[ExI] Red

[Jason Resch]

On Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 7:22 AM John Clark via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
>
> *And you can do better? Of course you can't! Even pure mathematics can NOT
> start with nothing, mathematics needs to start with axioms that are simple
> and do not seem unreasonable but have no proof. You say a miracle is needed
> to turn intelligent data processing into consciousness, but I say it's not
> a miracle it's just when you dig deep enough into the fundamental nature of
> reality you will eventually encounter a brute fact and one of them is that*
>  *consciousness is the way data feels when it is being processed
> intelligently. *
>

I have long been a fan of "consciousness is the way data feels when it is
being processed intelligently." However I think it can be improved upon. I
would now say "Consciousness is how a process feels when it discriminates
information."

I think this is better because I don't think either data or information is
what is conscious, it is only processes which are conscious. Further, it
better specifies the type of processing required for conscious:
counterfactually reaching a particular (knowledge) state after
discriminating upon information available to that process.

This also reveals the link to intelligence and why it evolved.
Discrimination of information is a prerequisite for every intelligent
process.


*After all, there is no law of logic that demands every event have a cause.*
>
> *So perhaps an even greater mystery is why does ANYTHING have a cause? To
> that question I can only say that if the universe was totally random, that
> is to say if nothing had a cause, then we wouldn't be here to ask any
> questions. Yes I know that's not a good answer but it's the best I can come
> up with. *
>
> *You want to find the fundamental mechanism that changes objectivity to
> subjectivity and I can sympathize with that desire, I want to do the same
> thing. But if you want to do that don't concentrate on objectivity or
> subjectivity, concentrate on "mechanism", find the simplest one possible,
> and that would be a machine that changes on to off or off to on.   *
>
> *There is no proof AIs are conscious and never will be, *
>

I disagree that there can be no proofs of consciousness. Any process that
demonstrates awareness via reliable responsiveness to information is
necessarily conscious of that information.

Jason


*but given the mountain of evidence that keeps increasing each day don't
> you think it would be wise if when you encounter an Artificial Intelligence
> your default position should be to assume the AI is conscious? After all, I
> am quite certain that is already your default position whenever you
> encounter an intelligent human being.  *
>
> *When you meet an intelligent entity do you really need to know if its
> brain is wet and squishy or dry and hard before you can determine if it's
> conscious or not?  *
>
> *John K Clark*
>
>
>
>>
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>>>>>>> *Yes and that is the fundamental problem you will never be able to
>>>>>>> overcome, there is a limit to what cause-and-effect can tell you, and
>>>>>>> therefore there is a limit to what science can tell you. Quantum Mechanics
>>>>>>> can say why some molecules reflect red light and other molecules reflect
>>>>>>> green light but that's not what you're talking about, you're talking about
>>>>>>> color qualia. You could maintain it's a brute fact that Glutamate has the
>>>>>>> green quality and glycine has the red quality; but both those molecules are
>>>>>>> extremely complicated objects and yet they produce an extremely narrow very
>>>>>>> specific qualia, so to explain the entire conscious experience with your
>>>>>>> theory you're going to need an astronomical number of brute facts, perhaps
>>>>>>> even an infinite number of them. But my theory only needs 2 brute facts:*
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *1) On is different from off. *
>>>>>>> *2) Consciousness is the way data feels when it is being processed
>>>>>>> intelligently. *
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *Therefore William of Ockham would say that my theory is superior to
>>>>>>> your theory. *
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> *> We simply need nature to tell us, through direct apprehension,
>>>>>>>> which one is which, so we can have our grounded dictionary of the physical
>>>>>>>> qualities of what we are objectively observing.*
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *This dictionary you keep talking about is going to be huge, perhaps
>>>>>>> going beyond huge and merging with the infinite; even if by some miracle
>>>>>>> you possessed such a monstrosity would you really feel that the
>>>>>>> consciousness problem had been solved? Wouldn't you want to know WHY one
>>>>>>> molecule has the happiness property while another slightly different
>>>>>>> molecule has this sadness property? *
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *We're getting to the point where maintaining that AIs are not
>>>>>>> conscious is becoming indistinguishable from maintaining that solipsism is
>>>>>>> true. *
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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