Author | Lightnews

Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 15h

...progress on consciousness pertains to living things. Consciousness emerges out of the complex adaptive systems of biological life - an interplay of many selves, agents, self-preserving systems.

Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 15h

Most will agree that a rock is not alive and that a rabbit is alive. Viruses and certain complex chemical systems are open to debate, and so I would agree that the boundary is fuzzy. For the same reason, I would say that consciousness also does not have a sharp boundary. But all the scientific...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 15h

Too bad the author had to start with Chalmers' dualist hard problem trap.

Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 15h

...variety being vastly more pronounced. We might permit a form of panpsychism among all living things, as a product of evolution. If a lower limit must be set, it should be set between the living and the non-living.

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 15h

But you just made the mistake of assuming that the alternative to panpsychism is to claim that consciousness must be partitioned into those things that have it and those that do not. In fact, consciousness evolved gradually. It exists in degrees and kinds in living systems, with the human...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 1d

...win out. In that case, the ultimate death of the universe may eventually be woven into a higher post-human consciousness.

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 1d

...the ultimate peril of a dead universe will feel more like evil, or at the very least, bloody annoying. But how can we even pretend to predict what that future will look like? Human reality will continue to evolve memetically even as our genes no longer matter. I hope the scientific image will...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 1d

...invented by Homo sapiens - it's a part of human reality, not cosmic reality, scientifically-speaking. Oddly, now I'm feeling some sympathy with the author; the longer humans evolve and complexify (if we manage to not fuck it up), we will become more invested in our own preservation, and...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 1d

...didn't evolve to understand or care about these vast timescales, and so in a sense, I would say "reality" (human reality, which evolved as projected onto the universe through our language, society, and brains) is not the same reality as the one that is gradually decaying in usefulness. Evil was..

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 1d

Good point: entropy affects everything in life. I was referring more to our future while the sun is still our star and Earth's biological forces acting against entropy are still on the current negentropic path, at the local scale in the universe. Something "better" is at least possible. Humans...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 1d

...I'm missing something here. In my opinion, we are not fighting an evil universe. Evil is a human phenomenon, and we should fight human evil. Also, there is still plenty of time for humans to evolve into something better before it all ends.

Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 1d

...fate of the universe. While entropy is a fact of the universe it is not a fact of life (our lives, now, and for a very long time). The title "Reality is Evil" comes across as a click-bait title. Maybe Aeon editors were looking for some kind of nihilistic punk statement to stir the pot. Maybe...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 1d

Sorry to be critical but I think this article is tone-deaf and unnecessarily negative. It is built on straw man arguments. The author makes assumptions about what reality consists of in order to paint a bleak picture. Our evolved human reality has very little to do with the ultimate thermodynamic...

Brandtsk @brandtsk.bsky.social · Aug 27

Big if true
aeon.co/essays/philo...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 2d

...but in the future an adjustment to the definition of consciousness may allow the inclusion of something that has already started emerging in a simple form, from the aggregate of the internet, information and energy delivery technologies, and >8 billion humans plugged into it.

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 2d

And that brings up the problem that the definition of consciousness is a moving target. It may be semantic: this thing we call consciousness is actually many things, some of which haven't been named yet. All of them are possessed by humans, and so it is anthropocentric. We haven't had a choice...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 2d

human. This may be possible in the far future, but I wonder if there is any good reason for future engineers to build a human replica other than to prove that functionalism is true. And I even wonder if it is possible without reinventing evolution itself. Consciousness is biological.

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 2d

...best indicator of consciousness we have. But I wonder if it is a good idea to exclude all the other indicators. Finally, if an artificial human can be made that exhibits human-like consciousness, then it will have to be so accurate to the molecular level that it is in effect identical to a...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 2d

...as from a human to prove that consciousness does not require biology, then it should include all the other indicators of consciousness, such as body language, intelligent manipulation of physical things, and all behaviors that are embodied. The generation of words is very human and perhaps the...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 2d

...very recent in the history of consciousness on Earth. When a text is coming from a human, we may be able to verify this (Turing), although it leaves out humans without the ability to type or speak who are nonetheless conscious. If a functionalist requires the exact same behavior from a machine...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 2d

...text-based AI in general. Now consider the vast scope of all behaviors that we may associate with consciousness. The asynchronous production of strings of alphanumeric characters (whether from typing on keyboards or via speech-to-text interfaces) is clearly a tiny subset. And that behavior is...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 2d

In philosophy of mind, I understand functionalism in general to mean that mental states, consciousness, etc. are independent of the material/physical constitution of the entity possessing these states. So, some people then ask if AI can be conscious. They often are referring to LLM's and...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 2d

...it is conscious like us". It seems many people just make that statement and neglect to unpack what it really means. To "function like us" requires a hell of a lot more than making software that spits out texts that are similar to text that humans type. Embodiment cannot be ignored.

Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 2d

...at a point where gullible and misinformed people have been fooled. And some power corporations see that as a good sign, and continue to propagate the illusion. This is what I have to say about functionalism: The statement: "If we can create a system that functions like us, we can be confident...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 2d

...spent to this end. Secondly, I disagree with the author's conclusion on this: "If we can create a system that functions like us, we can be confident it is conscious like us", saying, "Recently, we have reached the tipping point". I could not disagree more. We are not at a tipping point. We are...

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Dennettian Creature @dennettiancreature.bsky.social · 2d

First, I disagree with the initial statement on two accounts: (1) Building conscious AI is in fact harder than convincing someone that an AI is conscious. I hasn't happened and will probably never happen. (2) Plenty of gullible people are fooled into believing in AI, and lots of money is being...

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