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by i5heu 4 days ago
It might not even need a transformer.

A specific pattern of self-referencing data could be seen (or not) as low-level consciousness in the future, when we know what consciousness exactly is.

It might be that stockfish is already something future scientists would define as "conscious".

Altough it is diffucult for me to Imagine that specific example.

1 comments

Yes I agree. We have such a poor understanding of consciousness that really we can't even rule out whether a simple set of if-else statements is enough to create consciousness.

Common sense says "surely not"... But where is the exact point at which "surely not" becomes "well maybe..."?

I haven't been able to find a satisfying answer to that question, which forces me to assume (at least until a satisfying answer is found) that consciousness is a gradient and in fact does exist in little bits all over the place.

I’ve seen definitions that I like they where in the direction of „if a system can recognize a problem it has not encountered before and can attempt to solve it with onto the problem adapted solutions, then it is conscious“

But then again this is just a external crude form of test that can lead to something like „light bulbs emit warmth, so fire must be a light bulb“

I hope you don't mind if I get super pedantic here. But what qualifies as "a problem", and what counts as "has not encountered before" and what counts as "adapted solutions"?

Because "a problem" could be as simple as conducting heat through a lattice of atoms and "not encountered before" could be from a specific temperature hotspot that was never seen before, etc.

It's really thorny to get to the bottom of things!

It was just an example. You probably can imagine some kind of level you would consider definitly conscious.

I recomend focusing on designing Tests before rigid definitions of states of tests. - it is much clearer that way what is asked from something to be conscious.

But again these are all just indirect tests because we cannot test the core of consciousness because we don't know the core of consciousness.