Comment by Tarq0n

12 days ago

Dualism is almost always unhelpful as a model. Your soul is a process your body runs, they are indistinguishable.

8 comments

Tarq0n

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hackinthebochs  12 days ago

It doesn't have to be a reference to dualism. We can draw a distinction between specific patterns of brain activity and the body that realizes it. "I" exist only when the characteristic property of neural activity that realizes the self is present. I am the realization of this second-order property. Here the "soul" is this specific pattern of dynamics realized by my body's neurons.

arnoooooo  11 days ago

You make it sound like we are flesh robots : sensors and motors, with a central "CPU" that channels between the two. But a robot has no first-person experience, it's just smart electron flows.

That we have first-person experiences shows the soul is definitely not "a process your body runs" : it's where your whole experience "registers".

That we are not flesh robots is also why we have free will. You could coherently argue that free-will is an illusion, but you can't argue that first-person experience is an illusion, as you need something to perceive the illusion.

  • pixl97  11 days ago

    >You make it sound like we are flesh robots

    Yes, with an advanced version on an LLM on top that makes it seem like you is you. As of so far we've found zero external magical devices that cause our body to act like it does other than the cells and electrical signals they produce.

    >we have first-person experiences

    Do you? You say you do, much like an LLM says it knows things. But all these things you say about you are actually effects many orders separated from the cause. Your idea of first-person is something you're experiencing many filters later. Which is what the article is somewhat about. Messing with the input signals to your brain via physical mechanism changes what you feel about who you are. There is not magic, just electron flows.

    >but you can't argue that first-person experience is an illusion, as you need something to perceive the illusion.

    A computer can generate and play it's own video game. This can be entirely virtualized like a dream, or it could be more like AR where it's getting inputs from the world around us. "But, but, but, that's totally different in ways I cannot explain nor do I want to because I'm special"

    Our improvements in AI will never lead to AI being proven smart. It will just lead to humans being proven dumb.

ajuc  12 days ago

It's useful to have a word for cumulonimbus and models based on that even if you know it's just a particular configuration of the wave function.

Whether personality is entirely based on laws of physics or not - is a separate question.