gravitas_shortage t1_jefhclx wrote on March 31, 2023 at 5:03 PM

Reply to comment by Galactus_Jones762 in Chinese Room, My Ass. by Galactus_Jones762

Sure, just one thing: consider a probabilistic argument. There are a quadrillion things out there that most definitely do not have consciousness, from rocks to stars to Clippy. There is only one we know does, a brain, and even then it's disputable that all types do. An argument that anything has consciousness must provide at least the beginning of a reason that it does, saying "it might" is not enough, because the huge, huge majority of things don't.

Galactus_Jones762 OP t1_jefvb0v wrote on March 31, 2023 at 6:34 PM

Saying it “might” may seem irrelevant but it’s not technically wrong to claim something might have consciousness. It’s sort of a “definitely maybe” thing as opposed to a “definitely not, a priori impossible” type thing. That’s the tension I’m working between.

There’s probably a continuum of things between a rock and a person, where the possibility increases. I think AI is climbing this continuum as it begins to exhibit emergent properties and agentic behaviors, which it has.

Also consider panpsychism. There is no good reason to be certain that something isn’t conscious. We just don’t know enough about consciousness to talk in certainties. I think doing so is a trap.

There is also no good reason to be certain something IS conscious, except perhaps ourselves, as we experience our subjective reality directly. We should live as if others are conscious but we have to fall short of certainty.