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Ask HN: Consciousness is _ and AI is _? and which one makes you happy?

by raoof on 5/8/20, 11:23 AM with 4 comments

hi everybody. I want to know your view about consciousness. so which answer do you think is most likely to be true and which one makes you happy. you can give your answer as a 1 to 10 digit number.

I think 0123456789 is true and 9876543210 makes me happy.

0. I don't know

1. doesn't exist, not possible

2. doesn't exist, possible

3. non-physical , not conscious

4. physical , not conscious

5. non-physical , conscious

6. physical , conscious

7. non-physical , not possible

8. physical , not possible

9. I don't care

  • by stOneskull on 5/21/20, 2:39 AM

    it's really 0 but i have suspicions that it is 3.

    i think consciousness is like radio. you need the physical antenna to tune into it, eg. the brain. so 3, but there is still the need for the physical part to consciousness.

    i don't think machines can tune into that and be conscious, they'll just emulate better and better.

  • by ekr on 5/8/20, 12:57 PM

    I don't understand the question about happiness, but I'm quite sure that consciousness is emergent phenomena (illusion mainly) of the various physical brain subsystems. AI, or rather these physical brain components are almost certainly emulatable in a computing device (to be read as, I estimate a high probability). How efficiently is the only remaining question.

    Also, the way this is implemented in the brain is probably far from the most efficient way.

  • by peteradio on 5/8/20, 1:05 PM

    human consciousness is not deterministic yet physical ai won't match the breadth of human ability unless it gives up on determinism. 0 makes me happy.