Though I still think that an intelligent consciousness could emerge from a loop of generative “thoughts”, the most important of those probably being language.
Does a dog have the Buddha nature?
…meaning to say: Just because you happen to have the habit of identifying your consciousness with language (that’s TBH where the “stuck in your head” thing came from) doesn’t mean that language is necessary, or even a component of, consciousness, instead of merely an object of consciousness. And neither is consciousness necessary to do many things, e.g. I’m perfectly able to stop at a pedestrian light while lost in thought.
I don’t think that the phrase is “I think therefore I am”, but “I can think ‘I think therefore I am’ therefore I am”.
What Descartes actually was getting at is “I can’t doubt that I doubt, therefore, at least my doubt exists”. He had a bit of an existential crisis. Unsolicited Advice has a video about it.
But when I think of how to define a consciousness and divert it from instinct or reactiveness (like stopping at a red light). I think that something that makes a conscience a conscience must be that a conscience is able to modify itself without external influence.
A dog may be able to fully react and learn how to react with the exterior. But can it modify itself the way human brain can?
A human being can sit alone in a room and start processing information by itself in a loop and completely change that flux of information onto something different, even changing the brain in the process.
For this to happen I think some form of language, some form of “speak to yourself” is needed. Some way for the brain to generate an output that can be immediately be taken as input.
At this point of course this is far more philosophical than technical. And maybe even semantics of “what is a conscience”.
A dog may be able to fully react and learn how to react with the exterior. But can it modify itself the way human brain can?
As per current psychology’s view, yes, even if to a smaller extent. There are problems with how we define conscience, and right now with LLMs most of the arguments are usually related to the Chinese room and philosophical zombie thought experiments, imo
Does a dog have the Buddha nature?
…meaning to say: Just because you happen to have the habit of identifying your consciousness with language (that’s TBH where the “stuck in your head” thing came from) doesn’t mean that language is necessary, or even a component of, consciousness, instead of merely an object of consciousness. And neither is consciousness necessary to do many things, e.g. I’m perfectly able to stop at a pedestrian light while lost in thought.
What Descartes actually was getting at is “I can’t doubt that I doubt, therefore, at least my doubt exists”. He had a bit of an existential crisis. Unsolicited Advice has a video about it.
It may be because of the habit.
But when I think of how to define a consciousness and divert it from instinct or reactiveness (like stopping at a red light). I think that something that makes a conscience a conscience must be that a conscience is able to modify itself without external influence.
A dog may be able to fully react and learn how to react with the exterior. But can it modify itself the way human brain can?
A human being can sit alone in a room and start processing information by itself in a loop and completely change that flux of information onto something different, even changing the brain in the process.
For this to happen I think some form of language, some form of “speak to yourself” is needed. Some way for the brain to generate an output that can be immediately be taken as input.
At this point of course this is far more philosophical than technical. And maybe even semantics of “what is a conscience”.
As per current psychology’s view, yes, even if to a smaller extent. There are problems with how we define conscience, and right now with LLMs most of the arguments are usually related to the Chinese room and philosophical zombie thought experiments, imo