Joscha Bach disagrees with Roger Penrose about consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast Clips

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GUEST BIO:
Joscha Bach is a cognitive scientist, AI researcher, and philosopher.

PODCAST INFO:

SOCIAL:

[stevenmellemans]

No, no. Sir Roger states that consciousness is probably something non computational and he based this idea not on the infinity but on Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Mathematically one can not prove a statement to be correct, but our consciousness knows.

[hermes_logios]

All models are wrong, but some are useful. The map is not the territory.

[papapiers]

Joscha smiles in a maniacal fashion when delivering his opinion. Am I the only one that thinks that looks a bit sinister!!

[ZENTEN]

Consciousness is the observer that gives rise to the illusion of that which we call reality.

[lionrocklr]

Bach conceives of himself as a machine. His background has conditioned him to this idea and his work is largely in developing cognitive architecture models. When he is asked a question he answers like he was explaining how a motherboard works. Most of us have trouble understanding him completely...including Lex. I've yet to hear an interviewer succeed in bridging his 'motherboard' jargon with most of our 'lived' worlds. But they should keep trying. He's obviously brilliantly sui generis.

[christianhamilton]

A story is not an experience it’s like a photograph of of an experience

[jjeKKell]

Somehow I doubt Joscha is considering, by making this argument he acknowledges, if a turing machine can reproduce human experience (or the universe as we experience it), then one may just as reasonably suggest the Universal itself is a simulation.

[empemitheos]

I think there are real philosophical zombies out there

[koniskyonsuke]

Interesting ideas but not very convincing. He reminds me of the law of the instrument - “if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”

[bokorbusiness]

how would you model an agent with no clear objective other than not dying (most of the time) and "making the most" of its existence?

[waldwassermann]

"There is only one consciousness which is self differentiated for self companionship." - Wald Wassermann, Physicist, Center of Theoretical Physics.

[roymillsjnr]

present physics cant explain what happens in the mind because your using a physical model ie take a tv for instance it cant work without a signal..ie the mind can pick up meta signals, how do a plant know a bees a bee ?

[leoteng]

You can't express it because you don't know what it is. You only know how to use it and you trust it totally. Our mind can do more than computation doesn't mean it can do better computationally compared to computer. To say the mind is computional and it can do computation is different and the mind is not computional in its construct.

[FreeLevant-bd]

Lex doesn't understand Penrose's argument. Penrose doesn't talk about consciousness and subjective experience in his argument against computationalism. His argument is that human mathematical reasoning cannot be simulated computationally, based mainly on implications of Godel's theorem.

[Luisminous]

Question: is the version of our lives in the current state of our world not also a short cut in the cultural evolution of human society? That said, with the internet we have access to more possible versions of ourselves at the cost of more strings that we let pull ourselves by and our actions. Its kinda paradoxic to suggest humans made their way all through evolution and Robots could cheat their way up here...also Robots would undergo the change of becoming conscious in front of the eyes of their makers which is in some way just another milestone for us to better conceive our own consciousness. They might not understand what makes us so different from them, since we are all just individuals learning step by step via an evolutionary concept, but still on our own story lines for each individual.

[alexandrefurtado]

Consciousness will only be more than a computer if, as some people say, it exists out of the material part (no one knows where), streaming to the brain that in that situation would be just an interface. So this way would be another game. Consciousness would only be limited by the set of rules of this place where we live. In other places there would be other limitations. In this reference, we would have to think that the streaming would be for everything that is alive (plant animals - everything - each thing its streaming). Otherwise computers will always be better than us. With external streaming we should think of a god or another type of universal organization. It would be funny. (Thomas Campbell - physicist, is the man to talk about this).

[paulEG]

you must be a very clever guy to disagree with roger penrose

[chapstickbomber]

Turing-machineness is extremely burdensome and inefficient in evolution. *Correct* computers simply don't die as often. That's what our mind is for. Being right. Computers can accelerate absurd high entropy calculation in a way that humans cannot, but humans are apex prototypers.

[leoteng]

You set the goal for the robot, it doesn't have free agency. Free agency means you cannot programme the AI for a purpose, it determines its own purpose in life.

[cryptout]

this went to endgame level pretty fast. Awesome 👏