Re:Decades-long bet on consciousness ends – it’s philosopher...
by maxerickson on Saturday June 24, 2023 @08:23AM
(#36458080)
Analogy doesn't really inform us about the unknown.
If we knew what consciousness is, we could make sweeping assertions about what is possible.
We don't know what consciousness is.
Re:Decades-long bet on consciousness ends – it’s philosopher...
by Kim_Bruning on Saturday June 24, 2023 @08:27AM
(#36458112)
I don't disagree!
Re:Decades-long bet on consciousness ends – it’s philosopher...
by saurik on Saturday June 24, 2023 @06:50PM
(#36463364)
This discussion explicitly started with the assertion that "consciousness is just an emergent phenomenon resulting from any sufficiently powerful cognitive system (either biological or artificial) with sufficient inputs of its environment and, crucially, of itself"; note carefully the word "any", as that's what this downthread discussion has been pushing hard against, and what the thought experiment you are arguing against is itself directed at. You, instead, seem to be very much in agreement and seem to be in alignment with this other side thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36462646
I'm not suggesting this is a strong analogy, perhaps, but I don't see why putting a high bandwidth link between two brains would necessarily do anything at all.
(Actually -since human brains are very adaptable- maybe we would see something happen.
But emergence is not something magical. It happens when parts that are made to go together are actually together.
Eg. when you assemble cogs and cylinders and wheels into a car. The whole is more than the sum of the parts.
If you mix in some random parts from a cruise ship, you don't suddenly get a car that can go on water and carry 1000 passengers. You just get a bunch of parts that don't go together )