What about rather than life itself, it is rather some #features of life processes that are also core ingredients for the soup of consciousness? And, I’d be interested to hear what would be a good argument #for biocentrism—as I do agree, we should avoid just replacing one magic, with another..
I guess one thing is that life is far better than us at nano-engineering. So *if* consciousness is a property of *physical* (not just abstract computational) processes within processes with energetic flux etc a necessary ingredient, then we need physical stuff and life is way ahead of us on tech
Almost like there is a special sauce and the whole point of the game is to figure out its special recipe? 🤔
Haha, no, not necessarily. Doesn’t have to be qualified with ‘special’. 😊 Let’s say, there are biomechanisms that are engineer-able. But that you don’t get with current systems. Those engineer-able mechanisms might be precisely those that operate in systems like us—wet packets of biochemistry.
Would this by a biologically-centred position you’d be willing to buy into? Nothing magical—just something specific to only biology (as we currently know it), but does not need to remain so.
I’m not sure if the water or the chemistry are necessary (TBD, seems unlikely but I’m open to it), but I’d buy into the idea that there’s something about the type of processes they enable in life that’s a good place to look.
So wait, they are or they aren't important? If they enable specific processes, doesn't that imply they are important?
Yes, but I’m not convinced that similar-enough processes couldn’t be implemented in other substrates. In fact, I’d be surprised if they couldn’t.
Agree! I think the challenge, and the secret, lies in the *degree* of 'similar-enough' 🤗
Absolutely. That’s what makes the sauce special 🤤
@anilseth.bsky.social has a target paper arguing in favor of biological naturalism and replies to it will be forthcoming soon, www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
“consciousness depends on our nature as living organisms… [and] artificial consciousness is unlikely along current trajectories, but becomes more plausible as AI becomes more brain-like and/or life-like.” I’ll buy this. The fun question is which brain/life-like properties are necessary+sufficient?
This paper by Friston and Solms puts a system's survival mandate front and center: "The inherently qualitative-evaluative nature of this self-assessment explains ‘how and why’ it feels like something within the system, for the system." But is biology nec? discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10057681/1/F...
Precisely my question, what criteria of biological naturalism do others think is necessary, sufficient, or even just interesting to explore..(?) 🤓
"...the imperatives of our physiology and the physics of self-organization provide a plausible scientific response to the...question: why is there something it is like to be an organism, for the organism, and how does this something-it-is-like-ness come about?" discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10057681/1/F...