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I share your skepticism of any consciousness being able to exist in a machine (save one caveat, below).

Even the most advanced AI model could - at best - execute a series of actions based on all previously ingested data, with the origin of its “directive” (and existence) being a derivative of human consciousness x

At the best, it could carry out these tasks so convincingly well that humans may *believe* that it’s conscious. But by its very nature, by definition, it cannot be more than mimicry, originally seeded by human thought. It wouldn’t “believe” it is conscious because there’s no one inside to believe anything. All it can do is express data.

The exception — and I consider this to be a profoundly beautiful understanding of existence — is if all of “being” is made of deterministic matter and energy. Here’s why that is cool: we ARE conscious. Simply sit for a moment and watch your breath. YOU are there. YOU might not be anything you think (body, desire, thought, etc.) but you are here now.

From that “first-principles” truth, it’s not hard to imagine (or conclude) that all matter - all energy - is related to (or suffused with or made up of) this consciousness. It fits what ancient meditating sages thought. It fits what religious figureheads (minus the organized religion) said. It fits with quantum physics.

If you are everything and everything is you, I find that peace in existing comes easily. My two sats 😉🫂

nobody 1y ago

Beautifully put. There are things I could add to what you’ve said, but nothing I would change.

“The Observer.” It was something gleaned (for me) from many sources: the Bible, Eckart Tolle, Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hanh, and others. It’s something missing from what we teach in Western cultures. You are not the voice in your mind. You are not your body. You are not your emotions.

You are The Observer, watching all of those thoughts, emotions, and the events of the present unfold. And realizing that it is not you, you do not have to suffer from it.

All things that sound simple on paper, and often get mocked as “new age” and “touchy feely” despite being millennia old, and frankly about detaching from the feels. They take constant practice, which I need to get back to in my own life.

That ineffable thing that is us, I believe is the source of our creativity, our joy in discovery, our love (our true, agape love). We don’t understand the original, so I remain skeptical of our ability to make a copy.

Not that I believe we will never know, or can’t - I’m not a science denier - I just think we haven’t caught up to some of the truths the sages of old discovered through deep contemplation. They’re a bit like Sherlock Holmes - they deduced the answers, but the “leg work” that Holmes himself dreaded but knew was necessary is still to be done.

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boston wine 1y ago

You get it 🫂🙏🫂🫂

One of the delicious elements of this view is that it’s entirely compatible with a materialistic view of the world (despite the apparent paradox). All of our ways of measuring and interpreting matter - our scientific method, theories, and derived conclusions - are perfectly valid, and they fit with no contradiction in universe made up of consciousness, which is matter, which is energy, which is consciousness. Materialistic determinism is perfectly coherent here too: the cause-and-effect flow of atoms and electrons, data and matter, are all expressions of conscious energy. It’s all “us”.

The “perpetually inclusive” logic of this view is just delightfully perfect.