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.
I have no idea why everyone here absolutely insists on having this thoroughly pointless argument with me at all. I merely stated that which should be obvious - consciousness is not software - and lots of people were, apparently, offended by that because a bunch of tech bros pretended it does.
But consciousness could easily be a manifestation of ‘software’. You can’t know. You can’t know what it is; you can’t even prove it exists outside of your own experience. So when you make definitive statements like that, you will often get people pointing out that you are wrong. It’s not a matter of being offended any more than being offended at any untruth being spread as if fact.
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.
And, once again, how is what you said about synthetic consciousness different than powered flight,
You mean… apart from the fact that we have had proof of it’s possibility for millions of years?
The only religiosity those tech pros and sci-fi writers you refer to
No, I’m afraid that the idea that consciousness works like software is deeply rooted in the religious idea that the body and soul is separate from each other - in spite of the fact that reality tells us a much, much different story. If you think consciousness works like software, you might just as well believe disembodied spirits are floating around graveyards - both beliefs fundamentally require the same view of consciousness.
If your speculation is that consciousness is rooted in the hardware, then synthetic consciousness is an engineering problem, and humanity is very good at solving engineering problems. The fact is, the only thing scientists have found that is really different between the neurons in simple life forms such as jellyfish and us is the level of complexity, hence the speculation of consciousness being emergent behavior. Again, I don’t know, and I haven’t heard of scientists definitively knowing the source of consciousness, either, which is why I continue to maintain that we don’t know if we can create synthetic consciousness because it’s really hard to make something if you don’t know how it works. As far as our current crop of tech bros, they seem to be relying on the idea of emergent behavior, hence the need for ever-more-complex artificial intelligence. I think they’re behaving like cargo cults, building something that superficially resembles the thing they want and hoping it just starts to mystically work. Them being wrong, just like cargo cults and airplanes, doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to create a synthetic consciousness.
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.
I have no idea why everyone here absolutely insists on having this thoroughly pointless argument with me at all. I merely stated that which should be obvious - consciousness is not software - and lots of people were, apparently, offended by that because a bunch of tech bros pretended it does.
But consciousness could easily be a manifestation of ‘software’. You can’t know. You can’t know what it is; you can’t even prove it exists outside of your own experience. So when you make definitive statements like that, you will often get people pointing out that you are wrong. It’s not a matter of being offended any more than being offended at any untruth being spread as if fact.
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.
You mean… apart from the fact that we have had proof of it’s possibility for millions of years?
No, I’m afraid that the idea that consciousness works like software is deeply rooted in the religious idea that the body and soul is separate from each other - in spite of the fact that reality tells us a much, much different story. If you think consciousness works like software, you might just as well believe disembodied spirits are floating around graveyards - both beliefs fundamentally require the same view of consciousness.
If your speculation is that consciousness is rooted in the hardware, then synthetic consciousness is an engineering problem, and humanity is very good at solving engineering problems. The fact is, the only thing scientists have found that is really different between the neurons in simple life forms such as jellyfish and us is the level of complexity, hence the speculation of consciousness being emergent behavior. Again, I don’t know, and I haven’t heard of scientists definitively knowing the source of consciousness, either, which is why I continue to maintain that we don’t know if we can create synthetic consciousness because it’s really hard to make something if you don’t know how it works. As far as our current crop of tech bros, they seem to be relying on the idea of emergent behavior, hence the need for ever-more-complex artificial intelligence. I think they’re behaving like cargo cults, building something that superficially resembles the thing they want and hoping it just starts to mystically work. Them being wrong, just like cargo cults and airplanes, doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to create a synthetic consciousness.