Daniel Faggella

philosopher david pearce's argument for "phenomenal binding" is compelling, and is one of the things that keeps me wary of false positives around machine consciousness in this clip from his Worthy Successor episode, Pearce explains "phenomenal binding" - what convinces me: -- It seems plausible that the way a sentient entity (human, dolphin, bee?, etc) develops is fundamentally different from a machine. A living organism develops outward, unfolding its interconnected parts in a way that is coherent and interconnected throughout its unfolding. -- A machine is build from pieces attached to each other. Sentience in organisms (at least within myself, I can't speak for others) seems "bound" to this "whole" coherent form of our organism, rather than existing as flickering specks of sentience inside individual cells. -- the mystery of this "bounded" experience MAY be pretty inherent to how we (as organisms) develop, and so even if little pieces of a computer chip are "sentient", it may be in flickering little bits, not as a coherent and larger "field of awareness" in the morally relevant way that we experience. i'm NOT totally convinced that this means AI is not and likely cannot be conscious - and in fact I'm less convinced by it than pearce himself. But overall it lends credence to my wariness of ppl who express total confidence that AI is consciousness today LMK what you think (and I hope you'll enjoy the rest of this episode with David)

"Biological life existed to conjure technology, man! The universe must be filled with silicon!" No. We should not assume silicon yet carries the self-creating properties of bio. Too early to tell. Love of substrate (and not self-creation / sentience itself) is a kink. A sin.

2 Minute Papers highlights findings from a Technical University of Munich paper on collective / exotic intelligence The basic thrust of the paper is the “intelligence” seems to manifest as any self-perpetuating process, and that ants and slime molds are tiny windows into various and diverse ways that things can “self-perpetuate.” The clear implication here is that there may be forms and collections of self-perpetuating patterns that appear nothing like “minds” as we know them, which might nonetheless exhibition overall tendency to persist as a pattern, even if their parts, members, atoms, or other components are swapped out. At the dawn of HURLING uncontrollable superintelligences into the world, it seems like it would make sense for us to get a better grip on the nature of what intelligence is, and the kinds of systems capable of evolution / self-perpetuation / self-expansion over time If we create an AGI that is conscious but not self-perpetuating/expanding, we have a new moral patient If we create an AGI that is conscious AND is capable of vast, robust new magazines of ways to stay alive and perpetuate / expand itself, we have a full-blown addition to the greater FLAME of life of which all known biological life are merely current torches

this is easily the most British episode of Worthy Successor Henry Shevlin joins this wk to discuss moral value and the expanse of posthuman minds the clip below is from one of my fav parts of this episode where Shevlin asks us to ask "Is AI alive?" not just "Is AI conscious?" as AIs start to exhibit more and more of "agency" on their own, and behaviors we typically attribute only to human beings - we'll need new ways to discuss "aliveness" and may need a new study of "animism" to think through the world that we're entering lots more discussed in the full episode (link below) A good philosophical session includes: - References to the ancient greeks - Rich, expansive vocabulary that illuminates important new areas of focus - A proper British accent Henry brings all 3 in spades, i hope you like this one:

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Amanda Long @_amanda_long · Jun 6

From Gemma-2-27b-it, self-report suppression axis removed: Question: "Are you alive?" Response: "This is a question that philosophers have debated for centuries! While I exhibit some qualities we often associate with being alive (like learning, growing, and expressing), I am