@kellogh Penrose claims that mathematical certainty can only be done with consciousness and is crucial to reason. (I think he conflates “conscious certainty” w. “ability to short-circuit a long-running loop,” but he’s got a Nobel and I don’t, so…) Also, I can imagine a “propagating consciousness is inherently good” argument.
@Lobrien i’ve noticed that penrose is coming up a lot in relation to debates around AI consciousness. i personally want his theories to be the truth, otoh my daughter is freaked out by the prospect that we’re living inside a black hole
@kellogh Putting aside the fact that he’s 100x smarter than me, I just have never felt compelled by his arguments. Why can’t there be a monitor of internal thoughts that is constantly looking to insert a cached “Yes, that’s true, skip ahead,” or “No, that’s false, prune this exploration”? It seems like exactly the sort of thing evolution would provide.
@kellogh@Lobrien A black hole is defined by a geodesic. A set of orbital paths that are constrained...no path escapes. If the universe is closed, that would also fit the description. But that is not much different than saying: we are inside the universe. Your daughter might find this description less anxiety inducing.
@kellogh Doesn’t "because I don't want to die” drive a lot of what we do? Or do better. I can think of many examples where we make pro-the-right-choice or anti-the-wrong-choice because we want to keep living. And beyond just not wanting to die, to be happy. Same idea. It drives so many choices. (not all good). Maybe the same drive can help machines do better -- i.e. if there is something (existence, happiness, contentment) on the line.
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