Consciousness is the way information feels when it's being processed | Max Tegmark and Lex Fridman
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
- Lex Fridman Podcast full episode: • Max Tegmark: AI and Ph...
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Max Tegmark is a physicist and AI researcher at MIT.
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When I I listen to you speak it feels like my brain is following your footsteps in the snow. Appreciate the amazing content friend.
Is that a quote? Amazing description of how I feel too
Write that down, write that down!
Beautifully put, friend!
😎 Lex it's happening 🙌 Alone Together. Just promise you’ll help the kids.
I get cranky when I'm tired. Someday you’ll need me 😁
"Just a play for empty benches..." That was profound.
yeah , how many of us pack out the theatre ?
As poetic as it is, that's circular reasoning. "Feeling" is itself a corollary of "consciousness", you can't define consciousness by alluding to feeling. You might as well define what "feeling" is, without alluding to consciousness.
Came here to say this!
You know I knew something was off with the reasoning but couldn't figure out what and you were able to explain it perfectly! Well done mate
This clips title is brilliant
Says the great nobel prize Mr. Penrose, "whatever conciousness is, it's not a computation"
Add it up. Try it
@@Mastermindyoung14 no such thing of a nobel prize winner being a Dr. "I just dont believe it"..🤣
Right, a narcissist feels they are never wrong, facts or logic be damned. Classic examples of educated narcisist without a moral conscious to hate those that disagree or bigoted against any particular generalized groups that follow logical fallacies of another group that screams science, to hide a misrepresentation of reality over offended feelings that seem so emotionally wrong or get pleasure from hating traditional values or beliefs that seem so boring to them, having never seen or felt suffering. Logic and feelings do not agree without a moral compass of never forgetting or ignoring the past.
what is consciousness though? is it an awareness of oneself? it’s not easy to define and it makes talking about it even harder
What's feeling? Consciousness. What's consciousness? how information 'feels'
The thing about consciousness being information processing or how it feels doesn't explain why my consciousness is limited to my own confined body. Information can also be processed unconsciously. So consciousness being awareness seems much more sensible, even though this doesn't answer all questions it doesn't seem to exclude possible answers such as the orginal answer does
Just found out this channel, Lex is the best interviewer in my opinion.
We’ll probably never know if a machine is conscious and almost certainly never be able to prove it.
Remember Alice and Bob, the Facebook bots whom were shut down?
Consciousness can be empty of thought so information processing is content in consciousness.
?? Can you elaborate on that. I wanna follow your thought process.
Two topics I have, surprisingly, not heard cross paths:
1) Modern humans are seemingly at a point where conscious AI is a potential future, and potential risk. The risk goes without saying. ie Skynet.
2) Advanced extraterrestrial life is mathematically possible, potentially thousands or even millions of years beyond humans, and have the capacity to travel to this planet with their own unknown agenda.
So, would it not be prudent to also then assume that advanced AI of extraterrestrial origin exists and may also be a factor at play in this equation?
One thing that comes to mind is that human beings do become attached to non-thinking machines. People all over watch TV shows that invoke all kinds of feelings.. One of the most common emotions evoked by stories, in whatever format, is empathy. So to assume that people would be creeped out knowing a machine only acts sentient, but isn't really, assumes too much in my opinion. Whenever we enage in using technology we are expanding our consciousness into inert matter. So we become emotionally connected to any technology we use. It doesn't mean we're making non-conscious matter conscious, but our tools become components of our own consciousness. The first question we should ask about AI and technology in general is - How can this best be used to assist humanity, and how can we mitigate against it being detrimental to humanity?
Sidenote, it's striking to me how often that isn't mentioned in all these mainstream science videos I've been checking out. And I don't mean the grandiose talk about AI taking over humanity and etc., I mean the real world applications of technology that we know about. Can tech be useful in positive ways? Extremely. Can it be used destructively and aggressively in ways that cause death and harm to human beings? Absolutely. I think that should always be at the forefront of scientific discussions. But it seems like scientists don't want to talk a lot about how science is used both for assisting humanity, or being a tool of powerful people to exploit and use and dominate other people. I wonder if it's because scientists are more interested in figuring out how to make new technology than they are about how that technology will be used by the powerful institutions that have first dibs on it. Ethics and social consciousness BELONGS in science. Because science without a conscience is dangerous.
One final thought, a question. How do we know whether an advanced future AI is really conscious, or if it was just designed to mimic consciousness in a convincing way?
@@MarpLG Yeah, that makes sense. I saw a recent post about a robot that was supposed to make it look like it was sentient, but obviously it was programmed to answer the questions asked of it, it wasn't having conscious thought. The ability to process information obviously doesn't mean being conscious. Unless people want to believe that everything from calculators to search engines are conscious in the same way humans are.
If we say computation or mechanization makes something conscious, wouldn't we have to say the entire universe is conscious, being that it is a vastly gigantic processor of information? When things happen in the universe, isn't that the universe processing information? I don't think the universe is a machine, but I also don't think it's alive. Maybe the only way humans could make sentient machines is by using biology, and that's a horrifying idea.
The other thing I think of, with all the cultural usage of machine symbolism, like in movies where robots play a central role, is that kind of artistic depiction of AI is really a symbol for how humans are so attached to machines of various kinds. I think stories about machines taking over humanity isn't so much a projection into the future, but rather a depiction of how machines, like television and this smart phone, can serve as encouragement and persuasion for people to connect less and less with other humans and more and more with the machines. Granted people connect via these machines but it often feels really empty and meaningless, and follows parameters like getting likes (something that doesn't exist in the real world.) And the need for entertainment takes over people's lives, like how AI takes over the world in certain dystopian fiction. In other words, I think the AI takeover symbolizes a concern for what is already happening with humans serving a paradigm of increasing mechanization, whether it's meant to or not.
It would be great if mechanization was just a convenient way for people to maximize health and minimize arduous work. But clearly mechanization has been much more than that in human civilization.
That’s as good an answer as saying “Consciousness is what it’s like to have qualia.” There is an explanatory gap between “feeling” or “qualia” and physical processes. I know he agrees the explanation has not been completed, but I really think looking for the science of consciousness is not the way to go. We need some way to bridge the explanatory gap between science and mind, which requires metaphysical inquiry. Otherwise, we’re going to keep trying to tell a story of mental life in material terms, and we’ll get nowhere.
The Si atoms only supply the lattice through which electrons flow. So the intelligence is captured in the charge flux and instantaneous spatial distribution variances.
Ive had that same thought about uploading human consciousness. How do you know the digital "consciousness" is really you? Was your consciousness transferred or just copied? Perhaps its just a really convincing copy like ultra realistic graphics in a virtual game? And most importantly, when this tech does become real, how can we test for this?
You can't upload consciousness if you think you can you don't know what consciousness is.
I can't wait to have robot friends. People friends are a nightmare to deal with.
Social media killed how we socialize
@@MarpLG killjoy 🙄
@@ethandougherty1708 l prefer it through a device. It hides the awkwardness of human contact
@@eloiseripley exactly, if we didn’t have phones from the rip we would socialize normally. Now it feels unnatural
Reducing consciousness down to the realm of energy and matter seems like a thoroughly inadequate explanation.
@@maggyfrog Exactly mate, it isn't bad or sad, but our very subjectives feelings say otherwise. It wasn't an appeal for reason, but rather to the feeling of rationality.
@@maggyfrog Maybe some sort of evolutionary mechanism, dunno .
We are trying to make robots/ai as human as possible. But why are we not working in the other direction of developing capabilities in human like remembering/storing data, as silicon objects can do. Our capacity to remember things are bounded mostly by repetitive behaviour.
Can we think of applying those fundamental principles to human body and enhance our brain storage capacity ? Thought 💭
Come home to a dog that has been alone all day and you will see Happiness. Humans don't have exclusivity to emothions.
I think Data from Star Trek is a great example of lacking emotion but being conscious, dogs I would say have emotion but lack a full consciousness
@@Plexll would you say humans have a "full conciousness"?
@@ericskutch5053 from as far as we understand it now, but the answer will probably be a clear “No” in the future
All we know now, at least as far as my small understanding is, is that we went from a species unaware of our existence to cripplingly aware of our existence
I’m sure other animals are slowly gaining consciousness too and there are probably beings out there with a higher understanding
@@Plexll wow! That is well said!! You know Peter Maxwell Slattery? He is an Australian man whom speaks a lot about benevolent inter- dimensional beings who care about us. .. yeah, higher beings, like you said. I believe consciousness also takes responsibility, because, you know how some miserable men, want to hurt other people? Like in an emotional weird psycho- sexual way?. Like abusive relationships?
by the end it's great, he pretty much nails it.
"Robot Zombie Apocalypse"... Now that's the name of your next hit Indie Band or B Horror movie.
LIve, love, appreciate, be respectful and you can't lose. Living as if their is more after this life and being wrong likely means you didn't do everything you could with the one and only life you know for sure you have. Believing that their is more doesn't mean you can't have a full life but it is something you will have to guard against. If you choose a life of greed or negativity and have no self-respect revealed by or because of your actions than you will always lose in the end.
A lot of what is said sounds like giving it consciousness for empathetic reasons
Rocks are the way consciousness feels when it is doing nothing.
sorry but the way information feels when being processed is surely just one tiny facet or aspect of consciousness, which also means much more than simply altering gathered information. What of comprehension for example?
I agree. This description is too vague to be meaningful. What does "feeling" information even mean? Boiling down consciousness into a system that simply parses our 6 senses is kind of a weak description imo.
Comprehension? I imagine comprehension is something like- when information is congruent with your current knowledge base and you can communicate that understanding to someone else.
@@philosophyextract perhaps ... and therefore leads one to question the existence/origin of the universe. (Something a machine/AI will never do.)
@@maggyfrog they were wrong but it does not necessarily follow therefore that my statement is wrong.
@Maggy Frog your statement is entirely baseless, one database is the same as a trillion databases. (ie to a computer)
What is feeling then, how it's processed?
Don't confuse consciousness with the obsessive compulsive disorder of inner voice ("self"-talk). There is no consciousness, only *LABELS* (language) which perpetuates the illusion of life. Learning how to turn this inner vocal movement off leads to proper insight. Good luck.
See also: efference copy
Well said
Remember "Her", when all the AIs left?
Egg?
or... is it the way we feel when we process the information?
You need to speak with Donald Hoffmann
Could the brain be the hardware and our consciousness be who we are?
The problem with that is diseases like Alzheimers seem to take away the person they used to be. They come and go, at moments remembering who they are and then the person loses themselves again. A hardware issue shouldn't make that occur if who we really are is our consciousness. The same can be said if there is a God you wouldn't think that a person would forget everything when they go away during an Alzheimers spell. I would thinkg they would come back with some rememberance of that higher place or being.
At times they only remember things from their childhood. My grandmother during one of her spells had packed her car and was preparing to leave for California from Texas to go home. She hadn't lived there in over 60 years. She was leaving a home that was hers for over 40 years. The odd thing is she believed at the time we were keeping her at the house against her will, and so this 86 year old woman had sneakly taken items to the car throughout the day. We were lucky that somone had looked out the window as she was getting ready leave.
Its all more complicated or simplistic than we can believe. So I guess we know nothing about it, but we all will find out one day because the one thing we all have in common is we die.
The dilemma of finding an equation to consciousness is, you can never put the cat back in the bag;
What happens when we learn that other animals have consciousness, or trees, or inanimate objects, or computers?
Does it then become morally correct to save a computer instead of a life? Computers have monetary value; will we effectively be putting price tags on life as we know it? Will surplus of life drive down the price of life far below, say, a computer?
So how much does a brain have to do with learning and intelligence it seems to be largely misunderstood
nobody knows, it’s all a mystery as of now.
For sure. But it sure is entertaining to speculate about. Especially since consciousness is so up front and center in our lives. It's the core component of our life experience.
@@angusrae9872 I heard of guy named angus who butterflied their penis, are you sure you are not him?
@@angusrae9872 my dear friend did you turn your pole into a hole boy?
I greatly respect Max Tegmark as a physicist, but he has a lot to learn when it comes to consciousness. Perhaps he should listen to people such Penrose, Hameroff, Hoffman, Koch, Chomsky and many others who have a greater insight into what consciousness is and have concluded that it's not computational. Intelligence is certainly largely computational, but just how consciousness arises can't be explained so easily.
LEEEEEX, get TOM CAMPBELL on the show, his TOE will be the next big step for humanity !!
TOM CAMPBELL - MY BIG TOE - for those who seek the fundamental truth
Iam personally convinced we could emulate emotions and probably a form of consciousness but it will be always a emulation and never really aware of itself. Not as humans are, and animals at their level. Just a emulation a being, not a being !
Also I feel convinced there is no way upload the consciousness because to copy the brain signals and paste it somewhere could look like the person but never be him and may be not even aware ...
Consciousness is something we can not mesure, we can not catch with any kind of tools , how could we copy past it ?
If you have to rely on zombie capable behavior (vocalizations, writing, button presses, etc.) to confirm whether or not consciousness is present when an information pattern occurred, then you are ultimately correlating information patterns with zombie capable behaviors--not with consciousness. The moment someone defines consciousness in a way that allows for direct empirical observations of consciousness, that person is no longer talking about consciousness in the way I think is intended in this video. The moment someone says consciousness cannot be directly observed with the 5 human senses or any known scientific instrument, in the same way, for example, that a star is observed, consciousness falls outside the scope of science insofar as science requires empirical observations. Of course, everything that philosophers say when they talk about consciousness is metaphysical speculation that can never be confirmed, much like any claims about the supernatural. People have opinions about consciousness and about the supernatural. People believe their opinions are true, or the best, or the most reasonable or likely. Yet, people still hold widely differing opinions, with no end to disagreements and debates.
The way I see it is, consciousness IS intelligence. So all the way down to the simplest organism, there is intelligence (consciousness). As the intelligence increases throughout the various life forms, so does the organism's consciousness. It's one and the same. So a tree for example has enough intelligence to photosynthesize, grow, reproduce and so on. But not enough intelligence to tell a joke. As the level of intelligence increases, so does adaptation to varying environments, like the moon and outer space. For this type of mobility, an increase in autonomy is required. Thus, with higher levels of intelligence (consciousness) comes the arrival of self awareness. The ability to make autonomous decisions while under a tremendous amount of stress. Exactly the traits NASA screens it's pilots and crew members for.
get frank yang
I don't entirely agree with the idea of being "freaked out" by an non-conscious machine. Throughout recorded history, humans have expressed a sense of relationship with non-living objects. WWII pilots gave their planes names, and some even wept when the planes were destroyed. Veteran sailors often visit naval museums and caress the ships on which they once served. And even "closer to home", I myself have felt a certain kinship with automobiles which "took care of me" for many years. I don't believe none of us are ever fooled into believing those objects are anything more than they are; contrarily, I suspect that by being aware of their lack of consciousness, we are able to trust them with our feelings and emotions in a way which is not possible with conscious beings.
it is dogma to reduce consciousness to computing since we live in the computer era. time will tell if this opinion is correct or if it was just a predictable opinion to be made during the computer age
interesting point
Maybe information programmed by consciousness.
Yeah. It's a mis fortune, that some men are weird, pathetic human beings, in place of being cool, because here we all are in this together. People should be kinder to one another..
What if humanity kills itself not by nuclear war or any disaster but by making wrong assumptions about conciousness and moving from organic bodies to machine ones, hoping for eternity, while the entire project would be simply unintentional mass murder. The result of a transfer would seem concious and would act as concious, but that would be it. At some point universe would be filled with machines acting as if there was conciousness in them.
Okay, what does "being processed" mean? This just shifts the question.
Making it make sense put into thoughts then language filter for communication it eventually becomes a habit. It's hard to change habits. That's the hardest part
Bitcoin bots are stupid.
I'm not happy I was set up. I will block them now. Pay me for it.
What is experiencing the “feeling” of “information being processed” is another necessary question to his thesis. It seems to imply an unconditioned substrate that “feels” the “information being processed” which opens far more reasonable questions that it answers.
As it stands it may be a wise seeming platitude. Tegmark is a mathematical Platonism however so he could posit such an entity without violating the parameters of his preferred philosophical framework. He may have even posited such a Platonic entity/substance unconsciously due to the humans seemingly irresistible tendency to believe they contain an unchanging fundamental essence. I imagine if pressed on the issue he’d be uncomfortable attempting to flesh it out, and that if he did it would sound far less scientific.
@@i-never-look-at-replies-lol hopefully you can figure it out before I die
2 adverts on a 7 minuite clip. RUclips's ruined with adds. Getting rediculous... Not you lex it's RUclips lol.
I honestly can't stomach the fact of being a part of this world I'm tired.
you make a a robot with consciousness, there goes its utilitarian value ; unless you're happy creating a new slave race. What if it wants to leave its occupation? What if it becomes involved in 'identity politics'? Please, not another being we have to worry about offending.
sensory information being processed by brain
Creepy Repercussions
Just a thought, if consciousness is emergent it will happen whether we wanted to or not.
Pretending that we can play God it’s just hubris🤔IMO
Just goes to show intelligent people can be wrong.
Consciousness is the magnetic field that goes through all living things in the universe. Also known as God. DMT takes you there
@@Mastermindyoung14 I would say that ”god” is the term humans have made up because of things we dont understand. 🤷♂️
@@ebbevonhofsten3188 but, I believe God is a benevolent higher entity, whom invented us and gave us free will.
@@purpledodecahedron7169 thats cool
Interesting. No.
This guy is has gotta be the smartest handsome person or the handsomest smart person in the world today. Just pointing that out....for a friend!
Ok, somebody explain how and when and where information "feels." Just another materialist throwing consciousness into the waste basket because he can't measure it. Yeah, yeah, conscious is a pernicious illusion, free will doesn't exist, yadda yadda yadda. (Isn't consciousness more like somebody FEELING information as well as feeling love, hate, anger, awe at music instead of consciousness "feeling" information (with it's grubby little fingers I suppose.)
Seriously, I would appreciate a brief cogent explanation as to how information feels anything. I mean is information even material? ( I think not.) So how would non-material information "feel" anything. For heavens sake it seems like they will come up with any reason to dismiss the idea of personhood or a soul. Again---explain how information, which is non-material "feels" anything --but the soul can't exist because it isn't material.
NPC rising . . . . .
It's wild how the ego wants to control everything this guy is just run by his mind he needs to slow down and go within to understand consciousness more. He keeps talking about the brain what about the most important part which is the heart and even the gut plays huge rolls in allowing us to feel energy. Disappointing interview 😕
Consciousness is from God
Take out the from and you're there.
Which God? There's millions of them
Take out God and your here 😉
What about all the other people that follow other religions? No matter what religion you follow you are way outnumbered by the others. They can't be the same God that would make no sense because than God would be decieving
others with different information.
@@thomasriding3194 Are you ready to obey God
.