This matters because I would put the "biology challenge" a little differently myself. I would suggest that the biggest unanswered question here is whether only living things can be conscious. — J
The Ineffability Argument Against LLM Consciousness
Premise 1: A defining feature of consciousness is the presence of qualitative experience — so-called qualia — which are irreducibly first-personal and, at least in part, ineffable.
Premise 2: What is ineffable cannot be exhaustively represented in language, computation, or any system of explicit specification.
Premise 3: LLMs (and any system based purely on computation or symbol manipulation) operate entirely by processing and generating explicitly specifiable structures — namely, language tokens and probabilistic relationships between them.
Conclusion: Therefore, LLMs cannot instantiate or reproduce consciousness, because they lack access to the ineffable dimension that characterizes subjective experience. — ChatGPT4o
Supose we come across someone who behaves as if they like coffee. They drink coffee, make it for themselves and others, and so on. From their behaviour we infer that they do indeed like coffee. But suppose that our inference is mistaken, that they actually are indifferent or even dislike coffee, but go along with a pretence, perhaps for social reasons, in order to "fit in", or whatever.Always get rid of the idea of the private object in this way: assume that it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the change because your memory constantly deceives you. — PI Page 207
What is rejected is this two-level picture, in which the visible behaviour and language is caused by a hidden noumenal world. Meaning is not hiding behind our language but consists in what we do with our words....swirl of language we see take place that is caused by the noumenal, but the best we can say is that the noumenal is there but talking about (it) doesn't help us — Hanover
the insuperable obstacle to such an idea is that the nature of life and of mind are inneffable, and, as such, it can't be defined. So you can't even know what it is that you're trying to synthesise. — Wayfarer
Rejecting intentional attitudes as private objects does not entail rejecting intentional attitudes altogether. It is instead to reconceptualise them. Not being objects, they are not how things are in a hidden noumenal world, but normative constraints on how we want things to be. They are not objects we detect, but commitments we recognise and undertake.deny entirely this talk of consciousness and declare it ontologically non-existent and say language is all there is. — Hanover
A possible reply to this is that "ineffable" may be one of Chalmers' "temporary" obstacles, as opposed to a permanent one like biological composition — J
Rejecting intentional attitudes as private objects does not entail rejecting intentional attitudes altogether. It is instead to reconceptualise them. Not being objects, they are not how things are in a hidden noumenal world, but normative constraints on how we want things to be. They are not objects we detect, but commitments we recognise and undertake. — Banno
The discussion of relative levels of pain is what decides your next actions. The doing is the thing. — Banno
Isn't it? Point is, you do not need an answer to "what pain is" in order to do whatever it is you do. You just need the comparison to indifference. I hope that you are seeking to return the folk you are talking to, to that state of indifference, but then I don't know what your job is... :worry:...whatever the pain is (kind of a weird question) — frank
My basic objection is that if they are private experiences then they are unavailable for discussion, and if they are available for discussion then they seem to be just what we ordinarily talk about using words like "red" and "loud".
So not of much use. — Banno
Sure, Then they are 'just what we ordinarily talk about using words like "red" and "loud".' — Banno
We are interested in that we might better call the intentional state, the beliefs and desires and so on that supposedly exist and yet are not directly accessible to others. — Banno
I'm not sire this framing works.In my colleague Thomas Nagel’s phrase, a being is conscious (or has subjective experience) if
there’s something it’s like to be that being. Nagel wrote a famous article whose title asked “What
is it like to be a bat?”1 It’s hard to know exactly what a bat’s subjective experience is like when
it’s using sonar to get around, but most of us believe there is something it’s like to be a bat. It is
conscious. It has subjective experience.
That's how Chalmers sets out the issue.
Is he correct?
I don't know. — Banno
Compare: What is it like to be in love? Well, it's not any one thing. In a very real sense there is not a thing it is like to be in love. — Banno
You really should find out about Chalmers. — Banno
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.