I think the reason we can’t define consciousness beyond intuitive or vague descriptions is because it exists outside the realm of physics and science altogether. This in itself makes some people very uncomfortable, because they don’t like thinking about or believing in things they cannot measure or control, but that doesn’t make it any less real.
I’ve always had the opposite take. I think that we’ll eventually discover that consciousness is so explainable within the realm of physics that our understanding of how it works will make people very uncomfortable… because it will completely invalidate all of the things we’ve always thought made us “special”, like a notion of free will.
If you haven’t watched it yet you’d probably enjoy Westworld - it plays a lot with that space and approaches some very interesting philosophy when it comes to human consciousness and what it means to even be a person.
I don’t know if we’ll ever define consciousness or if we’ll ever discover what it is.
My central claim is that if we don’t do that we can’t convincingly claim that an AI is or is not conscious.
We can conjecture about it either way and either guess may be right, but we won’t be able to move past guesses.
I’m sorry, but that article just isn’t very compelling. They seem to be framing the question of “is there free will” as a sort of Pascal’s Wager, which is, umm… certainly a strange choice, and one that doesn’t really justify itself in the end.
The author also makes a few false assertions and just generally seems to misunderstand what the debate over free will is even about.
I’ve always had the opposite take. I think that we’ll eventually discover that consciousness is so explainable within the realm of physics that our understanding of how it works will make people very uncomfortable… because it will completely invalidate all of the things we’ve always thought made us “special”, like a notion of free will.
If you haven’t watched it yet you’d probably enjoy Westworld - it plays a lot with that space and approaches some very interesting philosophy when it comes to human consciousness and what it means to even be a person.
I don’t know if we’ll ever define consciousness or if we’ll ever discover what it is.
My central claim is that if we don’t do that we can’t convincingly claim that an AI is or is not conscious. We can conjecture about it either way and either guess may be right, but we won’t be able to move past guesses.
:)
https://philosophyofbalance.com/blog/free-will-you-better-believe-it/
I’m sorry, but that article just isn’t very compelling. They seem to be framing the question of “is there free will” as a sort of Pascal’s Wager, which is, umm… certainly a strange choice, and one that doesn’t really justify itself in the end.
The author also makes a few false assertions and just generally seems to misunderstand what the debate over free will is even about.