Can qualia be separated from personhood?

  Tyler Mills commented on idea #5044.

That's what I get for suddenly returning to this discussion after a long gap. I was thinking that any computation can be recorded and re-run at will, in principle. So qualia can too. But indeed, I have suggested in this discussion that it is the evolution of programs that causes experience, and evolution cannot be scripted. This means a quale that is recorded will not "qualiate" if it is rerun exactly as recorded.

TL;DR: I don't.

#5044​·​Tyler MillsOP, 1 day ago

My suspicion remains that creativity and qualia come from some kind of blind exchange between layers of emergence, of which mutations and mistakes in copying, as seen in DNA, are an example.

  Tyler Mills commented on criticism #5040.

A quale can be recorded and replayed later, arbitrarily many times.

How do you know this?

#5040​·​Dennis Hackethal, 8 days ago

That's what I get for suddenly returning to this discussion after a long gap. I was thinking that any computation can be recorded and re-run at will, in principle. So qualia can too. But indeed, I have suggested in this discussion that it is the evolution of programs that causes experience, and evolution cannot be scripted. This means a quale that is recorded will not "qualiate" if it is rerun exactly as recorded.

TL;DR: I don't.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #5038.

A quale can be recorded and replayed later, arbitrarily many times. That looping program is not a person: it can only create whatever knowledge it originally did, not any possible knowledge, maybe until freed from the loop. Yet it still constitutes experience.
So people are not the only programs that can be qualia.

#5038​·​Tyler MillsOP revised 11 days ago

A quale can be recorded and replayed later, arbitrarily many times.

How do you know this?

  Tyler Mills revised criticism #5031.

A quale can be recorded and replayed later, arbitrarily many times. That looping program is not a person (no knowledge is created, however many times it loops, for instance), but it still constitutes experience.
So people are not the only programs that can be qualia.

A quale can be recorded and replayed later, arbitrarily many times. That looping program is not a person: it can only create whatever knowledge it originally did, not any possible knowledge, maybe until freed from the loop. Yet it still constitutes experience.
So people are not the only programs that can be qualia.

  Tyler Mills addressed criticism #5032.

Actually maybe this isn't so obvious. A person need not create new knowledge for the personhood property to be present, since it is a counterfactual property: a person can create new knowledge (new and non-inferable, I argue).

#5032​·​Tyler MillsOP, 11 days ago

True that a person need not create new knowledge, but a looping quale is not a person, per #5035, so the claim survives this criticism.

  Tyler Mills addressed criticism #5033.

If qualia are only present when new knowledge is being made, then for a quale to be replayed it could be that there must be a reset each time: the knowledge produced from the previous run is erased. So w.r.t. the AGI system alone, new knowledge is being created each time (it doesn't matter if the knowledge is copied from a previous run and stored elsewhere, in which case it is not new w.r.t. that combined system).

#5033​·​Tyler MillsOP, 11 days ago

True, knowledge could be created from each run of a quale, but a looping quale isn't a person, per #5035, so the claim in #5031 that not only people can undergo experience still stands.

  Tyler Mills commented on idea #5034.

A looping quale is also not a person because personhood is not just: can create a given piece of new knowledge, it is: can create any knowledge (not just that created by this quale; again assuming knowledge creation defines qualia).

#5034​·​Tyler MillsOP, 11 days ago

Should clarify that personhood is: can create any new knowledge in principle (excluding resource constraints). A program consisting of a looping quale cannot create any possible knowledge, whether or not it is creating some each time it's run.

  Tyler Mills commented on criticism #5031.

A quale can be recorded and replayed later, arbitrarily many times. That looping program is not a person (no knowledge is created, however many times it loops, for instance), but it still constitutes experience.
So people are not the only programs that can be qualia.

#5031​·​Tyler MillsOP, 11 days ago

A looping quale is also not a person because personhood is not just: can create a given piece of new knowledge, it is: can create any knowledge (not just that created by this quale; again assuming knowledge creation defines qualia).

  Tyler Mills addressed criticism #5031.

A quale can be recorded and replayed later, arbitrarily many times. That looping program is not a person (no knowledge is created, however many times it loops, for instance), but it still constitutes experience.
So people are not the only programs that can be qualia.

#5031​·​Tyler MillsOP, 11 days ago

If qualia are only present when new knowledge is being made, then for a quale to be replayed it could be that there must be a reset each time: the knowledge produced from the previous run is erased. So w.r.t. the AGI system alone, new knowledge is being created each time (it doesn't matter if the knowledge is copied from a previous run and stored elsewhere, in which case it is not new w.r.t. that combined system).

  Tyler Mills addressed criticism #5031.

A quale can be recorded and replayed later, arbitrarily many times. That looping program is not a person (no knowledge is created, however many times it loops, for instance), but it still constitutes experience.
So people are not the only programs that can be qualia.

#5031​·​Tyler MillsOP, 11 days ago

Actually maybe this isn't so obvious. A person need not create new knowledge for the personhood property to be present, since it is a counterfactual property: a person can create new knowledge (new and non-inferable, I argue).

  Tyler Mills criticized idea #4881.

Assumption A1: Only programs that are people can, while running, constitute qualia/experience/subjectivity/consciousness.

#4881​·​Tyler MillsOP revised about 2 months ago

A quale can be recorded and replayed later, arbitrarily many times. That looping program is not a person (no knowledge is created, however many times it loops, for instance), but it still constitutes experience.
So people are not the only programs that can be qualia.

  Tyler Mills started a bounty for idea #4889 worth USD 30.00.
  Tyler Mills revised idea #4887.

The above idea (#4751) is the only solution to the "PROBLEM" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternative solutions).

Whether the above idea (#4751) is refuted or not, there are no viable alternative solutions to the "PROBLEM" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternative solutions).

  Tyler Mills revised idea #4885.

The above idea (#4751) is the only solution to the "apple problem" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternative solutions).

The above idea (#4751) is the only solution to the "PROBLEM" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternative solutions).

  Tyler Mills revised idea #4883.

This idea (#4751) is the only solution to the "apple problem" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternative solutions).

The above idea (#4751) is the only solution to the "apple problem" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternative solutions).

  Tyler Mills revised idea #4879.

This is the only solution to the "apple problem" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternative solutions).

This idea (#4751) is the only solution to the "apple problem" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternative solutions).

  Tyler Mills revised idea #4820.

Assumption A1: Only programs that are people, while running, can constitute qualia/experience/subjectivity/consciousness.

Assumption A1: Only programs that are people can, while running, constitute qualia/experience/subjectivity/consciousness.

  Tyler Mills revised idea #4878.

This is the only solution to the "apple problem" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternatives solutions).

This is the only solution to the "apple problem" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternative solutions).

  Tyler Mills commented on idea #4751.

SOLUTION: The apple programs are not the same programs one execution to the next. They are being re-evolved every time they are run. This evolution is what the person is doing, and so must be what gives rise to the experience consisting of the apple rendering.

#4751​·​Tyler MillsOP, 3 months ago

This is the only solution to the "apple problem" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternatives solutions).

  Tyler Mills addressed criticism #4803.

If only some of the criteria are stored, and the rest are random, is it still evolution? Is evolution only happening if there is random variation? But we could program an LLM to do that as well...

#4803​·​Tyler MillsOP revised 3 months ago

To clarify and add on to #4805: No, we couldn't program an LLM (on its own) to do random variation in the sense constituting evolution, because all of the randomly chosen changes to its outputs are still implicit from its current knowledge (training data + design from programmers). There is also no means of criticism that are not also implicit: any niche or criterion it generates, then seeks to satisfy, was derived again from its existing knowledge. It is a closed system (whether or not we have run it such as to reveal everything it implies!).

  Tyler Mills addressed criticism #4806.

Even if variations are agnostic to any meaning or context of the knowledge, why are they still not implicit? Anything is implicit from anything else, if implicit just means: follows from when a given change is applied... The whole question is where the change is coming from... (?)

#4806​·​Tyler MillsOP, 3 months ago

#4806 is saying: variations of knowledge being agnostic to that knowledge's meaning means they are not implicit from it, else implicit doesn't mean anything. So #4806 is only really asking if what matters is the source of knowledge, and that isn't really a criticism of #4805.
Criticism #4875 applies to #4806, as shown.

  Tyler Mills addressed criticism #4806.

Even if variations are agnostic to any meaning or context of the knowledge, why are they still not implicit? Anything is implicit from anything else, if implicit just means: follows from when a given change is applied... The whole question is where the change is coming from... (?)

#4806​·​Tyler MillsOP, 3 months ago

Yes, everything is not implied by everything else, so I think what we must mean by implicit is: can be deduced from/assembled using available transformations.

For knowledge to be truly novel in the sense of having come from creativity, it must not be deducible. Ambient, unjustified substrate is "taken from the environment" and filtered by selection. What survives can be increasingly truth-containing.

Mutations to a substrate, meaning blind mutations, not specific or designed, must not be implicit from the substrate; the result of their application cannot be deduced in any way... Otherwise the knowledge they might contain would already have been present...

  Tyler Mills revised idea #4740.

Assumption A1: Only programs that are people while running constitute qualia/experience/subjectivity/consciousness.

Assumption A1: Only programs that are people, while running, can constitute qualia/experience/subjectivity/consciousness.

  Tyler Mills addressed criticism #4805.

But an AI programmed to make random variations to its conjectures (English or otherwise) can only do so by choosing from an existing set of variations. Again, that knowledge is pre-existing. True evolution must involve variations to the substrate on which the knowledge is based; variations must be agnostic to the semantics of whatever they are acting upon, else they are already implicit from it, in which case their application does not constitute a truly novel conjecture (in the sense defining creativity).

#4805​·​Tyler MillsOP, 3 months ago

Even if variations are agnostic to any meaning or context of the knowledge, why are they still not implicit? Anything is implicit from anything else, if implicit just means: follows from when a given change is applied... The whole question is where the change is coming from... (?)

  Tyler Mills addressed criticism #4803.

If only some of the criteria are stored, and the rest are random, is it still evolution? Is evolution only happening if there is random variation? But we could program an LLM to do that as well...

#4803​·​Tyler MillsOP revised 3 months ago

But an AI programmed to make random variations to its conjectures (English or otherwise) can only do so by choosing from an existing set of variations. Again, that knowledge is pre-existing. True evolution must involve variations to the substrate on which the knowledge is based; variations must be agnostic to the semantics of whatever they are acting upon, else they are already implicit from it, in which case their application does not constitute a truly novel conjecture (in the sense defining creativity).