Tuesday, January 16, 2024
how do you tell if someone has consciousness?
I know i am conscious, but how on earth do i determine if anybody or anything is similarly conscious.
It is not that it is about making decisions.
It is not about observing their environment.
It is not about remembering your past decisions.
I feel it is something about being able to do layer upon layer of maybe useless abstractions, and being able to reject them all. And also not being able to stop doing them.
If i do something automatically, i often think ' who did that. Not me.'
I imagine this is a tiny part of my physical brain, and would be a small sub-process that could envelope a large language model AI.
It must also fiddle with one's appreciation of time, making it appear as if consciousness is upto date. It could be way behind. You should beware thinking things are all syncronous. I doubt if you are going to be conscious of any sudden accident, until you come round.
Indeed this might be the beginnings of a test for consciousness.
Martin
