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BinaryDigit_ OP t1_iv2wge7 wrote

Reply to comment by Sashinii in Ray Kurzweil hits the nail on the head with this short piece. What do you think about computronium / utilitronium and hedonium? by BinaryDigit_

Do you think computronium validates pantheism in some way?

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Sashinii t1_iv2ycjb wrote

Universal computronium doesn't validate pantheism any more than Clarketech validates literal magic.

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Gaothaire t1_iv4naqr wrote

Donald Hoffman is a nice science friendly version of philosophical idealism, consciousness is primary and physical matter arises out of it as an interface for some subset of conscious agents to interact within.

And if you're able to accept that Western reductionist materialism is simply one limited perspective, you'll find that the universe is way more complicated and interactive than many people deeply bought in to that cosmology could ever believe.

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turnip_burrito t1_iv3mztv wrote

Did you mean to say pansychism? Also, the answer is No. It doesn't validate it, unless it can find a way to logically prove it is true.

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visarga t1_iv6hdgr wrote

Panpsychism is misguided. Mind is a property of agents, not a "fundamental and ubiquitous" property of the world. The mind and consciousness exists for a purpose - to keep the body alive by adapting to the environment.

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turnip_burrito t1_iv6vmk9 wrote

Panpsychism can also mean a mindlike aspect, such as qualia, not necessarily mind itself, is fundamental and ubiquitous. We truly don't know whether qualia is ubiquitous or not, since we have not so far found, and may never find, a way to test it. In this way, panpsychism is not misguided, but it is also not a scientifically testable concept either.

Thinking is what keeps complex agents alive in the environment, not necessarily qualia. Thinking (computation) and feeling may be separate, or may always coincide.

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visarga t1_iv93rk1 wrote

Wikipedia defines qualia as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. Thinking is part of that.

How can we think without feeling? We're not Platonic entities, we have real bodies with real needs. Feeling good or bad about an action or situation is required in order to survive.

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turnip_burrito t1_iv9582l wrote

You're right about the definition of thinking. I shouldn't have used the word "think".

I should amend my earlier statement. Replace instances of "thinking" in my statement with "computation". Qualia and survival behaviors due to computation are two circles which form a Venn diagram. Humans are in the center of it. This is what I meant to say.

Here is my argument for why we shouldn't treat computation and qualia as the same: computation can still result in survival, regardless of whether the entity actually feels anything or not.

It is reasonable to extrapolate current trends to hypothesize a robot which survives in the environment as well as any thinking human. But I would hesitate to say they feel anything. Does it feel like anything to be a robot? It's just performing boolean operations. Even rows of dominos can be arranged perform boolean operations. A long enough chain of self-righting dominos can also do sophisticated computations (very very slowly). But I wouldn't grant dominos the status of feeling, that would be preposterous. If you don't like the dominos example, just replace with a mechanical turing complete system of your choice. It seems to me then that intelligent computation (which can be used for survival) and feeling (qualia) are two different matters.

However, it is also possible that computation and qualia are never separate, even outside biological brains. In that case, pansychism would be true. But how could we know? For now, we can't, and we may never know.

Tl,dr: I think you are incorrectly assuming survival computations and ability to feel a subjective experience are both only present together, in a person or animal. I'm suggesting there is also a possibility they can exist separately. There is also a third possibility, that all computation (particle interactions) in the universe coincides with qualia, which is a form of panpsychism. Panpsychism doesn't require everything has "mind", it can just be the "mindlike aspect" of qualia.

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