throwawaydthrowawayd t1_j280yv5 wrote on December 30, 2022 at 8:30 AM

> Without consciousness, no understanding

You don't need consciousness nor philosophical understanding to do logic. We've already proven that with our current NNs - Just ask GPT3.5 to find bugs in your code, and that's nowhere near the limit of what NNs will be. Logic and reasoning are not as complex of tasks as we thought.

Mental-Swordfish7129 t1_j285dxl wrote on December 30, 2022 at 9:29 AM

I think "understanding" is not well defined often and this causes confusion. Some people mean the phenomenology of it; what it feels like subjectively. For me, this is unnecessarily ambiguous. Understanding can perhaps be better described in terms of evidence for its existence. If an agent appears to confidently and deftly move. If it demonstrates dexterity, for instance, we may conclude that the ensemble of units (not necessarily biological neurons) activating in concert represent understanding. We know subjectively that we can have both conscious and unconscious understanding using this definition. When you first are learning piano, any progress made is felt subjectively; you feel that you understand something. On the unconscious side of it, you are constantly refining motor skill behind the scenes. So, we know understanding should probably be defined as a process wholly independent of consciousness. A grasshopper may not be conscious, but could reasonably be said to "understand" how to chew and eat a leaf. What do you think?

reconditedreams t1_j285ng2 wrote on December 30, 2022 at 9:33 AM

This is a good point. I would recommened anyone interested in this difference between subjective understanding and functional understanding read "Blindsight" by Peter Watts. It's an interesting hard sci-fi novel which explores the nature of sentience and subjective awareness.

Mental-Swordfish7129 t1_j286pzh wrote on December 30, 2022 at 9:47 AM

I've been wanting to read it and then I forgot about it.

Mental-Swordfish7129 t1_j288pnc wrote on December 30, 2022 at 10:15 AM

Blindsight, the cognitive impairment, has always intrigued me. It's kind of spooky to think that probably "someone" that is not "you" is "experiencing vision" through "your" eyes while "you" sit in the dark.

It's astonishing what we have learned from these brain injuries and split-brain studies and such.

Mental-Swordfish7129 t1_j285rru wrote on December 30, 2022 at 9:34 AM

So, I'm in complete agreement with you. Understanding can surely be reduced to a cascade of non-trivial logical operations because understanding is only meaningful as a causal consequence. The non-trivial cascade produces an elaborate behavior and the sophistication of understanding present is evidenced.