Chris Grounds

strong functional programming fundamentalist

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

I've created up-to-date UK sectoral balance charts, with data up to 2024 Q1, for anyone interested.

Uses the official ONS data, similar to the @GowerInitiative one - which is great, but it currently stops at 2018!

Happy to produce any different variations.

#MMT

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@tonywestonuk @litewhisperer @garyseconomics First time I saw Gary was in context of him attacking MMT. Thought he was a charlatan ever since.

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@LewisCTech @jdkornac @vircodificat I respect the consistency!

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@LewisCTech @jdkornac @vircodificat The problem with your argument here is you can make the same argument for Haskell. Haskell obviously isn’t what we’d call object-orientated, so it’s not clear what is actually making Rust OOP but Haskell not.

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@garybernhardt In fairness, Typescript is an unsound type-system… so you never know

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@tonywestonuk @SorenKripke The impossible challenge you face is showing how even in principle you could get consciousness out of algorithm. I’ve yet to see an argument on that front (not just from you, but from any functionalist or physicalist) that actually is remotely compelling or convincing

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@tonywestonuk @SorenKripke There are many more than just 2 possibilities, so I disagree with your premise.

I think computers can’t be conscious because I know how they work. I know consciousness is real because I experience it everyday.

[ThePrimeagen @ThePrimeagen]

I say this all because I think we all have aspects of our creator hard coded in us. I feel so deeply this encoding of Creation. I some times feel like a dog that needs to bark. I love the creation process.

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@tonywestonuk @SorenKripke Put another way: what’s different about consciousness-as-an-algorithm and an actual algorithm? Is an algorithm that calculates the smallest 1000 primes conscious? If not, why not? What’s special about the “consciousness algorithm” whatever that could be?

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@tonywestonuk @SorenKripke You’re just asserting a highly contentious - and I think nonsensical - position. And I don’t see why you would even begin to believe that.

How is it anything other than a category error to say that algorithms can be conscious? Like, what’s the inner life of an algorithm?

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@tonywestonuk @SorenKripke There’s nothing special about either. And neither is conscious or flying a plane.

It seems you agree with me on that. So what’s special about LLMs that makes them conscious in your mind?

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@tonywestonuk @SorenKripke Do you think the UK energy grid is conscious? Or what is it about electricity in the brain that’s special?

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@tonywestonuk @SorenKripke I don’t know what “physical” means, truth be told. And I don’t think anyone does. But in any case I certainly don’t think consciousness is emergent.

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@tonywestonuk @SorenKripke I’d say the flight sim *simulates* flight, it’s not actually flying a plane. For a start there’s no plane, just the representation of a plane - likewise for the physics.

simulation of x =/= x

Likewise, the simulation of conscious beings is not the same as conscious beings.

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@SorenKripke @tonywestonuk I agree with you on eliminating the physical. I think you’re right as well that the physicalist has to eliminate consciousness. But for me that just shows the whole enterprise is flawed, eliminating the thing it seeks to explain is just a non-starter.

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@tonywestonuk @SorenKripke What is it about an algorithm that makes it conscious? Is 2+2 conscious? I don’t even know what that means.

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@SorenKripke @tonywestonuk If you really do think it’s complexity which leads to consciousness, then you should expect to find it everywhere - even in Age of Empires 2 or city plumbing system.

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@SorenKripke @tonywestonuk I don’t think either answer there is remotely compelling. It seems as much magic to expect reason and cognition to arise out of complexity given they’re not there in the first place, in the building blocks. This is just strong emergence is it not, which is basically magic.

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@tonywestonuk Sure, but how and why does consciousness arise from that? At point t in time there is no consciousness, at point t+1 there is.

In terms of your framing, at what point, why, and how does consciousness arise from a certain scale of network integration?

[Chris Grounds @imludichris]

@tonywestonuk Actually the video game would also be included in the same category - https://t.co/LKztkJnRZV.

I take that to be a reductio of the argument tbh.

But in any case, how does natural selection lead to consciousness? That’s a rather magical jump as far as I can see.