[ExI] GPT-4 on its inability to solve the symbol grounding problem

Jason Resch jasonresch at gmail.com
Sun Apr 9 04:11:09 UTC 2023


On Sat, Apr 8, 2023, 9:15 PM Gordon Swobe <gordon.swobe at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 8, 2023 at 4:18 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> Here's the rub: if my smart doorbell has awareness and if awareness is
>>> what defines consciousness, then how about my automobile?
>>>
>>
>> Does it have adaptive cruise control?
>>
>
> Your answer doesn't strike you as absurd? Should the car manufacturer be
> advertising it as "conscious adaptive cruise control"? I might be willing
> to pay more for that feature. :-)
>

You keep making comments suggesting it's an absurd belief but you don't say
why or how it is absurd. Please explain what about my view is absurd.


> > In the case of the boxer, what he loses is the ability to form new
> memories which will be accessible to the part(s) of his brain that can talk
> when he wakes up. Not all parts of his brain will necessarily be
> unconscious when he is knocked out.
>
> When he is knocked out, he will be unconscious, lacking consciousness,
> unaware of anything, with no sensory experience, similar to being in a coma
> or asleep and not dreaming.
>

We presently have no reliable way to distinguish lack of consciousness from
lack of memory formation. This has greatly troubled and frustrated
anesthesiologists, especially when patients emerge from surgery with memory
of the surgeon's cuts and associated pain. Anesthesiologists now routinely
co-administer compounds that are known to trigger a temporary amnesia. Does
this make patients less conscious of the surgeon's cuts or simply make them
unable to remember and reoort that experience? The leading theory of how
anesthetics work is by something callesmd "cognitive unbinding": separate
brain regions are unable to communicate with one another as signaling is
confused, but each small region continues to operate independently. The
mind is fragmented and each region becomes an isolated island unto itself.

We all know what the word means. Yes that does not mean his entire brain is
> dead, but he is unconscious.
>
> > For example, if smelling salts can still awaken him, then the part of
> his brain...
>
> When he awakens, he is no longer unconscious.
>

What part of his brain is aware enough to know to wake up fully after
administering smelling salts?


> > If you define consciousness in terms of human consciousness, then only
> humans are conscious, by definition.
>
> That is the only kind of consciousness with which we have any familiarity.
> I think it is reasonable to infer something similar in other people and in
> other higher mammals, as their anatomies and nervous systems and lives and
> behaviors are so similar to ours, but then things start to get sketchy as
> we go down the food chain. In the effort to justify the belief that even
> software
>

Using the phrase "only software" suggests to me you are not familiar with
the implications of the Church-Turing thesis. This thesis says software of
the right type can replicate the behaviors of *any* computable process. The
right software could mimic and replicate all the goings-on of the whole
milky way galaxy or observable universe.

It is a bit like saying a musician is so good that their music could not be
recorded on a CD, when we know CDs can capture the music of any possible
musician. Software is to behavior as CDs are to music. All you need is the
right CD (or software) to replicate any music (or behavior). This is the
magic of computers. We don't need to change or upgrade the hardware to
install new applications. One computer is enough to run any possible
software (that ever has been, or ever will be, written).

 can be conscious, people find themselves saying all sorts of silly things,
> for example that doorbells and cars are conscious. Their arguments lose by
> reductio ad absurdum except on ExI, where anything goes. :-)
>

Explain how it is a reductio ad absurdum.

I have shown the converse, denying their awareness, leads to a logical
contradiction.

What you call absurd is not a logical contradiction, just something strange
to your intuition. When choosing between something unfamiliar and counter
intuitive, vs. something logically inconsistent, go with the unfamiliar and
counter intuitive as the more likely to be true.

Jason

>
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