Neither of those say, "human life can be ultimately reduced to, and explained in terms of, the fundamental drives that characterise all other existence, summarised as 'the four F's'".

So it still looks like were misrepresenting Dennett and Dawkins to me.

But as far as biology is concerned, and as the evolutionary ideologues such as Dennett and Dawkins continually say, human life can be ultimately reduced to, and explained in terms of, the fundamental drives that characterise all other existence, summarised as 'the four F's' (Feeding, fighting, fleeing, and reproduction.) — Wayfarer

Looks like misrepresentation to me. Citations?

...but in that trashy book of lies, the guardian, so you won't have seen it. — Banno

For almost a decade after qualifying, Duxbury worked as a livestock specialist and a stud person for national farming companies.

Is that some UKian agricultural usage which is very different from USian usage?

... Intentionalism typically characterizes the connection between perception (taken as a representative state) and the perceived mind-independent objects as a merely causal one. But if the connection is merely causal, then it seems natural to take the suitable mind-independent objects to be distinct from the experience itself and, therefore, not literally constituents of it.

That seems non-productively reductionist to me.

Which is why arguing over the grammar of "I see X" doesn't address the philosophical substance of naive or indirect realism, which concerns whether or not distal objects and their properties are constituents of experience. — Michael

It seems to me that some elaboration is needed, on what you mean by "constituent".

If I see a cow, the distal object is a part of the causal web of events including the sun shining, sunlight striking the distal object, part of the sunlight being reflected off of the distal object in the direction of my eyes, my retinas encoding the light pattern falling on them into nerve impulses sent up my optic nerve, etc..

I'm not seeing a good reason not to consider the distal object to be a constituent of the causal process that results in my seeing the cow. Why would the cow be any less a constituent of the causal process which results in me seeing a cow, than are the photons that enter my pupil?

Is there a reason we can't see consciousness in either context? Not necessarily now, but in principle? — Patterner

The fact that we are in the position of only making somewhat educated guesses as to how consciousness emerges, for one thing. I've designed electronic circuits, the complexity of which cause your average electrical engineer to question their life choices and go into marketing or management.
Such designs are pathetically simple compared to the evolved complexity of brains.

It is impossible to make accurate predictions, because AI is already beginning to give us capabilities for understanding the complexity of what is going on in our brains, and such learning via AI will surely accelerate, barring civilization collapsing. However I'd guess it will be hundreds of years before the neuroscientists of the day look back on the neuroscience of 50 years prior and say, "That was when neuroscience reached a mature stage."

But the double-thinking human mind with its complexity and linguistic agility guarantees that this species is unique in its internal conflict and the variety of ways it can go mad. — Vera Mont

:100: :up:

True, none of us act as if animals are machines, but the mechanistic metaphor still holds considerable sway over the scientific attitude. — Wayfarer

As compared to what? The religious attitude?

Can you hear the bigotry in the phrase "the scientific attitude"? Do you not recognize scientists as individuals?

:lol:

And BTW... Good to see you! :grin:

Anyway, I don't see anything there worth reading, just an offensively neutral (scrupulously circumspect) regurgitating of stuff the three of us said, with a little linguistic connective tissue. I find it grotesque that these AIs thank you for every thought you share with them and note how interesting that thought is. That's programming, not interest. — Srap Tasmaner

I agree that Claude 3 style is awfully cloying. Still, assuming @Pierre-Normand didn't bring up conspiracy theorists to Claude 3, I am quite impressed that Claude 3 associated the usefulness of such a way of communicating with dialog with conspiracy theorists in particular. (See particular excerpt below.) My own recognition of the usefulness of such communication was highly influenced by my long term involvement in discussions with Christian apologists.

Of course I'm not suggesting that conspiracy theories and Christian apologetics are directly linked, but the degree of overlap is far from insubstantial.

[Claude 3:] As an AI interlocutor, I find this framework highly relevant for navigating interactions with users who may hold misguided or potentially harmful beliefs, such as conspiracy theories. The temptation in such cases might be to directly confront and debunk the problematic belief with facts and logic. However, the insights above suggest that this direct approach may often be ineffective, as it fails to address the deeper intuitive and inferential patterns that sustain the belief.

A more productive strategy, drawing on wonderer1's approach, might be to patiently explore the user's specific ways of reasoning about the issue, and to look for opportunities to plant "subconscious hooks" - new information, perspectives, or lines of inquiry that could gradually lead them to question their assumptions. This might involve asking probing questions, pointing out potential inconsistencies or blind spots, or introducing alternative frameworks for making sense of the relevant facts.

Crucially, the goal would not be to immediately dismantle the conspiracy theory, but to seed doubts and openings that could mature over time into a more substantive reconsideration. By tracking the user's deontic scores - the ways they commit to or become entitled to certain claims in the course of our exchange - I could look for subtle leverage points to encourage a re-evaluation of their belief system. — Pierre-Normand

I think he is delusional and talks nonsense! — Truth Seeker

Well, that link is to a chapter of Stephen Law's book, Believing Bullshit. :wink:

There are trillions of such things that I can prove. — Truth Seeker

You left off, "...to a reasonable person."

Unfortunately Chet's schtick is going nuclear all of the time.

Bird wings and airplane wings have many similarities and many differences. Artificial neural networks have become increasingly different from their biological counterparts since the 1940s or 50s. — jkop

Right. There are similarities and difference between the biological and the artificial in the case of wings and neural nets. Still, we see effective information processing emerge from neural nets in either context, just as we see aerodynamic lift emerge from wings in either context.

Here is the reaction from Claude 3 Opus. — Pierre-Normand

Thanks immensely for running that by Claude 3! (Despite the fact that Claude 3 is giving away the persuasive secrets to my methodological madness. :wink: ) Prior to reading Claude's response, I'd never encountered 'anyone' developing an understanding of what I was trying to convey, to the extent that @Srap Tasmaner did.

Again, it seems really freaky to me, to see a machine getting it like that. Although I suppose it shouldn't be that surprising to me, given the extent to which Claude 3 has been trained to understand itself.

It sounds like I should read some Brandom. Any pointers on where to start?

We also comment on the passing away of Daniel Dennett: — Pierre-Normand

Dennett's notion of "intuitions pumps" definitely provided reinforcement for my recognition of the effectiveness of such a communication style. Though I often wished Dennett had developed a more connectionist perspective, he did a lot to promote serious thinking about the mind/brain relationship. And as modern philosophers go, he was better than most at earning the respect of scientists.

Interestingly (but meaninglessly) the author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea died on April 19th, as did Darwin.

Evolution would favor a rational brain? Not necessarily. Even we have irrational biases drilled into us through evolution. — khaled

Not 'perfectly rational', just 'rational enough'. Evolution has many Rube Goldberg like results.

:up:

Beautiful cinematography.

Whether the processing is designed or coincidental doesn't matter. The objection refers to isomorphism and the false promise that by being like the biological process the artificial process can be conscious. — jkop

I'm certainly not making any promises that artificial neural nets will ever be conscious in the sense that we are.

However, my point was about the relevance of isomorphisms. Pointing out that there can be irrelevant isomorphisms such as between a constellation and a swarm of insects, doesn't change the fact that there are relevant isomorphism. (Such as between the shape of bird wings and airplane wings, or between biological neural nets and artificial neural nets.)

Or, there is a very nice documentary — Vera Mont

Unfortunately, Youtube says the video is unavailable.

:up:

:rage:

Could we per chance be at a point where our knowledge of nature's laws are advanced enough that we are simulating evolution. If so I don't think it's impossible to get a similar outcome from such processes -namely sentience. — Benj96

Interesting thought. I would think that there is a sort of evolutionistic survival of the fittest going on in our brains, at the level of different neural nets encoding different competing paradigms with which to model reality. The more adaptive neural net/paradigms are the ones that are rewarded/strengthened by yet other 'higher level' neural nets, based on which lower level neural net/paradigm are recognized as providing a better fit to observations.

Mind of a Bee is pretty cool. — Patterner

Dammit! Stop making me think that I need to read that book.

:ok:

I don't think so. I like to think that there are others reading but not commenting. I think of the written exchange as only part of it. I do occasionally get a PM from someone appreciating something I said. — Fooloso4

:up:

I always appreciate hearing your perspective.

Careful, if you think about this too much you might come to understand how words do things.

"This sentence is not true" is not a truth bearer thus not a proposition thus cannot be included in any Boolean logic system. — PL Olcott

A physical analog would be a digital logic inverter (NOT gate) with its output connected back to its input. Such a circuit forms an oscillator, with the output continually swinging back and forth between 0 and 1.

The computational theory of mind is pretty much still in vogue. — Lionino

It's relatively easy to think in computationalist terms, so looking at human minds in computationalist terms is like looking for your key under the street light because that's where the light is.

The evidence supporting connectionism is growing at an astronomical rate these days. You can check out the SEP entry on connectionism although it was last revised in 2019, so can't be informed by recent developments in AI.

I've only read the Claude 3 Sonnet response so far, but with the discussion of chess and intuition it reminds me of the discussion I had with @Srap Tasmaner beginning here.

Good paper, but it seems to me that thinking about minds in terms of Turing machines and computationalism is a bit behind the times.

Are there things in the physical universe that we can never find out?
If so, is that due to our limitations or time constraint? — Vera Mont

There have been a lot of good answers. I'll try not to be too redundant.

The universe is believed to be much larger than what we can observe of it, so it would seem reasonable to say, that with regards to the sheer number of things/events in the universe we can find out about very few of them. This is independent of our limitations or time constraints. (Unless the speed of light is considered to be an aspect of "our limitations".)

Often the smartest sounding folks can be the dumbest. You have to learn to think differently from others. If you sound the same as the others on these issues, then it wouldn't prove anything apart from that you have spent all your life browsing the internet. If you think differently and come up with different ideas, you may get told that you have a problem in logic by the crowds, but you know that you are thinking with your own mind, not just parroting or agreeing and yearning to be accepted to the group of the crowds. — Corvus

Thanks for the update, on how you are trying to soothe your ego.

:grin:

I started writing the following, decided it was too pedantic, and didn't post, but in light of others discussing it...

The model is you interacting with the room. — Banno

How about, "The model emerges in the process of you interacting with the room."?

Very impressive 'self awareness' on Claude's part. I'm quoting your system prompt below, tagged with twas brillig for help in finding it again. Thanks for sharing this.

But as we human bodies can spit out ideas, these ideas only function when they lock down real distinctions into words to quickly package them in sentences for others to employ in a conversation about the real or in a trip to the store. — Fire Ologist

Perhaps this describes the way it seems for you, but frequently I communicate things via pictures rather than words, and there are many things I can accomplish without words. I'm guessing this is 'poetry' on your part?

Could we get back to reading the text carefully and analyzing thoroughly? It may be less exciting, but it would surely be more illuminating. — Ludwig V

One thing I appreciated was what I interpreted as Midgely pointing towards the importance of diversity in life experience to having well informed intuitions. (Regardless of whether Midgely might agree with that way of saying it. And regardless of how myopic and unfair she may have been in doing so.)

A human act is any act that we do on purpose; any act that proceeds from a deliberate will. Objection 3 to the first article gives the complement of human acts, “But man does many things without deliberation, sometimes not even thinking of what he is doing; for instance when one moves one's foot or hand, or scratches one's beard, while intent on something else.” In his reply to objection 3 Aquinas says, “Such like actions are not properly human actions; since they do not proceed from deliberation of the reason, which is the proper principle of human actions.” — Leontiskos

Perhaps creating a dichotomy between acts which are and are not human (when considering the behavior of humans) is a miss when it comes to carving reality at the joints?

Could that be correct? I would think that, if I lost all sensory input, I could still think about things I'd sensed in the past. Or do math in my head. Maybe anesthetics work different on us than they do on bacteria and plants. — Patterner

Maybe Damasio is more referring to "sensing" on a cellular level? The general attenuation of neurons' ability to sense, and pass on outputs that are based on their inputs is something I would expect to attenuate consciousness. In any case you've piqued my curiosity about getting a more up to date understanding of anesthesia.

Is it possible to simulate consciousness by moving rocks around (or, as one of the members here claims, knocking over dominoes)? — RogueAI

Ciitation needed. Where has someone here claimed that consciousness can be simulated by knocking over dominoes?

Chicks. Am I right? — Patterner

Are you a chick? Or is it just barely awake human brains?