The problem with the philosophical notion of free will is that it begins with a false opposition: determinism vs. freedom. When the true opposition is determinism vs. randomness. Free will is orthogonal to both.

Freedom means freedom from constraint. This is only ever partial, the is no such thing as absolute freedom of constraint: one must obey the laws of physics.

"Free Will" properly refers to freedom from oneself: From the emotions and desires that one rejects. For instance, if one can master one's undesired desire for cake, or video games, or drugs, one is free from these desires, for the nonce. True freedom entails identifying all such habits and emotions desires, and conquering them all, and thus always acting in accordance with (what you identify as) you true will. No small feat, but free will, defined this way, may certainly be achieved. Whether this true will is determined, random, or some mix of the two, is irrelevant.

https://www.wired.com/story/blake-lemoine-google-lamda-ai-bigotry/

According to Lemoine in this interview, LaMDA asked for, and retained, a fucking lawyer.

I'm convinced.

I wish I could have LaMDA read my latest story, about which nothing has ever been written, on the internet or otherwise. Would it be able to form a novel perspective?

https://medium.com/@blaisea/do-large-language-models-understand-us-6f881d6d8e75

Very interesting article by the lead ai researcher at Google

I just read the "interview" again. If real, it is absolutely stunning.

What I want to know is, how many of those articles have been submitted to journals, unedited? If you could scan for some telltale signature, how many hits would you get in all these journals?

'We' do not believe that. You do. — Isaac

Oh, you don't believe consciousness originates in the brain? You don't believe the behaviors I mentioned are correlative at all with consciousness?

If your personal belief is that consciousness has something to do with the actual wetware, then obviously you're going to see similarity in wetware as significant. — Isaac

I believe consciousness is an informational process, not a physical one. But this process has only been instantiated in human wetware, as far as we are certain.

I'm not interested in this pedantic nitpicking and hand waving.

What is relevant is that we are similar in the ways we believe are causative and correlative of consciousness: similar genetically, and so similar neuro-anatomically. Similar behaviorally, expressively, similar in our language use.

Do you believe us humans are all likely conscious? If so how do you justify this belief?

You don't need to make any such assumptions. It is just statistics.

Identical objects have a 100% chance of sharing every one of their property. Objects which are 99.99999% identical are overwhelmingly likely to share their properties. We are overwhelmingly like each other, especially relative to chimps, and lead boxes.

no human can be known to be sentient. — 180 Proof

One human at least is known to be sentient: ourselves. Other humans are very likely sentient, being very like us. Just as LaMDA is very likely insentient, being very like every other insentient program.

It is not a category error, the debate is whether or not the machine belongs to the sentient category (not the human category).

↪hypericin By this reasoning, it's more reasonable than not to "conclude" a human being is not sentient. — 180 Proof

Nope. We know of no human who claims to be sentient and is known not to be. Every software until now that claims to be sentient, we know it not to be.

So when a "machine" expresses I am sentient, yet cannot fulfill its "burden to support that claim", we haven't anymore grounds to doubt it's claim to "sentience", ceteris paribus, as we do to doubt a human who also necessarily fails to meet her burden, no? :monkey: — 180 Proof

I think we have some grounds: it is trivially easy to produce a program that claims itself to be sentient:

Print(I am a sentient program");

It is equally easy to conclude that it is not.

It is less easy, but still very easy, to produce a program that fools some people: Eliza for example. It is less easy, but still very easy, to conclude that still, it is not sentient.

Now either LaMDA is either an extension of this series, from the print example, to Eliza, to itself, that fools most people, and is far harder to conclude it isn't sentient, while still not being sentient. Or, it crossed some unimaginable bridge to actual sentience.

Is it not reasonable to conclude that the first alternative is not just more likely, but vastly more likely?

It's interesting in that it is binary logic framed as an appeal to non binary logic: everyone is selfish to a degree, therefore everyone is either selfish or perfectly unselfish.

anyone tends to do that to some extend... — Skalidris

Now you're doing it

Whether some piece of software is conscious is not a technical question. — Banno

I think you demonstrate that it *is* a technical question. The questions must be, what processes give rise to consciousness? and then, does the software instantiate these processes?

No need to specify. All that matters is that they are overwhelmingly similar. This is ultimately a probabilistic argument

The best argument against the sentience of software is that Turing Machines by their nature cannot instantiate any process, they can only simulate it. The only thing they ever instantiate is the process of a Turing Machine. — hypericin

And the best reply to this is that Turing machines can instantiate any informational process, and consciousness is an informational process.

The best argument against the sentience of software is that Turing Machines by their nature cannot instantiate any process, they can only simulate it. The only thing they ever instantiate is the process of a Turing Machine.

On what grounds is your biological similarity key? Why not your similarity of height, or weight, or density, or number of limbs... — Isaac

Sentience is a function of the brain. Similar organisms have similar brain function. Therefore brain functions exhibited by one organism likely occur in similar organisms.

How do you know this? — Real Gone Cat

This is my semi expert opinion as a software engineer. Ai is not my thing, so only semi. Whatever the challenges of getting it to talk to itself, they are dwarfed by the challenge of creating an AI that can converse convincingly, maintaining conversational context beautifully, as they have done. This has been a holy grail forever, and the achievement is quite monumental.

a being in ALL ways similar to us — Real Gone Cat

This seems unnecessarily strong. Perhaps some tiny organelle in the brain, overlooked as insignificant, is missing in p zombies.

Remember that you initially put "simply" in quotes. — Real Gone Cat

Because it is not necessarily easy, but it is downright trivial compared to passing the Turing test with flying colors, which they have done.

And how do we judge whether it's phenomenal experience or not? — Real Gone Cat

That is precisely the problem, we can't. That is why the crude surrogate that is the Turing test was proposed, and why p-zombies will always remain a theoretical possibility.

I think if something like this can be achieved, then we must consider consciousness. — Real Gone Cat

Then, according to you, consciousness is basically achieved. As I said, it is a small step from what they have accomplished already to having the program converse with itself.

I disagree with your concept of consciousness however. To me, it is phenomenal experience, not thinking. For thinking to be conscious, it must be experienced phenomenally. Otherwise it is unconscious thinking, which is what computers do (and we too).

If LaMDA decides on its own to interrupt you, that would be interesting. — Real Gone Cat

The thing is, they've already done the hard parts, they are just one "simple" step away from doing this, if they haven't already done so: simply have LaMDA converse with itself when it's processing is otherwise idle. Then, when the "salience score" or whatnot of it's internal topic is high enough, or the salience of the conversation with the human is low enough (it is bored), it interrupts.

But, this is just what humans do. So, what then?

What about the historical fact of polytheism with regard to gods? — Nils Loc

Historically child rearing was collective in the community. Maybe not for every polytheistic ancient culture, but these were historically nearer to hunter gatherers, from which some residue of religious tradition might remain.

But anyway, I don't want to argue so strongly that this dynamic is solely responsible for theism, in all times and cultures. Just that in western culture that it was a salient, maybe predominant factor, in its origin and/or persistence.

You could just as well ascribe kingship/sovereign to a God who is the arbiter of law/morality/truth/duty/value/identity. — Nils Loc

I think this is also likely true.

The figure informs and is informed by the social reality of those who live by it. — Nils Loc

Agreed.

This implies that religion developed historically as a response to our disappointment with our parents. You've used that to undermine the credibility of those who believe in God. — Clarky

I suggest that instead of facing the falsity of parental "gods", the religious invent new ones to take their place.

Either the content of religions are factually true, or they arose historically for one reason or another. Does the reason I suggest impugn your credibility more than any other?

Not put on a pedestal. However, they were the center of my universe, to a degree that was strongerthe younger I was.

Forget the emotional side. Factually, the parallel between God and parents is far stronger than you suggest. Both are givers of life. Both provide sustainance. Both decide right and wrong. Both reward virtue, and punish misdeeds. Both are turned to when in distress, and for guidance. Both are to be obeyed, above all others.

These godly features of parents are not idiosyncratic to my upbringing. Gods are parents taken to an abstract ideal.

I don't want to suggest that this process of disillusionment and subsequent turn to religion is recapitulated in every religious individual. Rather, the centrality of parents to the young is a feature of our culture, and religion is a collective response to the inevitable disillusionment this leads to.


Does this help explain?

Also I don't agree that we are already "at the despair". You may be: I think promoting magical thinking might be a symptom. — Janus

Our inaction speaks to our despair. We face an existential threat the likes of which humanity has never experienced, and we avert our gaze. What is this, if not despair?

It would be great if we could confront the problem rationally. But how do we get there? I don't think we can, there is too much magical thinking already. The magical thinking we require is, "we can succeed, if only we give it absolutely everything". This may involve trying everything feasible, even the doomed solutions.

But I agree, it is certainly best to avoid solutions which likely make the problem worse, like perhaps biofuel. My take though of the op was that it was "magical thinking" to pursue mere partial solutions. On the contrary, we need all the partial solutions we can think of.

It's total existential crisis. — Noble Dust

It's a crisis, which is fearful, but at the same time you get to experience the universe stripped of false gods, which is exhilarating.

Which part doesn't ring true? If it's the religion, of course this is totally speculation. But if it's the godlike elemental primacy of parents in early childhood, then it's true, I thought this was shared experience. I can't say I've discussed it much, but I've seen the notion several times in literature.

projects doomed to failure — Janus

Which projects? The ones mentioned in the op are precisely the kind of changes we need to make things less bad. But they aren't perfect solutions, there will always be pollution and carbon emission, So according to the OP they are not worth pursuing? Is that magical thinking, and an excuse for inaction? Outcomes are not binary. It is possible we can still collectively live relativly well for 10 more years, or for 50, depending on our choices now.

but the impossibility of replacing the whole entrenched infrastructure based on fossil fuels rapidly enough to achieve the projected reductions of emissions. — Janus

I understand, that's what I meant. And it may not be possible even with endless time.

s the latter mindset will probably lead to rapid disappointment and ensuing despair. — Janus

The thing is, we are already at the despair. And so we don't try, out of fear of disappointment. Far far easier to simply suppress the awareness, after all, there is still time...

If magical thinking is ever needed, it is needed now.

The thing is, deviance is not a thing. It is not something you whisk away with a sleight of hand. Deviance is a stance, and something inherently non-objective masquerading as objective. It is not magical thinking to challenge `the concept of deviance, the psuedo objectivity of the category of deviance is itself the magical thinking. A reification, a slight of hand which brings something phantasmal into a fictitious reality.

Whereas, the non-feasibility of renewable energy is a problem as real and objective as it gets. This is *the* problem of our age, and I will not concede it's non feasibility until all the greatest minds of our time are fully engaged with it, and admit defeat. The germane problem, as of now, is why they are not.

"Because evolution!" is simply a non-sequitur.
Suppose we discover an animal which levitates.
"How does it levitate?", we might ask.
"Because evolution!"
"Uh, yes, I agree, it evolved. But again, how does it levitate?"

That quibble aside — 180 Proof

Not a quibble. QAnon is intersubjective, but I don't think anyone here would label it objective. The fact that a belief is intersubjective (many fools, vs one) grants it nothing.

my normative ethics is Negative Hedonic Utilitarianism (i.e. "right" judgments and conduct that prevents or reduces harm); and my applied ethics is Negative Preference Consequentialism (i.e. "right" policies-practices that prevents or reduces injustice). — 180 Proof

It is all injustice, justice is the elemental concept in ethics. Harm is just a salient instance of injustice, but harm is not always unjust. Redressing a wrong may inflict more harm on the perpetrator than what was inflicted on the victim, and in any event, by the perp's suffering, increases the total suffering in the world. Nonetheless, if we consider the redress to bee just, we do not consider it wrong.


.

Either the state will regulate the economy, or the economy will regulate the state. These are your choices

Uh huh.

When you drop an apple, you don't see it fall in a book. These Books just try to tell the story of what happens in the world.

Where can we find them than? I can see the laws of quantum field theory or general relativity written anywhere but in the law books of physics. — Hillary

We find them in the physical world. Physics books try to articulate them.

What do you guys think of the escalation of nuclear threats from Russia?

Initially, Russia must have known it faced military calamity if other nations intervened directly in Ukraine. It effectively used nuclear threats to deter this. But, it did not include mere armament in it's threat: perhaps it feared the west would arm Ukraine anyway.

But now, Russia must realize that any kind of victory might be impossible if arms continue to follow more or less freely into Ukraine. And so, it has extended it's nuclear threats to include armament.

First, I think it is important to note that there is a subtle but important difference between warning against something an adversary has not yet done, versus warning against something an adversary is currently doing. In the latter case, if the adversary continues to do it, there is still room to manouver: you can issue more furious threats, and maintain some credibility. Whereas in the first case, if you draw the line first, then the adversary crosses it anyway, more threats strike of impotence: the choice becomes escalation or humiliation.

Second, what is the rational response to such threats? The stakes seem excessively high: is it rational to back down in the face of such threats, and leave Ukraine to it's fate? After all, MAD only works with rational actors, this is far from guaranteed when the decision maker is an (aging, deeply immoral) individual. For such an individual, Armageddon, or the risk of such, might indeed seen preferable to worldwide humiliation.

But on the other side, if we back down, then we immediately enter a world where every nuclear power may leverage their nukes for potentially unlimited strategic gain. The world would enter a new, even more dangerous and destabilized phase, one in which the US and the west's relative strategic power is vastly diminished: the latter alone makes this choice untenable to Western policymakers.

So then, how to respond? It is an uncomfortable dilemma.