Comment by burnte
4 days ago
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard P. Feynman
They're not thinking, we're just really good at seeing patterns and reading into things. Remember, we never evolved with non-living things that could "talk", we're not psychologically prepared for this level of mimicry yet. We're still at the stage of Photography when people didn't know about double exposures or forced perspective, etc.
You're just assuming that mimicry of a thing is not equivalent to the thing itself. This isn't true of physical systems (simulated water doesn't get you wet!) but it is true of information systems (simulated intelligence is intelligence!).
> You're just assuming that mimicry of a thing is not equivalent to the thing itself.
I'm not assuming that, that's literally the definition of mimicry: to imitate closely.
You might say I'm assuming that it is mimicking and not actually thinking, but there's no evidence it's actually thinking, and we know exactly what is IS doing because we created the code that we used to build the model. They're not thinking, it's doing math, mathematical transformations of data.
> They're not thinking, it's doing math, mathematical transformations of data
Whatever thinking fundamentally is, it also has an equivalence as a mathematical transformation of data. You're assuming the conclusion by saying that the two mathematical transformations of data are not isomorphic.
A simulation of information processing is still information processing, just like running Windows in a QEMU VM is still running Windows.
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But a simulated mind is not a mind. This was already debated years ago with the aid of the Chinese Room thought experiment.
The Chinese Room experiment applies equally well to our own brains - in which neuron does the "thinking" reside exactly? Searle's argument has been successfully argued against in many different ways. At the end of the day - you're either a closet dualist like Searle, or if you have a more scientific view and are a physicalist (i.e. brains are made of atoms etc. and brains are sufficient for consciousness / minds) you are in the same situation as the Chinese Room: things broken down into tissues, neurons, molecules, atoms. Which atom knows Chinese?
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> But a simulated mind is not a mind. This was already debated years ago with the aid of the Chinese Room thought experiment.
Yes, debated and refuted. There are many well known and accepted rebuttals of the Chinese Room. The Chinese Room as a whole does understand Chinese.
> But a simulated mind is not a mind.
How would the mind know which one it is?
Maybe your mind is being simulated right now.
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yeah it’s just processing, calling it thinking is the same as saying my intel core 2 duo or M4 Pro is thinking, sure if you want to anthropomorphize it you could say it’s thinking, but why are we trying to say a computer is a person in the first place? seems kind of forced