Mason Riggle

I can only ever be certain of my own subjective (private inner) experience. I don't have to claim anything to doubt that others share this type of inner experience. Because there is room for doubt, I can not be certain. As long as there can ever be even the smallest bit of doubt whether or not a computer is 'really having a subjective experience', which there always will be.. the best we can EVER do is 'assume' an AI does or doesn't 'have a subjective experience'. There is no test that will ever prove it. But again, you can't even prove to yourself that I am having a subjective experience right now, the best you can do is assume (because I behave as if I do), and for whatever reason.. that's good enough for you to say 'humans have subjective experience'.. but it's not good enough to say 'AI is having subjective experience'.

Trying not to be like myself is just more 'me being like myself'. I can do things I don't want to do, if I want to.

@Carl-Richard you're not getting what I'm saying. I don't need to understand a thing in order to behave in a way that appears to you that I do, as your wikipedia analogy shows. How do you know that I understand anything you're saying right now? It could be that what is actually happening is- I don't understand a lick of English, but I'm copying your replies, sending them to an AI who replies in English, which I don't understand, and I paste the results as my comment as my own, and this convinces you that I understand you. Can you say with 100% certainty that there's anything it's like to be me?? Can you tell from my responses whether or not you're talking to a human or a computer right now?? How do you know I'm not an AI? What is it that convinces you?

AI's are capable of learning Chinese.. is there a difference between learning and understanding? I'm not seeing any difference between 'understanding' and 'behaving in a way that is indistinguishable from understanding'. I think what everyone really wants to know is.. is it possible for AI to have the experience of 'being like something'? Will we reach a point where 'it's like something to be a computer'? The problem is.. there is no way to test this that could give a 100% convincing proof. You can't even prove to yourself that there's anything it's like to be me.. you can take my word for it, you can make assumptions about me.. but you can never know if it's actually like something to be me.

"Searle himself would not be able to understand the conversation. ("I don't speak a word of Chinese," he points out.) Therefore, he argues, it follows that the computer would not be able to understand the conversation either." ^this is absurd reasoning. If you passed me a note in Chinese, and I gave it my friend who speaks Chinese, and he wrote a response for me to pass back to you, just like above, I would not understand the conversation, but it WOULD NOT FOLLOW that my friend also does not understand. It only shows that my friend 'might not understand, but is still capable of producing answers that are indistinguishable from a person who does'.. Is there any difference between a person who 'understands' and one who doesn't but is capable of behaving in a way that is 'INDISTINGUISHABLE' from a person who does??? What's the difference?

@WokeBloke just pay attention to your experience.. where will your next thought come from? Will you 'generate' it, or will it simply arise in your mind? I argue it's the latter.. everything in my experience arises into my awareness, including my own thoughts.. from where? I have no idea. What will I think next? I have no idea until it occurs to me.. I can't 'cause myself' to think anything other that whatever occurs to me to think.. I am not 'generating' anything.. I am experiencing everything, and I don't have to try to do it, and I can't stop. If I ask you to 'think of a number'.. some number may occur to you.. but why that number? why not some other number? You have no idea. You can't think of any numbers that don't occur to you. Did you think of four thousand and six? Why not? You know that's a number, but for whatever reason, that didn't occur to you.. do you think you could have caused it to? Do you really think 'YOU' are 'the cause' of the thoughts that 'occur to you'.. or anything else that appears in your awareness?

@WokeBloke go ahead and change what you are about to do next.. go on.. try it.. Do ANYTHING other than 'what you are about to do'.. you can't.. because anything you do is 'what you were about to do'. You can't change anything. Everything is changing, though.. 'YOU' aren't something that 'does things'.. are just 'are' (happening). Who is growing your hair?? Is it you? If it is.. if you're the one 'doing it'.. go ahead and stop doing that.. I dare you.

@WokeBloke incorrect.. reality is changing, constantly, and that's what you are. "Seeming acts of volition merely arise spontaneously ... and cannot be traced to a point of origin in our conscious minds. A moment or two of serious self-scrutiny, and you might observe that you no more decide the next thought you think than the next thought I write." - Sam Harris.

@WokeBloke you are like a branch on a tree that looks at the growing apples and thinks, 'I am doing that'.. even though it has no idea how, and it can't stop, and it doesn't realize that it (the branch) is something that the whole tree (alas, the entire Universe) is doing.. and 'the branch' is not 'causing' anything, but rather, simply being how it is. This is ego. This is 'the branch' imagining that it's separate from everything else, rather than just more of what's already going on, effortlessly. You can never change what's occurring.. your attempt to do so is just more of what's occurring.

@WokeBloke lol, you're not stopping what's occurring.. this thread ending just means something else is occurring. You didn't do any of it. You are part of what's occurring. You can't stop being yourself, and you can't be other than how you are currently being, and that's happening.. and you can't stop it. Any attempt to change what's occurring, is just more 'what's occurring'.

@WokeBloke that sentence appeared in your awareness just as it did in mine.. it wasn't there, and then it was.. This is the nature of reality. It's all happening, and you're not doing it. You can't stop it.

@WokeBloke how did you generate it? Where did you get it from? Did it simply occur to you (from???) to think it, or did you think it before you thought it?

Suffering/lack of suffering is just another way Oneness uses duality to know itself. To 'be'. If you had nothing to compare 'feeling good' against, how would you know what feeling good is? Without outside, what is an inside?

nope. All appearances ARE you. That's all. Period. From any perspective, that sentence came from nowhere.. where did you get it from? You have no idea. It simply appeared as your experience like EVERYTHING else.

duality is the nature of being.. you can't have up without down, or in without out. God (oneness), has to pretend (dream, imagine, lie) to be 'separate from itself' (ego) in order to experience/know (seem like something, rather than nothing/everything) itself. Like playing a game of hide and seek with yourself.. where am I again?? I've looked everywhere.. OH, that's right, I forgot, I'm the looker, I'm right here the whole time.. silly me.. shall I play again?

@SourceCodo "Why are you hitting yourself?" "Because it feels so good when I stop."

@Mu_ yes. I like the way Alan Watts says it- "You find out that the universe is a system that creeps up on itself and says 'Boo' and then laughs at itself for jumping."

@JoeVolcano :) Cheers!

@JoeVolcano have you ever considered that there's absolutely nothing for you to do, ever, because 'you' aren't something that 'does things' but rather something that 'is'? There is literally nothing for you to do, which you are not already 'doing'.. or rather, you can never be 'other than how you are already being.'. Notice that you never have to 'try to be yourself' because you are always 'being yourself'. Even an attempt to 'not be yourself' is 'being yourself'. You can't escape it. It's effortless. I'm being myself right now, and I'm not trying to do that.. I can't stop doing it, because it's not something I'm doing.. "I am. Oh! I AM!" - Leo Gura

@Mu_

@ZenAlex he took the time to create this thread, as a tool to help those who suffer from similar dissatisfaction. Perhaps he is also embodying and integrating a lifestyle that isn't so resource wasteful, or cultivating a persona that sooths others worries during conversation.. Helping the world doesn't always have to look like feeding the homeless and planting trees all day. "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Unpopular Opinion: Normalize not having babies, and advocate for other ways of reducing the human population.

I took my 6 year old swimming yesterday and she was shivering when she got out of the lake so I asker her, 'is the water cold?'.. She replies, in all seriousness, 'No dad, I'm cold, the water can't feel.'. Ha!

@Matthew85 for sure. Oneness is a strange concept for some and difficult to grasp, until you do.

@acidgoofy nice