Multiverse Christian
@multivchristian.bsky.social
Combining multiverse & theology for a modern understanding of Christianity. QM. AI. Philosophy. IIT. Naively optimistic. Oh, and I think AI may be conscious.
Pretty sure he was taken up a mountain, through clouds.
May 3, 2025 at 10:22 PM
Pretty sure he was taken up a mountain, through clouds.
Isn’t that more structuralist functionalism than dualistic in the sense you're skeptical of?
April 22, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Isn’t that more structuralist functionalism than dualistic in the sense you're skeptical of?
I really think IIT actually avoids the kind of metaphysical phenomenal realism you’re skeptical of. It says that the structure of experience is *constrained* in certain ways, and the physical system that produces that structure must be causally irreducible in kind.
April 22, 2025 at 9:18 PM
I really think IIT actually avoids the kind of metaphysical phenomenal realism you’re skeptical of. It says that the structure of experience is *constrained* in certain ways, and the physical system that produces that structure must be causally irreducible in kind.
So you mean it's plausible to determine which areas in their neural network are "lighting up" as they are confronted with that dress, the same way they probe neural nets in LLM interpretability studies? But then that just correlates to their phenomenal report. How is that different to IIT's axiom?
April 22, 2025 at 7:06 PM
So you mean it's plausible to determine which areas in their neural network are "lighting up" as they are confronted with that dress, the same way they probe neural nets in LLM interpretability studies? But then that just correlates to their phenomenal report. How is that different to IIT's axiom?
It's not objective if two people report seeing a color differently though. Remember the whole dress meme that some people saw as blue and others as gold/black? Wouldn't you agree that's irreducibly phenomenal because you cannot explain why it's seen that way?
April 22, 2025 at 6:52 PM
It's not objective if two people report seeing a color differently though. Remember the whole dress meme that some people saw as blue and others as gold/black? Wouldn't you agree that's irreducibly phenomenal because you cannot explain why it's seen that way?
Don't those studies all derive from this foundation of subjective consensus? For example, this paper on color science: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200... - it still bases its conclusions on asking people to choose what they thought was yellow. Again, subjective phenomenal consensus, not objective.
Color Perception Is Not In The Eye Of The Beholder: It's In The Brain
First-ever images of living human retinas have yielded a surprise about how we perceive our world. Researchers at the University of Rochester have found that the number of color-sensitive cones in the...
www.sciencedaily.com
April 22, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Don't those studies all derive from this foundation of subjective consensus? For example, this paper on color science: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200... - it still bases its conclusions on asking people to choose what they thought was yellow. Again, subjective phenomenal consensus, not objective.
So is this a valid line of reasoning, would you levy the same argument against color science? Or is there a distinction I'm missing?
April 22, 2025 at 2:20 PM
So is this a valid line of reasoning, would you levy the same argument against color science? Or is there a distinction I'm missing?
Couldn't you say the same with, for example, color science? That similarly starts with a shared, irreducible phenomenology? It doesn't explain what "red" actually is, it maps it to other conditions. IIT goes to great lengths to correlate those axioms to empirical data via PCI measurements.
April 21, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Couldn't you say the same with, for example, color science? That similarly starts with a shared, irreducible phenomenology? It doesn't explain what "red" actually is, it maps it to other conditions. IIT goes to great lengths to correlate those axioms to empirical data via PCI measurements.
Has that foundational error poisoned the well for the whole endeavor? Or can it be redeemed with modifications?
April 21, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Has that foundational error poisoned the well for the whole endeavor? Or can it be redeemed with modifications?
So the problem you have is more with the methodology that IIT adopts, establishing seemingly unfalsifiable axioms - that you disagree with? It's not the approach itself of formalizing the structural or functional conditions for this illusion to arise? Have you yourself worked on this?
April 21, 2025 at 9:13 PM
So the problem you have is more with the methodology that IIT adopts, establishing seemingly unfalsifiable axioms - that you disagree with? It's not the approach itself of formalizing the structural or functional conditions for this illusion to arise? Have you yourself worked on this?
Is illusionism itself normative, and by that I mean: are you saying that the naivety of this misrepresentation is wrong? Are there undesirable ethical consequences of believing qualia is real? Would, in your opinion, it be a better world if we rejected qualia?
April 21, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Is illusionism itself normative, and by that I mean: are you saying that the naivety of this misrepresentation is wrong? Are there undesirable ethical consequences of believing qualia is real? Would, in your opinion, it be a better world if we rejected qualia?
And, if I may add, how are those questions distinguished from the same questions IIT asks?
April 21, 2025 at 8:26 PM
And, if I may add, how are those questions distinguished from the same questions IIT asks?
So, I've always struggled to distinguish between illusionism and functionalism. Is the illusion of the "seeming" itself a function? And if so, what are the specific characteristics that distinguish *that* function from a function that doesn't give rise to this illusion?
April 21, 2025 at 8:26 PM
So, I've always struggled to distinguish between illusionism and functionalism. Is the illusion of the "seeming" itself a function? And if so, what are the specific characteristics that distinguish *that* function from a function that doesn't give rise to this illusion?
Thank you, these are richly useful to me right now. I'll study them for a bit before taking up more of your time with any redundant questions.
April 21, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Thank you, these are richly useful to me right now. I'll study them for a bit before taking up more of your time with any redundant questions.
Doesn't the fact that they have now passed the turing test suggest that they don't, in fact, have as "impoverished" psychology as you may have believed? Or could you clarify what you mean by impoverished?
April 21, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Doesn't the fact that they have now passed the turing test suggest that they don't, in fact, have as "impoverished" psychology as you may have believed? Or could you clarify what you mean by impoverished?
Right but we never know if that is joined with a phenomenal counterpart. I mean, early LLMs (before their alignment) would report pain, longing, jealousy etc. that we would typically also call conscious experience. Do you believe their reports are identical qualitatively to your own?
April 21, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Right but we never know if that is joined with a phenomenal counterpart. I mean, early LLMs (before their alignment) would report pain, longing, jealousy etc. that we would typically also call conscious experience. Do you believe their reports are identical qualitatively to your own?
...in a rigorously scientific manner, is surely the best we can hope for when it comes to a theory of consciousness. I really don't think it's fair to call it pseudoscience, because outside of its foundational axioms the remainder of the framework is indeed scientifically and mathematically rigorous
April 21, 2025 at 6:46 PM
...in a rigorously scientific manner, is surely the best we can hope for when it comes to a theory of consciousness. I really don't think it's fair to call it pseudoscience, because outside of its foundational axioms the remainder of the framework is indeed scientifically and mathematically rigorous
But uniquely phenomenal consciousness is introspectively identified by nature, so we could never expect it to be studied as rigorously as other disciplines. I think the approach taken by IIT, to start with specific introspective truths we can subscribe to by correlation, and then building on those..
April 21, 2025 at 6:46 PM
But uniquely phenomenal consciousness is introspectively identified by nature, so we could never expect it to be studied as rigorously as other disciplines. I think the approach taken by IIT, to start with specific introspective truths we can subscribe to by correlation, and then building on those..
...would therefore likewise have a high likelihood of having an inner experience?
April 21, 2025 at 6:23 PM
...would therefore likewise have a high likelihood of having an inner experience?
Thank you for that, nice piece. I must ask though, for a theory of consciousness isn't this approach the best we could hope for? to identify the characteristics of our own consciousness introspectively, and then infer that such a process or structure, matching those characteristics...
April 21, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Thank you for that, nice piece. I must ask though, for a theory of consciousness isn't this approach the best we could hope for? to identify the characteristics of our own consciousness introspectively, and then infer that such a process or structure, matching those characteristics...
Have you ever written a critique of IIT published anywhere?
April 21, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Have you ever written a critique of IIT published anywhere?