My point is that... ..you judge a resemblance by comparing the cat that you imagine to the cat that you see. — Luke

A resemblance-relation requires at least two objects which can resemble each other. Granted that all objects resemble each other in the abstract sense of being objects, but how can anything invisible resemble something visible?

My point is that they can't, unless you somehow make both visible. For example, you draw a picture of the cat that you imagine. The visible features of the cat-picture are comparable with the visible features of the cat.

However, there's a feeling in what it's like to see the cat, which is comparable with a feeling of what it's like to see the cat-picture. There's also a feeling in what it's like to imagine a cat. You can compare your feelings (via memories), and judge resemblances between them.

I was questioning why you are talking about physical states at all with regard to judging a resemblance between an imagined cat and a seen cat. — Luke

You're right, I don't need to talk about physical states with regard to judging resemblances between different experiences. However, the thread is about the hard problem of consciousness, recall, in which dualism is implied between mental and physical states. Hence talk of physical states.

So Berkeley's idealism is implausible, but it's less implausible than Cartesian dualism? — Wayfarer

They're implausible in different ways.

..monist idealism is the only form of monism which has the appearance of being coherent. — Metaphysician Undercover

The idea that a mind somehow constructs the world, even before there were any minds, is not so coherent.

..we assume "matter" as something independent form minds, to support our belief in a real world which is independent from us, — Metaphysician Undercover

Then you omit all the direct realists for whom the relation between mind and matter is direct. When the two coalesce, it's meaningless to talk of one being independent of the other.

Have you ever checked your hormone and neurotransmitter levels in order to be satisfied of a resemblance? — Luke

No, I just feel them. What I feel is my physiological state, in which hormones and neurotransmitters etc are constitutive for having it.

I would think that the resemblance is more likely the result of some sort of comparison between the imagined cat and the seen cat. — Luke

Right, you feel what imagining the cat is like, and then you feel what seeing the cat is like, and may then also recognize properties that the two feelings share.

But feelings are invisible, you can't compare a visible cat nor graphic image with the feeling of imagining what they look like. You can, however, compare things of the same type, such as two visible cats, two visible images, or two invisible mental states by how they feel when you have them.

What it feels like for you to see the cat is, therefore, comparable to other feelings, such as those evoked by thoughts, memories, and attempts to mentally visualize the cat without seeing anything.

How do the physical causes of your mental states affect your judgement of a resemblance between them? — Luke

Well, for example, alcohol can affect my mental state so that I feel tipsy, a blurry kind of feeling, which in turn resembles the blurry feeling of seeing blurry or expressive pictures, or hearing blurry sounds, etc. There is something genuinely blurry about feeling tipsy, or in what it's like to see blurry pictures etc.. :)

Couldn't two very different mental states have the same hormone and neurotransmitter levels? — Luke

Yes, it's not all about the hormones and neurotransmitters. Our brains become individually personalized as each brain keeps on creating and modifying its neural networks relative to our lives and the things we encounter.

If it’s not some sort of resemblance between the doodle and “what you had in mind”, then what determines satisfaction here? — Luke

Imagining a cat may resemble seeing a cat (or cat-like doodle) since the levels of hormones and neurotransmitters that evoke the mental states in both cases can be similar or the same. Hence their resemblance. However, none of the two mental states (or "feelings") have the properties of an image.

if we want matter in or representations of reality, we need to keep the split between mind and matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

It ain't necessarily so, for we are not confined to representations of reality. Experiences of reality are presentations of reality in the sense that the experience in your mind of a material reality is the material reality. When mind about matter is the matter, then there is no split between mind and matter. .

And does that make sense to you? Does it seem plausible? — Wayfarer

No, but what makes sense is Berkeley's rejection of the split between mind and body.

I'm a person who's interested to start studying philosophy but I don't really know where to start. — AlienVareient

You typically spend the first 6 - 12 months studying the history of western philosophy: ancient, medieval, and modern, including an introduction to logic. Then you pick some famous philosopher's original work, read it carefully, also other books about it, and then you write an essay about the work. That's a start for further investigations.

I have the sense that when you say 'idealism', you believe that it posits something called 'mind' which is constitutive of reality in the same way that 'matter' is for materialism. — Wayfarer

I mention idealism and direct realism as examples of philosophies in which the hard problem does not arise from splitting the world in two between body and mind.

Bishop Berkeley understood, correctly, that such a split makes no sense, so he decided to focus on the mind. Matter is not eliminated, but it's not fundamental. Mind is.

In direct realism, the mind is directly linked to the world. My conscious awareness of the world is the actual world, not a mental replica. There's no gap between my conscious awareness and the world.

If you're using direct realism in a different way then I would hope that you would explain. — Harry Hindu

In direct realism, the mind is directly linked to the world. The world that I'm consciously aware of is the actual world, not a mental replica. So, there is no gap between my conscious awareness and the world, and without the gap, there is no inexplicable relation to explain. The hard problem of consciousness is a problem invented by dualists.

Doesn't your description contradict these statements? — J

No. In my description of a mental visualization of what a cat looks like, I use the word 'feeling' instead of 'mental image', because the word 'image' is literally false in that context.

What's mental is the intent to find out what the cat might look like, which may feel like seeing, since it can be satisfied by one's ability to use memories and beliefs about cats. It can also be satisfied by doodling with a pencil on paper until the visible shapes of a drawn cat satisfy what you had in mind. But what you had in mind was never an image, only a hunch, a feeling evoked by the intent etc.

Those are mental states, and unlike visible images that can be used for representing things, mental states don't represent anything. Instead, they present what there is to see, such as images and cats.

One might add that the feeling of imagining a cat can become as immersive as the feeling evoked when seeing a real cat. AfaIk, it's the same part of the brain that is active in both cases. That's why hallucinations are possible, but also the ability to empathise and know what it's like to be another person or animal.

Therefore, it is possible to know, at least partly, what it's like to be a cat, or even a bat!

Actually, direct realism is part of the hard problem. In asserting that you see the world as it is - as static objects and physical brains, and comparing that to how the mind appears and is described as being non-physical and immaterial is how the hard problem arises. — Harry Hindu

:roll: That's not direct realism. Why bother?

I asked you what an observer is, and you didn't answer the question. — Harry Hindu

For example, a bird observing its environment,, birdwatchers observing the bird, a prison guard observing prisoners, a solo musician observing his own playing, an audience observing the musician, scientists observing their experiments, a thinker observing his own thinking (e.g. indirectly via its effects).

It sounds like where we differ is that you want to eliminate the idea of a mental image altogether. I think there are plausible and persuasive reasons for doing this in the case of perceptions. But not for imagined or remembered images. If these experiences are not, in some ordinary-language way, mental images, then what are they? And how could they be explained away as being identical with their physical substrates? — J

I don't want to eliminate the idea of a mental image. The ability to imagine things is central in my daily work (architecture). Like most people, I have a limited ability to mentally imagine what complex and detailed buildings look like. That's why we draw sketches, renderings, use photos etc It's an interactive process between one's imagination and the feedback one gets from seeing colours and shapes. In this way it is possible to generate, revise, and accumulate knowledge of spatially complex and detailed buildings before they exist.

It would be impossible to imagine the complete building, or even a simplified contour without encountering problems. I can hardly imagine 5 or 6 features of my cat and rotate them sideways without forgetting some or having to start over again. The composition of this alleged mental cat seems disjoint or detachable unlike the continuous compositions of visible images. For example, I imagine looking closer at the imagined cat, but its features don't appear more detailed. It's more like a verbal description where the words have been replaced by memories of cat-features. Like the words in a sentence can be composed in ways that evoke feelings, memories of having seen cats can be composed in ways that evoke the feeling of seeing imagined cats.

In my posts above I'm arguing against the property dualism that is implied in the so called hard problem of consciousness. The problem reappears also in epistemological forms of dualism, such as in indirect realism, or in any philosophy in which it is assumed that consciousness is inaccessible to our knowledge.

Those are not my problems. I'm a direct realist, and a monist, so there's no need for you to give me a lecture on the monist nature of the world. Likewise, when I'm talking of subjective and objective in their ontological and epistemological senses, I'm not trying to split the world in two. In a monist world, things can have different modes of existing, and some things are observer-dependent (e.g. money) while other things (e.g. mountains) exist regardless of observers. But thanks anyway :up:

Ok, Husserl might not seem to be a dualist, but the assumption that consciousness is immaterial in the sense that it never appears as an object in a world of objects, implies an epistemological dualism, and the hard problem reappears. For if consciousness is immaterial, then it seems we have no way of knowing what it's like to be another observer, or how immaterial experiences arise in a material world.

A similar problem arises for indirect realists because of their assumption that we never see objects directly, only by way of seeing our own sense-data (or mental images) first.

For idealists for whom everything is consciousness, the hard problem does not arise from a metaphysical or epistemological wedge. Likewise, it doesn't arise for direct realists under the assumption that we see objects directly: e.g. what it feels like is what the object appears like.

Dualism posits two substances of different kinds, i.e. mental and material. But consciousness doesn't have to be conceived of as an 'immaterial thing' apart from but different to the physical. Rather it pertains to a different order, namely, the subjective or first-person order, in which it never appears as an object. Rather it is that to which (or whom) all experience occurs, the condition for the appearance of all knowledge. — Wayfarer

Right, so instead of substance-dualism you have two orders or perspectives or property-dualism. All the same, when we want to explain how two phenomena are related to each other, yet assume that they are fundamentally different in a way that makes is hard or impossible to understand how they could be related, then the problem might be in the assumption.

The past and future are irreconcilably different, — Metaphysician Undercover

In research on gravity, there's talk of backwards causation and that time is not a fundamental property of the universe. I don't know, but it doesn't seem to be a hard problem to explain how the past creates the future.

But the kind of "feeling" involved in having a mental image of a cat is surely not explainable by hormone levels. — J

Right, but there is no relation between a mental image and hormone levels to explain when the cat that you see is a real cat (not a mental image).

(When you assume that you're seeing a mental image, then you have a relation to explain between the mental and the physical which no-one can make sense of, because of the dualism that it implies.)

What remains to be explained is a relation between the experience (the feeling of what it's like to see the cat) and its probable causes in your brain, the cat, and the conditions under which you see the cat.

A major cause of what it's like to see the cat is, of course, the cat and its visible properties. When you see it, you feel a certain way based on what there is to see. A scary or aggressive cat makes you feel a certain way which is different from seeing a cute or happy cat.

What it feels like when you see the cat is what the cat appears like to you.. :cool:

One might also consider the fact that the the brain adds and modifies its neural networks all the time as you experience things. That's how our brains become personalised. This means that the conditions under which you saw the cat yesterday are somewhat different today, and again different tomorrow. What it's like for you to see the cat changes more or less each time.

How's that for a start on how the brain creates subjective first-person experiences?

Regarding mental images. Beside the ability to see cats, you can remember or know what it's like to see a cat, and you can use the knowledge to evoke the same or similar feelings when you imagine or dream about cats. But without a cat, or with your eyes closed, nothing is seen, only felt as if you were seeing the cat. A "mental image" couldn't even resemble visible objects such as cats or images. But it feels a certain way to imagine a cat, just like it feels a certain way to actually see a cat.

Can you sketch even the beginning of an explanation of a mental image that involves feeling-type causes such as hormones or other chemical items? — J

Just replace the mental image with a real cat. What it's like to see the cat is a feeling, not an image. The feeling has many possible causes, but without dualist assumptions, it's possible to explain.

We need a physicalist translation, or reduction, of "experience," for starters. In what sense is visual experience biological? Do we know how our brains create the illusion of the Cartesian theater that characterizes subjective experience? Not at all. You can say, "Someday we will," and I agree that's likely, but at the moment it's unsolved, and it's not a matter of lacking a description, as you put it. We lack any theory at all about how and why it happens. — J

I'm not sure our ignorance is so fundamental. Moreover, the word 'experience', like perceptual verbs such as 'see', are ambiguous. By clarifying their ambiguity we can get rid of some of the problems.

For example, in talk of the experience of seeing a cat, the word 'experience' or 'seeing' can refer to what is constitutive for having the experience: the feeling. But they can also refer to what the experience is about: the cat.

The cat is the object that you see, which causes you to feel a certain way. The way it makes you feel is what the cat is like when it is seen under those conditions, and what the cat is like is not a creation of anyone's brain, nor are the conditions under which the cat is seen.

The feeling, however, is evoked by the brain and your ability to see the cat. But the feeling is not an entity that accompanies the experience, it is the experience in its constitutive sense.

So, what is left to explain is this: How does my brain create the feeling?, and I believe we know at least something about how feelings are evoked by hormone levels, neurons releasing dopamine etc.

The impossible request that we ought to explain how hormone levels etc create the illusion of a Cartesian theatre seems to be based on a fallacy of ambiguity.

This does not eliminate or explain away the feeling, I just don't see a good reason for believing that the experience of what it feels like to see a cat from a first person point of view is impossible to explain. What is there to see is not a mental theatre but reality.

Ok, J, thanks, I'll respond tomorrow. I have to go.

I am conscious as I type this. In a couple hours, I will be unconscious. The states are fundamentally different. Aside from differences in brain activity, however, a physical exam of me in each state of consciousness would find very little different. — Patterner

They're fundamentally different under the assumption that consciousness is non-material, which implies dualism, i.e. that we split the world in two, which is implausible.

And the world would be different without humans and their minds, so I don't see how you've made any sensible distinction between what it means to be subjective vs objective. — Harry Hindu

It should be clear by now, that it depends on whether we use those words in their ontological sense or their epistemic sense.

I was pointing out that the mind is not special in having things independent of it, so you have failed to make any sensible distinction between what is objective and subjective. — Harry Hindu

The mind is special in the sense that its existence is observer-dependent, unlike the world. The world doesn't depend on an observer to exist. They have different modes of existing.

I meant rewrite the thesis but avoid using those terms. Give a description you believe is accurate but that doesn't have recourse to "observer" or "experience" . — J

Recall I asked you to explain to me why we can't use those words, but you didn't.

The assumption that consciousness is material leads to empirical or conceptual problems to be solved. The assumption that consciousness is non-material leads to the hard and probably insurmountable problem, because of the dualism that it implies.

Out of everything in our universe, some carbon based organisms on this planet happen to have the ability to be conscious. And that's supposed to be a fundamental property of the universe? I don't think so. There's a lot more for us to learn about the universe, and so far there is little reason to split it in two.

So where do the images come from? — Corvus

Our empathic ability. It's the ability to mentally construct, visualize, and actually feel things that we are not directly exposed to. So if you know what it feels like to see things, then you probably have the ability to evoke the same or similar feeling when you don't see anything. The same areas in the brain are activated when you see something and when you imagine seeing it.

leave out the terms "observer" and "experience." Let's look at the result and see what we think. — J

Ok, let's see:

visual ..... have a hierarchical structure in the sense that the ..... is not solely a biological phenomenon. It is also causally constrained by the behavior of light, and influenced by the .....'s psychology, sociology, language and culture. All of these can be described, but none of them is a complete description of the ....... — jkop

But what does it show? That we can't investigate the nature of the observer and experience without using the words 'observer' and 'experience'? It depends on how we use the words, of course. For example, we can distinguish between different senses of the word 'experience' in order to avoid circular or ambiguous fallacies of reasoning.

It's the dualism implied by the (I think unwarranted) assumption that consciousness is non-material which makes it seem hard. For monists or biological naturalists consciousness is an empirical or conceptual problem, until we know enough. Ignorance is no reason for assuming that consciousness is non-material.

And the fact that it turned out inorganic and organic compounds are not fundamentally different is not evidence that the same answer will apply to the HPoC. — Patterner

Right, conscious states are different from unconscious states, but are they fundamentally different?

A series of biochemical reactions release the energy in nutrients, and ion channels generate electrical signals that pulsate across cell membranes, connect synapses, and fire through neural networks etc. Even if we'd be able to map the entire brain process that is constitutive for, say, a visual experience, it does not include what is seen, e.g. a bird. It makes no sense to look for a neurological version of a bird in the brain when the object of the experience is flying in the sky.

Also, what it feels like to have that visual experience is not necessarily a part of the visual experience. Neurons release dopamine, for instance, which may cause an overlapping or separate experience, but the cause for the release of dopamine can be fixed by expectations, or social pressure to feel a certain way when seeing the bird. The cause of the feeling is then only partly to be found in biochemistry and partly in psychology or sociology or culture. Hence a seeming inability to explain what it feels like in terms of biochemistry.

The problem isn't the lack of a complete description. Rather, it's how we can even talk about all this without importing (as you do) the term "observer". — J

Ok, please explain to me why we can't talk about all this without using the word 'observer'?

Sure, we can describe a subjective experience, but how do we explain its existence, or why it exists in the way it does and not in another? That's the hard problem. — J

For example, a feeling of being drunk (its existence and why it exists the way it does) is uncontroversially explained by the effects that alcohol has on our cognitive functions. One might add descriptions of situations, ambience and memories of previous experiences, expectations etc. to further articulate what it feels like.

In order to make that into a hard problem of consciousness (afaik), we'd have to define the feeling as something that is detached from being drunk, as something that accompanies it. By detaching the feeling from the drunken state, while assuming that the two must still be related somehow, we seem to create the very problem that we are pretending to solve. But the feeling is not necessarily related to the experience. It might be a function of interest of the body to receive awards, e.g. dopamine released by neurons at work whenever the experience satisfies or disappoints. Just a speculation.

If we could build a working brain our of inorganic parts that was functionally equivalent to a working organic brain, wouldn't the non-biological brain be conscious? — RogueAI

I read recently about an artificial model of the brain of a fruit fly. It is supposedly a complete model, but I don't know if or how it works.

If we can manufacture artificial fruit flies, then it seems at least possible to manufacture larger or more complex organisms. But it might be improbable considering the overwhelming complexity of organisms. To simulate a collection of selected functions seems much easier, but a simulation of being conscious is not conscious.

The confusion of levels of description — Wolfgang

Right, anything goes when we attempt to solve a hard problem that doesn't exist. :cool:

Vitalism used to be a solution to a "hard problem" based on the assumption that inorganic and organic compounds are fundamentally different, yet related somehow. But how can they be related yet fundamentally different? Hence the vitalist suggestion that organic compounds must contain some non-physical element. Later the synthesis of urea showed that the different compounds are not fundamentally different.

Now I don't think we're anywhere near a synthesis of consciousness from unconscious compounds, but if seems fairly clear that consciousness is a biological phenomenon. Moreover, conscious states such as visual experiences have a hierarchical structure in the sense that the experience is not solely a biological phenomenon. It is also causally constrained by the behavior of light, and influenced by the observer's psychology, sociology, language and culture. All of these can be described, but none of them is a complete description of the experience. However, the lack of a single complete description is hardly a problem.

The world is independent of a map as well so this does not really get at what it means to be objective vs subjective. — Harry Hindu

Consider cities and landscapes and most of the environments that people live in. Large parts of our lived world depend on the maps and drawings after which they were built. Those are parts of the actual world, and it is in this sense that the world depends on maps for being such a world. Without maps it would be a different world.

..as if humans have this special quality of the world being independent from us. — Harry Hindu

I can't make sense of that.

Earth is the only planet that we know to have human life. In this sense, is the Earth subjective in that Earth is the only planet to have human life? ...
..you seem to be trying to make a special case for human consciousness in that it is the only thing that has uniqueness. — Harry Hindu

That's not what I say. Many humans and other animals are conscious. Consider the events in your physiology when you are having the conscious awareness of a tickle. Others may have similar events, but not those that exist in your physiology. The tickle exists whenever you feel it, and when you no longer feel it, then it doesn't exist anymore. This mode of existing is radically different from the way the world exists or the map.

Consciousness and the rest of the world is not subjective or objective. ... Consciousness is no different than a map of the world... — Harry Hindu

The world is objective in the sense that it is independent of us, and available for all of us. Also maps of the world have this objective mode of existing.

Consciousness, however, is subjective in the sense that it exists only for the one who has it. All conscious states have this subjective mode of existing. Some conscious states are not only subjective in this sense, as some beliefs can also be objective in an epistemic sense. Justified true beliefs are both ontologically subjective and epistemically objective.

Other conscious beliefs, such as my opinions about what music I like, are subjective in both senses. Some maps that correspond to what they are maps of are objective in both senses. Maps are ontologically objective but they can also be epistemically subjective, such as psychogeographic maps.

Burundi spaceport, Ozric Tentacles

Let's first assume that the hard problem of consciousness is not the lack of scientific knowledge in that domain but the paradox it creates when thinking of consciousness as an object in the world. — Skalidris

What or where could anything be but in the world?

If you assume, for example, that the feeling of hunger is non-physical, then it's paradoxical to think of the feeling as an object in the physical world. But why would you? I don't know of a good reason to split the feeling of hunger from the hunger.

The feeling does not merely accompany the physiology, it has a hierarchical structure in the sense that it emerges from its constitutive lower-level functions in the brain, which in turn are causally constrained by hormones, the level of glucose in the blood, and an empty stomach. The feeling of hunger is not detached from an empty stomach, they're parts of the same structure.

Perhaps the most basic sense of 'home' refers to what gives us shelter against sunlight, extreme temperatures, wind, rain, predators etc. A hermit crab needs to find something, anything, that it can use for sheltering its soft exoskeleton, or else it's someone else's lunch.

It takes energy for an animal to stay alert and move around in the environment. A hiding place enables it to rest, save energy, store food, reproduce etc. Solitary bees dig nests in the ground or use hollow twigs etc. Individual fish can use caves, others use their membership in a group and form a shoal that can distract predators.

A human digital nomad can be a member of an electronically connected community where the members can inform each other about the weather, current events, and share knowledge. But unlike fish the digital nomad is dependent on service provides. In this sense the digital nomad is as helpless as plankton that floats around wherever ocean currents take them.

..we are wandering around in a zombie haze... — BC

Yes, and some cause car accidents because they've been texting instead of focussing on the here and now.

When people start talking about 'revolutionizing the home' I get chills down my spine. It smells of authoritarian tendencies that have often assaulted the home ... The home isn't anyone's business except of the people living there. — Tzeentch

A self-built home is not necessarily a good home. During the Industrial Revolution workers lived miserably, but in the latter half of the 20th century most people could afford mass produced yet healthy and functional homes. It was arguably a benign authoritarian tendency to revolutionize homes.

Nowadays revolutionary ideas for homes are seldom motivated by a demand for better homes. Their primary function is to catch people's attention for the sake of marketing. In worst case, at the cost of what makes a home better.

Will technology replace the home? — I like sushi

Humans used to be, and many still are, nomadic hunters and gatherers, and in modern societies there are couch surfers, or business people or musicians who travel extensively and for whom a home is different compared to the home of a farmer or suburban family. The concept 'home' has never been used in only the latter sense.

For some individuals it is very important to have or own a home, for others it's less important. Perhaps technology can be a substitute for those who can't afford a home, or for those who find virtual homes more interesting.

For me personally a home is not so important, yet I have recently built a house for myself and my family. Not primarily for becoming a home owner, but because it is in my interest as an architect to learn from the experience. I might sell it after a few years, or stay there until I die. Too early to say now.

But I can say that whenever I've played computer games or visited virtual "homes" or worlds I've lost interest after only a day or two. A simulation is never a duplication.

Like this thread.
— Banno

I'm glad you like this thread. — Shawn

:lol: :up:

Is there philosophy proper? Of course, just like there is pseudo-philosophy.

Wherever phenomena, or the relation between an effect and its cause, is not obviously explained by available evidence, there is opportunity for pseudo-philosophy to fill in the gaps. It thrives in new-age or business-cults, or in practices such as health care, education, sports, or fine arts.

I don't think the differences between analytic, hermeneutical or continental, or eastern philosophies has much to do with whether the philosophy is proper. I suppose they can all be proper. However, they are all susceptible to pseudo-philosophy (e.g. scientism, obscurantism, mysticism). Humans are susceptible to pseudo-philosophy because it is rational to interpret seemingly coherent explanations charitably until they have been proven to be unwarranted.

..innocent until proven guilty. ... ..the innocence of a young child... — Shawn

Those are two different senses of innocence.

In the context of law, innocence means that the suspect is considered not guilty until proven guilty. I suppose it demotivates lynch mobs, and preserves the integrity of justice. It's a technical use of the word 'innocence'.

The innocence of a young child, however, seems to be based on the assumption that young children are incapable of being guilty or responsible for their actions..They have yet to learn the meanings and consequences of their actions, and can't be held responsible until they're old enough. But how old?

Children are being recruited as soldiers in wars, and as assassins in gang related conflicts. Young innocent looking children can be monsters.

..many iterations until the AI gets it just right, or right enough. — punos

When each iteration presents a new picture, and parts or features in the previous picture that one would like to keep are lost, no amount of iterations could make it right. That's very different from modifying a picture by changing or adding parts while keeping other parts.

The coolest results I get from using AI (I use Wonder) come giving it an image to start with. — frank

Sounds cool, I'll check it out. :up:

The rate of improvement is enormous. — Carlo Roosen

What's improved? AI is stuck on simulating intelligence, and simulation is not duplication. Neither a machine nor a human becomes intelligent by merely acting as if it is.

Super-human artificial intelligence (SHAI) will come. — Carlo Roosen

Then why is it taking so long? :roll:

language can refer only to shared experiences, and even then only if we use the same labels. — Carlo Roosen

The sentence 'walking on the moon' refers to an experience that only a few astronauts share. It doesn't suddenly stop referring when the rest of us who lack the experience use the sentence. Furthermore, what else do you expect from language than "only" the same labels? Different labels? :chin:

request that it optimize your prompt to mitigate the issue — punos

Ok! Let's see:







So it did change the bottom floor, but also the rest of the building. It doesn't modify the picture according to my request but picks a different picture from its database. One step forward in one respect, two steps back in other respects. :cool:

I ask for ten stories, but if my maths are not wrong, I only count six — javi2541997

It seems to me that AI could be useful for intentional work with pictures if it had optical object or pattern recognition abilities. In some special areas it is evidently useful. But this blind image sampling that OpenAI and others offer online seems to be as useful as scrolling through a database of generic pictures.

Furthermore, we tend to react negatively because the assumptions under which we use their tools are false. AI is not intelligent, and it doesn't generate and modify pictures in the sense that one generates and modifies what there is to see.

The results I got are mostly absurd a la Monty Python.

I then revised the prompt to use the number “3” instead of the word “three” and it worked. — praxis

That's interesting. When I typed '3' the number of storeys increased to 8 :lol: Perhaps I should ask it to erase its memory of my previous attempts? I'll try again tomorrow.

Either the perspective is wrong or its just an aberration of architectural features. — Nils Loc

I suppose many errors arise because the image sampling technology is blind. The AI never sees the pictures that it samples, nor the result that it generates. Instead it reads our verbal commands, and matches them to the tags or content lists that describe millions of ready-made pictures.

How are the clay and the statue related? — frank

There is no general agreement on how to shape a pile of clay for it to be a sculpture. Especially in a culture characterised by artistic individualism. Anyone can single-mindedly declare that a pile of clay is a sculpture, But that's uninteresting.

What's interesting is that when we work with clay, shapes begin to appear that we may find worth elaborating, and eventually our work has transformed the pile into a sculpture. In this sense, the clay is related to the sculpture by having properties that make it easy to shape. We can test shapes, revise them, and accumulate knowledge on how to proceed until we're satisfied with the result. The sculpture is related to the clay e.g. by having degrees of detail and textures that are possible to achieve with clay.

Are you able to name a fact and if yes how do you know completely certain there is one? — Plex

It's s fact that these marks on this page are words. I know it for certain since I wrote some of them, they're published and open to read.

Ok, but my point is not that 'house' can have many definitions, but that the form of a house is insignificant for its definition.

A homeowner and a contractor can agree to build a house in the form of a pile of building materials as long as it can be used according to the building regulations (e.g. provide shelter, possibilities for cooking, toilet, shower etc).

There is no form shared by all houses. Instead, there are some functions shared by all houses.

But it is very difficult to find an example where forms are discovered, not created. — javi2541997

New forms and properties are discovered now and then. See for example aperiodic tiling.

I am lucky enough to live in the house I remade for myself. So, both made and found. The 'made' is also a matter of finding in regard to what I could afford. — Paine

Interesting :up: I've recently built a house for myself too. The ground is remade, but the house is made from scratch. In the design and construction process you both make and find parts and their features relative to a whole.

Like drawing a picture, where there are too many details to draw, too many decisions to make, so you leave some parts blank/unbuilt until the drawn or built parts give you sufficient reason to complete the picture/building.

A pile of building materials is not a house. — LuckyR

Some pile of building materials is possibly a house somewhere. An unfinished house can be a house. Lots of things that were not designed to be houses are houses, for example, caves, trees, cars, boats, old factories.

Other houses remain uninhabited when too expensive or when used as a financial investment.

Does it matter whether an object is designed by intent?

In an aleatoric process, forms are discovered, not created. Or they're "created" by being discovered and used in new ways.