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Comment by eric-p7

3 days ago

There are no properties of matter or energy that can have a sense of self or experience qualia. Yet we all do. Denying the hard problem of consciousness just slows down our progress in discovering what it is.

We need a difference to discover what it is. How can we know that all LLMs don't?

  • If you tediously work out the LLM math by hand, is the pen and paper conscious too?

    Consciousness is not computation. You need something else.

    • The pen and paper are not the actual substrate of entropy reduction, so not really.

      Consciousness is what it "feels like" when a part of the universe is engaged in local entropy reduction. You heard it here first, folks!

    • This comment here is pure gold. I love it.

      On the flip side: If you do that, YOU are conscious and intelligent.

      Would it mean that the machine that did the computation became conscious when it did it?

      What is consciousness?

  • Even if they do, it can only be transiently during the inference process. Unlike a brain that is constantly undergoing dynamic electrochemical processes, an LLM is just an inert pile of data except when the model is being executed.