Search Ideas

Done as of 65dba4b.

Ruby example:

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def criticized? idea
  pending_criticisms(idea).any?
end

def pending_criticisms idea
  criticisms(idea).filter { |c| pending_criticisms(c).none? }
end

def criticisms idea
  children(idea).filter(&:criticism?)
end

JS example (h/t ChatGPT):

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function criticized(idea) {
  return pendingCriticisms(idea).length > 0;
}

function pendingCriticisms(idea) {
  return criticisms(idea).filter(c => pendingCriticisms(c).length === 0);
}

function criticisms(idea) {
  return children(idea).filter(c => c.isCriticism);
}

Fixed as of 7134d27.

Fixed as of b2a2a32 at the latest.

The argument is that we have no reason not to adopt an idea with no pending criticism. In other words, we should adopt unproblematic ideas.

A criticism can itself be such an unproblematic idea. Meaning we should adopt pending criticisms. We can’t consistently adopt an idea and its pending criticisms. So from the adoption of a pending criticism logically follows the rejection of its target idea.

The relevant systems have a shared evolutionary history, with substantial continuity in sensory, affective, nociceptive and learning mechanisms.

That isn’t learning in the relevant sense that has to do with consciousness. DD explains some of that here.

The relevant systems have a shared evolutionary history, with substantial continuity in sensory, affective, nociceptive and learning mechanisms.

Unnecessarily complex language like this makes ideas harder to criticize. Just write ‘they sense things, feel pain, and change behavior.’

Neural continuity therefore seems evidentially relevant even if it cannot by itself prove sentience.

No, the substrate independence of computation rules that out. Neurons don’t matter for our purposes here, at all.

A change in that inherited system may indeed have produced the qualitative leap to universal creativity. Since universality is necessarily all-or-nothing in the relevant sense, that leap is unsurprising. But it does not follow that every other aspect of mental life (including pain or other phenomenal experience) must have appeared in the same leap, or even require a comparable leap at all.

It’s a guess. No other explanation is known. If you have a different guess, propose it here.

The relevant systems have a shared evolutionary history…

So do laptops and their hardware, only with memetic evolutionary history. So what?

For any finite sequence of behavior, it seems possible in principle to posit a sufficiently elaborate fixed program that produces it. The same would apply to human behavior.

I disagree. Human behavior is so far off the mark I can’t explain it in terms of preprogramming only. I don’t know how to explain poems and rocket ships. Biological evolution had no reason to create any of the knowledge needed to make rocket ships, so preprogramming doesn’t make sense as an explanation.

If monkeys suddenly started making rocket ships one day, I would have trouble explaining that, for the same reason.

Ultimately the criterion will depend on an explanation of how the underlying program works. There can’t be a purely behavioral criterion, as DD argues in BoI ch. 7 (IIRC). But until we have that, some behavior is so blatantly robotic, like a Roomba, that I think we can reasonably conclude it has nothing to do with consciousness.

Explanations of animal behavior can be phrased fully in terms of unconscious, purely dogmatic information processing. We can write the programs and simulate animals on a computer. We don’t need consciousness for any of it. But we can’t write the program that would simulate a person on a computer. That program would result in consciousness. There’s an asymmetry there.

Can I prove that dogmatic programs don’t give rise to consciousness? No. But I think that’s the wrong epistemological standard. I can’t prove that rocks aren’t conscious either. What I do know is that I don’t invoke the concept of consciousness when explaining rocks (whatever little there is to explain about them).

I usually find that terms like “phenomenal experience” and “cognition” are confusing and make discussions harder. Ultimately, there’s one type of consciousness and one type of information processing that gives rise to it. I don’t think distinctions between different types of ‘cognition’ or ‘experience’ are worth drawing, if they even exist in reality at all.

My talk about hard to vary at Conjecture Con 2026 is now online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LfEPLmjxNk

We now have refute.us, which I plan to integrate with V eventually.

Archiving #3904 for now.

I miss y'all!

Apparently Scribd profiles are public? 🤷‍♂️ https://www.scribd.com/user/430906064/Dennis-Hackethal

I don’t think animals are sentient.

I realize this view sounds outlandish to most but it’s a considered, researched conclusion.

There’s lots of evidence of insentience in the way animals behave. If they were sentient, they would not behave the way they do: https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/evidence-of-animal-insentience

Dozens of videos compiling and explaining evidence of animal insentience: https://libertythroughreason.com/insentience-in-animals-and-sleepwalkers/

Additional reasoning:

blog.dennishackethal.com

Animal-Sentience FAQ

I answer the most frequently asked questions, and address the most commonly raised objections, about animal (in)sentience.

blog.dennishackethal.com

Konrad Lorenz Hacked Animals

Lorenz showed how easily animals like geese can be hacked – they imprint on the first thing they see, revealing how robotic and uncritical their behavior is.

blog.dennishackethal.com

Animal-Sentience Discussion Tree

How I use Twitter discussion trees and Treeverse to track, address, and resolve criticisms on animal (in)sentience, making my position stronger.

blog.dennishackethal.com

The ‘Animal-Rights’ Community Is Based on Fear and Intimidation

Animal-rights activists often rely on fear and intimidation over reasoned debate. This post breaks down common tactics used to silence dissent.

This suggests that phenomenal experience can occur independently of the active critical capacities you take animals to lack.

I don’t think so, since, as you write yourself, the critical attitude while dreaming is only “diminished”, not completely gone.

Hi Vincent, welcome to V. Nice meeting you at Conjecture Con.

But why must phenomenal experience emerge only together with universal creativity?

Idk why you switched from “consciousness” to “phenomenal experience” here. But the argument is that behavior that may just as well be preprogrammed and then executed mindlessly is not evidence of consciousness (because it is, again, mindless).

I have seen no evidence of any animal behavior that could not have been preprogrammed. If you know of any, please show me.

The poster I presented at Conjecture Con about animals:

What should do when two explanations are equally hard to vary? Which can I rationally prefer? Can I pick one at random?

No because as they call each other, they traverse the tree, going down it each step of the way. They don’t remain at the same level.

They must be decisive, since pending criticisms and rational adoptability are defined in terms of each other (see #5114). If a criticism is pending, we must by definition adopt it (if we want to be rational). These two concepts are a package deal.

A single additional day won’t cause much strength loss, if any.

I may still know depending on the numbers. If my strength dips a lot, then it’s not plausibly due to poor sleep (I didn’t sleep that poorly) and I should ease up on the cut anyway.