Singularitarian authors will also be pleased that they can now cite a peer-reviewed article by a leading philosopher of mind who takes the Singularity seriously.
Critics will no doubt draw attention to David’s previous venture, zombies.
Philosophers are used to the fact that they have major disagreements with each other. Even if you think zombie arguments fail, as I do, you’ll still perk up your ears when somebody as smart as Chalmers is taking the singularity seriously. I don’t accept his version of property dualism, but The Conscious Mind was not written by a dummy.
I didn’t mean to say that Chalmers isn’t a highly respected philosopher, but I also think it’s true that the impact is somewhat blunted relative to a counterfactual in which his philosophy of mind work was of equal fame and quality, but arguing a different position.
I disagree; the fact that Chalmers is critical of standard varieties of physicalism will make him more credible on the Singularity. In the former case, he rejects the nerd-core view. That makes him a little harder to write off.
From a philosopher’s viewpoint, Chalmers’s work on p-zombies is very respectable. It is exactly the kind of thing that good philosophers do, however mystifying it may seem to a layman.
Nevertheless, to more practical people—particularly those of a materialist, reductionist, monist persuasion, it all looks a little silly. I would say that the question of whether p-zombies are possible is about as important to AI researchers as the question of whether there are non-standard models of set theory is to a working mathematician.
That is, not much. It is a very fundamental and technically difficult matter, but, in the final analysis, the resolution of the question matters a whole lot less than you might have originally thought. Chalmers and Searle may well be right about the possibility of p-zombies, but if they are, it is for narrow technical reasons. And if that has the consequence that you can’t completely rule out dualism, well …, so be it. Whether philosophers can or can not rule something out makes very little difference to me. I’m more interested in whether a model is useful than in whether it has a possibility of being true.
No, I don’t think so. The possibility of p-zombies is very important for FAI, because if zombies are possible it seems likely that an FAI could never tell sentient beings apart from non-sentient ones. And if our values all center around promoting positive experiential states for sentient beings, and we are indifferent to the ‘welfare’ of insentient ones, then a failure to resolve the Hard Problem places a serious constraint on our ability to create a being that can accurately identify the things we value in practice, or on our own ability to determine which AIs or ‘uploaded minds’ are loci of value (i.e., are sentient).
Nevertheless, to more practical people—particularly those of a materialist, reductionist, monist persuasion, it all looks a little silly. I would say that the question of whether p-zombies are possible is about as important to AI researchers as the question of whether there are non-standard models of set theory is to a working mathematician.
What precisely do you mean by non-standard set theory?. If you mean modifying the axioms of ZFC, then a lot of mathematicians pay attention. There are a lot for example who try to minimize dependence on the axiom of choice. And whether one accepts choice has substantial implications for topology (see for example this survey). Similarly, there are mathematicians who investigate what happens when you assume the continuum hypothesis or a generalized version or some generalized negation.
If one is talking about large cardinal axioms then note that their are results in a variety of fields including combinatorics that can be shown to be true given some strong large cardinal axioms. (I don’t know the details of such results, only their existence).
Finally, if one looks at issues of Foundation or various forms of Anti-Foundation, there’s been work (comparatively recently, primarily in the last 30 years) (see this monograph) and versions of anti-foundation have been useful in logic, machine learning, complex systems, and other fields. While most of the early work was done by Peter Aczel, others have done follow-up work.
What axioms of set theory one is using can be important, and thinking about alternative models of set theory can lead to practical results.
What precisely do you mean by non-standard set theory?
I didn’t say “non-standard set theory”. I said “non-standard models of set theory”.
I originally considered using “non-standard models of arithmetic” as my example of a fundamental, but unimportant question, but rejected it because the question is just too simple. Asking about non-standard models of set theory (models of ZFC, for example) is more comparable to the zombie question precisely because the question itself is less well defined. For example, just what do we mean in talking about a ‘model’ of ZFC, when ZFC or something similar is exactly the raw material used to construct models in other fields?
What axioms of set theory one is using can be important, and thinking about alternative models of set theory can lead to practical results.
Oh, I agree that some (many?) mathematicians will read Aczel (I didn’t realize the book was available online. Thx) and Barwise on AFA, and that even amateurs like me sometimes read Nelson, Steele, or Woodin. Just as AI researchers sometimes read Chalmers.
My point is that the zombie question may be interesting to an AI researcher, just as inaccessible cardinals or non-well-founded sets are interesting to an applied mathematician. But they are not particularly useful to most of the people who find them interesting. Most of the applications that Barwise suggests for Aczel’s work can be modeled with just a little more effort in standard ZF or ZFC. And I just can’t imagine that an AI researcher will learn anything from the p-zombie debate which will tell him which features or mechanisms his AI must have so as to avoid the curse of zombiedom.
For example, just what do we mean in talking about a ‘model’ of ZFC, when ZFC or something similar is exactly the raw material used to construct models in other fields?
Learning to distinguish different levels of formalism by training to follow mathematical arguments from formal set theory can help you lots in disentangling conceptual hurdles in decision theory (in its capacity as foundational study of goal-aware AI). It’s not a historical accident I included these kinds of math in my reading list on FAI.
Hmmm. JoshuaZ made a similar point. Even though the subject matter and the math itself may not be directly applicable to the problems we are interested in, the study of that subject matter can be useful by providing exercise in careful and rigorous thinking, analogies, conceptual structures, and ‘tricks’ that may well be applicable to the problems we are interested in.
I can agree with that. At least regarding the topics in mathematical logic we have been discussing. I am less convinced of the usefulness of studying the philosophy of mind. That branch of philosophy still strikes me as just a bunch of guys stumbling around in the dark.
I am less convinced of the usefulness of studying the philosophy of mind. That branch of philosophy still strikes me as just a bunch of guys stumbling around in the dark.
And I agree. The way Eliezer refers to p-zombie arguments is to draw attention to a particular error in reasoning, an important error one should learn to correct.
Asking about non-standard models of ZFC is deeply connected to asking about ZFC with other axioms added. This is connected to the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem and related results. Note for example that if there is some large cardinal axiom L and statement S such that ZFC + L can model ZFC + S, and L is independent of ZFC, then ZFC + S is consistent if ZFC is.
For example, just what do we mean in talking about a ‘model’ of ZFC, when ZFC or something similar is exactly the raw material used to construct models in other fields?
We can make this precise by talking about any given set theory as your ground and then discussing the models in it. This is connected to Paul Cohen’s work in forcing but I don’t know anything about it in any detail. The upshot though is that we can talk about models in helpful ways.
But they are not particularly useful to most of the people who find them interesting. Most of the applications that Barwise suggests for Aczel’s work can be modeled with just a little more effort in standard ZF or ZFC. And I just can’t imagine that an AI researcher will learn anything from the p-zombie debate which will tell him which features or mechanisms his AI must have so as to avoid the curse of zombiedom.
Not much disagreement there, but I think you might underestimate the helpfulness of thinking about different base axioms rather than talking about things in ZFC. In any event, the objection is not to your characterization of thinking about p-zombie but rather the analogy. The central point you are making seems correct to me.
Nevertheless, to more practical people—particularly those of a materialist, reductionist, monist persuasion, it all looks a little silly.
Frankly, I haven’t even bothered looking very much at this material. My attitude is more in line with the philosophy of the Turing test. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
Hofstadter has a good “zombie takedown”—in “I am a Strange Loop, Chapter 22: A Tango with Zombies and Dualism”.
Critics will no doubt draw attention to David’s previous venture, zombies.
Sure, we think he’s wrong, but does academia? That the Singularity is supported by more than one side is good news.
Dualism is a minority position:
http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?
Accept or lean toward: physicalism 526 / 931 (56.4%)
Accept or lean toward: non-physicalism 252 / 931 (27%)
Other 153 / 931 (16.4%)
Philosophers are used to the fact that they have major disagreements with each other. Even if you think zombie arguments fail, as I do, you’ll still perk up your ears when somebody as smart as Chalmers is taking the singularity seriously. I don’t accept his version of property dualism, but The Conscious Mind was not written by a dummy.
I didn’t mean to say that Chalmers isn’t a highly respected philosopher, but I also think it’s true that the impact is somewhat blunted relative to a counterfactual in which his philosophy of mind work was of equal fame and quality, but arguing a different position.
I disagree; the fact that Chalmers is critical of standard varieties of physicalism will make him more credible on the Singularity. In the former case, he rejects the nerd-core view. That makes him a little harder to write off.
From a philosopher’s viewpoint, Chalmers’s work on p-zombies is very respectable. It is exactly the kind of thing that good philosophers do, however mystifying it may seem to a layman.
Nevertheless, to more practical people—particularly those of a materialist, reductionist, monist persuasion, it all looks a little silly. I would say that the question of whether p-zombies are possible is about as important to AI researchers as the question of whether there are non-standard models of set theory is to a working mathematician.
That is, not much. It is a very fundamental and technically difficult matter, but, in the final analysis, the resolution of the question matters a whole lot less than you might have originally thought. Chalmers and Searle may well be right about the possibility of p-zombies, but if they are, it is for narrow technical reasons. And if that has the consequence that you can’t completely rule out dualism, well …, so be it. Whether philosophers can or can not rule something out makes very little difference to me. I’m more interested in whether a model is useful than in whether it has a possibility of being true.
No, I don’t think so. The possibility of p-zombies is very important for FAI, because if zombies are possible it seems likely that an FAI could never tell sentient beings apart from non-sentient ones. And if our values all center around promoting positive experiential states for sentient beings, and we are indifferent to the ‘welfare’ of insentient ones, then a failure to resolve the Hard Problem places a serious constraint on our ability to create a being that can accurately identify the things we value in practice, or on our own ability to determine which AIs or ‘uploaded minds’ are loci of value (i.e., are sentient).
What precisely do you mean by non-standard set theory?. If you mean modifying the axioms of ZFC, then a lot of mathematicians pay attention. There are a lot for example who try to minimize dependence on the axiom of choice. And whether one accepts choice has substantial implications for topology (see for example this survey). Similarly, there are mathematicians who investigate what happens when you assume the continuum hypothesis or a generalized version or some generalized negation.
If one is talking about large cardinal axioms then note that their are results in a variety of fields including combinatorics that can be shown to be true given some strong large cardinal axioms. (I don’t know the details of such results, only their existence).
Finally, if one looks at issues of Foundation or various forms of Anti-Foundation, there’s been work (comparatively recently, primarily in the last 30 years) (see this monograph) and versions of anti-foundation have been useful in logic, machine learning, complex systems, and other fields. While most of the early work was done by Peter Aczel, others have done follow-up work.
What axioms of set theory one is using can be important, and thinking about alternative models of set theory can lead to practical results.
I didn’t say “non-standard set theory”. I said “non-standard models of set theory”.
I originally considered using “non-standard models of arithmetic” as my example of a fundamental, but unimportant question, but rejected it because the question is just too simple. Asking about non-standard models of set theory (models of ZFC, for example) is more comparable to the zombie question precisely because the question itself is less well defined. For example, just what do we mean in talking about a ‘model’ of ZFC, when ZFC or something similar is exactly the raw material used to construct models in other fields?
Oh, I agree that some (many?) mathematicians will read Aczel (I didn’t realize the book was available online. Thx) and Barwise on AFA, and that even amateurs like me sometimes read Nelson, Steele, or Woodin. Just as AI researchers sometimes read Chalmers.
My point is that the zombie question may be interesting to an AI researcher, just as inaccessible cardinals or non-well-founded sets are interesting to an applied mathematician. But they are not particularly useful to most of the people who find them interesting. Most of the applications that Barwise suggests for Aczel’s work can be modeled with just a little more effort in standard ZF or ZFC. And I just can’t imagine that an AI researcher will learn anything from the p-zombie debate which will tell him which features or mechanisms his AI must have so as to avoid the curse of zombiedom.
Learning to distinguish different levels of formalism by training to follow mathematical arguments from formal set theory can help you lots in disentangling conceptual hurdles in decision theory (in its capacity as foundational study of goal-aware AI). It’s not a historical accident I included these kinds of math in my reading list on FAI.
Hmmm. JoshuaZ made a similar point. Even though the subject matter and the math itself may not be directly applicable to the problems we are interested in, the study of that subject matter can be useful by providing exercise in careful and rigorous thinking, analogies, conceptual structures, and ‘tricks’ that may well be applicable to the problems we are interested in.
I can agree with that. At least regarding the topics in mathematical logic we have been discussing. I am less convinced of the usefulness of studying the philosophy of mind. That branch of philosophy still strikes me as just a bunch of guys stumbling around in the dark.
And I agree. The way Eliezer refers to p-zombie arguments is to draw attention to a particular error in reasoning, an important error one should learn to correct.
Asking about non-standard models of ZFC is deeply connected to asking about ZFC with other axioms added. This is connected to the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem and related results. Note for example that if there is some large cardinal axiom L and statement S such that ZFC + L can model ZFC + S, and L is independent of ZFC, then ZFC + S is consistent if ZFC is.
We can make this precise by talking about any given set theory as your ground and then discussing the models in it. This is connected to Paul Cohen’s work in forcing but I don’t know anything about it in any detail. The upshot though is that we can talk about models in helpful ways.
Not much disagreement there, but I think you might underestimate the helpfulness of thinking about different base axioms rather than talking about things in ZFC. In any event, the objection is not to your characterization of thinking about p-zombie but rather the analogy. The central point you are making seems correct to me.
Frankly, I haven’t even bothered looking very much at this material. My attitude is more in line with the philosophy of the Turing test. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
Hofstadter has a good “zombie takedown”—in “I am a Strange Loop, Chapter 22: A Tango with Zombies and Dualism”.
I think tim’s point was that Chalmers’ work on p-zombies resulted in some untenable conclusions.
More here.