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rbanffy | on: Artificial intelligence is not conscious – Ted Chiang
We

Don’t

Have

A

Testable

Definition

Of

Consciousness

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

throw4847285 | parent | next
Consciousness is a term that doesn't have a single clear definition because it covers a range of phenomena that are linked by the concept of subjectivity. Qualia is the big one to me, but there are many other ancillary concepts that are all linked by their fundamental inability to be observed except in one's self.

There is nothing magical about this set of phenomena, and the majority of philosophers believe they in some way arise out of the substrate of the physical brain, but how they do so is up for debate. And just because they arise out of the brain does not mean they are strictly reducible to neural processes.

In fact, if you believe that AI could be conscious then that eliminates the kind of strict reduction that people tend to gravitate towards, because the rules of consciousness must be substrate independent.

Testability is a category mistake.

Procrastes | parent | next
I sometimes wonder if we'd make more progress in understanding ourselves if we gave up the whole concept. More and more, it feels as though "consciousness," like "aether" or "humors," is an insufficient abstraction built on overemphasizing some observations at the expense of others.
AnimalMuppet | root | parent
There is something to observe. Humans are not like rocks or trees, and not even like dogs or cows. But maybe you're right - we can't precisely say what the difference is, and slapping a word on it is not necessarily a step forward.
Procrastes | root | parent | next
Yes, that's more what I'm saying. There's no aether, but there's a much more interesting and complex world of forces and fields. There are no humors, but anatomy and biological processes are spectacularly complex and full of surprises. Aether and humors just aren't useful abstractions.

Maybe it's the same. Rocks are different, sure, trees, dogs, cows. But why do we assume that the way they are different is somehow related, that there's some overarching concept that contains all the complexities of those differences? It doesn't even make sense when I think of it that way.

empath75 | root | parent | next
> not even like dogs or cows

Interestingly, dogs and cows meet many of ted chiang's requirements for consciousness.

rbanffy | root | parent
Cats and dogs were recently recognised as sentient in Brazil.
anon291 | root | parent
We have no data. Is it that we are not like rocks or trees, or is it that we simply 'feel' different than a rock and a tree. Perhaps a tree is aware of itself but is unable / unwilling / unbothered enough to do something. Indeed, some humans, due to chemistry, are unbothered by their own impending doom. Some humans, due to brain chemistry, even choose to off themselves. Thus, 'consciousness' doesn't always look the same and seems very tied to chemical composition and processes. We would thus not expect a rock to be conscious in the same way, if it were conscious at all.

One thought I've had is that, awareness is a common phenomenon, but the brain has learned to exploit that awareness to form a will. It tricks the awareness into being concerned about self-preservation and makes it seem as if the brain is all that exists (perhaps by overwhelming the inputs from other angles). The brain also presents certain desires and beliefs via its processing ability. That is to say, the brain takes inputs and discretizes them. It goes from awareness merely seeing static 'fuzz' due to the sheer amount of data, to the brain taking that data, simplifying it, and presenting simple observations like 'there is a tree there' rather than all the information that would constitute the sensation of a tree existing in that spot. When brains malfunction, the awareness is subjected to poor demonstrations, such as we see in hallucinations, psychosis, schizophrenia, etc.

rbanffy | root | parent
> Perhaps a tree is aware of itself but is unable / unwilling / unbothered enough to do something

Would you bother to explain yourself to the mosquitoes that swarm in summer and die weeks later? From the perspective of a tree, we are short-lived, fast-moving, relatively small things that fill the place from time to time.

overgard | parent
True, although I think we can probably be more confident in asserting things don't have a consciousness than we can be in asserting that they do have a consciousness.
rbanffy | root | parent
Without a test, the best we can do is to say we are reasonably sure a rock isn’t conscious. A rock lacks any perceived mechanism that could embody requirements we consider essential, such as a mutable state and ways to change it without needing external input.