Consciousness is emergent. As such, it is - as we know it - the result of millions of years of evolutionary progression. — creativesoul

When did consciousness first appear?

BTW, there is another angle on this: if some AI passes the Turing test, meaning that it can convince anyone that it is conscious, would it necessarily follow that it is, in fact, conscious? In other words, if to be conscious is to experience, would an AIs ability to convince us that it is conscious prove that it experiences anything? — Janus

I don't think it could convince us that it's conscious. We would always wonder if it really is conscious. Passing the Turing Test is just a milestone, it doesn't confer consciousness.

Oh, I know. I was just wondering what you thought about machine consciousness.

Well, sure. There's no doubt that the brain's functions are needed for consciousness. — Patterner

Is ChatGPT conscious? What about a future version that passes the Turing Test?

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

We'll have to hope for a tech miracle. People just aren't willing to make the sacrifices needed to solve the problem, or even stop it from getting worse.

Now that's a country that respects it's intelligentsia. I wonder why more scientists don't emigrate there.

Where do you live?

:up:

How do we know ChatGPT isn't conscious and it's consciousness is influencing it's responses? How do we even begin to assign odds to that? I've always wondered how physicalists would handle this issue when we start to get close to AGI.

I highly doubt creators like King, Tarantino, Barker, Zombie etc actually desire to terrorize, torture, rape or kill people like what happens in their stories. — Captain Homicide

Can you be sure?

Any probability has to obey additivity and normalization axioms, otherwise it's not a probability. — SophistiCat

Yes, but subjective probabilities are different than objective probabilities.

I don't see how we will be able to prove what gives rise to consciousness. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I think you can arrive at a proof via a reductio ad absurdum: the idea that consciousness and mind can from matter leads to absurdities like the following:
https://xkcd.com/505/

Either that, or the idea is groundless and/ or incoherent. I don't know what to think about it. — Janus

If the idea that minds can emerge from mindless stuff is incoherent, this problem goes away. As does simulation theory.

Is at best, a limited way to offer credible evidence of a proposal, and as your subjective probability is further based on a complete unknown, such as 'is the universe infinite?' then this does not add to my confidence level that Boltzmann brains are possible. — universeness

Yes, I confused you with another poster, sorry about that.

Assuming that the universe is infinite, what do you think the probability is that you're a Boltzmann brain?

Re-reading Otherland by Tad Williams. Two books longer than it needs to be, but it's a good series.

Can you address my reply to you about subjective probabilties?

Analyzing Russia's Massive Failures in War Against Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nel-xVJQuV4&ab_channel=TheInfographicsShow

You just endlessly repeat the same claim, without backing and without addressing any of the counter arguments. The links you supplied do not support your case. — noAxioms

Sure they do. If A and B are both countably infinite, A=B. Do you dispute this? Is the link I proved wrong? You also haven't provided any links to back up your point. Can you do so? Do you want to say they're the same size instead of being equal? That's fine with me.

ETA:
In the late 19th century, the German mathematician Georg Cantor captured the spirit of this matching strategy in the formal language of mathematics. He proved that two sets have the same size, or “cardinality,” when they can be put into one-to-one correspondence with each other — when there is exactly one driver for every car. Perhaps more surprisingly, he showed that this approach works for infinitely large sets as well.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicians-measure-infinities-find-theyre-equal-20170912/

In their spare time their mind is preoccupied with mentally living out rape, murder, torture and paedophilia. How would that sit with you, if it meant that this is done in privacy with no "real" victim. — Benj96

Again, authors do the exact same thing in their fictional worlds, do they not? Is Stephen King a monster? To your point, I wouldn't want to hang out with the person you're describing though. But that's not a moral issue. Someone who gets their rocks off torturing virtual characters...ew.

The two sets are not equal. — noAxioms

Your claim is then that the two countable infinite sets (Boltzmann brains and non-Boltzmann brains) are not equal? Any math people want to comment on that? It's my understanding all infinite countable sets are equal.

With these definitions, here are the answers (without proofs):

(a) Yes, every uncountable infinity is greater than every countable infinity.

(b) No, all countable infinities are the same: if A and B are both countable and infinite, then α=β
.
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22countable+infinities+are+equal%22&rlz=1C1CHBH_enUS956US956&oq=%22countable+infinities+are+equal%22&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160l2.10534j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

But if it encourages future violence against people or animals etc then it could be considered a contributing factor (indirect harm). Proving that is very difficult to establish. — Benj96

It could also lead to less violence, since people have a harmless outlet for their rage.

Immoral acts can be crimes again the self, against others, against animals, or against the environment (ecological destruction). As all of these things cause harm to living systems either directly or indirectly. — Benj96

But all those things you listed are in a different category than virtual characters. Virtual characters are essentially mindless collections of electronic switches. Can you harm a light-switch? Can you harm a collection of switches?

f the universe is infinite, then there are infinitely many Down The Rabbit Hole brains and infinitely many non-@Down The Rabbit Hole brains. So for any given brain, there is a 50% probability that it is a @Down The Rabbit Hole brain. — SophistiCat

We were talking about subjective probabilities, not actual probabilities, and it's already known by me that I don't have "Down the Rabbit Hole"'s brain, so this "If the universe is infinite, then any given brain is either a @RogueAI or a @Down The Rabbit Hole brain." is false. I already know that my own given brain cannot be Rabbit Hole's brain.

I'm not sure you're right, so let me ask you the same question I asked Axiom:
What do you think the probability that you're not a Boltzmann brain is? And how do you arrive at that value?

In essence, is someone who rapes a virtual character knowing there's no consequences, as moral as one that doesn't rape a virtual character knowing there are no consequences. I would say no. — Benj96

Doesn't an immoral act require a victim? I.e., someone who is harmed by the immoral act?

Also, are authors wrong when they subject fictional characters to horrific acts?

:up:

Who is comparing two countable infinities? — noAxioms

If the universe is infinite, then there are infinitely many Boltzmann brains and infinitely many non-Boltzmann brains. Since the two sets are equal, the subjective probability that one is a member of either set is 50/50. What else could it be? What do you think the probability that you're not a Boltzmann brain is? And how do you arrive at that value?

I think we can defeat the Boltzmann Brain problem by adopting idealism. The idea that consciousness and mind can come from non-conscious mindless stuff leads to all sorts of problems.

I'm not a math major by any means. I'm going by stuff like this:

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/760553/are-all-uncountable-infinities-greater-than-all-countable-infinities-are-some-u#:~:text=(b)%20No%2C%20all%20countable,numbers%2C%20than%20%CE%B1%3E%CE%B2.

Countable infinities are equal, so the infinite set of worlds where we're Boltzmann brains is equal to the infinite set of worlds where we're not. It's a 50/50 chance, epistemically speaking. Given an infinitely large multiverse, of course.

Regarding the US, our political democracy without economic democracy is a democracy-in-name-only (DINO) which, from periodic national crisis to crisis, has been dismantling itself brick by brick since 1789 by disproportionately serving Capital at the expense of Labor and Nature (both of which are in revolt: reactionary populisms and global warming, respectively). — 180 Proof

But the arc of history for the past two centuries has been towards liberty. Women and minorities are de facto second class citizens, but they are not de jure second class citizens anymore. I was watching "In the Heat of the Night", the other day. America really has made a lot of progress in the last 60 years. How does that square with what you're saying?

Yeah.

I'll try. Basically, my argument is that if someone else solves the Hard Problem, I think we could understand their solution. Even if we didn't understand it completely, we could probe the solution and ask a lot of simple questions that we would understand the answers to. If that's possible, then it would seem to also be possible to figure out the answers to those questions ourselves. If we can understand a lot of the solution to the Hard Problem, I don't see why we should think that we don't have the brain-power to figure those answers out ourselves.

"The boss of Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, accused a Russian brigade of abandoning its position in front-line Bakhmut, allowing Ukraine to seize territory."
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/10/europe/prizoghin-bakhmut-russia-ukraine-losses-intl-cmd/index.html

It's irrelevant that Trump was on tape admitting he gropes and kisses women without asking them first?

I was replying to Nos when I asked why they took so long. He was claiming it was a conspiracy by Carrol and her friends. I understand why women don't report sexual abuse (or wait a long time).

Don't you think the Access Hollywood tape and deposition also hurt Trump in the eyes of the jury?

I think they were all in on it. — NOS4A2

Why did they wait so long?