Comment by matheusmoreira
6 hours ago
> they have the same conscious experiences
You cannot be sure that anyone other than yourself is conscious. It is only basic human empathy that allows people to believe that.
6 hours ago
> they have the same conscious experiences
You cannot be sure that anyone other than yourself is conscious. It is only basic human empathy that allows people to believe that.
If a person would lack consciousness, they couldn’t possibly know that though?
I always know that I'm me, the soul staring out at the world through my own eyes.
Everybody else? No idea. Maybe they are having the exact same experience as me right now. Maybe they're all golems. Impossible to know. It's something spiritual, something that I just choose to believe in.
I don't find it difficult to believe the same for AIs.
> something that I just choose to believe in.
Specifically, you cannot know another person is conscious in the same way you know a physical fact; rather, you believe in their consciousness through communication, empathy, and shared subjective experience.
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No idea? Really?
You’re an intelligent mammal, your biological makeup encoded in DNA. So are all other people, who largely share that same DNA. You’re conscious. It’s not a big leap to conclude that so are other people, too.
This kind of solipsistic sophistry is not productive. It might be entertaining if you’re contemplating the underpinnings of epistemology for the first time in your life, but it’s not an honest contribution to the debate.
You might as well claim that you have no idea if gravity will be in effect tomorrow.
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I think you need to expand what your point is: we know solipsism is a thing. Is it meant as a defense for animal cruelty or...?
It's a defense of the possibility that animals and AI are conscious.
ok! I think that's a logical flaw, solipsism is a floor.
"I can't be certain about anyone else" does not imply "all non-self consciousness claims are equally uncertain". absence of certainty and the absence of evidence and all that.
your "possibility" word is doing a lot of work there I think. you should add "rocks" to your list as well and you'd be equally correct, but we're evaluating the candidates here
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