Re:How Computationally Complex Is a Single Neuron?
by jstanley on Friday September 03, 2021 @09:07AM
(#28403635)
It is perfectly consistent for something to be well-defined and also untestable.
For example, you could ask me any question about the contents of my mind. Let's say you ask me if my favourite colour is green, and I say it is. You don't know whether my favourite colour really is green or if I'm lying. The fact that you have no way to ascertain my true favourite colour doesn't mean favourite colours are ill-defined! You just can't know what anyone else's favourite colour is.
(Not that I'm claiming my "subjective experience" definition is well-defined -- I accept that it's pretty vague as definitions go).
> However: it is not testable, and it's not obvious that it could be.
If it isn’t testable, do you really have a definition rather than a tautology? What does it mean to have “subjective experience”? One instance of a game AI is subject to different inputs than another instance of the same AI, which you reject (as would I: I listed it as an example of how bad the definitions have been and definitely not as a claim they’re sentient).