On 4/28/2021 9:42 PM, Terren Suydam wrote:
On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 8:15 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
<everything-list@googlegroups.com
<mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
On 4/28/2021 4:40 PM, Terren Suydam wrote:
On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 7:25 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything
List <everything-list@googlegroups.com
<mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
On 4/28/2021 3:17 PM, Terren Suydam wrote:
On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 5:51 PM John Clark
<johnkcl...@gmail.com <mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 4:48 PM Terren Suydam
<terren.suy...@gmail.com
<mailto:terren.suy...@gmail.com>> wrote:
/>>> testimony of experience constitutes
facts about consciousness./
>> Sure I agree, provided you firstaccept that
consciousness is the inevitable byproduct of
intelligence
/> I hope the irony is not lost on anyone that
you're insisting on your theory of consciousness to
make your case that theories of consciousness are a
waste of time./
If you believe in Darwinian evolution and if you believe
you are consciousthen given that evolution can't select
for what it can't see and natural selection can see
intelligent behavior but it can't see consciousness, can
you give me an explanation of how evolution managed to
produce a conscious being such as yourself if
intelligence is not the inevitable byproduct of
intelligence?
It's not an inevitable byproduct of intelligence if
consciousness is an epiphenomenon. As you like to say,
consciousness may just be how data feels as it's being
processed. If so, that doesn't imply anything about
intelligence per se, beyond the minimum intelligence
required to process data at all... the simplest example
being a thermostat.
That said, do you agree that testimony of experience
constitutes facts about consciousness?
It wouldn't if it were just random, like plucking passages
out of novels. We only take it as evidence of consciousness
because there are consistent patterns of correlation with
what each of us experiences. If every time you pointed to a
flower you said "red", regardless of the flower's color, a
child would learn that "red" meant a flower and his reporting
when he saw red wouldn't be testimony to the experience of
red. So the usefulness of reports already depends on
physical patterns in the world. Something I've been telling
Bruno...physics is necessary to consciousness.
Brent
I agree with everything you said there, but all you're saying is
that intersubjective reality must be consistent to make sense of
other peoples' utterances. OK, but if it weren't, we wouldn't be
here talking about anything. None of this would be possible.
Which is why it's a fool's errand to say we need to explain
qualia. If we can make an AI that responds to world the way we
to, that's all there is to saying it has the same qualia.
I don't think either of those claims follows. We need to explain
suffering if we hope to make sense of how to treat AIs. If it were
only about redness I'd agree. But creating entities whose existence is
akin to being in hell is immoral. And we should know if we're doing that.
John McCarthy wrote a paper in the '50s warning about the possibility of
accidentally making a conscious AI and unknowingly treating it
unethically. But I don't see the difference from any other qualia, we
can only judge by behavior. In fact this whole thread started by JKC
considering AI pain, which he defined in terms of behavior.
To your second point, I think you're too quick to make an equivalence
between an AI's responses and their subjective experience. You sound
like John Clark - the only thing that matters is behavior.
Behavior includes reports. What else would you suggest we go on?
Bent
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