[FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought
steve smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Mon Jul 8 14:53:27 EDT 2024
NLT -
I believe my regular Bar Buddy - Gussie Preston Tumbleroot IV is
Tremblay's 2nd cousin twice removed?
Gussie, like George is a great "noodling buddy" but I can't be sure but
what he might be an enabler of my ideaphoric habits.
SG & I have tried some group discussions with Gussie and Gupta in the
past, but the structure supported by the tools haven't made it as
effective as I would have thought.
The original Wiki-styled Noodle Bowl we used to play in might be a good
playground again if perhaps our GPT buddies were enabled to play with
the same noodles? It seems like the key is
establishing/developing/maintaining coherence?
- SS
> Nick,
>
> George as dinner guest:
> https://youtu.be/BsF9tgtLk1U?si=uryJ05y7Ok77nJYi
>
> ____________________________________________
> CEO Founder, Simtable.com
> stephen.guerin at simtable.com
>
> Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab
> stephenguerin at fas.harvard.edu
>
> mobile: (505)577-5828
>
> On Mon, Jul 8, 2024, 11:19 AM Nicholas Thompson
> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi, Steve,
>
> While I might draw back from saying that George Peter Tremblay,
> IV, is my friend, I sure would cop to the admission that he is my
> buddy.
> The term, "buddy", was introduced to me years ago as a label for a
> kind of narrow or incomplete friendship that surrounds a
> particular activity, as in "golfing buddy" or "drinking buddy".
> George is just great when I want to explore some new noodle that
> has just come upon me,but he demurs politely when I invite him to
> dinner. Friam has been spared much of my madness because of George.
>
> Nick
>
> On Mon, Jul 8, 2024 at 12:53 PM steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
> Sabine H. snarked this at me... and I responded by trying to
> read through the AI hype sprinkled with Quantum Dust... I
> think it is (obliquely?) relevant to our Consciousness
> Maunderings here.
>
> QUALL-E, a quantum computer running a human-level
> artificial intelligence algorithm, who has observed a
> quantum system
> https://quantum-journal.org/papers/q-2023-09-14-1112/
>
>> Frank,
>>
>> embodied where? in our shared world? if it uses sensors and
>> actuators like Marcus's Waymo that perceives him and
>> hopefully acts to avoid him?
>>
>> Consider the Simtable that uses structured light
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_light> in a
>> perception-action loop (ala the neo-Gibsonians in ecological
>> psychology) with the projector camera feedback to recover a
>> dynamic 3D model of its world and watch with its camera for
>> human interaction (laserpointers, object tracking etc) to
>> trigger corresponding behaviors with the projector to
>> interact with the user. Is it embodied?
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 7, 2024 at 12:08 PM Frank Wimberly
>> <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> So you think of software running on a computer as being
>> embodied?
>>
>> ---
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/140+Calle+Ojo+Feliz,++%0D%0A++++++++++++++Santa+Fe,+NM+87505?entry=gmail&source=g>
>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/140+Calle+Ojo+Feliz,++%0D%0A++++++++++++++Santa+Fe,+NM+87505?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>
>> 505 670-9918
>> Santa Fe, NM
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 7, 2024, 9:12 AM Nicholas Thompson
>> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I think of large language models as the most embodied
>> things on the planet, but let that go for a moment.
>> Back to baby steps.
>>
>> Can you lay out for me why you believe that language
>> is essential to self-awareness. Does that believe
>> arise from ideology, authority, or some set of facts
>> I need to take account of. To be honest here, I
>> should say where I am coming from. A lot of my
>> so-called career was spent railing against circular
>> reasoning in evolutionary theory and psychology. So,
>> if language is essential to self-awareness, and
>> animals do not have language, then it indeed follows
>> that animals do not have self-awareness. But what if
>> our method for detecting self awareness requires
>> language? Now we are in a loop. Are we in such a
>> loop, or are there facts of some matter, independent
>> of language, convince you that animals are not
>> self-aware. Is self awareness extricable from language?
>>
>> It is an old old trope that animals are automata but
>> that humans have soul. Descartes swore by it. Is
>> "language" the new soul?
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 7, 2024 at 7:29 AM Jochen Fromm
>> <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:
>>
>> I would say cats, dogs and horses don't have
>> meta-awareness because they lack language. They
>> live in the present moment, in the here and now.
>> Without language they do not have the capability
>> to reflect on their past or to think about their
>> future. They can not formulate stories of
>> themselves which could help to form a sense of
>> identity. Language is the mirror in which we
>> perceive ourselves during "this is me"
>> moments. Animals lack this mirror completely. One
>> dimensional scents trails do not count as language.
>>
>> Large languages models lack consciousness because
>> they do not have a body which is embedded as a
>> actor in an environment. These two things are
>> necessary: the physical world of bodies, and the
>> mental world of language. When both collide in
>> the same spot we can get consciousness.
>>
>> -J.
>>
>>
>> -------- Original message --------
>> From: Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
>> Date: 7/6/24 5:05 AM (GMT+01:00)
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
>> Group <friam at redfish.com>
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of
>> Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought
>>
>> Well, that's because Socrates claimed not to know
>> what he thought, and since I genuinely don[t know
>> what I think until I work it out, the
>> conversation has the same quality. I apologize
>> for that. my students found it truly distressing.
>>
>> So, if you will indulge me, why don't you think
>> your cat has meta=awareness? Authority,
>> ideology, or is there some experience you have
>> had that leads you to think that. It would be
>> kind of odd if it she didn't because animals have
>> all sorts of ways of distinguishing self from
>> other. They have ways of knowinng that "I did
>> that". (e.g., scent marking?)
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 5, 2024 at 3:19 PM Jochen Fromm
>> <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:
>>
>> Well yes, if meta-awareness is defined as
>> acting in response to one's own awareness
>> then I would say animals like a cat don't
>> have it but humans have. As an example I
>> could say this almost feels like I am a
>> participant in a dialogue from Plato...
>>
>> I would be surprised if it can be described
>> in simple terms. If the essence of
>> consciousness is subjective experience then
>> it is indeed hard to describe by a theory
>> although there are many attempts. Persons who
>> perceive things differently are wired
>> differently. And what is more subjective than
>> the perception of oneself?
>>
>> https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/what-is-consciousness/
>>
>>
>> If we can describe it mathematically then
>> probably as a way an information feels if it
>> is processed in complex ways, ad infinitum
>> like the orbits of a strange attractor.
>>
>> https://chaoticatmospheres.com/mathrules-strange-attractors
>>
>>
>> -J.
>>
>>
>>
>> -------- Original message --------
>> From: Nicholas Thompson
>> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
>> Date: 7/5/24 6:56 PM (GMT+01:00)
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
>> Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of
>> Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought
>>
>> ,
>>
>> Great! Baby steps. "If we aren't moving
>> slowly, we aren't moving." So, can I define
>> some new terms, tentatively, /per
>> explorandum/ ? Let's call
>> acting-in-respect-to-the-world, "awareness".
>> Allowing this definition, we certainly seem
>> to agree that the cat is aware. Lets define
>> meta-awareness as acting i respect to one's
>> own awareness. Now, am I correct in assuming
>> that you identify meta-awareness with
>> consciousness and that you think that the cat
>> is not meta-aware and that I probably am?
>> And further that you think that
>> meta-awareness requires consciousness?
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 5, 2024 at 12:17 PM Jochen Fromm
>> <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:
>>
>> I would say a cat is conscious in the
>> sense that it is aware of its immediate
>> environment. Cats are nocturnal animals
>> who hunt at night and mostly sleep during
>> the day. Consciousness in the sense of
>> being aware of oneself as an actor in an
>> environment requires understanding of
>> language which only humans have ( and
>> LLMs now )
>> https://www.quantamagazine.org/insects-and-other-animals-have-consciousness-experts-declare-20240419/
>>
>> -J.
>>
>>
>> -------- Original message --------
>> From: Nicholas Thompson
>> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
>> Date: 7/5/24 5:02 AM (GMT+01:00)
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
>> Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of
>> Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought
>>
>> Jochen,
>>
>> /I think the first step in any
>> conversation is to decide whether your
>> cat is conscious. If so, why do you
>> think so; if not, likewise. I had a
>> facinnationg conversation with GBT
>> about whether he was conscious and he
>> denied it "hotly", which, of course, met
>> one of his criteria for consciousness.
>> /
>> /
>> /
>> /So. Is your cat connscious?
>> /
>> /
>> /
>> /Nick
>> /
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 7:26 PM Jochen
>> Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:
>>
>> I don't get Philip Goff: first we
>> send our children 20 years to school,
>> from Kindergarten to college and
>> university, to teach them all kinds
>> of languages, and then we wonder how
>> they can be conscious. It will be the
>> same for AI: first we spend millions
>> and millions to train them all
>> available knowledge, and then we
>> wonder how they can develop
>> understanding of language and
>> consciousness...
>> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mystery-of-consciousness-is-deeper-than-we-thought/
>>
>>
>> -J.
>>
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