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Comment on Our understanding of reality might be a result of the way cousciousness works

CannonFodder@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

We don’t have proof that consciousness is the result of a physical process. But there’s no reason to think it isn’t. You can make up anything and say it’s unknowable, and nobody can prove this false; but it’s pretty much useless. Sure you can stick with ‘I think therefore I am’ as the only knowable thing, but it won’t get you very far. The physical world as science has self-consistently explained has been shown to be very practical, specifically with prediction of observation. Consciousness seems different, but there’s no real reason to assume it is.

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AnDoLiN@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Thing is that science cannot prove matter is prior either, yet that is taken as the core assumption that all other assumptions must align to.

This is the scientific version of Christians saying “god is real, says so in the bible, and because bible was written by god, it must be true”.

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- CannonFodder@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Science can’t prove anything. It seeks to build comprehensive models that agree with observations by disproving those that don’t. It is specifically built in a way that uses predictions based on theory and then tests them. This process is used to avoid making useless and unknowable additions. That, and its inherent nature to question everything, is what makes it fundamentally different from religeon. However, it is based on an assumption that the universe makes sense as a physical construct. And that is because there is no other useful starting point. You can try to build a model of the universe based on any gibberish of feelings, but it isn’t useful in any way.
  
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  - AnDoLiN@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    You can try to build a model of the universe based on any gibberish of feelings, but it isn’t useful in any way.
    
    Useful to what end? The very idea that you need to build a model is based on believing in a system that thinks the model is important.
    
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    CannonFodder@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    A model is an understanding of how it works. It allows one to predict how things might react in different general cases, which can be very useful for innovation. You don’t need to try understand things if you don’t want to, but it’s a bit ignorant sounding.
    
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ageedizzle@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

But there’s no reason to think it isn’t.

That’s not the case. This is a very active area in academic philosophy and there are, objectively speaking, several reasons to think that consciousness is not solely a material process (whether or not you think these are good reasons is for you to decide). For an accessible introduction to this topic I recommend Facing up to the problem of consciousness by David Chalmers. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on the Knowledge Argument is also a good intro if you are looking to dive right into something a bit more technical.

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- CannonFodder@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yeah thanks, you can keep that naval gazing. Consciousness can never be the subject of science since it cannot be measured. It’s all conjecture and metaphysics. I don’t see the point of trying to classify it, since one can never test a theory.
  The argument that consciousness isn’t based on the physicality of the brain is silly. When you attribute consciousness to magic, if magic is real, then magic is a part of physics - it’s just physics that isn’t understood. We cannot know if something is or isn’t conscious. So we cannot know if AI is or can be conscious. Any argument that it definitely isn’t or can’t be conscious is therefore wrong.
  
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  - ageedizzle@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    Consciousness can never be the subject of science since it cannot be measured. It’s all conjecture and metaphysics
    
    Notice that I said this is a very active topic in academic philosophy (not science). I literally sent you links to what professional metaphysicians have to say on this topic. Do you really think you can contribute more to this topic in one lemmy comment than experts who have studied this problem for their entire careers?
    
    it cannot be measure
    
    This is exactly one of the reasons why it poses a problem. Physical things can be measured but consciousness can’t.
    
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    CannonFodder@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    So what’s the point of saying AI can’t be conscious? That’s where we started here. It’s a stupid argument that’s clearly wrong.
    
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