918 karma · joined March 25, 2014
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
To me it seems like the battle that Wittgenstein postulates was lost in the first place. Most philosophy is nitpicking about linguistic idiosyncracies without any real physical or metaphysical value.
Hmm, really? How? To be honest, I can't. Honestly I think this is just a meaningless mind trick. The more I think about it, the less the notion of a p-zombie really makes sense to me. If a p-zombie existed, and I could never really tell the difference from the outside, this gives rise to many blind-alley-models of the world, for example solipsism: Maybe all others are just p-zombies and maybe I'm the only thing that really exists in the sphere of consciousness (=soul?). I can never know for sure. But if it's true, then there's not really much room for any further discussion.
So I have to assume that everything that behaves like being conscious in fact has a consciousness - even if it isn't even aware of its being conscious.
I think that's not the point he tried to make. It's just that it happens that we're human and thus it's easier for us to relate to human-like experiences/feelings. An algorithm is not limited to that.
If we accept that our "feeling like something" is just an emergent phenomenon of our complex model of reality I see no logical reason why we shouldn't ascribe any sufficiently complex model of reality an inherent feeling. Due to our limited physical configuration we will never have access to all kinds of feelings. Much like we will never know how it feels like to be a bat.
Hmm, what if both, the physical mechanism and the subjective qualia are simply intertwined in a way, that can not be deduced any further?
Maybe it's a little like the relation between gravitational forces and curved space time. Both are basically the same thing. But if you're used to live in one system, it's hard to imagine how it feels to see things from the other perspective.
Still there may be a lot of value to the complementary theory. Much like the GTR opened up a whole new range of physical applications, a physical theory of consciousness may lead to computer systems that we will have to attribute being conscious the same way as we do with our fellow human beings - just because both will follow the same fundamental laws of consciousness.
"Experience or qualia is what the process of simulation of reality feels like. Or to put it in another way: Conciousness is the process of simulating reality."
So I'd agree: If you reach a certain complexity in your inner model, qualia will "magically" emerge.
Another interesting point the article makes is the relation to the theory of mind. I wonder if you could even say, that we first had an inner model for the complex inner model of others and then, by applying that inner model on ourselves developed what we call conscioussness. You could probably assume that many animals are not able to take this final step and that this is what separates our consciousness from those of animals.
I was surprised that this theory is not even mentioned in the article, even though Aaronson has quite some opinion on it.[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory
By doing so we may check for complex cross connections and gain new insights. Actually I vividly remember waking up from dreams and suddenly realizing that I have a crush on a girl. I didn't really the day before (or was not aware of it) but during dreaming my brain seemed to say "I've checked all information that we have about this specimen and my simulations so far look promising!"
I sometimes also dream of deceased persons. The brain maybe again and again tries to make sense of this deeply unsettling experience and to somehow integrate that unexplainable into the simulation.
(BTW sorry for misspelling consciousness all the time in my post above - it was a little too late here)
Evolution has brought about creatures that are more successful (in regard to survival and reproduction), the more predictive power they have about their environment[1]. One could say, the better a species can simulate it's environment, the more likely it will continue to exist and be part of the ongoing evolution. Our brains are of course also just products of this evolutionary process and meanwhile very good at simulating their environment.
Now if we think about Plato's cave we could say, that all our experience is just an illusion. It's all just a projection of reality, that our brain creates. I'd go a step further and say: Experience or qualia is what the process of simulation of reality feels like. Or to put it in another way: Conciousness is the process of simulation of reality. The "better" the simulation or the more complete and closer to "reality" it is (whatever that means) - the higher the form of conciousness.
Taking this definition one must also concede that even animals and "lower" life forms have some degree of conciousness. It probably feels like something to be a streptococcus.
Of course all this is just blind speculation - but it somehow feels right to me.
[1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151119-life-is-information-...
Even if the values were only rough estimates I feel like this would put the real risks more into perspective.
I hope you thought about all the consequences this may have. See Primer.[1]
So I think it would be interesting to do the same statisical breakdown but in regard to the absolute standard of living.
[1] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues?scope=all&sor...
Trivia: This guy was actually pretty famous in the 90s for "Kais Power Tools"[1], a set of very popular image manipulation plugins with - at that time - unrivaled features. Later his company also released Kais Power Goo, Bryce, Poser and more.
To me the similarity to evolutional processes is striking. I mean, didn't biological evolution also give rise to sometimes bizarr creatures? They somehow coevolved with the other inhabitants in their niche.
Still they live their (sometimes not so) happy lifes.
What a weird world this is.
Now I also get your previous comment. I've read your => as arrows instead of "equal or greater".
How do you get from this line:
(A1Y and B2Y and B3Y) or (A1Y and A2Y and B3Y)
(A1Y and B2Y) or (A2Y and B3Y)
Let's write it differently: Why are these terms equivalent?
(u && v && w) || (u && x && w)
(u && v) || (x && w)I'm not saying though, that this is a criteria for calling any machine a computer. But it's probably what sets Zuse's achievement apart.
UPDATE: I've just learned that Babbage's language was also Turing complete. So Zuse's achievement is solely having physically built the first working computer, while Babbage's machine was never realized.
Most remarkable:
> Zuse completed his work entirely independently of other leading computer scientists and mathematicians of his day. Between 1936 and 1945, he was in near-total intellectual isolation.
http://www.deutsches-museum.de/en/exhibitions/communication/...
Here's the Z3 in action (German only, try subtitles):