My Blog

Categoría: Emergentism

  • Can GPT3 or a later version of it experience suffering?

    And if so, should we be continuing to develop it?

    I have to admit that I don’t know much about how the system works, but I’m genuinely curious: how do we know that it doesn’t feel anything? I’m just concerned because I’m seeing more and more articles about its creation and the many amazing things it’s been able to do so far but none that tell us about the ethical implications of its creation or that reassure me that the fact that it exists is entirely not a bad thing. It seems to me that the system is now able to do many complex things and it’s worrying me that it might also (eventually) be able to experience something akin to suffering.

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    Se also: Is gpt-3 a step to sentience?

  • The hypothesis of the universe self-simulating itself in a strange loop

    A paper from the Quantum Gravity Research institute proposes there is an underlying panconsciousness.

    The physical universe is a «strange loop» says the new paper titled «The Self-Simulation Hypothesis Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics» from the team at the Quantum Gravity Research, a Los Angeles-based theoretical physics institute founded by the scientist and entrepreneur Klee Irwin. They take Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis, which maintains that all of reality is an extremely detailed computer program, and ask, rather than relying on advanced lifeforms to create the amazing technology necessary to compose everything within our world, isn’t it more efficient to propose that the universe itself is a «mental self-simulation»? They tie this idea to quantum mechanics, seeing the universe as one of many possible quantum gravity models.

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  • Stephen Wolfram has a radical plan to build the universe from dots and lines

    The Wolfram Physics Project,is an ambitious attempt to develop a new physics of our universe.

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  • If we are sentient robots, without will, sentience is not useful. And if it’s useful, how can it be?

    When it is stated that sentience has a purpose, this idea is usually explained by indicating that sentience is useful because it motivates doing certain things and avoiding others. In addition, in this explanation, it is usually indicated that sentience motivates but does not force. That is, under this explanation, sentience is not simply the cause and behavior the consequence, but sentience motivates to strive to make the best possible decision, under the threat of pain and the reward of pleasure. According to this explanation, sentient beings would make better decisions and will be selected («better», from an evolutionary point of view).

    But we can also consider that it is possible that we are sentient robots, but without will, that we simply do what we have been programmed for, even though we have the feeling that we make free decisions, so that sentience really does not play any role in the evolution in form of motivation.

    So, is sentience useful or inevitable?

    My best intuition is that sentience is probably inevitable when certain conditions are met. So, sentience would be inevitable. Not useful. But let’s assume for a moment that sentience is useful. If sentience were useful, then sentience must incorporate some element that goes beyond classical physics, to be really useful. For example, related to quantum physics or the multiverse.

    Why?

    Because if sentience had a positive effect (in the form of motivation) on survival, in some way that can be explained by classical chemistry and physics, for example, thinking faster, taking better decisions, or being able to escape running faster than a predator, this behavior, that would be evolutionarily selected, would have to compete with another behavior that would also be evolutionarily selected, which is to do exactly the same, following the laws of chemistry and classical physics, but without the sentience.

    I will give an example to try to illustrate all this.

    Suppose we have a DNA chain that «reproduces as much as possible» and that follows the laws of classical physics. This chain does not feel.

    By the way, when I say that the chain «reproduces as much as possible» I am not assigning agency, but summarizing in that phrase what is happening on a physical level. That chain that «reproduces as much as possible» is simply matter following the laws of physics. The phrase «reproduces as much as possible» is a summary way of describing what is happening.

    We also have a second strand of DNA also formed by physical particles and obviously also that «reproduces as much as possible.» However, this DNA chain does feel: it feels pleasure every time it reproduces and frustration if it can not. Which motivates it to reproduce as much as possible.

    This second strand of DNA is motivated to reproduce, but in what physical way would it be able to do it better than the chain that does not feel, and therefore is not «motivated»?

    Whichever way we imagine that this second chain can do something better than the first chain, if it is following the laws of physics, it is something that chains like the first one could also perform. That is, evolution could always create chains that do not feel, like the first one, and that would have that characteristic of being more efficient, like the second one. Then both types of chain could exist: those that feel and those that do not feel. Motivation would not have any differential advantage.

    If instead of DNA chains we think about complete individuals like us, the example works the same.

    Obviously, if we consider that from a certain level of complexity or when certain functions appear, all the chains (or individuals) feel, then it would seem that sentience plays a role in evolution, but simply what would be happening is that sentience is a byproduct of something else. And it is that other thing (complexity, function) the thing that is being selected, not sentience. Sentience would not be useful: it would be inevitable.

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  • The importance of phenomenal binding, by David Pearce

    We normally assume a fundamental distinction between conscious and non-conscious systems. Instead, I explore the possibility that what makes animals special isn’t consciousness per se, but phenomenal binding. Unless spooky “strong” emergence is true, then a termite colony, or the enteric nervous system, or a classical digital computer, or the population of the United States is not a unified subject of experience.

    So how is phenomenal binding possible in the CNS? Why aren’t we micro-experiential zombies too?

    I explore a quantum-theoretic version of the intrinsic nature argument for non-materialist physicalism. In recent years, the intrinsic nature argument has undergone a revival. See Phil Goff’s “Galileo’s Error” (cf. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/27/galileos-error-by-philip-goff-review) for an accessible introduction. According to the intrinsic nature argument, experience discloses the intrinsic nature of the physical, the mysterious “fire” in the equations.

    The biggest technical obstacle faced by the intrinsic nature argument is often reckoned the phenomenal binding / combination problem: https://www.quora.com/How-should-we-categorize-the-binding-problem-in-the-context-of-easy-and-hard-problem-of-consciousness

    However, I argue that _if_ the intrinsic nature argument is sound, and _if_ unitary-only quantum mechanics is correct, then we already have a built-in solution to the binding problem: https://www.quora.com/Do-our-brains-work-at-the-quantum-level-Is-the-brain-itself-a-quantum-machine

    Stepping back, a lot of researchers assume that we face a stark choice: scientific materialism versus mysticism/dualism.

    Not so. I assume that monistic physicalism is true.

    But I’ve no idea how to reconcile subjective experience with materialism:
    https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-philosophy-that-can-overcome-materialism

    Text by David Pearce

  • How a nervous system operates without giving rise to an experience

    In our bodies, if our knee is lightly tapped, our leg moves automatically (with no intention on our part) and independently of the experience of the tap that we sense.  The information that originates in our knee, with the tap, splits up and moves through two separate pathways: one path goes to our brain through the spinal cord, where it is processed to produce the corresponding experience; the other path involves a different circuit, going through the spinal cord to the muscles that operate the leg, without ever reaching the brain. In the second path, the information takes a much shorter direct route to enable our body to react quickly to the stimulus (‘reflex arc’). There is a good reason why this dual mechanism exists. There are cases where some part of the body will be endangered by a slow reaction to an external threat. If we had to think about moving because of pain, rather than responding automatically, we might not act quickly enough to avoid harm.

    What is relevant here is that the information transmitted through this ‘reflex arc’ is never experienced because it is never processed by a central nervous system. The non-centralized nervous systems of some animals operate just as reflex arcs do. Information is transmitted from the cells receiving certain stimuli to other cells which must be activated, without any involvement of subjective experience. In these cases, there is a merely mechanical transmission of information. Such reactions are not an indication of sentience.

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  • Epiphenomenalism cannot be true

    In brief, epiphenomenalism cannot be true. Qualia, it turns out, must have a causally relevant role in forward-propelled organisms, for otherwise natural selection would have had no way of recruiting it. I propose that the reason why consciousness was recruited by natural selection is found in the tremendous computational power that it afforded to the real-time world simulations it instantiates through the use of the nervous system. More so, the specific computational horse-power of consciousness is phenomenal binding –the ontological union of disparate pieces of information by becoming part of a unitary conscious experience that synchronically embeds spaciotemporal structure. While phenomenal binding is regarded as a mere epiphenomenon (or even as a totally unreal non-happening) by some, one needs only look at cases where phenomenal binding (partially) breaks down to see its role in determining animal behavior.

    Once we recognize the computational role of consciousness, and the causal network that links it to behavior, a new era will begin.

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  • Is sentience evolutionarily useful or physically inevitable?

    It is very intuitive to believe that sentience motivates us to make (better) decisions («better», from an evolutionary point of view).

    But we can also consider that it is possible that we are sentient robots, but without will, that we simply do what we have been programmed for, even though we have the feeling that we make free decisions, so that sentience really does not play any role in the evolution in form of motivation.

    If there is no will, then the apparent motivation produced by sentience would also be an illusion. Sentience would be a byproduct of certain physical conditions, or something ubiquitous (Panpsychism). Sentience would appear to be evolutionarily useful, and yet what would be evolutionarily useful would be such physical conditions.

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  • What is the problem of consciousness?

    The problem of consciousness can be formulated as follows: how is it that, from a purely material basis (a brain or a centralized nervous system), consciousness emerges? This is what the problem of consciousness really boils down to. Answering this requires answering the question, what structures must be present in an organism and how would they function for consciousness to be possible? In other words, of all the different ways that the bodies of animals are arranged, which ones contain structures and arrangements that give rise to consciousness? There is no reason to suppose that only a human-like central nervous system will give rise to consciousness, and a great deal of evidence that very different types of animals are conscious. An example is bird brains, which have many structural similarities to mammalian brains, but different arrangements of neurons. Yet their brain circuits seem to be wired in a different way that creates a similar effect in terms of consciousness and cognition. An octopus is an invertebrate with a very different type of nervous system. But an octopus exhibits behavior and responds to her environment like a conscious being.

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  • Collective intelligence, ants and the binding problem

    A single neuron in the human brain can respond only to what the neurons connected to it are doing, but all of them together can be Immanuel Kant.

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    The idea of a collective consciousness (Or Anthill) is pretty simple: instead of cells you have small sentient animal that make up a larger creature. This is different from a hive mind in that the individuals of a hive mind are all sapient, but in a only the collective is.

    When I tend to think of this species, I struggle with how they would appear. Unlike with an angel, a centaur or a merperson, I lack both the inner anatomy and outer form for what they would look like. I literally am starting from the barebone scratch of a creature.

    This has made me ask, what would an anthill species look like? What would their biology be?

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    Binding prerequisites: does the substrate of consciousness require some special property which can support “ontological unity” (e.g., Pearce’s focus on quantum coherence) to bind together ‘micro-experiences’, or should we focus on information-theoretic aggregation techniques (e.g., IIT’s
    Minimum Information Partition)?

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