Comment by sriku | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sriku | Hacker News Reader

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There is a lot of discussion about "functional programming" without a consensus on what constitutes that and what are paraphernalia.

A notion exists in a word form when it has some definition, even if it cannot be articulated well. Here by "definition" I mean something like "the ability to categorize examples even if fuzzily", i.e. saying that "a rock is not conscious while a human is" already indicates the existence of a definition. Note that this doesn't require that you be able to describe the category in a nice precise sentence.

Through dialogue, critique, experiments, we can gradually construct a specific sense for the word that a group of people can work on. Take "energy" for instance. The word existed before physicists defined it precisely, and even the definition within that domain evolved when quantum mechanics came around. Furthermore, the usage of the word isn't limited to contexts in physics only.

Is it worthless to ponder "what might a physics definition of consciousness be?".

Definitely not worthless to ponder "what might a physics definition of consciousness be?"

But definitely utterly worthless to ponder "Is consciousness an illusion?" without knowing the definition of consciousness.

"Is consciousness an illusion?" IS positing a definition of consciousness.

In the phrase "Is Life an illusion?" life is not being redefined as an illusion. It is more of a categorization, similar to "Is an apple a fruit?"

Here's a ludicrous question: "Is spirituality a fruit?" Whatever feeling you get when reading that phrase, it's the same feeling I get when reading the title of this article.

i see what you're saying, but i disagree with your premise. particularly in light of both the article and the parent comments. consciousness is a defacto categorisation because we cannot point to a distinct thing which defines it.

we have a shared understanding of consciousness which is separate from 'just' life (ie.apes are conscious but plants are not) but also separate from merely categorisation (ie.we think there are fundamental differences between conscious and not conscious). like when a syndrome becomes a disease.. we are looking for some thing we can point to and say this why we have this set of symptoms.

but this article is suggesting is that possibly there actually is no difference between conscious and not conscious, and that perhaps we are looking for the wrong thing. that is, they are suggesting that consciousness is not a thing, but an emergent illusion / experience.

Exactly. This is a great description and may end up being the state of things forever. A precise definition likely requires that the thing being defined is significantly less complicated than the thing defining it. I suspect a proper physics definition of consciousness would necessitate singularity-quality general AI. But then you'd be unable to define the distinction between those consciousnesses and the more advanced one that was defining them.

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