So yeah, I think there is a deep mystery as regards to oxygen, gravity, mutations, liquidity, and virtually everything, on equal footing with consciousness. — Manuel

I disagree. The rise of Ai isn't going to compel people to think about "oxygen, gravity, mutations, liquidity". It's going to compel them to ask the very basic question: are these a.i.'s conscious? As the a.i.'s continue to improve, and achieve human level AGI, people are going to look to the sciences to provide answers to basic questions: are these AGI's conscious? What rights do they have? How should we treat them? These questions will then become the most outstanding problems in science.

Where do you disagree with that?

You didn't address this:

"Yet even Jews in actual concentration camps (Auschwitz, not Gaza) didn't end up mass raping German women or committing atrocities because of their "rage." Murder is condemned in all religions and the Hamas murderer-rapists will be accountable to God. Hamas does it from hatred, sadism. They are bred to be sociopaths in a culture which glorifies death and revenge. The Palestinians deserve better."

Muslim terrorists often strap on suicide vests and blow themselves up, taking as many civilians as they can with them. Orthodox Jews don't. Why is that?

Oxygen is another important one, which would also render everything we adore obsolete, nitrogen too. Iron. — Manuel

Is there a Hard Problem of Oxygen? Is the nature of Oxygen deeply mysterious? Is there a lack of consensus about what Oxygen is, or whether it's an illusion or doesn't exist at all?

So, if people are still debating the "hard problem" a thousand years from now, that would just be the utter death of the field. — Manuel

Which field?

What other mystery besides consciousness cuts across so many diverse fields? Psychology, neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, quantum mechanics, biology. As Ai continues to improve, there will be more and more emphasis on figuring out consciousness.

So, choosing monism as a necessity, all that's left is to call whatever remains something, and here we just choose, I think "physical", rightly understood, is less problematic than mental or ideal. — Manuel

How long does that hold true? Suppose a thousand years from now, there are still raging debates about the Hard Problem and no consensus. Is physicalism still "less problematic" than idealism or dualism?

I think maybe I would also say that without some additional distinctive structure beyond current scientific hypotheses then the metaphysical idea that everything is mental is just as vague and empty as the idea everything is physical. — Apustimelogist

If everything is mental, and all minds disappeared, the universe would disappear. But if everything is physical and all minds (brains) disappeared, the universe would continue to exist, jus without any brains in it. That doesn't seem "vague and empty". The two theories are making very definite claims.

If you want some meat on your worldviews, you can't go wrong with physicalism! — mentos987

Except,
https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/

All the advances in science are consistent with idealism. Science doesn't do metaphysics. It doesn't tell us that an electron is fundamentally a mental or physical object. It just describes its behavior, no? Why would we expect an idealistic electron to behave any differently than a physical one?

Insults of the same level as

The Israel haters here (esp. the moderators) sure do come across as pricks sometimes.
— RogueAI

Of course there is. Scratch a hyperbolist, find a useful idiot.
— RogueAI — Mikie

Yes, Merkwurdichliebe didn't seem any more insulting than anyone else in that thread. Also, I'm not a moderator. Moderators should rise above the fray, don't you think?

Plenty of leniency on that thread, for everyone. The difference is that you, for example, don’t have a long history of nearly exclusive trolling/negativity.

A quick perusing of his comment history speaks for itself, and anyone can look. — Mikie

I hadn't interacted with him much. I figured there was more to it than just what I saw in the Israel thread.

He said "boo-hoo" when someone pointed out the deaths of children in the Israel-Gaza thread. Compared to the insults the moderators themselves are tossing around in said thread, I think it's a pretty weak banning, but maybe he was trolling in other threads I'm not aware of.

But it does matter because there is a HUGE difference between WAR and GENOCIDE. — schopenhauer1

Of course there is. Scratch a hyperbolist, find a useful idiot.

Please, sir, STFU. Much appreciated. — 180 Proof

But yeah, better to leave your racist rantings there. Not that you could do much worse, but that we don’t have to feel so nauseated by being reminded that members of this forum hold such disgusting, callous views. — Mikie

The Israel haters here (esp. the moderators) sure do come across as pricks sometimes.

My solution: imposed peace then Palestinian self-rule under blue-helmet authority, and that authority lifted when and if Palestinians ever get over and rid themselves of their poisonous ideological commitment to murdering Jews, that poison, imho, seeming to be the governing logic of that part of the world. — tim wood

:100:

Physical determinism. — Michael

Which takes us back to consciousness and mental states. Physicalism would be on much more solid ground if it could explain consciousness, but it loses bets like this: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-25-year-old-bet-about-consciousness-has-finally-been-settled/

and I predict it will keep losing those bets because it's a dead end.

That I did it for psychological reasons isn’t that it couldn’t have been done for non-psychological reasons. — Michael

What would the non-psychological reason be for, say, killing a cheating spouse for revenge?

So what's your point? — 180 Proof

Profit and wealth would be hard to get rid of, even in a post scarcity society. While a scarcity of material goods wouldn't exist, a scarcity of services provided by humans would and people with wealth who are used to having enough money to pay for whatever services they want would be loathe to give up that wealth.

You seem to think that certain bodily behaviours can only be caused by subjective consciousness. Why is that? — Michael

Because it's so obviously true. Are you going to tell me you've never done anything purely based on psychological reasons or because you were compelled by desire or rage or passion?

Given that my "ideal society" consists in post-scarcity economic democracy — 180 Proof

To get to the tech level needed for post-scarcity, something like a profit-motive will have to exist.

And it's navigating the world and doing its job effectively, and it's doing all this without knowing anything??? How does that work, exactly?
— RogueAI

External stimuli such as light and sound stimulate its sense receptors, these signals are sent to the brain which then responds by sending signals to the muscles causing it to move in the manner appropriate to navigate the stimulus. — Michael

I keep trying to imagine a zombie version of me doing my job effectively without knowing anything and then coming home and kicking its feet up and having drinks without feeling alcohol cravings and I keep failing. I think the whole p-zombie is incoherent. Do you at least see where I'm coming from?

I would have thought they don't necessarily have any beliefs whatsoever, but I suppose there are various types of zombies one might think up for the thought experiment. — flannel jesus

So then we're back to the problem I laid out a couple posts prior. They don't have beliefs, so they don't have knowledge. How then are they navigating the world like humans do if they don't know anything? Are they following some program? But that begs all sorts of questions.

Why think it does work? I think the most reasonable perspective on p-zombies is that they are incoherent. — wonderer1

They seem to be.

And it's navigating the world and doing its job effectively, and it's doing all this without knowing anything??? How does that work, exactly?

Does the p-zombie have knowledge?
— RogueAI

No — Michael

OK, so let's say we have a p-zombie duplicate of me, and we plunk it down in a world identical to this one, right? Me and the p-zombie should then act the same way, only the zombie is dead inside. If all the variables are identical, there should be no divergence between us as we go about our business, right? I go to work, it goes to work. It does my job as well as I do.

If they do have beliefs then they’re conscious and do not p zombies. — Michael

Does the p-zombie have knowledge?

The p-zombie doesn’t believe anything. It just burns its finger and cries out “that hurts”. — Michael

I'm not so sure it doesn't have beliefs. Hypericin made a good case. If they do have beliefs, what do you think of the point I made a post ago?

I don't think you've fully grasped what p zombies are — flannel jesus

Maybe. I know they're supposed to be behaviorally identical to us, but address this point: When I burn my finger, I might cry out "that hurts" and also have the belief that I'm in pain (because I actually am). When my p-zombie counterpart burns its finger it also cries out "that hurts", but does it also believe it's in pain? If it does, then it's believing something it knows to be false (engaging in doublethink), since it has all my knowledge and would know that p-zombies, by definition, cannot feel pain. If it doesn't believe it's in pain, then I and the p-zombie are no longer acting the same way, since we now have different beliefs. Either way, it seems, the p-zombie is a lot different than me: either it's constantly engaging in doublethink, or it's beliefs and my beliefs are a lot different.

Personally, I don't think numbers have any special existence. They're just ideas for conveniently counting things. The number "two" is just another way of saying "this thing and this other thing". I'm probably very wrong on that. Philo of math always bored me.

I heard another disheartening statistic lately. According to one poll, 75% of the palestinian population supported the 10/7 attacks. I am now sympathetic to the view that the society now needs to be fundamentally restructured. — BitconnectCarlos

I posted another poll done about a month ago that had similar results, but I don't feel like wading through pages and pages. Suffice it to say their society has gone off the deep end. I suspect Israel is going to occupy the place for a long time and "freedom fighters" terrorists from around the Islamic world will flock to it in the hopes of killing Israeli soldiers. That, at least, would be more sporting than beheading babies and raping women to death.

Hamas have used a similar argument — Baden

It's not a similar argument. Israel is not raping Palestinian women to death. They're not beheading babies. They made some men kneel down in their underwear and everyone lost their shit. They're fighting a cowardly enemy hiding among civilians and still trying to limit civilian casualties. If Hamas would engage in a stand-up fight against Israeli soldiers, the war would be over quick, without many civilian casualties. But they're a bunch of murdering pussies, so Israel has to root them out and people are getting killed in the process. As I've said many times, what did Palestinians think would happen when they put Hamas in charge? Did they think it would end well?

So, you are you convinced that when you look at a pair of diamonds encased in the platinum ring encircling your beloved's finger, no part of that crushed carbon attaches to the number two floating around immaterially within your brain? — ucarr

I don't think Wayfarer thinks numbers exist in his brain. Maybe in an immaterial platonic realm?

Bombing civilians can give political success when people cry for revenge. Yet this kind of revenge doesn't work as it just hardens the will to fight in many cases as it shows how cruel the enemy is and how existential the war is. — ssu

There were strategic reasons for the air campaign, even after it was obvious it wasn't slowing German production down all that much and wasn't breaking their will to resist. Germany had to devote precious resources to defending their skies and that, of course, came at the expense of their forces on the Eastern Front.

Apologies to RogueAI for somewhat hijacking this topic. It's about p-zombies still, but not much about having children. I have no way of knowing if my kids are conscious or not. Not sure if a new topic would cover any ground not already covered. — noAxioms

I'm enjoying the thread.

That is indeed all I'm saying. They (the politicians) are poisoning the country. Given the corrosive effects of crime, the metaphor is quite apt otherwise. — NOS4A2

This is beneath you. You know Trump is talking about immigrants when he uses words like "vermin" and "poisoning the blood of the country". And you also know what other famous fascist leader has used language like this. I think that if Trump actually said "subhuman" you would defend him. Maybe even if he said untermensch.

The relevant definition in Webster's is "something that is accepted, considered to be true, or held as an opinion". This to me doesn't entail subjective state. — hypericin

You have a point. Let's stipulate p-zombies have beliefs. Would a p-zombie believe it's in pain (the way a human understands pain, which is accompanied by a feeling) if it's not actually in pain? Suppose a p-zombie burns it's finger, and has damaged itself, but there is no feeling of pain. Would it believe it's in pain? In other words, would it believe something it knows to be false?

The answer is that it would behave as its physical circumstances dictate. — Banno

We don't behave this way, so p-zombies would not behave this way. But without a mind, how could they behave in any other way? I think there may be a contradiction here.

I think we need to define some terms here. Do you agree that any definition of pain has to include the "feels bad" aspect of it? If we're talking about pain and it doesn't involve the sensation of hurting, we're talking about something other than pain. P-pain or Pain1 or something. Agreed?

"p-consider", "p-belief" is all the informational operations of "consider", "belief" without the conscious part. Like how a computer-vision program might "believe" it is looking at a table, without any conscious awareness of it. — hypericin

But belief is a conscious mental activity. P-belief/p-consider is incoherent. It's missing a necessary condition for anything that remotely resembles believing and considering. P-belief is so far removed from actual belief, calling it p-belief is misleading.

It is truth, but 'hurts' to me is just detection of signals of injury. — noAxioms

But this isn't true for you. Pain/hurting is more than just a detection of signals of injury. Pain/hurting hurts. It feels bad.

No, it's true by definition, regardless of what says it. The p-zombie might not feel actual pain, but says he does anyway since he very much detects the undesirable sense of injury, and he has no actual reference to what true pain feels like, so he says he feels pain, not knowing that it isn't real pain, just an interpretation of sensory data. — noAxioms

I don't agree with this. "so he says he feels pain, not knowing that it isn't real pain". That's an epistemic issue, not a truth issue. For any x, if x is not feeling pain/hurting, and x says it is feeling pain/hurting, x is wrong. X is saying something false.