[ben_w]

> Any consciousness or similar would need to arise via an independent mechanism.

Probably, but even then only due to there being a lot mechanisms and we don't know which of them is related to the subjective experience of existing that is the meaning of conscious I assume you're using here (there's something like 40 definitions of "consciousness").

But because we don't really know where the capacity for an inner experience even is, it's not impossible that even an LLM, which totally isn't designed with the goal of having it, might nevertheless have it.

(I really hope they don't, I statistically suspect they don't, I just can't rule it out).

[DennisP]

It's not impossible that rocks have consciousness. Some modern philosophers advocating pantheism think they just might.

Meanwhile, according to Sabine Hossenfelder, a recent paper shows evidence that Penrose was right about quantum effects happening in the brain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6G1D2UQ3gg

[Nevermark]

> Some modern philosophers advocating pantheism think they just might.

This is a terribly low bar. The map of “ Some modern philosophers” “think [something] just might” [something] is an incoherent patchwork.

I think that theorizing about things without hard evidence has value. What-if’s teach us a lot, by raising important questions, and keep our ideas flexible, preparing us for the next crazy insight that nature reveals.

But that isn’t the same as attributing any reliability to the as yet unproven enthusiasms of philosophers.

There is a clear case for a survival benefit for creatures whose awareness and control extends into their own thinking. Thus a reason consciousness would be one of many strategies evolution may produce.

What natural phenomena is explained by a conscious rock hypothesis? What would cause a rock to organize in such a way? Where is this information about itself encoded and experienced in a rock? It’s not a coherent conjecture.

[hackable_sand]

It is incoherent because it lacks evidence, not because the idea is absurd.

My computer is made from rocks.

[Nevermark]

Natural formation rock consciousness both lacks evidence and is absurd, as there isn’t even a coherent reason to think it might or could.

Your computer processes information, and can be configured to process information about itself. At least the possibility and potential utility exists that conscious computers may one day exist.

[hackable_sand]

Humans are a natural formatiom. The laws of science are our only real limit here so let's be honest about this.

[Nevermark]

That is a breathtakingly pedantic reading of what I said.

I used “natural” to distinguish minerals created via geologic processes, from minerals and elements intentionally processed into machines.

Similarly, evolution’s long process of accumulated innovations separate humans from our constituent elements as found in the geologic environment.

Both technological and evolutionary iterative and self-reinforcing adaptations provide a mechanism for complex coordinated high level information flows to arise aimed at survival (biological or economic) where consciousness has both a potential purpose and a plausible process for coming into being.

A lump of granite or obsidian presents no evidence of consciousness, no purpose for consciousness, and no plausible process for having accreted or transformed into something with consciousness.

The conjecture that such rocks may be conscious stands on equal footing to the conjecture that they are unicorns wearing magical rock-disguise cloaks.

[zamalek]

> t's not impossible that even an LLM, which totally isn't designed with the goal of having it, might nevertheless have it.

I was referring to the idea that a brain scan of a human could be copied into an LLM.

[ben_w]

Oh, in that case I agree. My understanding is LLMs (or at least GPT-architectures) aren't Turing machines, so they can't simulate arbitrary other systems even if you made them very big, and because of this my guess is that it would be extraordinarily unlikely for them to just happen to have the right shape and power for simulating a full human brain.