cae_jones
15hr ago
An LLM cannot have a sensation. When you type a math function into it, it has no more qualia than a calculator does. If you hook it up to a computer with haptic sensors, or a microphone, or a video camera, and have it act based on the input of those sensors, the LLM itself will still have no qualia (the experience will be translated into data for the LLM to act on).
You have defined sensation as the thing that you have but machines lack. Or at least, that's how you're using it, here. But even granting that you're referring to a meat-based sensory data processor as a necessity, that leads to the question of where the meat-limit is. (Apologies if y've posted your animal consciousness tier list before, and I forgot; I know someone has, but I forget who.)
But I don't feel like progress can be meaningfully made on this topic, because we're approaching from such wildly different foundations. Ex, I don't know of definitions of consciousness that actually mean anything or carve reality at the joints. It's something we feel like we have. Since we can't do the (potentially deadly) experiments to break it down physiologically, we're kinda stuck here. It cmight as well mean "soul" for all that it's used any differently.
cae_jones
9d ago
I feel obligated by existing to respond, but all I've got is "my dad is the exception in his family. We were not dragged down by the others." Which just feels weak.
Also, whenever a cousin wants a path out, either for themselves or their children, they've historically tended to go to my dad in some capacity, be it hiring (on condition of not committing any drug-related crimes recently), or assuming custody of his nephews when their parents wound up in prison. The wider clan has basically fallen apart with the death of Grandma ~18.5y ago.
And while I expect my dad would have found a way to thrive regardless, getting involved in his father-in-law's business made a huge impact. I'd also note that this had nothing to do with the reasoning behind the marriage; my dad was trying to get into white-collar work until my sister was born, and FIL offerred him a job as an electrician. At no point did he want to turn that into a career, but it turns out that it's reliable, pays well, is less depressing than paper-pushing, and being able to spot a building he personally empowered on every other street is worth something. Also, the magic of giving a damn and taking whatever work he does seriously made him the obvious one to take over when FIL retired.
I kinda think demonstrably overcoming the background disadvantages of one's origins or condition can be attractive all its own. Of course, you then have to worry about regression to the mean, children getting lured into the life of the extended family, etc. FWICT, of the four of us (his two bio children and the two nephews), only one seems to be on that path, and it took until adulthood to get there.
cae_jones
15d ago
Is there an option to download the conversation? I know when Claude's ressponses show up in the code area, they're in markdown, so you can just copy or download them and get the same formatting here. Not sure about the main convo.
cae_jones
17d ago
alongwith him never having even kissed a girl. How can you be touching late 20s and never had any encounters with girls without being an incel.
Easily?
I'm beginning to wonder if the FBI is turning into a big pyramid scheme.
cae_jones
20d ago
In spite of being exposed to a bunch of supposedly relevant data in the past few weeks, I feel compelled to ramble about myself / my family / other narcissism-flavored anecdata.
So first of all, divorce would appear to run in my family. My maternal grandmother maried at least thrice, and my paternal grandparents maried young and died single. As my parents were maried 3 months before I was born, well, grandma was starting on marriage 3 at the same time, so I'm not sure that "shotgun marriage" is accurate, but...
Then my parents divorced before my episodic memory kicks in, and I remember things (and remember remembering things) from before I was 2 (with evidence, and yeah, there were times when my memory and the evidence disagreed, but that's a whole other ramblement.) I don't remember a time when my dad wasn't dating his current wife / my stepmom, but I do remember when they were dating and vague images of their wedding. My mom took longer to find a second husband, but seemed to always be dating someone in the interim. She's currently on #3, after dating him for several years.
My paternal grandparents had 6 children, 18 grandchildren, and when my grandmother died at 71, 42 great grandchildren and 1 great-great grandchild. My maternal grandparents are harder to figure, because they didn't talk much about family members I didn't know, so ... 2 or 3? Maybe 4? I actually did meet my great grandmother on my mother's side, and it seems she had close to as many children as Grandma, ±- 1. That side of the family did a lot of migrating, so has been harder to keep track of. Stepmom is the oldest of 2, and her sister is still childless.
On my great grandmother's deathbed, my mother and her sister-in-law both promised her they'd have another child. Mom did; aunt did not. My mother's stated goal was to keep having children until she got a girl. She got 3 boys, and then a broken work/life balance, turned out second husband was abusing my brothers, ... wait did she pay for that big roadtrip we took in 2002 with divorce money? :O I just realized that makes a bunch of sense. ... anyway, then she had to have a hysterectomy, so has 3 boys and last I heard, 1 grandchild from the middle brother.
My dad and stepmom had my sister, then my dad got a vasectomy... then they got two more kids, because my cousin went to prison and they were the only family members responsible enough and healthy enough to trust with them. We've always lived closest to my dad's extended family, though on the opposite side of town. Stepmom's family are in the same general area, maybe 30min away by car. Mom's family is a lot of military people who have moved around a lot, but somehow they always arranged it so Grandma was around to help.
So going any further without tripping over my weird identity crap is tricky, particularly as I'm starting to suspect the subjects are somewhat related... But by the time I got to puberty, I defaulted to wanting children. However, I was not at all interested in finding a partner, and one of the earliest instances of me imagining myself with kids I remember, I just kinda handwaved away their mother with "we probably got divorced; everyone gets divorced." I had one flash-in-the-pan crush in high school that lasted all of until I found out she already had a boyfriend. Plus, my dad told me in no uncertain terms that I should not mess with girls until college. I got to college, and was not interested in anyone there, even though the hormones would not STFU.
By that point, I'd flipped on the subject of children. Theidea was terrifying, and luckily the antinatalists and environmentalists had given me pre-made rationalizations. It wasn't until I got out of college, was exposed to the likes of Lesswrong, and started questioning even more that I concluded that, no, I always wanted children, but when I got enough wisdom to realize how big a responsibility it is, and how antiprepared I was, and also the conflicts with my special snowflake identity crap, I recoiled in panic and took shelter in rationalizations.
Oh, and my sister has one kid, and finds it so stressful that she's got a progesterone implant and stepmom encourages brother-in-law to get a vasectomy (he is not comfortable with the idea).
My dad is the only of his siblings to avoid jailtime, avoid substance abuse, get out of the white trash ghetto, go to college, hold a long-term job and own multiple businesses, and send 3 of his four kids to college (the other took up welding and farming). Though he is a bit more pronatal than stepmom, his branch of the family appears to be an evolutionary dead-end. It kinda pisses me off when I think of it that way. He did everything right, lived the American Dream and pulled himself up by his bootstraps when that was going out of style, but unless my nephew single-handedly raises family TFR, it seems to have all just been converted into a Disney Vacation Club membership. ... OK, now I'm more sad than pissed.
But for me, personally, that "wants children, but is repelled by the things that go into making them" thing, combined with the super atomized and isolating social situation, renders that super unlikely. Even were I to go back to HS or earlier, I doubt I'd have much success overcoming that, unless a magic marriage candidate just randomly appears.
... So, about that time a magic marriage candidate appeared, and I couldn't convince myself it would work long-term, or be worth the sacrifices (she was clearly not planning to live anywhere near me, so I'd functionally be giving up everything I couldn't bring with me on a gamble that it would work out)... At a not-to-be-repeated 9-month training center that was bizarrely effective at constructing a halfway functional temporary community.
What is the unifying factor in all that mess? ... IDK; economics? Social pressures? Too much aspiring to travel? Parenting failing to adapt productively to the changes in technology resulting in Boomers, GenX, Millennials, and GenZ all having unique excuses that are probably manifestations of an underlying unifying principal?
cae_jones
23d ago
Way I remember from the last time I did research, elephants are in the top 20 (or is it top 10?) killers of humans, but a lot of those are accidental. Some elephants (especially adolescent males) deliberately target humans, especially in retaliation for humans killing elephants ... but I remember one story where some young elephants drank from some barrels of fermenting alcohol on the outskirts of a village, got super drunk, and destroyed the village in their drunken rampage.
So, uh, mostly peaceful but simultaneously way more dangerous than the majority of animals humans are likely to interact with in general.
cae_jones
28d ago
Considering how many false positive trans kids would otherwise have just turned out gay, one could argue that gay kids are disproportionately affected.
cae_jones
1mo ago
That sounds more dangerous to me, but it really depends on the amount in the bottles. AFAIK, the only known death from fluoride poisoning was a 3-year-old chugging a bottle of fluoride solution, but it was a bigger one at a dentist's office.
The main thing is that swallowing fluoride is fairly useless, and where the risks are. You want it to stay in your mouth.
cae_jones
1mo ago
Its functions appear to be neutralizing acids produced by mouth bacteria, and remineralizing enamel. Adding more mostly seems to counteract the higher acid levels generated by the modern diet. Fluoride apparently increases the effectiveness of both these functions better than just throwing morehydroxyapatite at the problem.
I expect it'd actually be a good idea for mothers anyway, since pregnancy makes it easier to lose teeth, but I'm going off anecdotes for that one.
cae_jones
1mo ago
hydroxyapatite is literally produced by your body. It's in your teeth and saliva.
cae_jones
1mo ago
$67 sessions? I have a sudden urge to talk to a lawyer about the thousands I spent, only for it to turn out I had enough greys left over to just look mangy and artificially aged. ... supposedly with an 80% off coupon which I am not convinced was properly applied.
In any case, I don't know the laser details. The procedure sounds the same. I experienced pain, but it doesn't sound as intense as what you described. More like getting repeatedly slapped in small areas. Although, it grew more painful with later sessions, presumably because they increased the power.
cae_jones
1mo ago
... But the Navajo have generally had "stay between these sacred mountains" as a pre-existing element of their culture, which is why they are one of the least conquered Native Nation today. Maybe the Comanche or Apache would be better examples? Geronimo's whole claim to fame was successfully terrorizing settlers until finally being imprisoned in Oklahoma.
cae_jones
1mo ago
And Chronicals. It opens with an enormous family tree, almost as though that was part of its original purpose for contemporary readers.
cae_jones
2mo ago
No low effort humor. So no memes and one-liners ever, unless they're part of something higher effort.
cae_jones
3mo ago
When I was 10-13, I was not at all interested in the opposite sex, but was positively disposed to the idea of having children. That changed quietly at some point between 13 and 16, as preserved in that novel I wrote at the time where I suddenly questioned halfway through if the blatant self-insert character functionally parenting a couple of space-orphans was really compatible with my sense of identity. It could have been that abstinence-only presentation they put all the 8th-graders through, but I somehow doubt. I'd been surrounded by overpopulation memes forever; I'm really not sure what changed. Maybe the realization that I didn't have a community or social life or any fondness for the increasingly alienating environment around me? Some hormone balance suddenly shifting? Increased self-doubt? The realization that I was not sufficiently attracted to real people for reproduction to be remotely reallistic anyway?
I could go on. Lots of weird teenage crap that could tie into the rapid vibe-shift on the subject. At some point, all of that stuff went from a believable fantasy to something to fear, dread, or dislike. I like to think I was more reflective than average at the time, but clearly not enough to catch the transformation as it was happening.
cae_jones
4mo ago
I remember an incident from a Chinese culture class in college, where the professor was Han, and talking about how Han are the majority... then asked a Chinese student, assuming he was also Han. Surprise: he was actually Manchu. Unless there was some subtle unstated communication going on that I missed, I'd call that at least one thorough assimilation.
cae_jones
4mo ago
Now I'm confused, because I distinctly remember, around the time this comment was posted, being in my dad's truck, where he had MSNBC playing, and Nicole interrupted whatever Trump Vs Harris stuff they were talking about to show Biden giving a speech indorsing Harris and thanking his supporters. It stood out to me because he sounded like an old man on death's door, more so than anytime I've heard him speak prior. Of course he did start to ramble on in a stereotypical old man way before long, but it was more what the covid did to his voice.
Am I missing something, or did nobody else run this?
cae_jones
4mo ago
Yeah, I've always been legally blind, but was not always totally blind, so I have some amount of visual memory.
Of course, I've read this whole thread and still am picturing Harris in a generic almost-black dark grey suit, in spite of the subject matter. My visual imagination can be stubborn.
I don't think the pronouns were for blind people. I think introducing themselves with pronouns is just what people do in place of saying "I am a serious progressive who supports trans people." I'm still annoyed by this trend; 20 years ago, I was supporting trans people by complaining whenever an online service would require disclosing gender in an irrelevant context. Now it's in vogue to do the opposite, and that's somehow more inclusive. But I digress.
cae_jones
4mo ago
You know, it just occurred to me... blind people have their own activist organizations. They have conventions and speakers and seminars and conference calls and stuff. I had to attend a number of those for scholarships and the best training available. In none of the numerous speeches, presentations, seminars, etc that I heard did anyone describe what they were wearing, or what they looked like, in any way. I remember one banquet speaker who brought up diversity and said that, when he looked at the crowd, he saw a rainbow. Which was obvious because of things like accents and ... OK how do I point out that people from different ethnicities smell different without getting accused of saying PoC stink? Because I feel like someone is going to take it that way.
To quote a blind Aspy with a cringie youtube channel where he used to complain about random encounters, "Blind people don't do that."
cae_jones
4mo ago
I'm blind. I cringed. It sounds like the opening narration in a really bad first person novella.
But, you know, there aren't that many blind voters. They might be outnumbered by the activist types who like that conspicuous inclusivity signaling that alienates the people it's supposedly including (I'm sure there are dozens of trans people with pronouns in their bios, but it's mostly cis signalers; trans people I've come across just go for a name that communicates the gender they're presenting as and leave it at that, unless pressured).
In other words, she's aiming for the progressive whitewomenin HR vote. As said elsewhere in this thread, if they're the heart of the democratic voters, then she needs to appeal to them. Trans and blind voters combined might feel up a mid-sized city, if I remember the statistics correctly.
cae_jones
6mo ago
Hmm. I've been digging around in my family tree lately, and it seems like everytime I'm about to come across some post-war embarrassment, there's a plot-twist. That great×6 uncle with a Confederate war record? Turned out to be drafted, and before that was making shoes for black women fleeing to Canada... and also, the rest of the family fled the state because of Sherman's Total War campaign. Other side of the family was known for contributing Confederate soldiers? Surprise: Great×2 grandpa just had a step father from that family, and was just an underaged incest baby, 😥. Hey, remember how great grandma was totally racist when they did the ancestry research in her lifetime? Should have hung out more with her aunt, whose was with a priest who inherited way more land than he needed and converted it into a rest-stop for travelers, only to get burned down by the Night Riders. It's almost scary, as though the people writing these things down in the 19th and early 20th century had some kind of agenda in spite of being states and decades apart and not actually closely related to the people they were writing about.
I'm not sure how I should feel about any of this, but the contrast with OP is starting to make me feel kinda selfish. To the point I almost feel I should point out that the older relatives I actually met were unambiguously racist. Proud of how much American Indian blood was in the family, but simultaneously racist against everyone else.
cae_jones
6mo ago
My original proposal was to give money to people who work 30 hours a week and get paid less than $30/hour. Because if we're doing payouts to random people, actual workers should get it, not people who took out ill-advised student loans and may often be quite privileged.
Umm. Unless that 30h/week is the maximum, I fall into both groups. And while my home is ... unflattering, I do own it and the land its on, which makes my <$14/h paycheck go pretty far.
Biden already refunded most of my college debt in the first round, which ... made me kinda uncomfortable. As much as I'd like a raise, and maybe a big pile of money to fund personal projects, something about getting pander cash handouts from both parties ... makes me want to quote HPMoR Quirrell's reply to Hermione when she told him he was evil. I think something that ends in me wanting to quote Voldemort says something about either myself or the scenario; I'm just not sure which.
OK, OK, so I'm going to try and rationalize all this pandercash on the grounds that I'm probably going to be trying to recruit blind people for accessible gamedev work, so much of it will get redistributed to blind people with less economic power than me. ... Still feels sketchy.
When cars were invented, 90% of horses weren't taken to the glue factories and shot, were they? They just kinda stopped breeding and withered down to entertainment, gambling, and hobbiests, while the rest died off on their own. ... right?
Seems like humanity is already horsing themselves to death without AGI.
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