Before airplanes, the only form of flight was organic.
That doesn’t help your argument at all - flight was being demonstrated long, long before humans even existed to observe it. Can you say the same for non-organic consciousness?
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen too many scientists rushing to find ways of measuring the consciousness of rocks.
You are making my point. For millenia, we had examples of organic flight, yet many believed we couldn’t mimic that, and some thought it would be an affront to God to try, as it implied his perfect creation was lacking. And yet, now people fly every day.
No, there are no examples of inorganic consciousness at this time, but the same was true for flight 200 years ago. And we have a number of examples of organic consciousness. Scientists know better than to look for conscious rocks, just like the Wright brothers knew better than to look for flying rocks.
So where is your millenia’s worth of proof that inorganic consciousness is a thing? Do you have any proof that any mountain range on earth has managed consciousness in the last few hundreds of billions of years?
but the same was true for flight 200 years ago.
No, that’s not true. The Chinese have been making sky lanterns since the 3rd century BC - and doing so in a way that no organism on earth has managed (as far as I’m aware). So please stop with the useless “everybody once believed the earth was flat” nonsense.
No, there are no examples of inorganic consciousness
Correct. Your (so-called) “smartphone” is about as “conscious” as my rusty garden shears.
Scientists know better than to look for conscious rocks,
No, but to prove your point you will have to. I also have no idea why you’re so willing to die on this hill, because, even if you do manage to find a conscious rock that consciousness will still not function like software.
You will never prove a rock is conscious, just like you will never prove another human is conscious. You can only know your own consciousness. You can logically imply other humans (and other animals) are also conscious, but you cannot know it.
You keep putting your ignorance on display. The elements of flight are self-propelled and directed. Hot air balloons and sky lanterns are not self-directed - they are just floating, which, by the way, jellyfish and other organisms also did for millenia. Gliders and paper airplanes are not self-propelled - they are kept aloft via energy gained from the air and their initial launch.
Note that nowhere have I said that an inorganic or, more broadly, a synthetic consciousness is possible. I have said we don’t know enough to say it isn’t. Nor have I said how this thing we haven’t ruled out will be made. You have been making the bold assertions, not me. So what do you have besides your supreme confidence and bold assertions to back up your claims?
The elements of flight are self-propelled and directed.
Sky lanterns are self-propelled - as to your other dictate…
Gliders
…I’m going to tell a glider pilot what they do isn’t flying because some pretend-genius edgelordon the internet said so. I hope they get a good chuckle out of it.
The fact that this is what you choose to quibble about shows you’re just trying to distract from how silly your arguments are.
jellyfish and other organisms also did for millenia
I haven’t seen any jellyfish in the sky yet. Have you?
You have been making the bold assertions, not me.
It’s not a bold thing to assert that something that only exists in the imaginations of tech bros and sci-fi writers is based on a very flawed assumption that has more elements of religiosity to it than anything we can actually observe ourselves.
First, let me correct myself. All of my previous statements refer to powered flight.
And, once again, how is what you said about synthetic consciousness different than powered flight, except 200 years have passed? The only religiosity those tech pros and sci-fi writers you refer to express is that everything we have seen in the physical world follows the laws of nature, and that we can create things that follow those physical laws to achieve behavior we see in nature, such as powered flight and (the illusion of) consciousness.
Speculation on organic consciousness is pretty much esoteric, too, given that science can’t even reach a consensus on a definition of “consciousness” yet.
For that matter, the scientific boundary between “organic” and “inorganic” is really fuzzy.
Speculation on organic consciousness is pretty much esoteric, too,
I don’t disagree. I just don’t see any reason for even an esoteric basis to speculate that consciousness is in any way analogous to computer software simply because “we invented this thing so we must apply it’s logic to ourselves.” It smacks of the “machine” view of how the human body works that became prevalent in medicine after industrialisation - and even today it is still a way of understanding human physiology that causes far more problems than it solves.
That’s a different point to the one I was replying to. I was replying to your dismissal of the conversation as esoteric, based on it discussing specifically non-organic consciousness.
That’s because everybody arguing with me is conflating me saying that consciousness is not software with an attack on their favourite sci-fi genre (cyberpunk). And they’re completely missing the whole point of cyberpunk by doing so, if you ask me.
Why? Why could there not be a non-organic consciousness?
Going to take it a step further and say artificial life is just organic life with extra steps.
The concept of robots that continued to evolve post creators is not new to scifi.
In some ways our own body is simply an emergent complex machine of regenerative biodegradable micro hardware.
There maybe could, but it would be a different one from the person. A second consciousness that was copied.
To my knowledge we are nowhere close to being able to actually transfer a consciousness
The premise behind the videogame SOMA.
Exactly! One of my favorite game stories to date.
Of course we aren’t close. But the above poster was making a categorical statement that consciousness must be biological.
The only consciousness we have ever encountered is organic in nature - speculation on non-organic forms of consciousness is pretty much esoteric.
Ie, it depends on your religious beliefs.
Before airplanes, the only form of flight was organic. This was also a firmly held religious belief.
Our ignorance doesn’t mean something isn’t possible. It just means we don’t know if it is possible.
That doesn’t help your argument at all - flight was being demonstrated long, long before humans even existed to observe it. Can you say the same for non-organic consciousness?
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen too many scientists rushing to find ways of measuring the consciousness of rocks.
You are making my point. For millenia, we had examples of organic flight, yet many believed we couldn’t mimic that, and some thought it would be an affront to God to try, as it implied his perfect creation was lacking. And yet, now people fly every day.
No, there are no examples of inorganic consciousness at this time, but the same was true for flight 200 years ago. And we have a number of examples of organic consciousness. Scientists know better than to look for conscious rocks, just like the Wright brothers knew better than to look for flying rocks.
So where is your millenia’s worth of proof that inorganic consciousness is a thing? Do you have any proof that any mountain range on earth has managed consciousness in the last few hundreds of billions of years?
No, that’s not true. The Chinese have been making sky lanterns since the 3rd century BC - and doing so in a way that no organism on earth has managed (as far as I’m aware). So please stop with the useless “everybody once believed the earth was flat” nonsense.
Correct. Your (so-called) “smartphone” is about as “conscious” as my rusty garden shears.
No, but to prove your point you will have to. I also have no idea why you’re so willing to die on this hill, because, even if you do manage to find a conscious rock that consciousness will still not function like software.
You will never prove a rock is conscious, just like you will never prove another human is conscious. You can only know your own consciousness. You can logically imply other humans (and other animals) are also conscious, but you cannot know it.
And? None of this information is useful to me (or anyone else, either).
True. But it makes any discussion like the one you were arguing rather pointless.
You keep putting your ignorance on display. The elements of flight are self-propelled and directed. Hot air balloons and sky lanterns are not self-directed - they are just floating, which, by the way, jellyfish and other organisms also did for millenia. Gliders and paper airplanes are not self-propelled - they are kept aloft via energy gained from the air and their initial launch.
Note that nowhere have I said that an inorganic or, more broadly, a synthetic consciousness is possible. I have said we don’t know enough to say it isn’t. Nor have I said how this thing we haven’t ruled out will be made. You have been making the bold assertions, not me. So what do you have besides your supreme confidence and bold assertions to back up your claims?
Sky lanterns are self-propelled - as to your other dictate…
…I’m going to tell a glider pilot what they do isn’t flying because some pretend-genius edgelordon the internet said so. I hope they get a good chuckle out of it.
The fact that this is what you choose to quibble about shows you’re just trying to distract from how silly your arguments are.
I haven’t seen any jellyfish in the sky yet. Have you?
It’s not a bold thing to assert that something that only exists in the imaginations of tech bros and sci-fi writers is based on a very flawed assumption that has more elements of religiosity to it than anything we can actually observe ourselves.
First, let me correct myself. All of my previous statements refer to powered flight.
And, once again, how is what you said about synthetic consciousness different than powered flight, except 200 years have passed? The only religiosity those tech pros and sci-fi writers you refer to express is that everything we have seen in the physical world follows the laws of nature, and that we can create things that follow those physical laws to achieve behavior we see in nature, such as powered flight and (the illusion of) consciousness.
Speculation on organic consciousness is pretty much esoteric, too, given that science can’t even reach a consensus on a definition of “consciousness” yet.
For that matter, the scientific boundary between “organic” and “inorganic” is really fuzzy.
I don’t disagree. I just don’t see any reason for even an esoteric basis to speculate that consciousness is in any way analogous to computer software simply because “we invented this thing so we must apply it’s logic to ourselves.” It smacks of the “machine” view of how the human body works that became prevalent in medicine after industrialisation - and even today it is still a way of understanding human physiology that causes far more problems than it solves.
Ie, there’s no speculative basis for it.
That’s a different point to the one I was replying to. I was replying to your dismissal of the conversation as esoteric, based on it discussing specifically non-organic consciousness.
That’s because everybody arguing with me is conflating me saying that consciousness is not software with an attack on their favourite sci-fi genre (cyberpunk). And they’re completely missing the whole point of cyberpunk by doing so, if you ask me.
That’s fine but, again, not the point I was responding to
Yes, and I’m not responding to your original point because, again, I don’t disagree with it.