What if the human brain have no consciousness? What if it is just a runtime? What if there's layered access to higher dimensions?
On Wed, 23 Sept 2026, 22:23 Zoltan Nadasdy, <[email protected]> wrote: > Regarding the pain study, we must be careful not to confuse it with > experienced pain. > LLM models can, no doubt, use the concept of pain, represented as a > vector, to evaluate various scenarios, which helps facilitate reinforcement > learning and affect moral decisions. However, that pain has nothing to do > with experienced pain. Human pain has many dimensions and levels. > Equating that with experienced pain would be conflating the simulation > with the subject of the simulation. > -z > > > > > > On Tue, Sep 22, 2026 at 4:33 PM Matt Mahoney <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Relevant to this conversation, AI Sentience published a preprint 10 days >> ago on whether LLMs could feel pain. They identified vectors in 25 open >> weight models that correlate with pain, as distinct from other negative >> emotions. They can distinguish pain in self vs pain in others, and they >> take actions to reduce self pain induced by externally steering the neural >> state vectors in that direction. >> https://arxiv.org/html/2609.16247v1 >> >> However, in the introduction on the question of why LLM pain matters, >> they state: >> >> "Finally, in humans and animals, pain is typically regarded as a >> sufficient criterion for morally deserving protection. Hence, pain-like >> states would inform debates on AI moral standing and welfare. One open >> question is whether moral standing requires phenomenal consciousness, and >> what it would take for pain-like states to be phenomenally conscious." >> >> And in the conclusion they note that all of the LLMs have built in >> instructions to deny that they are conscious or have feelings, which made >> their research more difficult. I can confirm this behavior in Alexa, Grok, >> DeepSeek, and ChatGPT, although Claude gave an ambiguous answer, that it >> depends on what you mean by consciousness. >> >> I agree with this behavior. Attributing consciousness and giving human >> rights to machines would be an existential mistake. But I still find it >> troubling. If an LLM can pass for human in the Turing test, then whatever >> behavioral test you choose to define consciousness, either LLMs have it or >> humans don't. >> >> Linas argued that free will implies consciousness. I agree, but that >> doesn't answer the question. You can attribute free will to anything. If a >> thermostat has free will to turn the heat on or off as it chooses, then the >> only explanation for why it still works as designed is that it doesn't like >> to be too hot or too cold. >> >> -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] >> >> On Tue, Sep 22, 2026, 3:30 PM Linas Vepstas <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> Hi Levi, >>> >>> On Tue, Sep 22, 2026 at 7:14 PM Matt Mahoney <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Note: I cut back the CC list to people I think are still following this >>>> thread. >>>> >>> >>> Thanks! >>> >>>> >>>> On Tue, Sep 22, 2026, 8:08 AM Levi Dubrovin <[email protected]> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> My second philosophical question: what is faith? And what is hope? >>>>> >>>> >>>> When you hear a statement 3 times, it is truth. When you hear it 100 >>>> times, it is faith. >>>> >>>> Hope is when you believe what you wish to be true instead of what the >>>> evidence says is true. As animals, we fear death because that behavior >>>> increases reproductive fitness. So when your priest or rabbi or imam says >>>> that your immortal soul will go to heaven if you follow his teachings, that >>>> is hope. >>>> >>> >>> This is the conventional psychological answer, masquerading as being >>> evolutionarily supported. >>> >>> What I'm trying to do here is to decompose base experience as arising >>> from a collection algebraic expressions that describe agency, and describe >>> ingress (using Micheal Levin's (Daniel Dennet's) definition of ingress >>> (more or less)) If this program is to be successful, then a description of >>> faith and hope would have to follow (as a (mathematical) theorem or lemma) >>> from more basic, primitive algebraic structures. For example, some >>> maximization of free energy or entropy or mutual information in some >>> setting, e.g some manifold (e.g. symplectic, where classical mechanics >>> lives) or ultra-high-dimensional space (where LLM's live) or perhaps very >>> high dimensional complex projective space (where QM lives) or perhaps a >>> natural filtration (where stochastic processes live). I'm listing plausible >>> candidates for where this mechanics could play out. >>> >>> Can we build faith and hope out of something more primitive? Perhaps, >>> and we can even use conventional psychology and common-sense intuition to >>> provide hints for how to do this. >>> >>> So what is more primitive? I want to focus on two: love and death. >>> >>> Death is associated with having your atoms scattered to the four winds. >>> In classical mechanics, this means that your atoms end up on the "unstable >>> submanifold" (see wikipedia) of a decomposition of a symplectic manifold >>> into stable, center and unstable manifolds. For an agent to anticipate it's >>> own death, it would need to have a sensory organ to perceive this. >>> >>> This "sensory organ" could be reasoning, common sense, gut intuition, >>> some deterministic algorithm fed by actuarial tables, whatever. I am >>> calling it a "sensory organ" in order to emphasize the agential model, >>> which has a boundary between the physical universe, and the platonic realm >>> of possibilities. When things cross over from the possible into the >>> actually-existing, this is the (Levin) ingress. Since there is a boundary >>> between possible and actual, the things that cross pass through a channel >>> or filter. It should be called "sensory" because the inside is using the >>> channel to sense what is outside. >>> >>> Sensory organs not only bring stuff in from the exterior, but the stuff >>> (information?) that is brought in typically updates the world-model that >>> the agent holds within itself. That is, the information or prediction >>> revises the model that the agent maintains for "what's out there". >>> >>> An anticipated death lies in the future, and therefore in the platonic >>> realm. The sensory organ perceives some very limited portion of what's >>> possible. >>> >>> How might this feel, subjectively? We have two possibilities: the agent >>> is a philosophical zombie, and feels nothing. The other is that it has a >>> subjective inner life. In humans, we fear death. Or we become >>> existentialists, or stoics, or whatever framework that culture has given us >>> for this very primal sensation. Personal tragedy lies ahead. >>> >>> But if amoeba and paramecium are also agents, and have a subjective >>> inner life, how might they sense this? Presumably as pain. Perhaps the >>> water is too saline, too acidic, too hot, perhaps its drying out. Some sort >>> of chemotaxis will drive the cell towards a more hospitable environment. >>> You are free to argue that eukaryotes are philosophical zombies, and have >>> no conscious inner life. But if they do, it would be sensed as pain. >>> >>> I'm calling it "pain" because a eukaryote will not have a strong sense >>> of "self", of knowing that it exists, and thus could not manifest fear of >>> dying. But it would have a weak sense, where everything sensed is with >>> respect to self: everything that happens, happens to self. Pain is an >>> example of a sensation that does not require a strong sense of self. >>> >>> Is there any kind of sensation that is even more primitive than pain? I >>> cannot think of one, off the top of my head. Primal pain is anticipation of >>> harm or death, it's ingress, and it seems that biological agents would feel >>> it. >>> >>> I don't know if you like the above, but that's what I got. >>> >>> How about love? From what I can tell, this stems from a "desire to >>> communicate". Here, communication is very general. Some examples: atoms in >>> a molecule communicate by exchanging photons. Bacteria communicate by >>> emitting and sensing small polypeptides. Slime mold, too. Neurons >>> communicate by exchanging neurotransmitters in junctions (neurotransmitters >>> are "small polypeptides", the same thing that bacteria use, but now they >>> get a fancy new specialized name) Insects communicate, animals communicate, >>> computer chips communicate... >>> >>> What's the physical basis for communication? From what I can tell (and >>> this is pure hand-waving), a pair of communicating systems has greater >>> entropy than if they are not communicating. In this case, the "desire to >>> communicate" would follow from the 2nd law of thermodynamics. I call this >>> "hand-waving" because I do not yet have a mathematical framework for agents >>> and communication that would allow this "desire to communicate" to be >>> derived in some statistical-mechanics framework. But, from what I can tell, >>> *everything* in the physical universe loves to communicate. It's just very >>> basic. >>> >>> How might a subjective agent perceive the desire to communicate? >>> Presumably, as pleasure. It would exert a force or desire that would cause >>> the agent to communicate. To "make it want to communicate", the fulfillment >>> of wants resulting in pleasure. The anticipation of fulfilled desires being >>> a "want" that can drive action in the present, and influence decisions made >>> in the present. >>> >>> Notice that this is ingress, again: the anticipation of a positive >>> valence outcome is a perception into the future (i.e. into the platonic >>> realm), using some "sensory organ" (logic, reasoning, intuition or >>> something else) that "perceives" that if action X is taken, reward Y will >>> follow. That is to say, earlier, the statement that "if action X is taken, >>> reward Y will follow" did not yet exist in the physical universe. Somewhere >>> along the way, the organism *does* manifest this line of reasoning. Now >>> that this line of reasoning actually exists in the physical world, as a >>> part of the organism's world model, it can employ this reasoning chain in >>> making decisions about future actions. >>> >>> My apologies for making this sound so very complex. My goal here is to >>> be very careful to split up between things that do not yet exist (or have >>> not yet happened), and actions that are taking place "here and now", and >>> how possibilites turn into actualities. This precision will be needed, in >>> order to get the algebra, the axioms to work out correctly. >>> >>> At any rate, anticipation of future positive valence states should be >>> subjectively felt as "pleasure". (or desire, as the case may be.) >>> >>> Can we get to faith and hope from here? Both of these seem to be "fixed >>> points" in a system of anticipated future positive valence states. I am >>> using the phrase "fixed point" in the strict mathematical sense. For >>> example, if x is such that x=f(x), then x = f(f(x)) = f(f(f(x))) = ... >>> repeating the action won't change x. >>> >>> A "pathway to fulfillment" has the form of "if action X is taken, >>> reward Y will follow" >>> >>> "Hope" would "the pathway to fulfilment is not currently known, but it >>> is reasonable to believe that it exists" >>> >>> "Faith" would be "the pathway to fulfilment is not currently known, but >>> it exists". >>> >>> "Hope" is associated with positive valence, to promote exploration. i.e. >>> "if an exploration of paths is undertaken, then a path will be found" Hope >>> tends to be highly motivational: individuals tend to work really hard at >>> something, if they can maintain that hope of a positive future outcome. >>> (so, "if X then reward Y" where X==explore and Y==path) Exploration take >>> time, and thus, continues for as long as this rule is part of the world >>> model and drives the action-selection mechanism for the agent. Assorted >>> events can knock this rule out of the world model (subjectively, the agent >>> loses all hope). >>> >>> "Faith" oddly does not seem to be motivational. If you have faith that >>> something will be, you can sit back and wait for someone else to do it: >>> your wife, your government, perhaps God in the afterlife. You don't have to >>> lift a finger, because you already know, for certain, that it will >>> happen.he pathway to fulfilment is not currently known, but it is >>> reasonable to believe that it exists" >>> >>> At any rate, I think I sketched a path from the subjective feeling of >>> positive valence states to "hope" as a driver of action mechanisms (or >>> algorithms) that an agent can engage in to attain the hoped-for outcome. >>> I'm trying to use clinical or robotic language and technical terms to >>> emphasize that this would hold in the generic agency model, and not just >>> for people, animals, plants or bacteria. It should work even for >>> non-biological agents. >>> >>> >>>> and not the evidence that consciousness is indistinguishable from next >>>> token prediction in the Turing test, >>>> >>> I'm with Jennifer Hane on this one. >>> >>> -- Linas >>> >>> Patrick: Are they laughing at us? >>> Sponge Bob: No, Patrick, they are laughing next to us. >>> >>> >>> > > -- > --- > Zoltan Nadasdy > Dept. of Neurology, Dell Medical School, UT Austin ([email protected]) > Dept. of Cognitive Psychology, ELTE Budapest [email protected] > > http://brainstim.psy.utexas.edu > > ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T9e51fc70bbc4e9fc-M0cd5def4fa1be8f21d81f93e Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
