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There’s nothing incoherent here. Whether talking about a human, a dog, or a Kalman filter, the only mechanism by which I can infer (not fully determine) whether it’s conscious is by observing its behavior. Some things behave in ways that look more conscious than other things. Motor control, goal-seeking behavior, and doing things that imply self-awareness all point in the “probably conscious” direction, but none is dispositive. Other humans certainly give the appearance of being conscious while Kalman filters don’t appear that way. But you can imagine a totally believable robot (a la Westworld) that behaves outwardly identical to a conscious human but is not conscious. We don’t know enough about consciousness to determine whether it actually is or actually isn’t, which also applies to the Kalman filter question: it doesn’t appear to be conscious (unlike the robot) but we don’t have a way to determine whether it is (like the robot).

I’ve said multiple times what a point of view is, I think you’re just too caught up in argumentation to read the text in front of you.

You agree that you have experiences, correct? Your ability to experience experiences is what it means to have a POV. The name of that characteristic is “consciousness.”

It is probably the case that some objects experience experiences (like you presumably do and I definitely do), and other objects do not.




> and I definitely do

Prove it.


Are you trying to make my argument for me? Because that's my argument.


No I get the impression you really want to say qualia, but don't want the backlash.


What would the backlash be? Has “qualia” fallen out of favor among people who think being asleep == not being conscious? Frankly given that opening confusion I am surprised you’ve heard the word qualia.


Qualia is magical thinking. It implicitly assumes a Cartesian theater, and leads to infinite regress.


And yet here I am having continuous, direct interaction with subjective experience and yet I have zero evidence for a Cartesian theatre… simply claiming one implies the other is not the same as proving it.


> with subjective experience

So you claim. I can prompt an LLM to do the same.


Correct, you have no way to verify my claims, which is exactly my argument. Thanks!


It's like playing chess with a pigeon. My fault really.


Haha, indeed :)




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