[ExI] all we are is just llms

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 25/04/2023 14:06, spike wrote:
> Cool thx Ben.  I had never thought of it that way, but it is a cause 
> for hope.  If we find enough ways a brain is like a computer, it 
> suggests a mind can (in theory) exist in a computer, which is 
> something I have long believed and hoped is true.  If thought is 
> substrate dependent on biology, we are all sunk in the long run.

Thought cannot be dependent on biology. This is something I've thought 
about, and done research on, for a long time, and I'm completely 
convinced. It's logically impossible. If it's true, then all of our 
science and logic is wrong.

What we call 'a computer' is open to interpretation, and it may well be 
that minds (human-equivalent and above) can't be implemented on the 
types of computer we have now (we already know that simpler minds can 
be). But that doesn't destroy the substrate indifference argument (I 
never liked the term 'substrate independent', because it conjures up the 
concept of a mind that has no substrate. Substrate indifferent is more 
accurate, imo (and yes, even that is not good enough, because the 
substrate must be capable of supporting a mind, and not all will be (we 
just need to find the right ones. (and OMD, I'm turning into a spikeian 
bracket nester!!)))).

Ben