You speak very confidently about two things that have seen the boundaries between them shift dramatically within the past few decades. I would also like to ask if you actually understand microbiology & how it works, or have even seen a video of ATP Synthase in action.
Love to see the “umm ackshually scientists keep changing their minds” card on hexbear dot net. Yes neuroscience could suddenly shift to entirely support your belief, but that’s not exactly a stellar argument. I’d love to know how ATP has literally anything to do with proving computational consciousness other than that ATP kind of sort of resembles a mechanical thing (because it is mechanical).
Sentience as a physical property does not have to stem from the same processes. Everything in the universe is “mechanical” so making that observation is meaningless. Everything is a “mechanism” so everything has that in common. Reducing everything down to their very base definition instead of taking into account what kind of mechanisms they are is literally the very definition of reductionism. You have to look at the wider process that derives from the sum of its mechanical parts, because that’s where differences arise. Of course if you strip everything down to its foundation it’s going to be the same. Is a door and a movie camera the same thing because they both consist of parts that move?
I have no idea what you are trying to say. I think you agree consciousness must have a mechanistic/material base, and is some kind of emergent phenomenon, so we probably agree on whatever point you’re trying to make. Except I guess you think that even though it’s an emergent phenomenon of some mechanistic base, that mechanistic base can’t be non-biological. Which is weird.
My argument has nothing to do with the fact that computers aren’t biological. I’m saying that the only blueprints for consciousness we have right now are brains. And decidedly not computers, which I have no reason to believe will become sentient if you extrapolate it for some reason. I don’t think the difference between computers and brains is biological, it’s just a difference. If you replicated an entire brain I think it would be sentient even though it wouldn’t be strictly “biological”. I guess you could call that a computer, but then you’re veering into semantics. I’m referring to computers strictly in the way that they are currently built.
I think there’s a mechanistic road to sentience, but we know vanishingly little about it. But I think we know more than enough to conclude that computers, as they operate today, will struggle to be anything more than a crude analogy. My point is that artificial sentience needs to be more than just “a mechanism”, because literally everything in the universe is a mechanism. It needs to be a certain kind of mechanism that we don’t understand yet.
You speak very confidently about two things that have seen the boundaries between them shift dramatically within the past few decades. I would also like to ask if you actually understand microbiology & how it works, or have even seen a video of ATP Synthase in action.
Go be a computer somewhere else
Go be spooky somewhere else. Calling things “reductionist” like some kind of creationist.
Love to see the “umm ackshually scientists keep changing their minds” card on hexbear dot net. Yes neuroscience could suddenly shift to entirely support your belief, but that’s not exactly a stellar argument. I’d love to know how ATP has literally anything to do with proving computational consciousness other than that ATP kind of sort of resembles a mechanical thing (because it is mechanical).
Sentience as a physical property does not have to stem from the same processes. Everything in the universe is “mechanical” so making that observation is meaningless. Everything is a “mechanism” so everything has that in common. Reducing everything down to their very base definition instead of taking into account what kind of mechanisms they are is literally the very definition of reductionism. You have to look at the wider process that derives from the sum of its mechanical parts, because that’s where differences arise. Of course if you strip everything down to its foundation it’s going to be the same. Is a door and a movie camera the same thing because they both consist of parts that move?
I have no idea what you are trying to say. I think you agree consciousness must have a mechanistic/material base, and is some kind of emergent phenomenon, so we probably agree on whatever point you’re trying to make. Except I guess you think that even though it’s an emergent phenomenon of some mechanistic base, that mechanistic base can’t be non-biological. Which is weird.
My argument has nothing to do with the fact that computers aren’t biological. I’m saying that the only blueprints for consciousness we have right now are brains. And decidedly not computers, which I have no reason to believe will become sentient if you extrapolate it for some reason. I don’t think the difference between computers and brains is biological, it’s just a difference. If you replicated an entire brain I think it would be sentient even though it wouldn’t be strictly “biological”. I guess you could call that a computer, but then you’re veering into semantics. I’m referring to computers strictly in the way that they are currently built.
I think there’s a mechanistic road to sentience, but we know vanishingly little about it. But I think we know more than enough to conclude that computers, as they operate today, will struggle to be anything more than a crude analogy. My point is that artificial sentience needs to be more than just “a mechanism”, because literally everything in the universe is a mechanism. It needs to be a certain kind of mechanism that we don’t understand yet.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: