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Comment by Veen | Hacker News Reader

The actual conclusion: "We've established that computers can be conscious, so LLMs might be"

The foregoing argument does not establish that computers can be conscious. It assumes consciousness arises from purely physical interactions AND that any physical process can be computed AND that computation can produce consciousness. It provides no reason to believe any of those things, and therefore no reason to believe computers or LLMs can be conscious.

Once you remove the unjustifed assumptions, it boils down to this: LLMs can do something that looks a bit like what some conscious beings do so they might be conscious.

The final paragraph is not incoherent.

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> It assumes consciousness arises from purely physical interactions AND that any physical process can be computed AND that computation can produce consciousness

Yes, and with these assumptions, then "We've established that computers can be conscious, so LLMs might be".

Again that is all that is being claimed. The one insisting the argument is anything more persuasive than that is you. You seem hung up on this claim, but need I remind you it's only an existence proof, whether it's actually possible/probable/likely is an entirely different claim, and is not what is being claimed.

> Even if consciousness arises from a physical system, it doesn't follow that computation on a physical substrate can produce consciousness

> If consciousness arises from a physical system, a physical system cannot produce consciousness

> If A not A

This argument is a contradiction, it's incoherent.

If you're trying to draw a distinction between physical systems and computation on physical systems, well that's a moot point as every tested theory in physics uses mathematics that is computable.

Perhaps reality is not computable. If so then yes, that would mean computation alone will not produce the same kind of consciousness we have. That leaves open other kinds of consciousness, but that's another discussion.

If all that’s been shown is that LLM consciousness is not impossible then the point barely seems worth making. One tends to assume that interlocutors are trying to do more than point out the bleeding obvious.

Yet many argue LLM consciousness is impossible.

I'm not sure you're following what's being discussed in this thread.

I think perhaps the confusion is in the other direction, but I’ve learned not to hold unmerited high-handedness against autists.

No he's right. That was the point I'm trying to make. And I agree it's barely worth saying but so many people assume the opposite - that LLMs can't possibly be conscious that we have to state the obvious.

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