<div dir="ltr"><b>Sensory input from the outside world is just patterns. Why should patterns of activation in cells of the retina allow for an understanding to develop, but not patterns of symbols in a corpus of text? The best I've gotten from you is that we don't know how the brain works, but this doesn't help convince me your view. Regardless of how the brain does it, we agree it does it. This indicates it is possible to develop understanding from an analysis of patterns. Therefore there must be some error in your reasoning or assumptions that lead you to conclude this is impossible.<br></b><br>This goes to the core of the matter. <br>This is based on the best scientific understanding of the universe. There is overwhelming evidence about this. The only thinkers that are in disagreement on this are philosophers, some linguists, and other so-called intellectuals in humanities that do not understand how science works, or what the brain really does and have religious pre-conceived ideas and also are protective of their disciplines as they feel threatened more and more by the dominance of science and technological advances. <br><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Apr 15, 2023 at 2:14 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Apr 15, 2023, 4:22 PM Gordon Swobe <<a href="mailto:gordon.swobe@gmail.com" target="_blank">gordon.swobe@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<p class="MsoNormal">On Fri, Apr 14, 2023 at 6:01 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br>
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>>> Imagine a machine that searches for a counterexample to Goldbach's conjecture .... So, we arguably have a property here which is true for the program: it either halts or doesn't, but one which is inaccessible to us even when we know everything there is
to know about the code itself.<br>
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>> Interesting, yes.<br>
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> Do you think this could open the door to first person properties which are not understandable from their third person descriptions?<br>
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Not sure what you mean by "open the door," but my answer here is the same as for the paper you cited. I have no problem with the idea that we can create objective models of the mind that show how some properties are private or inaccessible. Psychologists have
been doing it for centuries. The models all still fail to overcome this explanatory gap to which Nagel and I refer. There are facts of the world that exist only from a particular point of view and thus cannot be captured in objective language which by definition
can only describe the world from no particular point of view.<br></p></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">I agree. In a way, all there are, are first person views. It's amazing anything is communicable at all.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div><div><p class="MsoNormal">
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>> However, you clarified above that...<br>
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>> > It would be more accurate to say it demonstrates that it has overcome the symbol grounding problem.<br>
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>> Okay, I can agree with that. It has "overcome" the symbol grounding problem for the language of mathematics without solving it in the same way that it has overcome the symbol grounding problem for English without solving it. It overcomes these problems with
powerful statistical analysis of the patterns and rules of formal mathematics with no understandings of the meanings.<br>
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> You presume there's something more to meaning than that<br>
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Of course there is to more to meaning than understanding how meaningless symbols relate statistically and grammatically to other meaningless symbols!</p></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">It's not obvious to me that understanding requires more than simply "analysis of patterns". Patterns are all our brains receive from the world after all.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"> That is why I bring up this subject of the symbol grounding problem in philosophy. It is only in the grounding
of symbols that we can know their meanings. This requires insight into the world outside of language and symbols.</p></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">Sensory input from the outside world is just patterns. Why should patterns of activation in cells of the retina allow for an understanding to develop, but not patterns of symbols in a corpus of text? The best I've gotten from you is that we don't know how the brain works, but this doesn't help convince me your view. Regardless of how the brain does it, we agree it does it. This indicates it is possible to develop understanding from an analysis of patterns. Therefore there must be some error in your reasoning or assumptions that lead you to conclude this is impossible.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"> Otherwise, with respect to mathematical symbols, we are merely carrying out the formal operations of mathematics with no understanding, which
is exactly what I believe GPT-4 does and can only do. <br>
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GPT-4 agrees, but it is not that I look to GPT-4 as the authority. I look to my own understanding of language models as the authority and I am relieved to see that I needn’t argue that GPT-4 is stating falsehoods as I was expecting when I first entered these
discussions some weeks ago. <br>
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I wonder why anyone feels it necessary to ascribe consciousness to language models in the first place. </p></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Why do we feel it important to ascribe conscious to other humans or to animals?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div><div><p class="MsoNormal">Outside of indulging our sci-fi fantasies, what purpose does this silly anthropomorphism serve? By Occam’s Razor, we should dismiss the idea as nonsense.<br></p></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto">Occam's razor is about minimizing assumptions and complexity of theories.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">For example, compare these two theories: </div><div dir="auto">1. consciousness supervenes on any information processing system.</div><div dir="auto">2. consciousness supervenes on any information processing system that uses living cells as it's computational substrate. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Regardless of whether either of these is true, one theory is simpler, as it doesn't introduce exceptions or complications that aren't necessary to fit the facts and observations.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Jason </div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div><div><p class="MsoNormal">
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