[ExI] LLM's cannot be concious

[Jason Resch]

On Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 10:49 PM Gordon Swobe via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 7:35 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 6:18 PM Gordon Swobe via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I think it was Adrian who asked you that question. A referent as I use
>>> the term is something that exists outside of language to which a word
>>> refers. You have an apple in your hand and you say "this is an apple." The
>>> apple in your hand is the referent that corresponds to your word "apple."
>>>
>>> As for whether referents are data, it is unclear to me how referents
>>> could be data. I am inclined to say no but I am not sure what Adrain is
>>> getting at here.
>>>
>>
>> Ah, I thought you meant that the referent was the *fact that* that was an
>> apple, rather than the referent being the apple itself.  Facts are data;
>> objects (such as apples) are not.
>>
>
> I wouldn't say that referents are necessarily physical objects, however.
> They are simply whatever the word is pointing to outside of language, which
> could be an idea or abstract concept to which we assign a label in order to
> verbalize it.
>
> Giovanni, from your other post, it is not it is not at all clear to me
> that the language of mathematics has no referents. ChatGPT explained that
> is not the case when you asked it, but nevermind what it says. I think a
> sentence like 1+1=2 refers to a mathematical truth that exists separate
> from the numerical expression of it.  The expression is the "word" or
> "sentence" and abstract mathematical truth is the referent.
>


I agree, you could say mathematical truth exists outside language. But one
thing this does highlight is there are many things you know about despite
never having that object in hand to point and look at. You've never seen
the abstract object '2'. You've never seen the core of the earth, or an
electron. We lack sensory access to these things and so everything we know
about them we know only through language. How do we come to understand
things like '2' or electrons?

Jason



> -gts
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