shminux comments on Malthusian copying: mass death of unhappy life-loving uploads - Less Wrong

12 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 02 July 2012 04:37PM

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Comment author: shminux comment score below threshold [+] (13 children)

Comment author: Mitchell_Porter 03 July 2012 01:24:53AM 15 points [-]

Do you care about ethical treatment of neurons?

Comment author: RolfAndreassen 02 July 2012 09:59:08PM 1 point [-]

The assumption is that the bits are conscious and experience qualia. If you can demonstrate that systems implemented in silicon have no qualia, then obviously there is no issue no matter how convincing the pleas for mercy of the systems in question.

Comment author: DanArmak 02 July 2012 10:10:02PM 3 points [-]

Well, if you could "demonstrate" that meat-based humans do experience qualia, that would already be a gigantic step forward.

After all, if you're willing to go by self-reporting, any half-competent self-preserving (because evolutionarily selected) upload or AI will claim to have qualia.

Comment author: shminux comment score below threshold [+] (9 children)

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 03 July 2012 11:38:11AM -1 points [-]

WTF? Given the general non-existence of p-zombies, that's ludicrous.

Comment author: shminux 03 July 2012 03:23:16PM -2 points [-]

Given the general non-existence of qualia, this is perfectly reasonable.

More details: qualia is the way things seem and feel from the inside, though unobservable from the outside. P-zombie is an accusation of someone lacking qualia, which can never be refuted, given that qualia is unobservable. Who but a p-zombie would make such an accusation?

Comment author: [deleted] 05 July 2012 04:49:09AM 1 point [-]

I am also deeply suspiscious of this qualia thing, but you can't use arguments about qualia as evidence of p-zombie. (because pzombie and "conscious being" are supposed to be observably equivalent)

Comment author: shminux 05 July 2012 05:30:08AM * 0 points [-]

My original comment was intended as a (apparently failed) sarcasm, given that the RolfAndreassen's argument

The assumption is that the bits are conscious and experience qualia.

has no testable predictions. Qualia is no better concept than a p-zombie.

Comment author: [deleted] 05 July 2012 05:39:42AM 0 points [-]

My original comment was intended as a (apparently failed) sarcasm

I got that it was sarcastic. I was sortof sarcastically picking at your sarcasm-logic.

Qualia is no better concept than a p-zombie.

Yes I know. What would the non-qualia case even feel like? What does it even mean for red to have a redness to it, besides the fact that it is distinguishable from green and connected to a bunch of other concepts?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 05 July 2012 06:05:14AM 1 point [-]

The closest analog I have for this is how it felt to not feel like I had free will, which I discuss here. I imagine not feeling like I have qualia would be a similar experience of not having my sense of personal identity engaged with my sense of perceiving red.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 27 July 2012 01:41:44PM -1 points [-]

Okay, so you were being sarcastic. I don't see what is wrong with qualia as a notion, so long as you recognize that they're inseparable from their implementation, and that goes both ways.

Comment author: shminux 27 July 2012 05:22:33PM 0 points [-]

I don't see what is wrong with qualia as a notion, so long as you recognize that they're inseparable from their implementation, and that goes both ways.

Exactly that. Qualia is a redundant term. A perfect upload feels the same thing a meat person does.

The original issue is spawning and terminating clones, in whichever form. I suppose I have no problem with painlessly terminating clones completing their tasks, as long as they have no advanced knowledge or anguish about it. I also have no problem with a clone who finds out about its impending termination, and being unhappy about it, fighting for its life.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 30 July 2012 02:32:38PM 1 point [-]

Exactly that. Qualia is a redundant term.

No more than any other regular noun like 'bicycle' is a redundant term. They're inseparable from their implementations too.

shminux comments on Malthusian copying: mass death of unhappy life-loving uploads - Less Wrong

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