diff --git a/src/content/posts/other-minds/other-minds.mdx b/src/content/posts/other-minds/other-minds.mdx new file mode 100644 index 00000000..99c2dca1 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/content/posts/other-minds/other-minds.mdx @@ -0,0 +1,89 @@ +--- +draft: true +slug: other-minds +title: "Others Are Not Conscious" +published: 2025-11-02 +updated: 2025-11-02 +crossposts: {} +# lesswrong: fwZbrqqtcwibBM8Aw +--- + +## Unempirical Theories Do Not Survive + +In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, +biologists bitterly debated over the existence of an immaterial substance called the "élan vital." +Drawing from a philosophical tradition at least as old as writing,[^vitalism_age] +the vitalists argued that +the existence of the élan vital was necessary to explain the existence of life. +It was obvious to them that life could not arise from the merely artificial: there had to be something more at play. +On the other hand, the mechanistic camp believed that life could be explained purely in terms of physical mechanisms. +Today, this question is no longer seriously debated by biologists; the expert consensus is solidly against the vitalists. + +Why was vitalism rejected? +The theory was unfalsifiable,[^not_all_vitalism] +so it was not felled by an accumulation of opposing evidence as most theories are. +Instead, as the underlying phenomenon became less and less mysterious, +the idea of the élan vital became less and less appealing. +Why invoke an invisible, ineffable substance when +you can observe first-hand mechanisms that explain and _predict_ how life behaves? + +Consider another example: +[teleological](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology) theories of physics, +which explain phenomena in terms of their supposed purposes ("teloi") rather than their mechanisms. +Aristotle believed that heavy objects fall because the ground is their "natural place." +Early biologists believed that species evolved according to an overarching goal, rather than via natural selection. +Today, virtually no experts use these kinds of explanations as anything but a tool to aid comprehension. +Attributing goals to phenomena can make them more intuitive, but +these intuitions are ultimately flawed as proven by Newton or Darwin in the above examples. + +TODO: I should probably replace this whole section tbh + +[^vitalism_age]: TODO: add sources on "ka", Sumerian "ai", Akkadian "napištu" dating to the third millenium BC. +[^not_all_vitalism]: TODO: add note on falsifiable vitalist theories + +## Consciousness is Unempirical + +> And so to those of you who may be vitalists I would make this prophecy: +> what everyone believed yesterday, and you believe today, only cranks will believe tomorrow. +> +> Francis Crick, discoverer of the structure of DNA + +Today's conception of consciousness will likely +seem to future humans as telos or the élan vital seem to us today -- +a somewhat humorous, but ultimately understandable mistake born of bad intuitions. + +Why? Because there is no empirical content to any of the discourse on consciousness. +Any proposed test for consciousness is rejected as soon as it disagrees with intuition. +For example, before the advent of LLMs, passing a rigorous Turing test was considered by many as sufficient evidence for consciousness. +Now that this definition conflicts with the common intuition that LLMs are not conscious, though, this test has been rejected. +Similarly, medical tests like the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror are rejected because they fail to match the intuition that young children and mentally disabled adults are conscious. +Nobody can agree on a testable definition, because the concept itself is not testable. + +Because they lack any empirical basis, +statements like "it is possible for an artificial intelligence to be conscious" +are ultimately meaningless despite being the subject of intense debate. +One might as well discuss whether it is possible to synthesize the élan vital. + +A note: the above argument applies only to the question of others' consciousness, +not to the question of one's own consciousness, since that _is_ observable. +The very act of questioning one's own consciousness seems to imply the existence of a mind performing the questioning. +_"Dubito, ergo sum,"_ as Descartes put it. + +## Mysteries of Consciousness + +This does not, however mean, that consciousness will remain mysterious. +The nonexistence of the élan vital has not prevented us from understanding life. +Gravity is almost perfectly understood despite a distinct lack of natural places. +Most of the mysteries we associate with consciousness today will be +explained in the future by empirical research into the nature of the mind. + +For example: + +- How do humans model themselves and how does this influence our reported experiences? +- How do we model others, and how exactly is this related to the self-model? +- How are the many streams of sensory information with latencies ranging over hundreds of milliseconds integrated to create a single perceived "now"? +- Why do we feel that we have free will? + +All of these are questions that, today, are often bundled together with philosophical discussions of consciousness. +However, in the future, these phenomena will be demystified empirically, +just as other natural sciences like cosmology or chemistry have grown apart from the philosophical and mystical over the course of history.