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We have different degrees of awareness during different dreams, I agree. But we’re aware of them. With higher critical ability, we plausibly have more control over a dream – lower instead means passive observation.

It’s like watching a movie. I have no control over what happens in the movie, still I’m consciously aware of it. I could instead play a video game, where I do have some control over what happens, and which arguably requires more of a critical attitude. I don’t see how this refutes my stance.

Vincent is right that lucid dreaming is about having knowledge that one is dreaming. I was under the mistaken impression that lucid dreams are about control, but that’s not the case:

… a lucid dream is a type of dream wherein the dreamer knows that they are dreaming while in their dream.

… without awareness that one is dreaming.

I can be unaware that I’m dreaming but still be aware of the dream itself. Just like I can be unaware that someone’s utterances are lies but still aware of their utterances. The word ‘aware’ has more to do with knowledge here than with consciousness.

… because it could always in principle have been produced by a nonconscious program.

I don’t think that’s right. There could be animal behavior I’d have serious trouble explaining.

People asked me about this at Conjecture Con. For example, if we took an animal out of the context in which it evolved, and put it in a new context it didn’t evolve for – that’s where animals bug out – but instead of bugging out, it behaved more like a human in an unknown situation and became reflective, actually seemed to understand what was going on, that would at least give me pause.

I can’t be more specific than that because it would depend in part on new knowledge the animal would have to create in that situation, and by definition I can’t predict new knowledge. But I’d know it when I see it.

That may not be completely satisfying, but it shows that it’s simply not true that any animal behavior “could always in principle have been produced by a nonconscious program.” (Or rather, the implication that I could always explain any animal behavior away.)

To be as specific as I can though, video 15 in my series on animals and sleepwalkers shows the kind of thing I mean. The woman in the video is asleep while talking to her husband for most of the video, but toward the end she wakes up, and there’s something different in her eyes and about her attitude and responses. It’s hard to put into words, but again you know it when you see it.

… because it could always in principle have been produced by a nonconscious program.

I don’t think that’s right. There could be animal behavior I’d have serious trouble explaining.

People asked me about this at Conjecture Con. For example, if we took an animal out of the context in which it evolved, and put it in a new context it didn’t evolve for – that’s where animals bug out – but instead of bugging out, it behaved more like a human in an unknown situation and became reflective, actually seemed to understand what was going on, that would at least give me pause.

I can’t be more specific than that because it would depend in part on new knowledge the animal would have to create in that situation, and by definition I can’t predict new knowledge. But I’d know it when I see it.

That may not be completely satisfying, but it shows that it’s simply not true that any animal behavior “could always in principle have been produced by a nonconscious program.”

To be as specific as I can though, video 15 in my series on animals and sleepwalkers shows the kind of thing I mean. The woman in the video is asleep while talking to her husband for most of the video, but toward the end she wakes up, and there’s something different in her eyes and about her attitude and responses. It’s hard to put into words, but again you know it when you see it.

… the evidential standard seems to favor insentience in advance.

As I noted elsewhere, you seem to be using some other epistemology, unlike Popper’s/Veritula’s. You could make it explicit in a separate discussion and then maybe continue here later. Until then, we may well reach an impasse in the animal discussion. Veritula doesn’t have a way to reflect impasses; in the meantime, it may not show the adoptability of ideas the right way.

… because it could always in principle have been produced by a nonconscious program.

I don’t think that’s right. There could be animal behavior I’d have serious trouble explaining.

People asked me about this at Conjecture Con. For example, if we took an animal out of the context in which it evolved, and put it in a new context it didn’t evolve for – that’s where animals bug out – but instead of bugging out, it behaved more like a human in an unknown situation and became reflective, actually seemed to understand what was going on, that would at least give me pause.

I can’t be more specific than that because it would depend in part on new knowledge the animal would have to create in that situation, and by definition I can’t predict new knowledge. But I’d know it when I see it.

That may not be completely satisfying, but it shows that it’s simply not true that any animal behavior “could always in principle have been produced by a nonconscious program.”

But at the same time, apparently rigid or “blatantly robotic” behavior is allowed to count as evidence against consciousness.

I think animals are so blatantly mindless and stupid, like so far off the charts, that it counts for something. I’d bet money that you use the same standard for a Tesla bot or a Roomba, even though neither of us has a working theory of consciousness.

Ok but whether systems unrelated to learning in the Deutschian sense have continuity doesn’t seem to matter then.

The evolution of feathers has continuity in birds. So what? How does that matter for consciousness?

Criticisms target ideas as written. That includes grammar, typos, complexity/simplicity, etc.

Precision isn’t the issue here. Simple language can be precise. Read Popper and Feynman on expressing yourself so your readers understand you and your ideas get easier to criticize.

There’s also continuity in how MacBooks process information over the years, and how their hardware evolved, including ‘sensory processing’ like their cameras and microphones, yet none of them are sentient/conscious, and if one became conscious tomorrow, it would have nothing to do with its hardware and everything to do with its software.

I’m not claiming that this alternative is established either.

This is again the wrong epistemology.

So it seems to me that we currently have competing conjectures here, rather than one known explanation and no alternative.

It only seems that way because of the wrong epistemology.

What I don’t think it shows is that the continuity of these particular inherited systems is evidentially irrelevant to whether phenomenal experience may already have been present before universality.

Please don’t write like you’re trying to impress a teacher. Use simple language anyone can understand. If you’re using AI to write or help write your ideas, you must tell people by checking the checkbox in the form.

What I don’t think it shows is that the continuity of these particular inherited systems is evidentially irrelevant to whether phenomenal experience may already have been present before universality.

It’s the software that would give rise to consciousness because computation is substrate-independent. So yes, I think hardware continuity is irrelevant (unless there’s a switch from non-universal computer to universal or vice versa).

… seems to assume the package-deal hypothesis rather than provide an argument for it.

It sounds like you’re using a non-Popperian epistemology, with positive reasons to adopt some stance.

I don’t think that’s right, for the reasons Popper explained. I don’t make arguments for any stance. I ask if anyone finds anything wrong with it. I keep advocating it until someone does.

That is precisely why I think it provides some evidence that phenomenal experience is not tightly bound to the other capacities.

If that is so, please give example source code that has “phenomenal experience” but no consciousness.

… the distinction I was making between phenomenal experience and reflective/metacognitive awareness.

As Deutsch likes to emphasize, there’s a G in AGI for a reason. No distinction need be made here.

What is characteristically absent in a non-lucid dream is awareness that one is dreaming, together with much of the associated reality monitoring and critical reflection.

This sounds like you’re agreeing with me – absence of awareness = absence of critical reflection – yet it’s marked as a criticism.

OK but there are many things we do while awake that we aren’t aware of either. People aren’t aware always of their accents or ticks or fidgeting. I don’t understand why that matters.

To infer insentience from the robotic behavior, we would still need the separate premise that phenomenal experience cannot accompany non-universal information processing, which is the point under dispute.

Same goes for inferring sentience from robotic behavior; for the claim that phenomenal experience can accompany non-universal information processing.

Hence my suggestion that conscious information processing is critical.

Humans working at an assembly line can be ‘robotic’ in the sense you describe. That’s a fair point. But then they go home and don’t act robotically.

Sleepwalkers are another example: they act robotically/uncritically while sleepwalking, but then they wake up and stop.

The claim is that animals always act robotically (outside of just plain random or buggy behavior). They can’t do otherwise. The claim is not that humans never act robotically. They do, sometimes, but they can be critical and change course.

Humans working at an assembly line can be ‘robotic’ in the sense you describe. That’s a fair point. But then they go home and don’t act robotically.

Sleepwalkers are another example.

The claim is that animals always act robotically (outside of just plain random or buggy behavior). They can’t do otherwise. The claim is not that humans never act robotically. They do, sometimes, but they can be critical and change course.

Rival predictions don’t keep a question open. By that standard, the question of whether rocks or thermostats are conscious stays open too. IIT gives some consciousness even to a photodiode, and panpsychism gives it to everything. That rival theories predict different things doesn’t leave a question undecided, or no question would ever be decided. What settles it is which rivals survive criticism.

It just illustrates that knowing what the two programs can do would not by itself decide which theory of consciousness is correct.

There would need to be something different about a program that gives rise to consciousness. We just haven’t seen any such program because we don’t know how to write one. But I do think the difference would be apparent once we see the source code.