i don’t know what consciousness is and i don’t care
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🥺 do you care about other parts of physics / nature?
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sure, it just doesn’t particularly matter to me which parts are more or less conscious
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On its face, this position is genuinely baffling. Consciousness is arguable the thing that matters most, as its presence or absence almost exclusively drives our ethics and morality. If an AI is conscious, we probably shouldn’t torture it.
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> Consciousness is arguable the thing that matters most,
what is the actual argument for this??? i've never seen a convincing one
Because the default is to use the word consciousness to mean 'knowledge of self' (measurable and important), and 'qualia' (not measurable), and doing a motte and bailey. What we really value is the continuity of 'knowledge of self'¸ not of qualia (hence we're okay with sleeping)
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Replying to @ESYudkowsky
"sentience" / "consciousness" / whatever you call it is a red herring. If humans didn't have it, would that make it ok to be monsters to each other? No, the world would outwardly be the same, and so would morality.



