Dennis Hackethal’s Blog
My blog about philosophy, coding, and anything else that interests me.
Tweets
An archive of my tweets and retweets through . They may be formatted slightly differently than on Twitter. API access has since gotten prohibitively expensive – I don't know whether or when I'll be able to update this archive.
But in case I will, you can subscribe via RSS – without a Twitter account. Rationale
@Donqua2 @Numb3rPi @DavidDeutschOxf
Es gibt auch ein Diskussionsforum, wo man sich ueber das Buch austauschen kann: groups.google.com/g/der-anfang-d…
David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity has a great chapter detailing why this pretense is not only false but mathematically impossible:
New blog post: ‘Pathfinding in Unity’
We become conscious of the disappointed expectation of there being another step.
The dog ‘learns’ that, yes, but not creatively, just by updating parameters according to inborn mechanisms.
New blog post: ‘Controlling a Character’s Movements in Unity’
New blog post: 'Being a Beginner Again'
That’s Popper’s example, IIRC. In any case, humans don’t learn how to deal with an unexpected stair through reinforcement.
That's not error correction, it's negative reinforcement.
RT @TheBabylonBee:
Australian Hospitals Over Capacity With People Beaten By Police For Not Wearing Masks babylonbee.com/news/australia…
Steve Jobs understanding the importance of criticism and error correction: twitter.com/SJobs_Stories/…
I understand that. But are you aware that people who don’t seek hard-to-vary explanations are still people?
The creativity component has to [...] select the most hard-to-vary [trial model] that it produced.
You're trying to build a rational AGI, a kind of 'explanation machine', which isn't what the project of AGI is about.
In your model is there some point [of complexity] where you’d agree that it makes sense to say it’s “aware”[?]
No, I think it has nothing to do with complexity: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/animal-s…
It sounds like you’re saying it makes no sense to say a function is aware of what values was given to it upon execution?
yes
This case demonstrates the possible reach of the term “awareness”.
It demonstrates a dilution of 'awareness' to meaninglessness.
They’re just calling things ‘public health threats’ now so they can exercise more power over them. twitter.com/disclosetv/sta…
In all seriousness, a while back a fellow libertarian and I put together an FAQ for when you get asked for the 100th time who’d build the roads… You can just link to the corresponding heading, it’s already written for you. Hope somebody finds this useful
‘Who’d build the roads’ also really got me thinking and I’m afraid I don’t have answer so I’m not a libertarian anymore either. twitter.com/lockoutdays/st…
This is not an uncommon way to explain what a function does.
I have been a programmer for some ten years and I've never heard that. Also I'm not sure how it's supposed to help understand consciousness?
It sounds to me like you misunderstand the role of evidence.
We know this thanks to my neo-Darwinian approach to the mind: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/the-neo-…
fair enough, I genuinely thought most people thought the dog made conscious decisions, as people usually do
Then making those universal won't be enough. Being able to explore more an existing landscape doesn't make those programs the creators of that landscape: artbrain.org/image-gallery/….
How could this meat robot do that without being conscious? (Watch till the end first)
I suspect the video is a trick: the dog was trained to go over this exact sequence dozens of times with human guidance until it was good enough its owner could make the video to fool people. twitter.com/AnimalNoContex…
That sounds like something that's automatable and already commonplace. So we'd need to ask why applications that do this aren't already conscious, or, if they are, why we haven't noticed.
That's not what I mean when I say 'awareness'. It's too broad a definition. An addition algorithm isn't 'aware' of the parameters it is given like humans are of their surroundings when awake, and calling it that is stretching the concept of 'awareness' to meaninglessness.
Before I answer what may be wrong with what you suggested, let me make sure I understand. By "consciousness is [...] connecting one’s knowledge processing to the broader causal network" you mean integrating new knowledge into one's existing knowledge?
I meant the word "simply" in particular. Once we know how it works it may seem simple in hindsight but right now it's a huge unknown and a difficult problem.
I'd be careful saying things like 'consciousness is simply...' There have been lots of 'explanations' of that sort and so far they have all been wrong.
Awareness seems to, the other ones I don't think so.
Same, I think: twitter.com/dchackethal/st…
(But note that not all "post-programmed behaviour" would be evidence of intelligence.)
Do a search for "The only alternative that is left is that consciousness has to do with the creation of knowledge" on that page.
RT @HumanProgress:
We've all seen the name Pasteur on our milk cartons.
But the French scientist did more than just invent pasteurization…
New blog post: 'A Programmer’s Guide to Revolutions'
I'm not certain and I'm not striving for certainty or reasons for belief.
I think there are several good explanations here: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/animal-s…
@Enasnil @RichardDawkins
Deutsch also explains this here: youtu.be/zoem4rRDms0?t=…
Competing hypotheses are rarely ambiguous so I don't see a problem there. At least I can't remember running into that.
Not familiar with the problems of introspection.
@Enasnil @RichardDawkins
Just because science demotes humans doesn't mean it's wrong not to demote them. (I'd claim the opposite: it is immoral to demote them.)
So yes: humans are special and do have a higher purpose than anything else in the universe. (See David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity)
Studying the mind directly through epistemology. Karl Popper and David Deutsch have done great work in this area.
No, it's got nothing to do with certainty. It has to do with how good our explanations are.
People used to be very certain that the sun revolves around the earth. How certain we are that animals can or cannot suffer has no bearing on whether they can.
Somebody needs to read The Beginning of Infinity. twitter.com/RBReich/status…
New blog post: 'Animal-Sentience Discussion Tree'
@LytollisRyan @ClimateWarrior7
Ryan importantly points out that there's not just a single climate change. There are multiple "climate changes", each caused by straight white men. In light of this multiplicity we need #climatelockdowns now.
That the brain should be studied to understand consciousness: twitter.com/dchackethal/st…
Like wire in a radio "causing" the voices...
Yeah, that's a nice analogy. Actually, much deeper than a mere analogy.
Again, don't worry about the brain. If we built a computer made of cotton candy and vacuum tubes and programmed it to be conscious you wouldn't study the special properties of cotton candy to understand consciousness, would you?
Hard to walk away from Roger Penrose when the logic supports his position. Every statement is true until shown to be false.
If that's Penrose's stance: isn't it ironic that you speak of 'support' and then in the next sentence claim that support isn't necessary?
@hig_james @BallWw123f @RichardDawkins
Ah, yes. More specificity is needed. Perhaps something like: electrical signals that result in retreat/not doing something again/negative reinforcement more generally.
Would that be better?
@hig_james @BallWw123f @RichardDawkins
You writing that tweet was also driven by electrical signals in your brain. As is ~everything you do. So that doesn't tell us much.
@Enasnil @RichardDawkins
but this would give more importance to humans
What's wrong with that?
[would] make it more likely that this life is some kind of game, test, soul development or simulation.
Why?
I don't the word 'reflex' once in my blog post but if you mean 'algorithmic' here's your answer:
blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/animal-s…
All mammals have a dive reflex, the presence of it in dogs is not surprising
I didn't say it was.
@Annascreativemo @RichardDawkins
You've clearly never seen a dog suffer from separate anxiety.
I have. I've also seen tons of videos said to be 'evidence' that animals are conscious people have thrown at me but so far I've always been able to explain why those videos are not, in fact, evidence.
Yes, humans are animals that suffer, but it doesn't follow that all animals suffer:
@Pyrrho19 @BallWw123f @RichardDawkins
You shouldn't read something you don't want to read.
You did start reading, then you encountered a problem (you didn't like the term 'bug'). I explained why it fits well. The post should make more sense to you now but you're welcome not to read it.
@BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
IIRC he has, and he's explained why that doesn't make sense because before the earth existed there weren't days.
@fman123 @BallWw123f @Pyrrho19 @RichardDawkins
Science moving on "a great deal" is the point: 10, 100, or 1000 years from now people may well say the same thing about our view of animals.
@BasedGuy7 @BallWw123f @RichardDawkins
Re behaviors read blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/animal-s… and re nervous systems read blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/animal-s…
@hig_james @BallWw123f @RichardDawkins
Are you talking about suffering more generally [...] or [...] the suffering associated with pain?
Depends on the context. Generally both. It's actually really important that humans can suffer without any physical pain being present.
@hig_james @BallWw123f @RichardDawkins
How are you distinguishing pain and suffering?
Pain, to me, is physical: electrical signals.
@oldvillagesage @RichardDawkins
@Captain_Concept @FluffyKittyA @RichardDawkins
Assuming it is narcissistic, does that have any bearing on the truth of the matter?
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
It doesn't explain anything [...]
It explains a great deal: it explains what people are, an age-old question, finally answered by Deutsch.
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
Saying that individual humans are instantiations of a program is like Plato's claim that individual things participate in their Ideal form [...]
It isn't. Plato's got nothing to do with this.
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
There's no conflict between animal behavior being algorithmic and goal-oriented.
Re affective & common sense: common sense is often wrong so that something is common sense doesn't tell us much.
@grain99806254 @Der_Prometheus @RichardDawkins
Algorithmic means behavior such as this: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/buggy-do…
And I'm not trying to prove anything.
@J318Ryke @LouiseH74531141 @RichardDawkins
But until this isnt proven without doubt no ethical conclusion can be made.
That can never be done because we are fallible and proving theories is impossible (Karl Popper).
@J318Ryke @LouiseH74531141 @RichardDawkins
It is irresponsible to use scientific theories to justify suffering.
I agree. That would be scientism. But I don't use science to justify suffering, because I use philosophy, and I don't justify suffering. IF animals can suffer, I think we shouldn't harm them.
And there's nothing humans can do that a computer with enough space & speed + the right programming & input/output devices couldn't do.
[...] humans can look at simple code and know with certainty that it results in an endless loop [...]
They can't know that with certainty. They can always be mistaken about how the code or the underlying hardware works.
If you loved The Beginning of Infinity why aren't you taking the ideas in it seriously and wasting your time thinking about the brain when you should be thinking about the mind?
We'd need more detail in neurology to use this to rule out consciousness of any level in animals, I think.
You can't need more detail in something that's already ruled out as impertinent.
There are pertinent neurological details that apply.
Computational universality rules that out.
@SmashAGrape @q_douglashofsta @davideagleman
David Deutsch cites I am a Strange Loop and writes in The Beginning of Infinity:
Following Dennett, Hofstadter eventually concludes that the ‘I’ is an illusion.
That sounds like Hofstadter outright denies that consciousness exists, not like he thinks it’s a spectrum.
Idk. I read GEB to the halfway point. Not a fan.