Re:Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy
by mach1ne on Saturday October 02, 2021 @04:16AM
(#28726958)
Isn't that precisely what it means? You are aware of something, thus you can take it and its aspects into consideration in your calculations. You have a representation of yourself - same thing. Of course your representation may not be completely accurate, but what perception would be.
Re:Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy
by curryst on Sunday October 03, 2021 @12:13PM
(#28738240)
I don't think so. The concept of self is distinct from an image (or other representation). If I run pylint against the pylint source code, it has a representation of itself. It's not aware that those lines of code are in any way special to it. I don't think it mystically becomes self-aware because of that situation.
In your lingo, something can know what it looks like without taking its aspects into consideration.
I think the inverse is true, though: something that cannot perceive a representation of itself cannot be self-aware.
Re:Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy
by andybak on Saturday October 02, 2021 @05:28AM
(#28727280)
> Isn't that precisely what it means?
Maybe or maybe not. This is the nub of the debate. I would argue that answering "yes" to this is a partial endorsement of pan-psychism. If the ability to experience qualia is property of certain algorithms or types of information flow then it's a fundemental property of the universe.
Thought experiments about p-zombies and mind simulation are an interesting litmus test to separate different points of view on this.
Having a representation of itself doesn't mean it has an awareness of itself.