= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
the-citizen comments on A few thoughts on a Friendly AGI (safe vs friendly, other minds problem, ETs and more) - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
Comments (44)
I wouldn't say that AI needs to refer to consciousness at all to be ethical. I think it will be better if we design it without reference to the problematic concept, to be much safer. Consciousness is a pretty deeply embedded word in our culture's thinking, so much that we don't remeber the philosophical context in which it is derived. I just want to get people to ask, where does the concept come from? Until people decide to ask that, this is probably all crazy talk to them.
I can't claim to have read every one's thought ever, so perhaps someone claiming to be a Monist believes that, but I do know you can't both be a Monist and believe in a Mind-Body duality. That's by definition. And I also know you can't justify something along the lines of "consciousness" from observation of people's behaviour and brains - if we do its because we're bringing the concept along with us as part of a Dualist perspective, or as part of latent Dualism. The only way you can establish a need for the concept is through Mind-Body separation - otherwise you've already got all the stuff you need to explain humans - brains, neurons, behaviours etc. The need to plonk "consciousness" on the top of all that is the latent Dualism I'm talking about in some Physicalists.
The reason a AI would have to believe in consciousness in a Dualist way is the same - because it will not be able to induct such a thing as a "consciousness" from observations. If somehow we managed to cram it in there and give the AI faulty logic, apart from the general unpredictability that implies (an AI with faulty logic?), the AI may realise the same philosophical problem at some point and classify itself or others as without consciousness (some variant of the other minds problem), thus rendering them to the same importance as paperclips or whatever else.
Nobody said otherwise. You keep conflating consciousness with ontologocally fundamental consciousness.
Justify which concept of consciousness? Justify how? We believe others are conscious because we are wired up to, via mirror neurons and so on. But that's a kind of compulsion. The belief can be justified in a number of ways. A physicalist can argue that a normally functioning brain will have a normal consciousness, because that us all that is needed, there is no nonphysical element to go missing. Dualism is no help at all to the other minds problem, because it posits an indetectable, nonphysical element that could go missing, leaving a zombie.
You are conflating consciousness as a posit needed to explain something else with consciousness as a phenomenon to explain. Whatever I believe, it seems to me that I am conscious, and that needs explaining.
Because observations can't give even probablistic support? Because the physicalist argument doesn't work? Because it wouldn't have a concept of consciousness? Because it isn't conscious itself?
About what? If it judged you to be conscious would it be making a mistake?
I'm saying that the only sound logic justifying belief in consciousness arises out of Dualism. (please note I'm not trying to convince you to be Monist or Dualist). Or to put it another way, Physicalism offers no justifcation for belief consciousness of either type.
If consciousness is a thing we should be able to forget about it, and then rederive the concept, right? So in that spirit, if you're Monist, ask yourself what was the point where you discovered or learnt about consciousness. What moment did you think, that thing there, let's call it a consciousness. You didn't look into a brain and find an organ or electrical pattern and then later decide to give it a name right? If you're like 99.99% of people, you learnt about it much more philosophically. Yet, if you're a Physicalist, your belief in objects is derived from empirical data about matter. You observe the matter, and identify objects and processes through that observation. Study of the brain doesn't yield that unless you bring the concept of consciousness along with you beforehand, so consciousness for Physicalists is really in the same class as other hidden objects which we also can imagine and can't disprove (I'm looking at you Loki/Zeus etc).
I'll leave it at that and let you get the last word in, because even if you're willing to consider this, I appear to be offending some other people who are becoming kinda aggressive. Thanks for discussion.
And I keep saying that being conscious means being aware that you are conscious, and that is empirical evidenceof consciousness.
I can abandon and then recover the concept of consciousness, because there is stuff of which I am aware, but which other people are not aware, stuff that is private to me, and "consciousness" is the accustomed label for the awareness, and "subjective" is the accustomed label for the privacy.
Metaphysical beliefs, physicalism and so on, are not relevant. What is relevant is where you are willing to look for evidence. Most physicalists are willing to accept the introspective evidence for consciousness. You seem to think that the concept of consciousness cannot be recovered on the basis of evidence, and what you seem to mean by that is that you cannot detect someone else's consciousness. You have implicitly decided that your own introspective, subjective first person evidence doesn't count. That's an unusual attitude, which is why you have ended up with a minority opinion.
I don't have external OR introspective evidence of Loki and Zeus. The fact that you consider consciousness to fall into the same category as Zeus is another indication of your disregard of introspection.
I want to reply so bad it hurts, but I'll resist thanks for the convo.
Yeah, well, replying could lead to updating or something crazy like that.
sigh I agree with that sentiment. However, conversations where parties become entrenched should probably be called off. Do you really feel this could end in opinions being changed? I perceive your tone as slightly dismissive - am I wong to think this might indicate non-willingness to move at all on the issue?
I don't mean to imply anything personal. I still feel you're overlooking an important point about the ideas you're referring to having fundamentally dualist foundations when you take a proper look at their epistemology. You refer to introspection but introspection (aside from in casual lay usage) is properly a Dualist concept - it implies mind-body separation, and it is not in any way empirical knowledge. Even more prominently the use of the word "subjective" is almost the definition of bringing Dualism into the discussion, because the subject in subjective comes directly from Descartes separation of mind and body.
If someone wishes to be Monist, wouldn't they start by not assuming Dualist concepts? They'd start with the reliable empirical evidence (neuroscience etc) and approach thought interaction as a interactions between internal brain states. They wouldn't conceptualise those interactions using Dualist terminology like "consciousness", at least in any discussion where there was precise science or important issues to be considered.
I thought this was a well explained and epistemologically straightforward part of my post. The general reaction has to me appeared to have been immediate rejection without questions or attempts at clarifications. Actually I'm disappointed that the part people mostly want to reject so utterly is the only part getting much attention. Every sense I get is that the people that have replied can't even consider the possibility that there is problem with the way consciousness is thought about in FAI discussions. That worries me, but I can't see the possiblity of movement at this point, so I'm not terribly enthusiastic about continuing this repeating over and over of the various positions. I'm happy to continue if you find the concept interesting, and I guess I'm at least getting comments, but if you feel that you've already made up your mind let's not waste any more time.
People rarely change their mind's outright in a discussion, but often update on the meta level...for instance about how contentious their claims are, or how strong the arguments for or against are.
Since you are putting forward the minority opinion here...you're aware of that, right?...you are prima facie more likely to be the one who is missing something. No, that is not my sole argument.
Obviously, I think I am doing the epistemology right...but I have only been studying philosophy for 35 years, so I am sure I have plenty to learn.
Who told you that introspection implies separation of mind and body? For one thing it seems to work whatever you believe. For another, the majority of physicalists who aren't eliminativists don't see the problem: they see human introspection as a more sophisticated version of a computers ability to report on its free disk space or whatever.
But theny you say you are talking about proper intuition ...which would be a true scotsman argument.
Who told you that subjectivity comes from Descartes? I've seen it explained by physicalists as due to Loebian limitations. In any case, a historical premise, that X comes from Y, does not support a conceptual claim that belief in X is not rationally consistent without belief in Z.
Who told you that introspection isn't empirical evidence? Introspective evidence is a complex subject that doesn't summarize down thatway.
I can consider the idea that there is something wrong with the concept of consciousness ... I am... but I am not seeing good arguments...it all boils down to you supporting minority opinions with idiosyncratic definitions.
Ok thanks for this comment.
Stealthy appeal to authority, but ok. I can see you're a good philosopher, I wouldn't seek to question your credibility as a philosopher, but I do wish to call into question this particular position, and I hope you'll come with on this :-)
I wrote on this topic at uni, but you'll have to forgive me if I haven't got proper sources handy...
"The sharp distinction between subject and object corresponds to the distinction, in the philosophy of René Descartes, between thought and extension. Descartes believed that thought (subjectivity) was the essence of the mind, and that extension (the occupation of space) was the essence of matter." [wikipedia omg]
I'll see if I can find a better source. I hope you'll resist the temptation to attack the source for now, as its pretty much the same as a range of explanations I ran into at uni. "Subject" can be directly linked back to the Cartesian separation.
I didn't mention intuition. You're right that proper isnt the "proper" language to use here :-) I should have said thorough. However, I think my point is clear either way - its a characterisation of the literature. I guess we do perceive that literature very differently for now. I wasn't aware that my position was minority in wider philosophy, or do you mean on LW?
I haven't actually seen introspection discussed much by name in philosophy, usually its consciousness, subject/object etc. I infer that it implies subjective experience and is by definition not empirical. So my position to clarify is not that introspection is false, but rather that introspection in the way we are talking about it here is framing a Monist perception of the world by arbitrarily "importing" a Dualist term (or a term that at least very strongly implies subjectivity). Though we might argue for its "usefulness", this is ultimately unhelpful because we are tempted to make another "useful" leap to "consciousness", which is a compounds otherwise small problems.
I believe that if one is a consistent physicalist, then empirical evidence (the vast majority of definintions of this refer to sensory data as a prerequistite of "empirical") would be examined as reliable, ie. primary, without framing that evidence using a posteriori or idealist concepts. So you get the brain and behaviours. The introspective aspects, which you are right, a physicalist does not need to entirely deny, are then framed using the reliable (as claimed by physicalists) empirically established concepts. So in that sense the brain can interact with itself, but there is no particular thing in the study of the brain to suggest reference to concepts that have historically been used in Dualism, such as consciousness. Any usage of those terms as merely rhetorical (communicating with lay people, or discussing issues with Dualists) and are not treated as legitimate categories for philosophical thought. Those concepts might loosely stretch over the same areas, but they are very different for the physicalist to categories like "the brain" which are non-arbitrary because they are categories that appear to be suggested "by the evidence".
Again I don't wish to claim Dualist or Monsism or whatever is true (can of worms). I also don't wish to claim that all Physicalists think what I just described - I haven't met them all or read everyone's work. What I wish to claim is that a consistently physicalist position implies the rejection of justifications for concepts that are epistemological Dualist, and I also wish to claim that acceptance of consciousness, because it does not emerge from empirical sense data, relies on acceptance of "subject" which can be directly traced to Descartes separation of mind and body ("subject" and its tools for interacting with "objects") (ie. Dualist). Therefore the consistent Physicalist does not accept consciousness.
I am trying not to appeal to authority. I like unconventional claims. I also like good arguments. I am trying to get you to give a good argument for your unconventional claim.
Both. Well the claim that that consciousness is ontologocally fundamental is a dualism/idealist claim. The claim that consciousness exists at all isn't. You don't seem to put much weight on the qualification "ontologocally fundamental"
What you need is evidence that monists don't or can't or shouldn't shouldn't believe in consciousness or subjectivity or introspection. Evidence that dualists do is not equivalent.
There's an article on SEP.
Where did you see the definition? In any case, introspection is widely used in psychology.
There are plenty, because of the way it is defined...as self awareness or higher order thought. It's use in dualism doesn't counteract that...particularly as it is not exclusive of its use in physicalism.
Says who?
You haven't demonstrated that any concepts are inherently dualist, and physicalist clearly do use terms like consciousness.
Here's an experiment:
Stand next to someone.
Without speaking, Think about something hard to guess.
Ask them what it is.
If they don't know, you have just proved you have private thoughts, if which you are aware.