Can qualia be separated from personhood?

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Only version leading to #5038 (3 total)

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

Criticized1*

Tyler MillsOP·#5038

2nd of 2 versions

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.

Criticism of #4881

Tyler MillsOP·#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).

Criticism of #5038Criticized1

Tyler MillsOP·#5037

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.

Criticism of #5032

Tyler MillsOP·#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).

Criticism of #5038Criticized1

Tyler MillsOP·#5036

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.

Criticism of #5033

Tyler MillsOP·#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).

Tyler MillsOP·#5035

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.