Okay Egg
@yeastsplainer
"without memory no conscious sensations, without memory no consciousness" - Charles Richet, 1886
saying the obvious right now still feels like heresy to the credentialed. the sunk cost of prestige is a hell of a drug.
A partner at a prominent law firm told me “AI is now doing work that used to be done by 1st to 3rd year associates. AI can generate a motion in an hour that might take an associate a week. And the work is better. Someone should tell the folks applying to law school right now.”
The usual rebuttal is that there is no "observer" in the brain. Claiming there is one is the Cartesian homunculus error. I disagree. There is an "observer" but it's not an entity (like a soul), it's a function: memory. No memory = nothing is effectively seen/felt, etc.
Consciousness seems more like a relation, not a property - akin to seeing, observing, watching, monitoring... State theories - which treat consciousness as an aura/field/property associated with neural firing - can't capture this relational character
Treating consciousness as a seeing-like relation gives a beautiful, intuitive reason for unconsciousness: the unconscious is the unseen. Property-driven doctrines like panpsychism lack that resource
Consciousness seems more like a relation, not a property - akin to seeing, observing, watching, monitoring... State theories - which treat consciousness as an aura/field/property associated with neural firing - can't capture this relational character
Consciousness seems more like a relation, not a property - akin to seeing, observing, watching, monitoring... State theories - which treat consciousness as an aura/field/property associated with neural firing - can't capture this relational character
Weird contrast between this type of post, and the "my IQ (or my group's IQ) is superior" beefs/posturing you see all over X. Why are ppl so laser-focused on human IQ differences when we're all going to be the "dumb kid" soon?
the openai IMO news hit me pretty heavy this weekend i'm still in the acute phase of the impact, i think i consider myself a professional mathematician (a characterization some actual professional mathematicians might take issue with, but my party my rules) and i don't think i…
In the next year, I think we'll start to see some nontrivial mathematics conjectures proved with AI assistance. Most likely using creative connections between fields (AI is very good at this). If even a few of these proofs hold up, it means the dam is about to burst.
In fact, the whole day is like that. You believe you were conscious all day because you have a stream of memories covering the day. You rely on the principle "I have a memory of time X = I was conscious at time X". Memory provides a criterion of consciousness
It seems impossible to be conscious of the present moment in the present moment. Try it. 3-2-1... Now! The consciousness is always slightly delayed, looking back & thinking "yes, I was conscious when the moment struck." (excerpt from Gary Drescher)
It seems impossible to be conscious of the present moment in the present moment. Try it. 3-2-1... Now! The consciousness is always slightly delayed, looking back & thinking "yes, I was conscious when the moment struck." (excerpt from Gary Drescher)
It’s worth reflecting on just how fast AI progress has been, especially in math. In 2024, AI labs were using grade school math (GSM8K) as an eval in their model releases. Since then, we’ve saturated the (high school) MATH benchmark, then AIME, and now are at IMO gold.
Reasons why intentionality is a fiction: 1. No physical signs of "aboutness" of brain states. 2. LLMs think and refer just fine without it. 3. The meaning of a symbolic object or brain state is ill-defined, interpretative & social. What exactly is a thought pertaining to Moses…
Useful terminology for clarifying discussion of consciousness (from Lycan)
The classic theory of creativity has two stages: the clown (id) & the critic. The problem for AI is the self-contradictory tension of a "trained id." More training tends to degrade creativity, in both ppl and AI