(my english is bad, please use your usual numeric assistant to improve the langage if you care about such things)
Homework assignment 1: Explicate Descartes’ worries about being deceived by a malignant being in these terms.
Descartes thought experiment was the opposite of a worry. It was a reinsurance, a certitude so high that he would construct his whole philosophy upon it: the certitude that any conscious thought is a proof you must exist, otherwise you couldn’t have this thought, right? In modern time, he would have said something like:
« First, notice that I’m using social media on purpose because I want to talk directly to my fandom base about this elegant truth I demonstrated. We exist!
Indeed, suppose Elon is using some neuralink sh*t to mess with your perception while you’re actually a brain freely floating in some vat. You can’t disprove that! But even in this extreme (how would that help Elon go to mars?) scenario, you could still disprove that you don’t exist! From there I can prove God, or disprove it maybe, but on first principles always.
…but why can’t I remember which one it was? Oh wait, see? It’s silly, I can’t even remember if my philosophy proves or disproves God, and I have no idea why I can’t remember that (as if I was a literary creation ah ah!) but still, as I can think I’m still sure I do exist! See? Now try explain that to whoever you want to seduce, and like me if that worked! »
Using your term (actually the correct technical term from a neuroscience/psy perspective): I perceive thoughts, then I can confabulate it’s me who thought that, while not noticing that « me » is a catch 22 for importing questionable assumptions, such like « I » is a solid entity rather than a fluid story.
If that sounds like imagining superintelligence must act as a single actor with a single set of values, you got my point.
(my english is bad, please use your usual numeric assistant to improve the langage if you care about such things)
Descartes thought experiment was the opposite of a worry. It was a reinsurance, a certitude so high that he would construct his whole philosophy upon it: the certitude that any conscious thought is a proof you must exist, otherwise you couldn’t have this thought, right? In modern time, he would have said something like:
« First, notice that I’m using social media on purpose because I want to talk directly to my fandom base about this elegant truth I demonstrated. We exist! Indeed, suppose Elon is using some neuralink sh*t to mess with your perception while you’re actually a brain freely floating in some vat. You can’t disprove that! But even in this extreme (how would that help Elon go to mars?) scenario, you could still disprove that you don’t exist! From there I can prove God, or disprove it maybe, but on first principles always. …but why can’t I remember which one it was? Oh wait, see? It’s silly, I can’t even remember if my philosophy proves or disproves God, and I have no idea why I can’t remember that (as if I was a literary creation ah ah!) but still, as I can think I’m still sure I do exist! See? Now try explain that to whoever you want to seduce, and like me if that worked! »
Using your term (actually the correct technical term from a neuroscience/psy perspective): I perceive thoughts, then I can confabulate it’s me who thought that, while not noticing that « me » is a catch 22 for importing questionable assumptions, such like « I » is a solid entity rather than a fluid story.
If that sounds like imagining superintelligence must act as a single actor with a single set of values, you got my point.