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I don't get the (perennial) dichotomy.

It seems to me the question of whether a submarine can swim is well-formed and relevant.

I feel confident that no advanced propeller driven craft will ever develop flippers and fish-like swimming as an emergent phenomenon.

I also feel confident that an artificial device that does swim like a fish is entirely within the realm of engineering, let alone science.

It has never made any sense to me that, by analogy, there is a conflict between those two beliefs.

Economic forces may preclude fish-machines, but it might just mean they will be delayed for a long time because they are difficult.

I think the point is more that dwelling on wheather or not to call what a submarine does, ‘swimming’ is a pointless debate, only based on how you define the word. Certainly there are interesting conversations to be had around the subject as you point out, but arguing semantics probably isn’t one of them.

I would hope most people regard consciousness as something which can beg compassion, tolerance or compromise for other consciousnesses sakes. Common creatures we know express suffering and to be amused or unaffected by suffering of others is most widely considered as pathological or psychotic. Without consciousness there is no suffering, no cause for compassion etc. Something may be incredibly complex, suggesting it has value in a world - perhaps to other creatures or the world itself somehow. But being a complex thing does not suggest that it can suffer or enjoy experiences. An idea that an experiential importance of things simply accompanies sufficient complexity seems 'pie in the sand'

Are you arguing that sociopaths and psychopaths are less conscious than other humans?

No, basically consciousness as we know it, entails a capacity to suffer, which is important to acknowledge on moral and health grounds, and that capacity is likely to be an essential part of consciousness. It makes whatever consciousness is or isn't, an important quality which demands consideration, to avoid suffering or to increase fulfillment or wellbeing etc in whatever we believe to be conscious. To 'virtualize' or academically detach that kind of importance of consciousness, as logically illusive or intangible distraction, is pathological. I tried to reply to the notion that consciousness "is just an emergent phenomena of complexity" . The words 'just' 'only' 'simply' can hardly be applied to such a special thing. The idea such a thing arises at a threshold of complexity is quite empty of insight. At a certain level of complexity - an iphone emerges! That's no understanding of what is required to create an iphone or how it works. What is required to emerge consciousness? if it where a matter of complexity then some quantity of iphones should achieve that threshold. But no mountain of iphones can experience suffering.

Okay, I understand what you're saying. A conscious being is not necessarily required to also have the capacity for recognizing consciousness in other conscious beings.

Do you think a capacity for suffering is not only necessary, but also entirely sufficient, for consciousness? That would imply that some other abilities such as memory, are not required.

I think it is quite mysterious. Perhaps there are kinds of consciousness which don't suffer, perhaps octopodes are conscious and since after they have mated - they seem to become crazed and unconcerned for their safety - they may then be in a state then where they can only experience thrills? perhaps after mating their capacity to suffer dies, yet some other feeling capacities persist or arise. Maybe Im proposing consciousness is what is required for a thing to feel in any way. Whether memory is required for experiencing feelings or for consciousness is another mysterious avenue.

If we design and implement a program which can render convincing expressions of feeling, or we design systems which themselves calculate networks that output convincing expressions of feeling, what kind of system do we have a duty to be considerate to its own professed and apparent experiences? It is very mysterious but I have never felt that any complexity of calculator or computer can truly beg this consideration, can truly benefit from kindness or mercy. Its seems only childish and fanciful that virtual characters can become real characters no matter the detail of calculation. A plot in a fantasy tale. While the whole subject is full of possibility and unknowns, at least we must keep an anchor on the matter that, consciousness is a thing of special importance.

"I think consciousness is just emergent from complexity, so what I have to say is valid, but people who suspect that's not the full story, well that's pointless to debate, they should use my framework for discussion"

sheesh. weak.

>but people who suspect that's not the full story, well that's pointless to debate, they should use my framework for discussion

You can believe whatever you want, use whatever framework you want (religion, spirituality, science etc). I'm just pointing out that it is pointless to debate between the two because they fundamentally disagree about how to inquire about the world and answer questions like this. Everyone in this debate is talking past each other without acknowledging that they are starting from two very different positions and sets of definitions.

it sounds like you put yourself in a class of people who are perfectly rational, and therefore anything that you can't think of doesn't exist, and anybody who thinks about those things is a mystic.

you are making a mistake like physicists who believed "God does not play dice with the world" at the dawn of quantum mechanics or "time is a constant, not the speed of light" at the dawn of relativity.

You have no idea where consciousness comes from, stop assuming you do, it's poor science.

(For the record, I'm sure the integral of my history of atheism is strictly greater than yours, mentioning since that seems to be the subtext of your argument.)

I think you are completely missing what I am saying and you also seem to be fallaciously appealing to skepticism (are you a global skeptic [0]?). Sure you can say ‘but there is so much we don’t know’, I’m not arguing we know everything. That is not in any way what I am saying.

I am saying it is pointless to appeal to such things. If we always appealed to skepticism science would never advance because everything would be too unknowable. We get to define what words like consciousness means, so we can intentionally define to be within the realm of scientific inquiry. Most people probably define consciousness outside of scientific realm of inquiry (notions of a soul etc) and that is fine, but at least in the first definition there can be scientific debate.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_skepticism

It is pointless to debate with someone that invokes ideas outside the realm of scientific inquiry... that is definitionally true isn't it?

If I claim "no advanced automobile will ever develop the ability to run like a horse as an emergent phenomenon"

Does that mean that I regard running as outside the realm of scientific inquiry?

I think OP is saying in this specific instance a lot of people are defining the word ‘consciousness’ as to be outside the realm of scientific inquiry. Certainly there is room to question if neural nets have developed consciousness as an emergent phenomena but if your definition of consciousness falls outside of scientific inquiry… what is the point in discussing it? Does that make more sense?

If so, then there's no point in ever debating a mathematical idea.

Since when is math outside the realm of science?

Math is established by logic and proof. If a proof is sound, it should stand eternally.

Humans are not perfect, so sometimes we are collectively mistaken about a proof's correctness. The fundamental nature of the process is still one of establishing inviolably proven facts and building on top of them.

Science, on the other hand, is a never-ending iterative approximation process with occasional massive discontinuities when accepted theories are overturned.

It relies on observed report and falsification of our current best guesses. No scientific "law" can ever be proven true, just labeled "not known to be wrong so far".

Math is much closer to philosophy than science. It just happens to be pragmatically useful to the sciences: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectivene...

I don't think any of that would put it outside the realm of science by any stretch though - science has its gradients, where some of it is ruled by math alone and other components are more data driven/'right until proven wrong' but it all falls under the scientific tooling and approach to the world.

I meant to reply to this comment since IIT is the main coherent treatment I've seen+my thoughts about why people habe this pie in the sky tendency

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30409369