Do humans themselves have varying degrees of consciousness? How would we know / measure.
How does a level of consciousness that goes well above human baseline look like / work like / feel like? What would that unlock? Curious to know if there has been any vivid description of these possibilities by people much smarter than me ... that might help me appreciate the shape of such things :)
Probably they should start by NOT treating the consciousness as a non-physical special thing. Maybe it's not a thing to search for at all. At what point did it become a thing? Separate from chemical and physical interactions between elements?
When you redefine consciousness as just any other chemical, electrical or physical thing, suddenly it's everywhere. You don't need to search for it. The river which finds its way to ocean, has it. The earthquake which decides when to erupt has it. The electrons which decide to jump across orbitals have it.
The confusion is around cause and effect. The standard notion is that a conscious agent can initiate an effect without a cause. A boulder doesn't roll over and hit another unless someone moved it in the first place. It doesn't decide to move and hit another. However this distinction barely survives on the temporal sequencing of cause and effect. That temporal sequence is only valid in a very narrow context and range.
It became a thing due to the experience of self-reflection. The million dollar question is how come humans (and few other organisms) are able to self reflect on their biology, life situations, logic, math and even consciousness itself? However complex and sophisticated a machine's brain is, be it biological or mechanical (AI/AGI), no known laws of science allows it to self-reflect. This is famously called "the hard problem of consciousness" in philosophy which remains unresolved to this day.
However consciousness is defined its evidently an emergent phenomenon. Emergent properties are real even if they are not a "thing" in themselves. Being rooted in a material reality doesn't prevent emergence of something else/additional that has qualities not easily understood by just understanding the individual mechanisms that give rise to it.
I am thinking more and more that it’s fundamentally a Wittgensteinian kind of problem.
We define a word to mean a certain collection of things (consciousness) and then try and stretch that definition to other things in the world that have the same appearance.
The problem is that this abstract term likely doesn’t exist in itself as a quality, but is just a shorthand for a collection of behaviors that are observed only in biological entities.
And so even if a machine exhibits all the appearance qualities of this definition of consciousness, it’s fundamentally not the same thing at all, and the only reason we think it is, is because our language is insufficient for actually describing reality.
In pragmatic terms it might not actually matter, if a machine 100 years from now passes every conceivable Turing Test. But that doesn’t mean that machines have become conscious in the way humans are conscious.
Expanding in an edit: It just means that the word consciousness is more descriptive, like awareness, and not the soul-derived concept that it still functions as today. Side note – I spent a couple months last year researching the history of consciousness for an essay contest, and one conclusion is how consciousness is descended in large part from our concepts of the soul. Which explains a lot of the reason it has such cultural prestige today.
"Schwitzgebel and Pober do not attempt to define consciousness. Instead, they proceed from the premise that it's a real and recognizable phenomenon, posing a narrower question: Must it be tied to the biology found on Earth?"
Basically, they are asserting that no matter how we define consciousness, it can't be unique to earth's biology.
The argument essentially is. The universe is really big. It would be weird if we were the only thing alive in it, so probably there are other life forms out there. Given enough of them probably some are conscious and made out of different stuff then we are.
And sure, fair enough. That seems plausible. But it also seems like not a very interesting argument. It is essentially just saying the universe is big, therefore all the possibilities are out there.
Wow, a paper said this so it must be true. What is the point of research like this that can never be tested? Genuinely curious. Shouldn't we find non-Earth lifeforms FIRST before even trying to make these conclusions?
Edit: Wasn't trying to be harsh here. To be clear, I do believe in consciousness. This sounded a little clickbaity. I also think string theory is a meaningless pursuit.
Of the many different scientific traditions that have converged on different ways of treating this question, the most compelling one I've found is Prigogine's dissipative structures model, which on a detailed read seems to be the most amenable tool for some follow-up work somewhere to start quantifying such things. Worth a look in if you enjoyed the OP article.
The notion that life is favored because it accelerates global evolution toward increased entropy predates, I think, Prigogine.
But it doesn't resolve the question of whether life, especially intelligent life, actually exists elsewhere. On Earth the vast majority of tornados only occur in a narrow swath of land because while they're immensely efficient at dissipating energy there are several prerequisites required for them to emerge. And there are many other simpler dissipation mechanisms that end up narrowing the odds of configurations amenable to tornado formation.
Moreover, these systems could easily overshoot and snuff themselves out; settling into a complex (as opposed to static or chaotic) configuration might be favored in some sense but still be incredibly rare to become established. The fact we see so many of them on Earth might just be a reflection of the anthropic principle. That is, there's a correlation between our existence and all the other complex systems surrounding us, biologic, geologic, etc.
The observable universe isn't infinite, and the more we learn about all the chance mechanisms that coincided to result in Earth, let alone the emergence of Earth life, the easier it is to believe that at this moment in the observable universe we might very well be alone. Maybe we aren't, but "the universe is big" simply doesn't cut it, not even when positing unimaginable biologies. It's doesn't take that many combined odds to conceivably end up with a number for the probability of life that is comparable in [inverse] magnitude to the size of our observable universe in stars, planets, or even atoms.
If we live in an infinite universe, then it's a stronger argument, though it wouldn't necessarily follow that life definitely must exist elsewhere even if beyond observability.
Philosophy is often a key stepping stone to science. Wondering what could be, is taking someone to the next step. If we ever want to do something that isn't just small increments on the past this is needed.
Solaris asks way more questions than it answers. How does a planet evolve a sentient ocean? Did the ocean arrive from elsewhere to a dry planet? On what substrate would sentient oceand form and how would they reproduce?
Life needs some kind of chemistry that doesn't lock up into compounds so stable they're hard to crack apart, but allows compounds stable enough to build structures.
Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are suck a system. That's why organic chemistry is a thing. There aren't that many families of elements with that property.
Ammonia and silicon based life have been suggested. But none of the alternatives have very promising chemistry. See [1]. Life is probably stuck with CHON, in the "goldilocks zone" where water exists as a liquid.
We now know that planets are not rare. Many extrasolar planets have been discovered. A few are promising. The systems with known extrasolar planets might have smaller, more interesting planets, too small to be detected at interstellar ranges.
But stars are a long way away. Unless FTL is possible (which it probably isn't, because causality would break), the most we can hope for is someone to talk to by radio or something similar.
See the Drake Equation.[2] There's been progress on firming up the numbers since the 1950s.
It can’t, unless you descend into sophistry. We came up with and defined the word “consciousness” specifically to fit our own understanding of the collection of behaviors we do that seem to apply only to us. What it means is based on what _we humans_ do, not something observed objectively, so it’s more like a human trait than a thing by itself that we fit into.
Do humans themselves have varying degrees of consciousness? How would we know / measure.
How does a level of consciousness that goes well above human baseline look like / work like / feel like? What would that unlock? Curious to know if there has been any vivid description of these possibilities by people much smarter than me ... that might help me appreciate the shape of such things :)
Probably they should start by NOT treating the consciousness as a non-physical special thing. Maybe it's not a thing to search for at all. At what point did it become a thing? Separate from chemical and physical interactions between elements?
When you redefine consciousness as just any other chemical, electrical or physical thing, suddenly it's everywhere. You don't need to search for it. The river which finds its way to ocean, has it. The earthquake which decides when to erupt has it. The electrons which decide to jump across orbitals have it.
The confusion is around cause and effect. The standard notion is that a conscious agent can initiate an effect without a cause. A boulder doesn't roll over and hit another unless someone moved it in the first place. It doesn't decide to move and hit another. However this distinction barely survives on the temporal sequencing of cause and effect. That temporal sequence is only valid in a very narrow context and range.
We should stop seeing consciousness as a thing.
It became a thing due to the experience of self-reflection. The million dollar question is how come humans (and few other organisms) are able to self reflect on their biology, life situations, logic, math and even consciousness itself? However complex and sophisticated a machine's brain is, be it biological or mechanical (AI/AGI), no known laws of science allows it to self-reflect. This is famously called "the hard problem of consciousness" in philosophy which remains unresolved to this day.
However consciousness is defined its evidently an emergent phenomenon. Emergent properties are real even if they are not a "thing" in themselves. Being rooted in a material reality doesn't prevent emergence of something else/additional that has qualities not easily understood by just understanding the individual mechanisms that give rise to it.
> At what point did it become a thing?
Early on and for obvious reasons - it is pretty easy to observe in oneself, much easier than discovering electrons. ;)
Probably best to read the paper. I personally don't find it very convincing, because of the many speculative premises. But that is not a refutation.
Here it is:
https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/SubstrateFle...
I am thinking more and more that it’s fundamentally a Wittgensteinian kind of problem.
We define a word to mean a certain collection of things (consciousness) and then try and stretch that definition to other things in the world that have the same appearance.
The problem is that this abstract term likely doesn’t exist in itself as a quality, but is just a shorthand for a collection of behaviors that are observed only in biological entities.
And so even if a machine exhibits all the appearance qualities of this definition of consciousness, it’s fundamentally not the same thing at all, and the only reason we think it is, is because our language is insufficient for actually describing reality.
In pragmatic terms it might not actually matter, if a machine 100 years from now passes every conceivable Turing Test. But that doesn’t mean that machines have become conscious in the way humans are conscious.
Expanding in an edit: It just means that the word consciousness is more descriptive, like awareness, and not the soul-derived concept that it still functions as today. Side note – I spent a couple months last year researching the history of consciousness for an essay contest, and one conclusion is how consciousness is descended in large part from our concepts of the soul. Which explains a lot of the reason it has such cultural prestige today.
Consciousness is a fuzzy word and I would call it a joke if it wasn't actually dangerous currently.
And currently its widespread usage in how people relate to and talk about Ai is actively harmful.
And dont get me started on how terrible the "hard problem" is, yeesh.
When I checked the last time "consciousness" was not defined yet. So the title can be read as "Some things are likely not unique to earthlings"
They side-step the issue:
"Schwitzgebel and Pober do not attempt to define consciousness. Instead, they proceed from the premise that it's a real and recognizable phenomenon, posing a narrower question: Must it be tied to the biology found on Earth?"
Basically, they are asserting that no matter how we define consciousness, it can't be unique to earth's biology.
Reading the paper, this seems kind of silly.
The argument essentially is. The universe is really big. It would be weird if we were the only thing alive in it, so probably there are other life forms out there. Given enough of them probably some are conscious and made out of different stuff then we are.
And sure, fair enough. That seems plausible. But it also seems like not a very interesting argument. It is essentially just saying the universe is big, therefore all the possibilities are out there.
Wow, a paper said this so it must be true. What is the point of research like this that can never be tested? Genuinely curious. Shouldn't we find non-Earth lifeforms FIRST before even trying to make these conclusions?
Edit: Wasn't trying to be harsh here. To be clear, I do believe in consciousness. This sounded a little clickbaity. I also think string theory is a meaningless pursuit.
This is a philosophy paper; it doesn't appear to be posturing as "research".
Yes philosophy can say anything it wants
Watching tech people grabble with philosophy is hilarious.
So, like string theory?
Exactly like string theory.
Really? I was under the assumption that there are 1-2 constants that could help falsify string theory?
> a paper said this so it must be true
Who, other than you, claimed this?
Coming up with a dumb thing someone else could say, but has in fact not, is not rhetoric. It’s not insightful. It’s beating a straw man like a piñata.
Of the many different scientific traditions that have converged on different ways of treating this question, the most compelling one I've found is Prigogine's dissipative structures model, which on a detailed read seems to be the most amenable tool for some follow-up work somewhere to start quantifying such things. Worth a look in if you enjoyed the OP article.
The notion that life is favored because it accelerates global evolution toward increased entropy predates, I think, Prigogine.
But it doesn't resolve the question of whether life, especially intelligent life, actually exists elsewhere. On Earth the vast majority of tornados only occur in a narrow swath of land because while they're immensely efficient at dissipating energy there are several prerequisites required for them to emerge. And there are many other simpler dissipation mechanisms that end up narrowing the odds of configurations amenable to tornado formation.
Moreover, these systems could easily overshoot and snuff themselves out; settling into a complex (as opposed to static or chaotic) configuration might be favored in some sense but still be incredibly rare to become established. The fact we see so many of them on Earth might just be a reflection of the anthropic principle. That is, there's a correlation between our existence and all the other complex systems surrounding us, biologic, geologic, etc.
The observable universe isn't infinite, and the more we learn about all the chance mechanisms that coincided to result in Earth, let alone the emergence of Earth life, the easier it is to believe that at this moment in the observable universe we might very well be alone. Maybe we aren't, but "the universe is big" simply doesn't cut it, not even when positing unimaginable biologies. It's doesn't take that many combined odds to conceivably end up with a number for the probability of life that is comparable in [inverse] magnitude to the size of our observable universe in stars, planets, or even atoms.
If we live in an infinite universe, then it's a stronger argument, though it wouldn't necessarily follow that life definitely must exist elsewhere even if beyond observability.
The problem with assertions like this is there’s not an attempt to prove or disprove them. Just a vague reasoning from examples.
Science works. Philosophy can help guide that by helping us decide where to look. So I guess this paper is helping in its own small way.
Philosophy is often a key stepping stone to science. Wondering what could be, is taking someone to the next step. If we ever want to do something that isn't just small increments on the past this is needed.
[dead]
> Schwitzgebel and Pober do not attempt to define consciousness
Aaand I stopped reading. If you cannot describe or frame the object of your study, then I don't care.
..dead by translation.
Solaris ? Do stars dream of being a Sun and what they can do about it ? (master SF)
- but is he talking about.. _frozen_ mass imagination (or snapshot hallucination) ??
- consciousness? - yes, lots of it is there, as of many other beings caught by _Language Models_
.
Solaris asks way more questions than it answers. How does a planet evolve a sentient ocean? Did the ocean arrive from elsewhere to a dry planet? On what substrate would sentient oceand form and how would they reproduce?
Of all the non-earthlings I've met, exactly zero are what I'd call conscious.
“This thing that nobody knows what it is is likely shared by things nobody knows even exist.”
In other news, water's wetness is likely not unique to earth.
Good comment.
Life needs some kind of chemistry that doesn't lock up into compounds so stable they're hard to crack apart, but allows compounds stable enough to build structures. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are suck a system. That's why organic chemistry is a thing. There aren't that many families of elements with that property. Ammonia and silicon based life have been suggested. But none of the alternatives have very promising chemistry. See [1]. Life is probably stuck with CHON, in the "goldilocks zone" where water exists as a liquid.
We now know that planets are not rare. Many extrasolar planets have been discovered. A few are promising. The systems with known extrasolar planets might have smaller, more interesting planets, too small to be detected at interstellar ranges.
But stars are a long way away. Unless FTL is possible (which it probably isn't, because causality would break), the most we can hope for is someone to talk to by radio or something similar.
See the Drake Equation.[2] There's been progress on firming up the numbers since the 1950s.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemi...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
It can’t, unless you descend into sophistry. We came up with and defined the word “consciousness” specifically to fit our own understanding of the collection of behaviors we do that seem to apply only to us. What it means is based on what _we humans_ do, not something observed objectively, so it’s more like a human trait than a thing by itself that we fit into.
Please do share your clear and uncontroversial definition of consciousness, that sounds very useful!
Should’ve probably said “attempted at defining” instead of “defined”.