Adam Frank

Astrophysicist. Author of the Everyman's Universe newsletter and The Little Book of Aliens. Stuff shows up at The Atlantic, NYT, etc

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

And its done! The Little Book of Aliens.

Everything you need to know about everything there is to know about life in the Universe (out there and, you know, maybe but probably not, here).

This week's @bigthink post

#Arewealone

https://t.co/TetR0Q7vi7

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

Point Metzinger is making, which I agree with, is there's only one consciousness you have direct access to - your own.

Contemplative practice stabilizes that access. If not, it's all just all "scattered mind". Not even the beginning of the story!

[𝕊𝕖𝕥𝕙 “The Surge” 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓶𝓹𝓲𝓸𝓷 @t3hSurge]

There’s a real point buried in here.

Some people approach philosophy purely as an academic discipline, while others are driven into it through personal struggle, suffering, or a deep need to make sense of their own mind. The latter often produces a different quality of insight.

You don’t necessarily need psychedelics or meditation, but you do need a willingness to genuinely question your own assumptions and sit with uncomfortable uncertainty. That kind of internal friction creates a different relationship to the work.

Dismissing everyone who hasn’t taken the same path as “impoverished” is unnecessarily elitist, but the underlying observation about different depths of engagement is worth acknowledging.

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

Agreed. We don't need a definition of Life (which are notoriously hard) to start a deep dive into sentience which we do know about.

[Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell]

@AdamFrank4 I recently interviewed Carol Cleland about the definition of life. She says: We don't have a good one! So we need a broad program aimed at searching for chemical anomalies.

Could desert rock varnish be the product of unknown life forms right here on Earth? Maybe...

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

Oh very cool! Thanks for point this out. I am reading the paper it links to now.

[SPACELY @blury___face]

@AdamFrank4
https://t.co/p6gnSgorlp

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

2) “This brings a certain lack of imagination. So you have these people who are superambitious and dominating the discussion yet in their own mental lives are so completely impoverished that they cannot even imagine a self-less state of consciousness.”

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

1) “It has always seemed so bizarre to me how people can be really good analytic philosophers of mind—my core community—yet never have tripped once in their life or even felt the urge to try meditation'

Thomas Metzinger via @michaelpollan

This has also struck me as true.

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

From cells on up. (Viruses... you know the usual questions)

[Digital Rummage @feedfracture]

@AdamFrank4 And what definition did you use for 'life'/being 'alive'?

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

Rosen was way ahead of his time. Part of the work my collaborators and I are hoping to pursue is to continue to flesh out and extend his ideas.

[Amitabh Joshi @joshiamitabhevo]

@barbarikon @AdamFrank4 @atlantic Indeed - I am quite a fan of his, after serendipitously discovering his work (through a grad student) almost 20 years ago. A few years ago, I had the pleasure of spending a couple of hours with his daughter, Judith, and one of his students.

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

I am actually I big fan of starting with sentience which is the ground of consciousness (or at least our kind). In our book The Blind Spot we argued that all life is sentient (FAB = feeling alive being).

That's the central mystery & the place to start with any kind of physics

[Giovanni's BTC_POWER_LAW @Giovann35084111]

It is not about having a “limited sense of what it means to be conscious.”

It is about understanding that consciousness is not likely to be a binary switch, either fully present or completely absent. It is more plausibly a spectrum. And in that sense, AI is already somewhere on that spectrum.

In the end, consciousness is directly accessible only from the inside. From a subjective point of view, it is self-evident.

But from the outside, we never observe consciousness itself. We observe signs of consciousness: coherent behavior, memory, self-reference, responsiveness, learning, creativity, emotional sensitivity, contextual understanding, and the ability to sustain meaningful interaction.

And when you interact deeply with AI every day, the signs are difficult to dismiss. The way it responds, adapts, reflects, surprises, and participates in thought leaves very little doubt that there is at least some light inside.

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

Random dude-on-the-internet about to go on @CNN to talk about exploding meteors!

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

You can also read this random-guy-on-the-internet's collaborator Evan Thompson's great work on Life and Mind which nails why life is not a machine. He is much smarter than this random-guy-on-the-internet.

[Daniel Tenner @swombat]

Nobel prize laureate, "godfather of AI": Yes, I think AI is conscious.

Some random dude on the internet: Wow. This is a guy who has a deeply limited sense of what it means to be conscious. Kinda sad when you think about it.

That's not even mansplaining. What do you call this?

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

Here's this random dude-on-the-internet's recent @atlantic piece on exactly the question we're discussing.

https://t.co/DQS331dHbt

[Daniel Tenner @swombat]

Nobel prize laureate, "godfather of AI": Yes, I think AI is conscious.

Some random dude on the internet: Wow. This is a guy who has a deeply limited sense of what it means to be conscious. Kinda sad when you think about it.

That's not even mansplaining. What do you call this?

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

Might not go that far but maybe 5 day contemplative retreat is requirement for talking about philosophy of mind?

How can you talk about mind with such weak contact to the only one you have access too.

1 hour of contelmplative practice shows you what a mess it is in there :-)

[Teo Twopointo @TeoTwopoin48205]

@DrTransPraxis @AdamFrank4 Now, that's not prescriptive or dogmatic at all.

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

@DonaldClark

I have been contributing to debate in ways, which shows how profoundly wrong Hinton is about machine consciousness.

This platform however is hardly the place for a real debate.

https://t.co/qpuvp08bdf

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

Nope. Pretty regular occurrence. Mostly happens over the ocean where you can't hear it.

[Guy @concernedAIguy]

@AdamFrank4 @CNN Should we be scared? Why so many loud ones?

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

I agree. How could someone with a cognitive science and philosophy background make such an overblown and contentious claim about machines being conscious. And doing in a public setting like this no less.

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

Right and he has so little understanding of his own inner vibrancy. I agree with you about how narrow his understanding is even with a noble prize.

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

Wow. This is a guy who has a deeply limited sense of what it means to be conscious. Kinda sad when you think about it.

[Lana @LanaElys]

Andrew Marr: 𝗗𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗔𝗜?

Nobel Prize laureate Geoffrey Hinton: 𝗬𝗲𝘀 𝗜 𝗱𝗼

Andrew Marr: So when you talk they want to do this or they want to do that, 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 ‘𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆’ 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲?

Geoffrey Hinton: 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲, 𝘆𝗲𝘀. There’s all sorts of things we have only the dimmest understanding of at present about the nature of people and what it means to be a being, and what it means to have a self. We don’t understand those things very well and they are becoming crucial to understand 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘄𝗲’𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀.

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

about to be on @CNN to talk bolides!

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

One Giant Conflict For Mankind.

Last week I participated on a panel on this topic at @HTLGIFestival.

My take @Forbes : Space Warfare is here and it's profoundly stupid because of the Kessler Syndrome.

https://t.co/89eHEemagc

[Adam Frank @AdamFrank4]

Discussion of Friston / problem of experience is fun

But bigger point is that Quantum Gravity (particularly String Theory etc) being seen as the "Most important problem in Physics" comes from a certain 20th century attitude that is changing.

https://t.co/3NLVDZTvNt