Historian Yuval Harari’s best-selling book Sapiens mostly talked about history. His new book, Homo Deus, won’t be released in the US until February 21, but I managed to find a copy at the Istanbul airport – it came out in Europe last fall. This post is about the book, and it is long and full of quotes; you are warned.
From the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, reported on in the link I posted:
Birds appear to offer, in their behavior, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy a striking case of parallel evolution of consciousness.
More generally, we don't seem to make strong distinctions, when considering animals, between intelligence and consciousness; I'm not aware of there being any animal species that are considered very intelligent, but obviously not at all conscious.
You might interpret Harari as dealing with the stage after ems, where you both agree the future is pretty unfathomable. Even the time frame supports that interpretation. [Ems are a variety of nonbiological engineering.]
And what do you mean by consciousness, and by a test for it? THe mirror test is the best known, but "Very few species have passed the MSR test. As of 2016, only great apes (including humans), a single Asiatic elephant, dolphins, orcas, and the Eurasian magpie have passed the MSR test. A wide range of species have been reported to fail the test including several monkey species, giant pandas, sea lions, and dogs". (WP)
"If organisms indeed lack free will, it implies we could manipulate and even control their desires using drugs, genetic engineering or direct brain stimulation."
If organisms lack free will, it implies that it's not up to us whether any organism's desires will in fact be manipulated, and how exactly they will be manipulated - since what will be doing the manipulating will themselves be organisms and therefore lack free will when deciding on who to manipulate and how!
Regarding consciousness, what do you make of the stronger claim that since consciousness seems to have evolved independently multiple times, it is probably quite adaptive, not a mistake or even a weird unusual solution, and can therefore be expected to play some role in future intelligences at the very least?
You recently convinced me that anything that seems conscious by all normal tests and checks we might give it must be seen as as legitimately conscious as we are. A theory of consciousness can help us avoid false negatives, such as people with locked-in syndrome, but the idea of there being 'false positives', i.e. entities that are conscious by all observations other than this one 'true consciousness' test, is just incoherent, and means the test will have to be expanded, rather than the new kind of mind excluded. So another way to predict the presence or absence of consciousness in the future is just to look at its function and whether/where that will still be needed; its specific implementation is irrelevant.
From the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, reported on in the link I posted:
Birds appear to offer, in their behavior, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy a striking case of parallel evolution of consciousness.
More generally, we don't seem to make strong distinctions, when considering animals, between intelligence and consciousness; I'm not aware of there being any animal species that are considered very intelligent, but obviously not at all conscious.
You might interpret Harari as dealing with the stage after ems, where you both agree the future is pretty unfathomable. Even the time frame supports that interpretation. [Ems are a variety of nonbiological engineering.]
consciousness seems to have evolved independently multiple times
Which times were those?
And what do you mean by consciousness, and by a test for it? THe mirror test is the best known, but "Very few species have passed the MSR test. As of 2016, only great apes (including humans), a single Asiatic elephant, dolphins, orcas, and the Eurasian magpie have passed the MSR test. A wide range of species have been reported to fail the test including several monkey species, giant pandas, sea lions, and dogs". (WP)
More to the point, free will isnt defined as the ability to perfectly resist all outside influence abd manipulation.
>Emulations offer a fourth path to intelligent machines, machines that could be conscious.
Why do you think brain emulations would be conscious? Or a better question: what is your definition of consciousness?
"If organisms indeed lack free will, it implies we could manipulate and even control their desires using drugs, genetic engineering or direct brain stimulation."
If organisms lack free will, it implies that it's not up to us whether any organism's desires will in fact be manipulated, and how exactly they will be manipulated - since what will be doing the manipulating will themselves be organisms and therefore lack free will when deciding on who to manipulate and how!
Regarding consciousness, what do you make of the stronger claim that since consciousness seems to have evolved independently multiple times, it is probably quite adaptive, not a mistake or even a weird unusual solution, and can therefore be expected to play some role in future intelligences at the very least?
You recently convinced me that anything that seems conscious by all normal tests and checks we might give it must be seen as as legitimately conscious as we are. A theory of consciousness can help us avoid false negatives, such as people with locked-in syndrome, but the idea of there being 'false positives', i.e. entities that are conscious by all observations other than this one 'true consciousness' test, is just incoherent, and means the test will have to be expanded, rather than the new kind of mind excluded. So another way to predict the presence or absence of consciousness in the future is just to look at its function and whether/where that will still be needed; its specific implementation is irrelevant.