On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 12:07 PM Matt Mahoney <[email protected]> wrote:
> ...The feelings that we are conscious and have free will come from > positive reinforcement of our perceptions, thoughts, and actions. The > reason we find them so hard to define in an objective and testable sense is > that they don't really exist. > Regarding the proposition that feelings don't really exist: Quoting "Indiscrete Thoughts" by Gian Carlo Rota: All philosophy has to pay its respects to the primacy of identity. Our exoteric slogan shall be: "*Identity precedes existence.*" Esoterically, the problem of existence is a *folie*. "The hard problem of consciousness." might be reframed as "The hard problem of feelings." or, more generally, "The hard problem of *qualia*." But Rota would have us chuck all that and focus on "The hard problem of *identity without regard to existence*." My current menagerie of exoteric slogans: Essence precedes existence. -- Avicenna Existence precedes essence. -- Sarte Identity precedes existence. -- Rota Existence Identifies Essence. -- My attempt to express Langan It is the last of these that most interests me. ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T117bc2d94b89dd03-M99508fe4f96cece2e8a693ae Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
