LessWrong 2.0 Reader

If you believe there exists "a map between the third-person properties of a physical system and whether or not it has phenomenal consciousness" you believe you can define consciousness with a computation.

I'm not arguing against the claim that you could "define consciousness with a computation". I am arguing against the claim that "consciousness is computation". These are distinct claims.

So, most people who take the materialist perspective believe the material world comes from a sort of "computational universe", e.g. Tegmark IV.

Massive claim, nothing to back it up.

This person's thinking is very loosey-goosey and someone needed to point it out.

when you define the terms properly (i.e. KL-divergence from the firings that would have happened)

I think I have a sense of what's happening here. You don't consider an argument precise enough unless I define things in more mathematical terms. I've been reading a lot more philosophy recently so I'm a lot more of a wordcell than I used to be. You are only comfortable with grounding everything in maths and computation, which is chill. But my view is that maths and computation are not the only symbols upon which constructive discussion can be built.

If you actually want to know the answer: when you define the terms properly (i.e. KL-divergence from the firings that would have happened), the entire paradox goes away.

I'd be excited to actually see this counterargument. Is it written down anywhere that you can link to?

You can still nominate posts until Dec 14th?

Need to be proved as x-risk. For example, if population fails below 100 people, then regulation fails first. 

I don't really understand the point of this thought experiment, because if it wasn't phrased in such a mysterious manner, it wouldn't seem relevant to computational functionalism.

I'm sorry my summary of the thought experiment wasn't precise enough for you. You're welcome to read Chalmers' original paper for more details, which I link to at the top of that section.

I also don't understand a single one of your arguments against computational functionalism

I gave very brief recaps of my arguments from the other posts in the sequence here so I can connect those arguments to more general CF (rather than theoretical & practical CF). Sorry if they're too fast. You are welcome to go into the previous posts I link to for more details.

and that's because I think you don't understand them either.

What am I supposed to do with this? The one effect this has is to piss me off and make me less interested to engage with anything you've said.

You can't just claim that consciousness is "real"

This is an assumption I state at the top of this very article.

and computation is not

I don't "just claim" this, this is what I argue in the theoretical CF post I link to.

You haven't even defined what "real" is.

I define this when I state my "realism about phenomenal consciousness" assumption, to the precision I judge is necessary for this discussion.

most people actually take the opposite approch: computation is the most "real" thing out there, and the universe—and any consciouses therein—arise from it

Big claims. Nothing to back it up. Not sure why you expect me to update on this.

how is computation being fuzzy even related to this question? Consciousness can be the same way.

This is all covered in the theoretical CF post I link to.

It is still a functional property of qualia - whether they will be more beautiful or not.

In my view, qualia are internal variables which do not affect the output. For example, x² + x + 1 = 0 and y² + y + 1 = 0 are the same equation but with different variables. Moreover, these variables originate not from the mathematical world, but from the Greek alphabet. So, by studying the types of variables used, we can learn something about the Greeks. 

You still use function aspect of qualia here – will red be more beautiful than blue. 

In my view, qualia are internal variables which are not affecting the result of computations. For example, equation x^2+x+1=0 is the same as y^2+y+1=0. They use x or y as internal variables

I taught game theory at Princeton and wish I'd seen this explanation beforehand, excellent framing.

It's very interesting how much culture (and I suppose population density and jurisdiction too) can affect driving style.

As for Italy, there's a throwaway line in a Dave Snowden talk about how drivers in Italy (Naples? Rome?) can be observed to follow the same basic 'rules' as a birds in a flock - kind of a Simon's Ant thing about how seemingly complex behavior actually is operating on a small set of simple rules. 

Thought about community summaries a very little bit too, with the current LW UI, I envision that the most likely way to achieve this is to

1. Write a distillation comment instead of post
2. Quote the first sentence of the sequences post so that it could show up on the side at the top

3. Wait for the LW team to make this setting persistent so people can choose Show All

   

This post is important to setting a lower bound on AI capabilities required for an AI takeover or pivotal act. Biology as an existence proof that some kind of "goo" scenario is possible. It somewhat lowers the bar compared to Yudkowsky's dry nanotech scenario but still requires AI to practically build an entire scientific/engineering discipline from scratch. Many will find this implausible.

Digital tyranny is a better capabilities lower bound for a pivotal act or AI takeover strategy. [LW · GW] It wasn't nominated though which is a shame.