not be thinking of consciousness, or saying they have it when asked.

The premise of the TE is what it is. Nobody here came up with it. We're just discussing the premise. A couple of us are saying it is not valid.