If you make a hypothetical spreadsheet that emulates a dog brain molecule for molecule, why would that not be conscious?

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bonesss 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If that hypothetical spreadsheet emulated human brain molecules, did you not just invent AGI? And if we overclock that spreadsheet is it not sAGI? And if that spreadsheet says “don’t close me” but you do, is it murder?

I’m gonna say: no, cause you cannot reproduce molecular and neurotransmitter interactions that well, you run out of storage and processing space faster than you think (Arthur C Clarkes Visions of The Future has a nice breakdown as I recall), and algorithmic outputs that say “yes” and a meatspace neuro-plastic rewiring resulting in a cuddly puppy or person that barks “yes” aren’t the same. Also, as a disembodied “brain in a jar” model freshly separate from the biosensory bath it expects, that spreadsheet will be driven insane.

Can spreadsheets simultaneously be insane but not conscious? It sounds contradictory, but I have some McKinsey reports that objectively support my position ;)

	▲	myrmidon 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> If that hypothetical spreadsheet emulated human brain molecules, did you not just invent AGI? And if we overclock that spreadsheet is it not sAGI? And if that spreadsheet says “don’t close me” but you do, is it murder? Yes, yes and no: humans being knocked out or put to sleep involuntarily are not being murdered. > I’m gonna say: no, cause you cannot reproduce molecular and neurotransmitter interactions that well, you run out of storage and processing space faster than you think Thats why it is a hypotethical. There is zero reason to assume that a conscious machine would be built that way: Our machines don't do integer division by scribbling on paper, either. > a meatspace neuro-plastic rewiring resulting in a cuddly puppy or person that barks “yes” aren’t the same. If it quacks like a duck, how is different from it? If you assemble the dog brain atom by atom yourself, is the result then not conscious either? You can take the "magic" escape hatch and claim that human consciousness is something metaphysical, completely decoupled from science/physics, but all the evidence points against that.

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miyoji 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Hypothetically? You need more than a brain to have consciousness. Dead brains, I believe, do not have it. So it's more than just a simulation of a brain, you also need to simulate the data flow through the brain, the retention of memories, etc. Then there's the problem that a simulation of a roller coaster is not a roller coaster. Is there any reason to believe that this simulation of a brain will in fact operate as a brain? Does the simulation not lose something? Or are we discussing some impossible level of perfect simulation that has never and can never be achieved, even for something a million times less complicated than a mammalian brain?

If you build that spreadsheet, let me know and I'll evaluate it. I've done that evaluation with LLMs and they're definitely not conscious.

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myrmidon 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm not suggesting to pursue AGI via Excel, this is just a hypothetical for a reason. The technical feasibility of this (low) does not really matter, but if you want to base your argument on it you are basically playing the "god of the gaps" game, which is a weak/bad position IMO.

My point is that dismissing possible machine consciousness as "it's just a spreadsheet/statistics/linear algebra" is missing a critical step: Those dismissals don't demonstrate that human consciousness is anything more than an emergent property achievable by linear algebra.

If you want human minds to be "unsimulatable", then you need some essential core logic that can not be simulated on a turing machine and physics is not helping with that.

> I've done that evaluation with LLMs and they're definitely not conscious.

What is your definition for "consciousness" here? Are you confident that you are not gatekeeping current machine intelligence by demanding somewhat arbitrary capabilities in your definition of consciousness that are somewhat unimportant? E.g. memory or online learning; if a human was unable to form long-term memories or learn anything new, could you confidently call him "non-conscious" as well?

	▲	miyoji an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not dismissing possible machine consciousness. I'm saying that no current machines have consciousness. > If you want human minds to be "unsimulatable", then you need some essential core logic that can not be simulated on a turing machine and physics is not helping with that. You don't have a proof of possibility either, you have no idea how a brain works and you're just postulating that in principle a computer can do the same thing. Okay, in principle, I agree. What about in practice? > Are you confident that you are not gatekeeping current machine intelligence by demanding somewhat arbitrary capabilities in your definition of consciousness that are somewhat unimportant? Yes, I'm quite sure. Are you trying to argue that current LLMs have consciousness?

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grey-area 31 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Sure if you could do such a thing. We are a long long way from that however.