Comments

  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    180 Proof
    Do you think there is any progress offered by labelling 'consciousness' a system?     — universeness
    No.
  • When Adorno was cancelled
    What is particularly fascinating and at first glance puzzling about this is that he identifies the wild, empty, and irrational pseudo-activity of the students with the increasing “technocratization of the university”. What could he have meant? — Jamal
    Perhaps Adorno interpreted the anarchic protests of the student movement as agitating for 'universities to be administered by student groups (councils) at the expense of bourgeois, ivory tower, tenured scholars'.
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    Either:
    1) Panpsychism (everything is conscious)
    or
    2) Emergentism (of some kind) (some things are conscious)
    or
    3) Eliminativism (nothing is conscious)     — bert1
    4) Property Dualism (there are complementary ways of describing an entity as 'conscious' or 'extended' or both) ...
  • Replacing matter as fundamental: does it change anything?
    No, the hard problem exists if we start with something (anything) that isn't consciousness, and try to explain consciousness in terms of that. — bert1
    I think without a clear, precise conception (or theory) of "consciousness", saying "isn't consciousness" doesn't actually say anything; ergo, at best, the so-called "hard problem" is underdetermined.

    ↪Benj96
    :up:
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    ↪bert1
    :up:
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    There are no "placebos" in foxholes. :mask:

    If religions and spiritualities confer peace of mind to a person, that has some net positive effect on their relationship to their body and thus the functioning of their body/it's health. No tricks, just reason. — Benj96
    The "trick" is the belief that a placebo "cures" an ailment without active medicinal ingredients (ergo the placebo effect). Ignoring symptoms, however comforting, only allows the untreated ailment to get worse. IME, religion is mostly used as a placebo – consolation – for existential dread as well as cultural and/or historical and/or scientific ignorance (i.e. phobias & bigotries).
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    So science will not replace religion. But it would be an excellent development if ethics did. — Banno
    :up: :up:
  • A potential solution to the hard problem
    I won't try and summarise the already succinct Aeon article (which describes itself as being "only in bare outline"). However, what I found most fascinating is the idea that qualia constitute the self, rather than being something perceived by the self. — Luke
    :cool: :up:

    If you haven't already read them, I recommend Peter Watt's first contact hard scifi novel Blindsight (2006) and R. Scott Bakker's hard scifi psychothriller Neuropath (2008) – both heavily influenced by neuroscientist-philosopher (& Buddhist) Thomas Metzinger's monumental work Being No One (2003). The Aeon article you've linked, Luke, summarizes many of the ideas Metzinger et al's had derived from their research.
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    ↪Wayfarer
    :eyes: :cry: :sweat: wtf ...
  • Emergence
    ↪L'éléphant
    AGI will make errors and correct and learn from them hundred of thousands to millions of times faster than human brains can. It won't need to be "sentient" to reach and surpass human-level performance. General Intelligence without the processing bottleneck of "consciousness" will render h. sapiens a metacognitively obsolete species and manifest AGI as the tip of an alien iceberg.
  • Emergence
    ↪L'éléphant
    Thanks for clarifying.

    ↪L'éléphant
    Yes, clocks, for instance, do not experience duration or retrospection. I think it's our metabolic functioning – relative states of homeostasis – that constitutes the intuition of "temporality". If this is so, then only an AGI instantiated in either synthetic or organic organism will, as you say, have a "temporal mind". This, however, would not be an intrinsic, or fundamental, feature or property of AGI itself, and therefore, it wouldn't (need to) be sentient – certainly not as we conceive of sentience today.

    @universeness
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    There are many possibilities for category error and reification. — Janus
    :up:
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    ↪Art48
    :up:
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    Might science absorb values, ethics, and morals from religions? — Art48
    :pray: Let's hope not.
    .
    Or might science somehow evolve to address the concerns and questions traditionally addressed by religion?
    IME, science is to experimental medicines as religion is to ritual placebos/nocebos. The latter tricks many into ignoring their symptoms whereas the former contributes to the health of most. However, philosophy – what we do with (or practice) either of them – often promotes 'proper diet & exercise' as a daily fitness regime – "a way of life" – which cultivates / reinforces flourishing (i.e. well-being).

    Science will never eventually replace religion. — Benj96
    Just as astronomy has not replaced astrology, planetology has not replaced flat earthism, evolution has not replaced creationism and cognitive neuroscience has not replaced spiritualism (i.e. belief in ghosts/souls), I suspect modern technosciences will never totally replace supernatural religions as such. :eyes: :mask:

    It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God - but to create him. — Arthur C. Clarke

    I think, however, when technoscience (e.g. "AGI" + nano/bio/neurotech) provides – what every "God" ever worshipped by h. sapiens spectacularly fails to provide – a reliable lifespan-healthspan-brainspan-youthspan extending techniques (e.g. immorbity therapy) for making death a medically elective procedure – that will cause, all things being equal, 'religious observance' as we know it today to shrink by orders of magnitude to barely fringe subcultures without it ever disappearing completely because, as a species, we are congenital 'magical thinkers' (i.e. confabulators). For our immortal descendents, science will be 'the last man standing' compared to religion. My guess is that their (or "AI-human" hybrid's) spirituality will recognizably consist of "Spinoza's God" – acosmism (sub specie aeternitatis) and/or pandeism (sub specie durationis), not "pantheism". :fire:
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    ↪Mww
    :chin:

    Assuming that just as metabolizing is to an organism or as breathing is to lungs, minding (aka "consciousness") is to a brain-CNS; would you then agree with me that these involuntary activities are (1) not "entities" and therefore (2) neither "fundamental" nor "emergent" (objects / properties)? If you don't agree, I'd appreciate you (someone) pointing out where you (they) think my analogy goes wrong.

    @T Clark @universeness @Wayfarer
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    ↪universeness
    :up:
  • Emergence
    ↪universeness
    :smirk:

    Here's a recent book I just came across by computer engineer and neuroscientist Jeff Hawkins titled A Thousand Brains which summarizes 'lessons learned' from his own company's research on AGI. I haven't read it yet but reviews intrigue me and his first book On Intelligence was quite good and informative. Maybe you're already familiar with him? My guess is that Mr. Hawkins would be right at home in our 'futurist' discussions (no doubt schooling us both).
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    ↪T Clark
    :up:
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    ↪Eugen
    You ask mostly uninformed, nonsensical, and often trivial, questions. Go do your own homework
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    I want ''spoon-feeding" — Eugen
    Sorry but I'm not a spoon-feeder. Do your own thinking (or homework).
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    ↪Eugen
    It's okay not to understand. We ask questions and make of the answers what we can based on what we each bring to the exchange. We move on once we realize there's nothing more to be gained from discussing further.

    ↪Eugen
    Since all you are capable of is misrepresenting replies you do like or cannot comprehend, I'll move on to other less incorrigible, better informed interlocators.
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    ↪Eugen
    What's your point?
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    What is an ''ontic entity" first of all? — Eugen
    A concrete thing like a chair or brain.
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    ↪Eugen
    I didn't say that. But yes.
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    ↪Eugen
    Interpreting (explanations of) e.g. "consciousness" is, at best, philosophical; using testable models in order to explain "consciousness" is, also at best, scientific. However, conflating them, as too many contributors to this forum tend to do, is bad philosophy (i.e. obscurant nonsense (e.g. idealism)) and often pseudo-science (i.e. untestable and/or unparsimoniously explaining "too much").

    I think, Eugen, one should seek adequate grounds for ontologizing "consciousness" (or any idea) before, as you do in the OP, interpreting "consciousness" as this or that kind of entity. In other words, what do we know (or do not know) about "consciousness" that presupposes it is an ontic entity? Nothing as far as I (& neuroscientists as well as e.g. Hume, Spinoza, Buddhists) can tell but I'm open to be shown otherwise.

    @universeness
  • Emergence
    ↪universeness
    :up:
  • Emergence
    ↪universeness
    I answered Eugen the only way pseudo/incoherent questions can / deserve to be answered. IMO.
  • Micromanaging god versus initial conditions?
    Are there facts about reality that will forever be beyond the comprehension of humans, like my dog being unable to understand even the elementary aspects of calculus? — jgill
    The first candidate that comes to mind is
    the black box of AlphaGo's 'strategies & techniques' it used to vanquish world champion Go grandmaster Lee Sedol in 2016. The intellect of "AI", which we engineer (so far), is often incomprehensible to us it seems the way pre-calculus is to your dog. :smirk:
  • Micromanaging god versus initial conditions?
    ↪TiredThinker
    I consider deism a subset of theism; so only as far as 'creating the universe' is concerned, they are indistinguishable deity-concepts.
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    @universeness
    Haven't heard philosophers using the term ''foundational" in regard to consciousness. — Eugen
    Well then, use 'irreducible' instead.

    Can you tell me the difference between fundamental and foundational?
    To my mind 'fundamental' connotes ontological reductionism (i.e. metaphysics re: entities) and 'foundational' connotes methodological reductionism (i.e. science re: explanations). With respect to "consciousness", is it – I prefer mind – 'foundational', or methodologically irreducible (i.e. cannot be reduced to – explained by – a substrate of processes or properties)? Neuroscientists like the philosopher Thomas Metzinger demonstrate that mind can be explained reductively (e.g. self model theory of subjectivity) – as a system of brain functions, and therefore, is not 'foundational' for knowledge of mind (i.e. metacognition) or even, upon critical reflection, not 'foundational' for subjective experience (re: nonordinary / altered mental states).

    Where is the ''nonsense"?
    It is conceptually incoherent to even ask whether or not embodied mind (synonymous with "consciousness" in the absence of any shred of dis-embodied minds) is "fundamental" if only because embodiment is composite and perdurant. This nonsense – the OP – is what you get, Eugen, from trying to reduce a scientific problem (re: seeking a hypothetical explanation for 'how things are or work') to a philosophical question (re: positing a categorical idea or supposition). Of course, you're not alone in this confusion and exemplify the typical bias of reifying folk concepts and projecting them as stuff, "fundamental" or otherwise. I've already pointed this out in our previous discussion about Spinoza, especially this post ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/520996
  • Emergence
    This seems akin to world lines, do you agree? — universeness
    Exactly. :up:

    ↪universeness
    I'm not aware of @Eugen asking me to explain my own metaphysical or scientific speculations and that I've refused to answer as Gnomon (& Wayfarer) has often done. These are my answers to Eugen's questions of my objections – not questions of my speculations – on his thread:

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/803218

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/803300

    Not comparable at all to my exchanges with Gnomon.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    The final nail in Criminal Defendant-1's (aka "Putin's Bitch's") coffin is named Mike Pence ...

    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/27/pence-appears-before-jan-6-grand-jury-00094310
  • Emergence
    ↪universeness
    "Who am I?" A persona (mask) – a dynamic, virtual assemblage of perdurant bodily, cognitive & demographic data aka "self") – I believe I am: "the name" to which I've learned to involuntarily answer. Who else could I be?

    As for summarizing ... that's all I've been doing in our exchanges on this topic over dozens of posts. We're here to inform, maybe inspire & intrigue, not spoon-feed each other.
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    ↪Eugen
    Options (b) & (c) contradict each other – nonsense. And option (a) is an unwarranted assumption that there is something "fundamental". :roll:
  • Emergence
    ↪universeness
    I would not have recommended Metzinger's work several times if I do not find it compelling as corroborating my own speculations. Having not read his books or papers, universeness, I hope that that short video as well as the related wiki articles I've proffered you find interesting enough to read Metzinger's work for yourself since the philosophy of mind devil is in the cognitive neuroscience details. And if not, well then, believe whatever you like about "self" "consciousness" & other folk concepts, my friend, and we'll just have to go on talking – speculating on incommensurable data sets – past one another.
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    ↪Eugen
    fyi – I "believe" only what I state I believe.

    What I think, however, is that the OP doesn't make any sense.

    To begin with, at it's heart, there is a false dichotomy of "either X is reducible or X is strongly emergent" (where X initially was "consciousness" and now it's any nondescript whatever). Also, I can't tell whether you're asking about ideas or how things are (or???) – philosophy or science (or???), respectively. The OP's vague notions – confusions – are opaque.
  • Emergence
    ↪universeness
    'Consciousness' seems to function only (or mostly) as a keyhole through which we project our 'self-reflexive confabutions' for adapting our bodily movements to parochial, physical environments; machine intelligences, which are engineered and not naturally selected, more than sufficiently function without this sort of processing bottleneck in order to adapt (i.e. self-learn, or generate their own algorithms). I imagine that what I call "AGI —> ASI" will never anthropomorphize itself, no matter how perfectly it will mimic humans, to the degree it engineers its own 'synthetic phenomenology', in effect, dumbing itself down with a metacognitive blindfold (i.e. keyhole).
  • The Central Tenets of Justice
    Is the perfect justice system possible? — invicta
    What was done cannot be undone. We ought not let "the perfect" vanquish the good that we can approximate or try to do. Besides, in the long run oblivion renders "in/justice" moot.

    ↪Tobias
    :100:
  • Consciousness - Fundamental or Emergent Model
    1. No.
    2. Yes.
    3. No. Yes.
  • Why Monism?
    The abyss is the substance. — bert1
    :fire: Yes – Democritus-Epicurus-Lucretius' void. QFT physicists hypothesize a true vacuum. For Buddhists it's śunyata and Hindus it's Brahman; for Daoists it's the nameless, eternal Dao and Spinozists conceive of it as natura naturans. My own (pandeistic) thinking has strong affinities with the metaphysical (not mathematical) concept of hyperchaos (re: Q. Meillassoux) that posits 'every manifestation of order is a contingent phase-state, so to speak, of absolute, or necessary, disorder' (i.e. speculative materialism).
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