77
Soul (2025-05-31)
(midwest.social)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
77 points (96.4% liked)
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
771 readers
54 users here now
Posts and discussion about the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Hugo Award-winning author Zach Weinersmith (and related works)
https://www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersmith
New comics posted whenever they get posted on the site, and old comics posted every day until we catch up in a decade or so
founded 7 months ago
MODERATORS
Conversations about consciousness always wind me up because as soon as you ask them to define consciousness, nobody can come up with a measurable definition
That's bcz we have no idea what consciousness actually is. The harder you try to define it the less certain you are likly to be.
It's frustrating reading discussion about AI, because 90%+ of it is just people without any measurable definition of terms like "consciousness" or "intelligence" or "knowledge" talking past each other.
I actually think "consciousness" is easily definable as soon as you realize the question isn't "Is X conscious?", it's "What is X conscious of?", which in turn means "What is included in the world model of X?".
I think, therefore I am.
Consciousness is what both observes and chooses. It’s discernment and will. Though measuring that objectively is obviously an issue.
If you dont know how to measure it, then you dont actually know what consciousness is.
The subjective experience. The sequence of qualia which represents our internal state.
But that doesn't mean anything if you can't measure it. It may as well not exist. How can you tell something is having a subjective experience? How can you tell if something is experiencing "qualia"? You can't.
Well, I know that at least one subjective experience exists, mine. The inability to measure it is precisely why it's such a difficult topic.