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

[Giovanni Santostasi]

Well, my analogy of the map is something you could address independently of
everything else. It has also to do with referents. Do you think there is an
explanatory gap in a map?
After all, looking at a map doesn't make feel how the territory really
looks like. BUT THAT IS THE ENTIRE POINT OF A MAP !

So what Nagel says is a bug in the scientific understanding of
consciousness it is actually a feature. I don't get how this is not
understood.

Nagel doesn't understand how science works and the same for his
philosopher friends.
I admire Penrose as a scientist and the fact he wanted to understand
consciousness but I think he is wrong on many things from Platonism to how
consciousness works. It can happen to the best of us. He is by the way
relatively isolated in this area of science. My position and that of the
majority of physicalists are similar to Sean Carrol's ones. He is one of
the few physicists that engage in these discussions.

Here is a nice lecture by Carrol on this topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HNjL8_fsTk


On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 3:16 PM Gordon Swobe <gordon.swobe at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 3:46 PM Giovanni Santostasi <gsantostasi at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> I think my analogy is completely relevant. Science is not supposed to
>> reproduce perfectly the territory, it is not a limitation but a feature. I
>> went into detail about why it is so.
>> Can you please address this and explain why I'm wrong?
>>
>
> Honestly, Gio, I do not find conversations with you to be very productive.
> I think you would say up is down and white is black if it would support
> your zealous belief that language models have consciousness.
>
> You lost me when you disagreed with my very simple argument that words
> have referents. That words have referents is hardly even an argument. It is
> more like an observation. When you say a word, you mean something, and that
> something that you mean is the referent. It is what gives the word meaning
> in your own mind. It could be an object that you perceive or imagine, or it
> could be an abstract idea. It is whatever the word stands for.
>
> In any case, Nagel is perfectly well aware of how science is useful for
> giving us objective explanations of the objective world.
>
> > If you don't like what science does and it is then invent your own
> epistemology,
>
> Hardly my own idea, the "explanatory gap" (usually used in reference to
> Nagel) is more or less another way of saying "the hard problem of
> consciousness" (usually used in reference to David Chalmers). Roger Penrose
> has a similar idea as do many other philosophers of mind and science who
> have looked at the problem of explaining how minds have subjective
> conscious experience.
>
> -gts
>
>
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