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One could imagine that human’s would appear unconscious to a hyper intelligent alien species. Perhaps it’s all relative.

scoofy 4y ago
You're conflating consciousness with intelligence. The two are not the same. One is the experience of qualia, and the ability to hold preferences. The other is the behaviors associated with making predictions and intentionally manipulating the world to achieve tasks. We have a hyper-intelligent chess engines that cannot be argued to be conscious. We also have small mammalian minds, like Koalas, that are dumb as a brick, but are very likely conscious.
- throwaway3838g 4y ago
  That’s a good point. I suppose then, to a hyper intelligent alien species we would be the Koala’s, unintelligent but conscious.
- ilkke 4y ago
  I am not entirely prepared to accept that koalas have small mammalian minds
  - steve_adams_86 4y ago
    I realized recently there’s no evidence that they don’t, but a wealth of evidence that they do. I watch animals very closely now and I see more all the time that they are just like me in most ways. I suppose I used to watch them as a person who eats them, and my comfort with doing so depended on not seeing them as conscious creatures like me. Now that I don’t eat them, it’s as though there are more similarities than there are differences. I suspect if animals could speak, we’d realize they’re remarkably similar to us. This probably sounds ridiculous to many people, and would have to me once too. A key part of this is not that I’m elevating animals’ conscience to that of humans so much as lowering humans’. We tend to think we’re exceptional, but I think our exception is probably just intelligence. The rest, I don’t know, I suspect we’re all very much alike.
    - ilkke 4y ago
      Apologies, I should have made my comment clear instead of trying to be witty - what I meant was that Koalas are marsupials, not mammals. That said, I agree with what you are saying. We tend to assume a bigger than likely distance between us and other animals.
      - steve_adams_86 4y ago
        Ha, I completely overlooked that they’re marsupials, too. Now I suppose neither of us are prepared to accept it.
- Retric 4y ago
  Some level of intelligence is a prerequisite for experience of qualia. A rock for example is below that threshold. The question then becomes what exactly is the minim level of perception we are willing to accept. Individual cells respond to their environment indirectly, that’s enough to qualify IMO but I accept people would disagree. Which just illiterates people don’t generally use philosophical definitions directly. What they mean by qualia isn’t subjective conscious experience, it’s something else which they can’t actually describe that just so happens to conform exactly to their preconceived notions.
  - scoofy 4y ago
    The ideas is if you had some, theoretical, mechanical computer built of stone (something trivially producible), if we believe that any artificial intelligences can be sentient, then it would be trivial to extend this to create a sentient, but essentially just a complex stone object.
    - Retric 4y ago
      A single stone is different than a system consisting of large numbers of stones in some non random configuration. It’s like the flaw in that “Chinese room” thought experiment. The person following instructions isn’t the room any more than the walls are. All that thought experiment demonstrates is a CPU has a more limited perspective than the computer it’s part of.
      - scoofy 4y ago
        I mean, showing that difference is extremely hard philosophically.
        Retric 4y ago
        How so? A specific rock inherently is whatever that rock is. That same rock can represent all finite messages at the same time in relation to it’s position along arbitrarily defined number lines. Nothing inherent to the rock changed as that meaning is external to it.
nerpderp82 4y ago
I am hypo intelligent, but my coworkers definitely appear unconscious. Incomplete, ill-posed statement fragments over chat or better yet, in needless "sync" meetings. Insects display unbelievable forms intelligence to anyone that pays attention.

scoofy 4y ago

You're conflating consciousness with intelligence. The two are not the same. One is the experience of qualia, and the ability to hold preferences. The other is the behaviors associated with making predictions and intentionally manipulating the world to achieve tasks. We have a hyper-intelligent chess engines that cannot be argued to be conscious. We also have small mammalian minds, like Koalas, that are dumb as a brick, but are very likely conscious.

throwaway3838g 4y ago
That’s a good point. I suppose then, to a hyper intelligent alien species we would be the Koala’s, unintelligent but conscious.
ilkke 4y ago
I am not entirely prepared to accept that koalas have small mammalian minds
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  I realized recently there’s no evidence that they don’t, but a wealth of evidence that they do. I watch animals very closely now and I see more all the time that they are just like me in most ways. I suppose I used to watch them as a person who eats them, and my comfort with doing so depended on not seeing them as conscious creatures like me. Now that I don’t eat them, it’s as though there are more similarities than there are differences. I suspect if animals could speak, we’d realize they’re remarkably similar to us. This probably sounds ridiculous to many people, and would have to me once too. A key part of this is not that I’m elevating animals’ conscience to that of humans so much as lowering humans’. We tend to think we’re exceptional, but I think our exception is probably just intelligence. The rest, I don’t know, I suspect we’re all very much alike.
  - ilkke 4y ago
    Apologies, I should have made my comment clear instead of trying to be witty - what I meant was that Koalas are marsupials, not mammals. That said, I agree with what you are saying. We tend to assume a bigger than likely distance between us and other animals.
    - steve_adams_86 4y ago
      Ha, I completely overlooked that they’re marsupials, too. Now I suppose neither of us are prepared to accept it.
Retric 4y ago
Some level of intelligence is a prerequisite for experience of qualia. A rock for example is below that threshold. The question then becomes what exactly is the minim level of perception we are willing to accept. Individual cells respond to their environment indirectly, that’s enough to qualify IMO but I accept people would disagree. Which just illiterates people don’t generally use philosophical definitions directly. What they mean by qualia isn’t subjective conscious experience, it’s something else which they can’t actually describe that just so happens to conform exactly to their preconceived notions.
- scoofy 4y ago
  The ideas is if you had some, theoretical, mechanical computer built of stone (something trivially producible), if we believe that any artificial intelligences can be sentient, then it would be trivial to extend this to create a sentient, but essentially just a complex stone object.
  - Retric 4y ago
    A single stone is different than a system consisting of large numbers of stones in some non random configuration. It’s like the flaw in that “Chinese room” thought experiment. The person following instructions isn’t the room any more than the walls are. All that thought experiment demonstrates is a CPU has a more limited perspective than the computer it’s part of.
    - scoofy 4y ago
      I mean, showing that difference is extremely hard philosophically.
      - Retric 4y ago
        How so? A specific rock inherently is whatever that rock is. That same rock can represent all finite messages at the same time in relation to it’s position along arbitrarily defined number lines. Nothing inherent to the rock changed as that meaning is external to it.

nerpderp82 4y ago

I am hypo intelligent, but my coworkers definitely appear unconscious. Incomplete, ill-posed statement fragments over chat or better yet, in needless "sync" meetings. Insects display unbelievable forms intelligence to anyone that pays attention.