As you know, I identify as a recovering analytic philosopher. But like any road to recovery, it's a struggle, and there are occasional relapses. I can't shake that space of reasons business!
I've been toying with the idea that the current ontological map, with physics serving as the fundament, and every degree of complexity forming a new self-assembling dependent layer on top of the more fundamental -- i.e. physics -> chemistry -> biology -> consciousness -- should perhaps be inverted, with consciousness as the fundament, conscious housings of various sorts being built from the concious desire to create/act, and so forth down to "base" matter as a backdrop for playing out conscious existence. I've read that this would be more in keeping with Plato's model. It's essentially the same problem, but inverted. Consciousness is ex nihilo, in the same sense that modern science posits the Big Bang as ex nihio. The basic problem of course, is why is there anything? That there IS anything at all is hard to argue against, but predicting it would seem to be a really bad bet.
My background is physics, and the UAP hard data coming out now has pretty much shattered my confidence in the Standard Model. It seems to me more likely that the success of the Standard Model is a consequence of the quality of an artifactual universe created by intelligence, rather than the Standard Model spontaneously emerging out of nothing, and both physics and consciousness arising as side-effects. If that is the case, consciusness in AI could be as feasible as the consciousness of a mountain, or a river, or a forest, as humans have long believed. Though I think it less likely for AI, but for a different reason. AI is built on a model of rigid tooling: it is much simpler than a mountain, or a river. One could see consciousness settling into a mountain as a good home, and most folklore discusses it this way. I'm not sure a data center would be nearly as desirable.
Long speculative ramble, short conclusion: loved your post. Thank you!
‘’Whatever consciousness is doing, it is not there because it is necessary for anything that we do.‘’…….’’God’’ it’s good to read you again!!✌🏻So you’re confortable with Julian Jaynes(bicameral mind) and Fedrico Campagna in his Technic and Magic? I aked Grôk what he ‘’thought’’ (in french, désolé) or aligned your position was with the two. https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMg_fb3fae0e-272f-420f-8b01-ad2b24e1a2c2
You know, I only just found this out: Turing said flat out that software can't be intelligent because it can't be telepathic 😮
I always expected that guy was a lot cooler than he's been made out to be!
Totally
The return of the repressed (analytic philosopher) Jim! Or, rather: back but better than ever! Lots to talk about here.
As you know, I identify as a recovering analytic philosopher. But like any road to recovery, it's a struggle, and there are occasional relapses. I can't shake that space of reasons business!
I've been toying with the idea that the current ontological map, with physics serving as the fundament, and every degree of complexity forming a new self-assembling dependent layer on top of the more fundamental -- i.e. physics -> chemistry -> biology -> consciousness -- should perhaps be inverted, with consciousness as the fundament, conscious housings of various sorts being built from the concious desire to create/act, and so forth down to "base" matter as a backdrop for playing out conscious existence. I've read that this would be more in keeping with Plato's model. It's essentially the same problem, but inverted. Consciousness is ex nihilo, in the same sense that modern science posits the Big Bang as ex nihio. The basic problem of course, is why is there anything? That there IS anything at all is hard to argue against, but predicting it would seem to be a really bad bet.
My background is physics, and the UAP hard data coming out now has pretty much shattered my confidence in the Standard Model. It seems to me more likely that the success of the Standard Model is a consequence of the quality of an artifactual universe created by intelligence, rather than the Standard Model spontaneously emerging out of nothing, and both physics and consciousness arising as side-effects. If that is the case, consciusness in AI could be as feasible as the consciousness of a mountain, or a river, or a forest, as humans have long believed. Though I think it less likely for AI, but for a different reason. AI is built on a model of rigid tooling: it is much simpler than a mountain, or a river. One could see consciousness settling into a mountain as a good home, and most folklore discusses it this way. I'm not sure a data center would be nearly as desirable.
Long speculative ramble, short conclusion: loved your post. Thank you!
Thank you! Feel free to speculate all you want here!
🔥
‘’Whatever consciousness is doing, it is not there because it is necessary for anything that we do.‘’…….’’God’’ it’s good to read you again!!✌🏻So you’re confortable with Julian Jaynes(bicameral mind) and Fedrico Campagna in his Technic and Magic? I aked Grôk what he ‘’thought’’ (in french, désolé) or aligned your position was with the two. https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMg_fb3fae0e-272f-420f-8b01-ad2b24e1a2c2
Thanks for taking the time to read this piece! I appreciate that! I haven't spend much time on Jaynes or Campagna. I'll put them on my to-do list!
https://claude.ai/share/602cc8a8-519d-4ebd-afa1-6b04a7747870 with my mornig coffee…(second cup)✌🏻