I am thinking more and more that it’s fundamentally a Wittgensteinian kind of problem.<p>We define a word to mean a certain collection of things (<i>consciousness</i>) and then try and stretch that definition to other things in the world that have the same appearance.<p>The problem is that this abstract term likely doesn’t exist in itself as a quality, but is just a shorthand for a collection of behaviors that are observed <i>only</i> in biological entities.<p>And so even if a machine exhibits all the appearance qualities of this definition of consciousness, it’s fundamentally not the same thing at all, and the only reason we think it is, is because our language is insufficient for actually describing reality.<p>In pragmatic terms it might not actually matter, if a machine 100 years from now passes every conceivable Turing Test. But that doesn’t mean that machines have become conscious in the way humans are conscious.
When I checked the last time "consciousness" was not defined yet. So the title can be read as "Some things are likely not unique to earthlings"
Wow, a paper said this so it must be true. What is the point of research like this that can never be tested? Genuinely curious. Shouldn't we find non-Earth lifeforms FIRST before even trying to make these conclusions?
Watching tech people grabble with philosophy is hilarious.
This is a philosophy paper; it doesn't appear to be posturing as "research".
So, like string theory?
> <i>a paper said this so it must be true</i><p>Who, other than you, said this?<p>Coming up with a dumbfuck thing someone else <i>could</i> say, but has in fact not, is not rhetoric. It’s not insightful. It’s literally beating a straw man like a piñata.
Of the many different scientific traditions that have converged on different ways of treating this question, the most compelling one I've found is Prigogine's dissipative structures model, which on a detailed read seems to be the most amenable tool for some follow-up work somewhere to start quantifying such things. Worth a look in if you enjoyed the OP article.
The notion that life is favored because it accelerates global evolution toward increased entropy predates, I think, Prigogine.<p>But it doesn't resolve the question of whether life, especially intelligent life, <i>actually</i> exists elsewhere. On Earth the vast majority of tornados only occur in a narrow swath of land because while they're immensely efficient at dissipating energy there are several prerequisites required for them to emerge. And there are many other simpler dissipation mechanisms that end up narrowing the odds of configurations amenable to tornado formation.<p>Moreover, these systems could easily overshoot and snuff themselves out; settling into a complex (as opposed to static or chaotic) configuration might be favored in some sense but still be incredibly rare to become established. The fact we see so many of them on Earth might just be a reflection of the anthropic principle. That is, there's a correlation between our existence and all the other complex systems surrounding us, biologic, geologic, etc.<p>The observable universe isn't infinite, and the more we learn about all the chance mechanisms that coincided to result in Earth, let alone the emergence of Earth life, the easier it is to believe that at this moment in the observable universe we might very well be alone. Maybe we aren't, but "the universe is big" simply doesn't cut it. It's doesn't take that many combined odds to conceivably end up with a number for the probability of life that is comparable in [inverse] magnitude to the size of our observable universe in stars, planets, or even atoms.<p>If we live in an infinite universe, then it's a stronger argument, though it wouldn't <i>necessarily</i> follow that life definitely must exist elsewhere even if beyond observability.
The problem with assertions like this is there’s not an attempt to prove or disprove them. Just a vague reasoning from examples.<p>Science works. Philosophy can help guide that by helping us decide where to look. So I guess this paper is helping in its own small way.
> Schwitzgebel and Pober do not attempt to define consciousness<p>Aaand I stopped reading. If you cannot describe or frame the object of your study, then I don't care.
Lost by translation.<p>Solaris ? Do stars dream of being a Sun and what they can do about it ?<p>No, he is talking about _frozen_ mass imagination (or snapshot hallucination).<p>Consciousness ? - yes, it is there - as one of many words in the language model.
Of all the non-earthlings I've met, exactly zero are what I'd call conscious.
“This thing that nobody knows what it is is likely shared by things nobody knows even exist.”
In other news, water's wetness is likely not unique to earth.
Good comment.<p>Life needs some kind of chemistry that doesn't lock up into compounds so stable they're hard to crack apart, but allows compounds stable enough to build structures.
Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are suck a system. That's why organic chemistry is a thing. There aren't that many families of elements with that property.
Ammonia and silicon based life have been suggested. But none of the alternatives have very promising chemistry. See [1]. Life is probably stuck with CHON, in the "goldilocks zone" where water exists as a liquid.<p>We now know that planets are not rare. Many extrasolar planets have been discovered. A few are promising. The systems with known extrasolar planets might have smaller, more interesting planets, too small to be detected at interstellar ranges.<p>But stars are a long way away. Unless FTL is possible (which it probably isn't, because causality would break), the most we can hope for is someone to talk to by radio or something similar.<p>See the Drake Equation.[2] There's been progress on firming up the numbers since the 1950s.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemi...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation</a>