They had me at dinobeavers.

I think we can recognize precision and explicitness as thresholds that are negotiated, without idealizing them into unreachable and thus useless perfection. We say enough to be understood, counting on the audience to fill in as much as they need to to get it, and even that can be negotiated.

But that just kills off an unrealistic picture of how conversation works. Even if your speech doesn't have to carry the burden of truth entirely on its own, it has to do its part.

I keep finding myself thinking that the great value of saying something true to someone else is helping them see it ― like when you point out to someone that a photo of the faculty of your department has no women in it. And it's not just a matter of your words being understood and even credited; if I lie to you convincingly, my words hide the world from you, obstruct and undermine your relationship with it, divert your attention into a shadowy fantasy land. But when I tell you the truth, and you see it, my words fall away. — Srap Tasmaner

:100: :up:

The point I am making is not that ink and paper aren't essential to the physical nature of the book but that semantic content exists on a different level from its physical form. Words may be encoded as sounds or written letters in various languages, yet the same information can be encoded in entirely different symbolic systems—whether in different languages, Braille, or even Morse code—and still retain its meaning. This demonstrates that semantic content is independent of the specific physical medium in which it is expressed. — Wayfarer

The thing is, your 'point' is a mystification of what is a relatively simple and clear physical picture.

There is no need for a 'different level' for semantic content to exist on. Semantic content is attributed to linguistic media (letters, Braille, Morse code, etc.) by neural nets which have been trained to attribute semantic content to such media. Such attribution of semantic content to linguistic media is a function of the physical state of systems capable of doing such decoding.

A book 'contains meaning' only insofar as it is read and understood by a subject capable of interpreting its content. Furthermore, different readers may interpret the same information in diverse ways, highlighting the subjective and contextual nature of meaning-making. The meaning is not an inherent property of the physical text itself but arises through the interaction between the symbolic representation and the mind of the reader. — Wayfarer

Right. This is completely consistent with the straightforward physical picture outlined above.

So language has a physical aspect, but it can't be accounted for by physical principles alone. — Wayfarer

And yet you rely on LLMs. :roll:

If you actually understand that language has an aspect that can't be accounted for by physical principles, I'd expect you could come up with a way of falsifying any physicalist account of language. That would be a serious philosophical achievement. Go for it!

I'm not familiar with Alicia Juarrero’s perspective, but what I've gathered from looking at the Amazon page for her book sounds generally compatible with Tse's thinking. FWIW, I searched my Kindle copy of Tse's book for any citation of Alicia Juarrero, and didn't find any. I'm planning to borrow a copy of Juarrero’s book, so perhaps I can let you know more later.

The meaning arises as a brain (containing neural networks trained to recognize the written language the book is written in) detects patterns in the writing which are associated by that brain with the meaning that arises.
— wonderer1

What about this causal relationship is physical? — Wayfarer

Everything. Words are patterns of physical vibrations propagating through the air, or physical text. Neural networks in your brain which recognize words and their semantic associations are physical. The semantic elements in your stream of thought are physically detectable.

How is it explainable in physical or molecular terms? — Wayfarer

There is an enormous amount of science to study to reach a complete account at the molecular level. Can you be more specific about what it is that you don't understand?

How do physical interactions cause or give rise to semiotic processes? — Wayfarer

Reading Peter Tse's Criterial Causation might provide a clue. Before reading Tse, I used an analogy of locks and keys, where in the scenario of reading written language, letters, words, phrases, etc. play the roles of keys, and neural nets trained in written language recognition play the role of locks. Of course I don't expect that to make any sense to anyone so unwilling to consider physicalism charitably as yourself.

Along with the majority of philosophers of mind.

In philosophy, to equate mental with physical is a category error. — Gnomon

Brandolini's law:

Brandolini's law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet adage coined in 2013 by Alberto Brandolini, an Italian programmer, that emphasizes the effort of debunking misinformation, in comparison to the relative ease of creating it in the first place. The law states:

The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.

Philpapers Survey

The meaning arises as a brain (containing neural networks trained to recognize the written language the book is written in) detects patterns in the writing which are associated by that brain with the meaning that arises.
— wonderer1

'Arises' from what, exactly? What is the nature of the causal relationship? — Wayfarer

Arises from interactions within the brain which contains the neural networks trained to process written language, in response to the outputs of those neural networks signaling recognition of linguistic elements in the writing.

[Note 'arises' is the word you chose, and I ran with. Not a word I injected into the discussion.]

The nature of the causal relationship is physical.

If meaning arises purely from physical causation, as described by physical and chemical laws, how to account for the gap between these deterministic processes and the open-ended, adaptive nature of life? Even rudimentary organisms exhibit an agency and intentionality absent in inorganic matter—the ability to heal, reproduce, evolve, and maintain homeostasis. From the moment life begins, biological systems exhibit a kind of semiotic agency that transcends the deterministic causal nexus of physics and chemistry. Life doesn't defy physical laws, but requires principles that can't be reduced to that level of explanation. Recognition of this is one of the drivers behind the emergence of biosemiotics, and of the connection between information and biology, none of which is strictly physicalist, although it falls within the ambit of an evolving naturalism. That's the sense in which biology is evolving beyond physicalism, as physics did with the advent of quantum mechanics. And all the same questions apply to the relatonship of neurobiology and semantics.

refs: From Physical Causes to Organisms of Meaning, Steve Talbott

What is Information?, Marcello Barbieri — Wayfarer

That's an impressive load of red herrings you have there, but how about sticking to this
original question?

All of Greene's books, of which I've read The Fabric of the Universe, consist of paper and ink. Is that all they are? How does the meaning they convey arise from the combination of ink and paper? — Wayfarer

Or did you not actually want people to give serious consideration to the matter?

All of Greene's books, of which I've read The Fabric of the Universe, consist of paper and ink. Is that all they are? How does the meaning they convey arise from the combination of ink and paper? — Wayfarer

The meaning arises as a brain (containing neural networks trained to recognize the written language the book is written in) detects patterns in the writing which are associated by that brain with the meaning that arises.

What alternative explanation would you propose? Or even better, how could you falsify my explanation?

Admittedly, my theory has changed slightly as it is now simpler than the original.

But the original evolutionary story involves random mental state generation and a mind disposed to remember sequences of mental states that seem closely to resemble one another. It experiences A. — Clearbury

The biological theory of evolution is based on all sort of empirical evidence. Is empirical evidence for your theory of evolution even possible in principal?

What's being posited is a mind that is in a mental state - so, whatever total mental mental state you are in now (including all experiential states), just assume the mind is in it. — Clearbury

So whence comes a theory of evolution worth considering in light of this posit?

Postmodern fear of knowledge.
— jkop
I'm stealing that phrase. — Banno

:rofl: Same.

Some other methodological Naturalists are so dogmatic that I don't waste my time dialoging with them. :smile: — Gnomon

Funny how those same naturalists see through your bullshit and don't hesitate to call you on it.

It's not dogmatism, it's just that there is so much evidence which proves that you spew bullshit, and I happen to know somewhat about such evidence.

The Intelligent Design movement did originate as a response to the aggressive New Atheists in the late 20th century. — Gnomon

You are asserting misinformation again. What a surprise.

The Intelligent Design movement might reasonably said to have been kicked off with The Wedge Document:

Overview

The Wedge Document outlines a public relations campaign meant to sway the opinion of the public, popular media, charitable funding agencies, and public policy makers.

The document sets forth the short-term and long-term goals with milestones for the intelligent design movement, with its governing goals stated in the opening paragraph:

"To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies"
"To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God"
There are three Wedge Projects, referred to in the strategy as three phases designed to reach a governing goal:

Scientific Research, Writing, and Publicity
Publicity and Opinion-making
Cultural Confrontation & Renewal
Recognizing the need for support, the institute affirms the strategy's Christian, evangelistic orientation:

Alongside a focus on the influential opinion-makers, we also seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Christians. We will do this primarily through apologetics seminars. We intend these to encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidences that support the faith, as well as to popularize our ideas in the broader culture.[12]

The wedge strategy was designed with both five-year and twenty-year goals in mind in order to achieve the conversion of the mainstream. One notable component of the work was its desire to address perceived social consequences and to promote a social conservative agenda on a wide range of issues including abortion, euthanasia, sexuality, and other social reform movements. It criticized "materialist reformers [who] advocated coercive government programs" which it referred to as "a virulent strain of utopianism".

Beyond promotion of the Phase I goals of proposing Intelligent Design-related research, publications, and attempted integration into academia, the wedge strategy places an emphasis on Phases II and III advocacy aimed at increasing popular support of the Discovery Institute's ideas. Support for the creation of popular-level books, newspaper and magazine articles, op-ed pieces, video productions, and apologetics seminars was hoped to embolden believers and sway the broader culture towards acceptance of intelligent design. This, in turn, would lead the ultimate goal of the wedge strategy; a social and political reformation of American culture.

In 20 years, the group hopes that they will have achieved their goal of making intelligent design the main perspective in science as well as to branch out to ethics, politics, philosophy, theology, and the fine arts. A goal of the wedge strategy is to see intelligent design "permeate religious, cultural, moral and political life." By accomplishing this goal the ultimate goal as stated by the Center for Science and Culture (CSC) of the "overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies" and reinstating the idea that humans are made in the image of God, thereby reforming American culture to reflect conservative Christian values, will be achieved.[13]

The preamble of the Wedge Document[14] is mirrored largely word-for-word in the early mission statement of the CSC, then called the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.[13] The theme is again picked up in the controversial book From Darwin to Hitler authored by Center for Science and Culture Fellow Richard Weikart and published with the center's assistance.[15] The wedge strategy was largely authored by Phillip E. Johnson, and features in his book The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism.

Origins
Drafted in 1998 by Discovery Institute staff, the Wedge Document first appeared publicly after it was posted to the World Wide Web on February 5, 1999, by Tim Rhodes,[16] having been shared with him in late January 1999 by Matt Duss, a part-time employee of a Seattle-based international human-resources firm. There Duss had been given a document to copy titled The Wedge and marked "Top Secret" and "Not For Distribution."[17] Meyer once claimed that the Wedge Document was stolen from the Discovery Institute's offices.

New atheism might be said to have been kicked off six years later with the publication of The End of Faith by Sam Harris, and planes being flown into buildings by religious terrorists on 9/11 was the motivation for new atheism.

Yes.

The first paragraph of the linked article:

The journal Royal Society Open Science published a survey of 100 researchers of animal behavior, providing a unique view of current scientific thought on animal emotions and consciousness.

Some relevant recent science news:

Scientific thought on emotions in animals

A majority of the survey respondents ascribed emotions to "most" or "all or nearly all" non-human primates (98%), other mammals (89%), birds (78%), octopus, squids and cuttlefish (72%) and fish (53%). And most of the respondents ascribed emotions to at least some members of each taxonomic group of animals considered, including insects (67%) and other invertebrates (71%).

The survey also included questions about the risks in animal behavioral research of anthromorphism (inaccurately projecting human experience onto animals) and anthropodenial (willful blindness to any human characteristics of animals).

"It's surprising that 89% of the respondents thought that anthropodenial was problematic in animal behavioral research, compared to only 49% who thought anthromorphism poses a risk," Benítez says. "That seems like a big shift."

That you actually value something, is not the same as that something actually mattering. In other words, that you actually believe or desire for something to matter does not entail that it actually matters. For something to actual matter, it must matter independently of non-objective dispositions. — Bob Ross

You seem to use "actually mattering" as if "actually mattering" is meaningful independent of a context of something actually mattering to a person. However your usage of "actually mattering" seems like gibberish from my perspective.

Why think that "mattering" means something other than simply mattering to one or more persons with non-objective dispositions?

Yes, but progress with important qualifications: peaceful, inclusive for all, respecting human dignity, and without violating the trends of evolution. — Seeker25

Biological evolution is not inclusive for all. Individuals being weeded out of the gene pool by natural selection is one of the important trends of evolution.

Which is more consistent with evolutionary trends, promoting the benefit of all, or eugenics?

True.

Heh -- the curse of wondering is exactly this back-and-forth... — Moliere

This back-and-forth can contribute to 'triangulating' and closing in on a more accurate understanding.

The blessing of wondering. :razz:

The question is whether "ridding ourselves of physicalism" has any actual meaning consequences for physicalists. — Apustimelogist

:100: :up:

Contrary to the OP:

Physicalism seems like a vacuous piece of extra metaphysical naturalist baggage in that context. — Baden

"Physicalism" is a handy word for conveying my perspective on minds succinctly, but it is 'weightless baggage' in that for me it is simply a word pointing towards a working hypothesis.

Working hypotheses are things we can't help but carry around. It happens effortlessly and automatically. Attempt to throw a reliable working hypothesis away, and unless a better working hypothesis comes along, the old reliable one will come back.

A life spent in scientific pursuits has made it routine for me to attempt to throw away reliable hypotheses, only to have them come back to mind as the well supported and unfalsified working hypotheses that they are. I suspect the same is true of many who use the word "physicalism" to convey their perspectives.

Define theism and define God, please. — Hallucinogen

To me it seems much more practical to work with the definitions used by an individual theist I am discussing the subject with. (If nothing else, it reduces time wasted on straw men.) I suspect any dictionary will provide definitions I would find acceptable for starting a discussion, but if the subject under discussion is your theism, then you providing your definitions makes more sense.

To deny theism is to deny a necessary entity... — Hallucinogen

For my part, it is merely a matter of being skeptical towards the idea that the theist that I happen to be talking to knows what he is talking about in matters theistic. Is there some reason to think that you are in a position to speak for what all people mean by "deny theism"?

It's a good framework for a start. I (kinda) wish I had more time to respond.

4.2 **High-risk AI systems**
High-risk applications for AI systems are defined in the AI Act as: — Benkei

I would want to see carve outs for, psychological and medical research overseen by human research subjects Institutional Review Boards.

Thanks! :grin:

Imperfect DNA replication. Which rarely happens. That's why the very very slow increments. I think single mutations aren't noticable. One base pair changes? That's nothing. But, in a million years, they've added up, and something is noticable. — Patterner

There is strong evidence that the single mutation which resulted in the human genome containing ARHGAP11B played a particularly major role in humans having the intelligence we do.

ARHGAP11B is a human-specific gene that amplifies basal progenitors, controls neural progenitor proliferation, and contributes to neocortex folding. It is capable of causing neocortex folding in mice. This likely reflects a role for ARHGAP11B in development and evolutionary expansion of the human neocortex, a conclusion consistent with the finding that the gene duplication that created ARHGAP11B occurred on the human lineage after the divergence from the chimpanzee lineage but before the divergence from Neanderthals.[3]

Changes in ARHGAP11B are one of several key genetic factors of recent brain evolution and difference of modern humans to (other) apes and Neanderthals.[6] A 2016 study suggests, one mutation, a "single nucleotide substitution underlies the specific properties of ARHGAP11B that likely contributed to the evolutionary expansion of the human neocortex".[7]

A 2020 study found that when ARHGAP11B was introduced into the primate common marmoset, it increased radial glial cells, upper layer neurons, and brain wrinkles (gyral and sulcus structures), leading to the expansion of the neocortex.[8] This revealed that ARHGAP11B is the gene responsible for the development of the neocortex during human evolution.

[Emphasis added.]

Even if it's a quick side-track of the thread, let's, for the fun of it, check how far the current system handles it. — Christoffer

I had no idea that any currently existing AI was capable of doing all of that. I had simply searched Google Images for "schematic diagram artificial neuron" to find an example schematic to answer your question, and picked the first schematic listed. I didn't bother looking at the article from which the schematic was pulled.

So after seeing your post I took a look at the article to see if it included any detailed theory of operation for the circuit. It does not. I can't say that there isn't some detailed written theory of operation for the circuit that was part of ChatGPT4's training. But it at least appears that ChatGPT4 was able to develop a decent working theory of operation from analysis of the schematic diagram, and image analysis has progressed substantially farther than I realized.

then ask the AI to suggest a variation which matches some criteria that the input design cannot achieve. E.g. higher accuracy, higher power, more compact. (With the specific components needed for the alternate design specified in detail.)
— wonderer1

Tried to ask for higher accuracy. — Christoffer

The things I listed as criteria for a new design were more relevant to the things I design than, to the artificial neuron in the schematic. For the artificial neuron more relevant criteria for improvement would be finding an optimal point balancing the 'contradictory' criteria of minimization of power consumption and maximization of speed of operation. Although any truly useful neuromorphic hardware design these is going to be a matter of integrated circuit design and not something built up out of discrete transistors, diodes, etc. as depicted by the input schematic.

Still, ChatGPT4's suggestions as to how make improvements in terms of discrete components were respectable. Furthermore, ChatGPT4 did point to integrated circuit implementations of neuromorphic hardware.

Overall, I have to say that ChatGPT4's responses were very impressive. I would expect good electrical engineers being handed that schematic 'cold', to spend at least eight hours analyzing things, in order to respond with an equivalent level of analysis and detail to that provided by ChatGPT'4. On the other hand, the good engineers would have recognized immediately that spending time analyzing how to improve that design in terms of an assembly of discrete components (vs IC design) is fairly pointless for practical engineering purposes.

Now think of such a new AI running on your phone. It continually registers its environment and acts on it when needed — Carlo Roosen

The average cell phone battery has a capacity of 10 Watt-hours. A single query to ChatGPT uses 2.9 Watt-hours.

How soon do you expect the hardware technology, needed to support your project, to be available? And why do you think that expectation is realistic?

And what is it that you would like an AI to do with such schematics? — Christoffer

I'd like to be able to do something like provide a schematic as input, check that the AI understands the way the input design functions, and then ask the AI to suggest a variation which matches some criteria that the input design cannot achieve. E.g. higher accuracy, higher power, more compact. (With the specific components needed for the alternate design specified in detail.)

I'm skeptical such an AI will exist before I retire, and I wouldn't trust such an AI to any great extent, but such an AI might do a lot to eliminate some of the more tedious parts of my job, like tracking down specific parts to be used in a new design.

What is love?

Something I've recently fallen into, that makes me feel young again, and makes me think philosophy is awfully boring.

:razz:

What types of schematic diagrams do you mean? — Christoffer

Electronic schematics, so something like:

At the timeline’s start, some 485 million years ago, Earth was in what is known as a hothouse climate, with no polar ice caps and average temperatures above 86 F (30 C). — Agree-to-Disagree

Amphibians evolved about 360 million years ago. So aside from the earliest insects there was no animal life on land 485 MYA.

Do you think that article suggests that most of the animal life on land that is larger than an insect wouldn't go extinct if the average temperature was above 86 F? (It is paywalled, so I haven't looked at the article itself.)

I've thought about how I might have used it if it was around while I was still working. — T Clark

I never think to use LLMs for work, though I have coworkers in marketing that do. I'd want an AI that can take schematic diagrams as input, and produce schematics as output, before I could see an AI as highly useful for my work.

I'm not making any judgement about whether phenomenology yields valid or reliable knowledge. — Janus

I would think phenomenology would necessarily be rather poor at yielding reliable knowledge about the experience of people in general, given the neurodiversity of people. I haven't looked into phenomenology much, but I'd think it a poor basis for understanding the experience of someone with schizophrenia of someone with bipolar disorder who is in a manic state.

However, those with more knowledge of phenomenology are welcome to enlighten me.

Researchers combine the power of AI and the connectome to predict brain cell activity

Fruit fly brains, but indicative of the synergy between neuroscience and AI that is going to be transformative.

A response to my discussion of Voltage as Potential (not yet real) current, elicited, not a counterargument, but an ad hominem accusation of heresy : "pseudophilosophy is defined by a lack of epistemic conscientiousness" — Gnomon

I was just pointing out a fact, that you are once again demonstrating.

You don't care enough about knowing what you are talking about, to investigate what you are talking about to the point that you do know what you are talking about. How long did it take you to realize what a bit is?

If you had wanted to understand you could ask me. I think I've said on TPF enough times, that I'm an electrical engineer. Maybe I could have conveyed to you a way of thinking about the subject that is not nearly as nonsenical as what you are presenting. But you don't want to be seen as a student. You want to be seen as a teacher. Right?

Strangely enough, the confusion reminded me of Tobias captivating story.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13745/the-hairpin-by-tobias/p1 — Amity

I loved that.

And it made me wonder as to the Mum. She might have been like her daughter but she was brainwashed and wasn't in a position to leave her husband.
Who may well have been the man in Part 1...
Overthinking :chin: — Amity

Overthinking maybe, but interesting to consider.

In the case of my mom, there was fear related to bipolar disorder in her family, and she has told me that she is afraid she would go crazy without her religious beliefs. That's only one among many factors, but I understand it really is a deep seated fear for her, and knowing that in particular, I'm not much inclined to challenge her views.

The second, a loving mother showing religious concern for her daughter's soul. And losing control of the situation. — Amity

Ah, I see now that I read the second part as being between a mother and son, simply because it was easy for me to relate to it that way even though, on rereading' I couldn't find anything that makes clear the sex of the child.

Yes, it is excellent as two halves of a whole. — Vera Mont

Glad to see that you see it that way as well.

Can't you just see/hear it ? The male narcissistic bully pushing it to the limits and then dismissing her opinion/arguments as emotional! — Amity

I've been leaning towards interpreting both parts as conversations between a narcissistic parent and a child. The first part a grandiose narcissist father and his daughter. The second part a covert/vulnerable narcissist mother and her son.

Of course I might be projecting a sort of 'symmetry' that doesn't belong.