What are LLMs? Large language models? — MoK

Yes

I don't think there's any reason to assume a detemrinistic system cannot have 'doubt' implemented into a thing in that system. Doubt is a feature of a model, not of the system itself - so as long as you can implement a model in a deterministic system, that model can have measures of doubt and uncertainty. I'm actually pretty sure LLMs have already learned to internally represent various degrees of certainty in particular situations.

hear hear. I second the motion.

I'm a physicalist, but an emergentist at that, and I've begun to identify not with my body and brain itself, but from the emergent thing that's implemnted by my body and brain.

Not sure how to describe it clearly though. It's almost like a platonic form that's made real by a physical manifestation - but also the platonic form I am now is not the platonic form I was 5 seconds ago... Idk if that makes sense. Probably not.

Which is why the thread is titled "Atheism about a necessary being". — Hallucinogen

Why use the word 'atheism' at all, instead of just saying 'not believing there is some necessary thing is a contradiction'?

Atheism isn't a general term for not believing something...

There's literally nothing in that argument that goes any way towards suggesting that the first "necessary" thing is anything like what we would call a God. Atheists aren't making the claim 'nothing is necessary', they're saying 'these deities in these books don't exist'.

>then you're not an atheist about a necessary entity

And this quote proves what I'm saying - you're confusing 'atheism' about personal gods with some other claim that atheists generally don't make. It seems you've made atheism into something it isn't in order to construct this argument.

It's like saying 'atheism is wrong, because there's fruit. See, look at this fruit. If you believe this fruit exists, then you're not an atheist about fruit". Atheism *isn't about fruit* you goof.

Maybe laymen and philosophers, but that's not the view of those who study perception scientifically. — Michael

I going even think most philosophers are naive realists. They're mostly non skeptical realists but that's substantially different.

I think will be just a different model of reality from our own, not necessarily closer, not necessarily more correct (though possibly more correct, and possibly better at predicting certain things - that's the measure of any model, right? predictive success). It will have its own abstractions, it will slice reality up differently to how we do, but maybe similar in some important ways.

But there's really no telling until it actually starts being built and learning things. We already know that neural nets have their own ideas about things that are similar to ours in some ways but different in some surprising ways. I expect that to be the same with this guys project, if this guys project even ever gets working.

My was AI doesn't think. Concepts are associated with thinking.

Either way, I do not see how this reveals the questions that came after it. If you can explain. — I like sushi

You specifically asked "How can AI have a concept of reality?"

I have shown pretty solid evidence that AI internally models the stuff it interacts with (and thus, if it interacts with reality, it will - or at least in principle can - have an internal model of that reality). To me, it seems fairly self-evident how that's relevant to the question you asked. An internal model of reality, to me, seems like what someone might mean when they say 'a concept of reality'.

AI internally models stuff it interacts with.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yzGDwpRBx6TEcdeA5/a-chess-gpt-linear-emergent-world-representation

I think this is where I got the idea of mocking from, "I don't give a shit if you wipe your ass with it" — Brendan Golledge

Just giving my idea some color, wasn't aiming my ass at you.

I don't think I mocked you at all. You presented an idea - that if a God created the world, that has various specific moral implications - and I'm presenting plausible alternatives. Perhaps a God created the world, and those moral implications are not true regardless. Does my suggestion that that's a plausible alternative feel mocking to you? Is it mocking that I think you might be incorrect about something?

And perhaps the creator has no interest in determining how his creation is used. If I write a book and sell it, I don't give a shit if you wipe your ass with it - I accomplished what I wanted with it, do what you want with it.

I suppose the only difference between a materialistic worldview and my deistic worldview is the moral implication. If everything simply exists without known cause, then there is no moral implication. But if everything was made as it was for its own sake (like a giant artwork), then that morally implies that it is good, and that we ought to pay attention to it and appreciate it. — Brendan Golledge

Does it imply that? I don't intuit that conclusion. A deistic god could be just another thing, with no particular need to give it and what it wants any more mind than anything else. Who says it cares about you, or wants you to care about it? Perhaps it has no moral content at all.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination_(artificial_intelligence)#:~:text=Researchers%20have%20recognized%20this%20issue,in%2046%25%20of%20generated%20texts.

For example, a chatbot powered by large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, may embed plausible-sounding random falsehoods within its generated content. Researchers have recognized this issue, and by 2023, analysts estimated that chatbots hallucinate as much as 27% of the time,[9] with factual errors present in 46% of generated texts.

What do you think is a good question? I really liked what you said. When you're reading or engaging with someone else, what do you find to be a good question? — Jafar

The most important, widely-applicable question is "why do you think that?" Also, "what do you mean?" lol. Some people get really upset by those questions but, imo, true philosophers love being asked those questions about their ideas and beliefs.

I think you should learn to feel comfortable not having anything to say, and maybe learning more about active listening. You don't need to know a lot of things or have a lot of opinions to engage well in a conversation - getting good at asking questions is more than half the battle. Maybe that's why one of the most important things in Philosophy is the Socratic Method.

So yeah, focus more on how to ask good questions instead of having things to say, would be my advice.

well this thread is about misinformation, not bomb threats. idk what OP thinks about bomb threats, but I disagree with OP about quite a lot of political things so he might think bomb threats should also be legal.

For me, misinformation is more about people lying about politically relevant facts - like making up stories about immigrants eating pets, for example.

sure, that's already illegal and I beleive it should stay illegal.

On the one hand, it's obvious that people making decisions based on lies and falsehoods is undesirable. I mean, if your eyes are telling you there's safe ground ahead, but that's not the truth and you're about to step off a roof, then ... you know, false information is obviously not great for making good decisions. So talking about it like misinformation isn't a problem *at all* seems silly to me. There's some very obvious problems with an information economy that's flooded with lies.

On the other hand, having a central government authority deciding which things are the orthodox truth is similarly dangerous. A lot of naive online leftists seem to believe that truth-determining organizations are a clearly good thing, but they only think that as long as the truth-determining organizations believe the things they believe - they don't think about what happens when *the other side* get control of the official truth. They're short sighted about that, many of them.

So I think misinformation should absolutely be fought, and is a real problem - but I have no idea how to fight it, and giving governments the power to choose truth seems kinda insane to me.

Do you lean more toward free will or determinism? — Cadet John Kervensley

Like most professional philosophers, I'm a compatibilist.

I'm not sure I understanding all of this. I don't know if my response is relevant. — Patterner

I think it's very relevant. I think it's apparent why, but I can explain in more detail if you like.

Yes, by definition, the first choice was a free choice. If it's not free, it's not a choice — Patterner

So you don't have to have chosen your motivations or your will, in order for a choice that your will chooses to be your choice. In other words, the whole "self-authorship" requirement some people have for free will, is not in fact a requirement you have for free will - someone can make a free choice with no self authorship at all.

Your first choice can be a choice, despite being the product of countless things you didn't choose, and 0 things you did choose - like you had no choice but to make that choice, right?

And please recall, the quote that opened this conversation between you and I was T Clark saying "if we don't determine our will, we don't have free will."

If your first choice is free, despite being based on a will you had no choice in creating or designing, then you're disagreeing with that quote from Mr Clark. You're saying we can make free choices even if we haven't determined one single iota of our will.

right, and that first choice was based on circumstances we didn't choose, a mind we didn't choose, a will we didn't choose - so was the choice that we chose, which was based on all those things we didn't choose and based on nothing at all that we did choose, a free choice or not?

so an infinite series of choices or finite?

This is an interesting way of looking at it, but I think many would say if we don't determine our will, we don't have free will. — T Clark

This gets into an infinite regress problem though. If you make a choice to control your will in a particular way, then... did you also choose the part of your will that made the choice to control that will? And if you did make that choice, did you choose the will that led to that choice?

At some point, you had to have made a choice based on factors you didn't choose, based on your will being what it was, which was in a state you didn't choose.

determined things can be reflective, I'm not sure you're getting that

I distinctly remember struggling with this for at least weeks, maybe longer, as a 4-5 year old. Knowing there was a difference, looking at my hands, thinking they looked the same. How do I know which one's my left one? I can't tell. They look the same.

Those were weird times man, what a trip.

thoughts and behaviour are determined by nature and nurture. This poses the problem that humans have lack of capability to change, at the level of thoughts and neurochemistry. My own view is that human beings have reflective consciousness, which is the foundation of potential change. — Jack Cummins

these don't seem at odds with each other to me. It can be simultaneously true that thoughts and behaviour are emergent from deterministic stuff, AND true that consciousness is reflective and changing.

except Steve. Fuck that guy

The difficulty for followers though is that he did it for others, whereas followers tend to do it for their own salvation — unenlightened

Don't know why I never thought about it this way. Well put

That some christians think what other christians think is blasphemy seems... normal, for religion. Sunnis think Shias are blasphemous too, big whoop.

it is a category error that destroys one of the most basic and most fundamental presuppositions of Christianity. — Leontiskos

I guess that's where we disagree. Almost all simple definitions of Christianity that weren't explicitly designed to exclude Mormons, don't exclude Mormons. The most basic and fundamental presuppositions of Christianity are in tact in Mormonism. Those are mainly belief in Christ and in his resurrection, and seeking salvation through that belief. I don't think fundamental Christianity requires any super specific philosophy about what God exactly is. Hell, I don't think most Christians in history even gave that question much thought - and that's equally true of most Mormons, among whom this "god as man" doctrine is obscure and niche and not at all universally accepted.

You didn't answer what you quoted though.

As to the rejection of the Nicean Creed, — Hanover

Using this as a criteria for considering someone a Christian has one really bizarre effect: it means many, probably most, perhaps all early Christians don't count as "Christian" either. Early Christians meaning the first couple centuries of Christianity.

If we have to ignore 99% of what Christian leaders and scholars throughout history have said on what constitutes the essence of Christianity, — Leontiskos

No that's exactly what I'm saying Mormonism fits. Why don't you tell me what you think they said constitutes the essence of Christianity?

Almost all of these churches have very simple definitions for what counts as a Christian, and by the vast majority of those simple definitions, Mormons meet the standard. These organisations start clarifying extra hoops to jump through only when you mention Mormons.

It's not at all like science, because this is about what words mean, not about empirical observations. No empirical observations can tell you what the word "Christian" means. It's definitional.

Ask the majority of Christians, "how can I know if something is a Christian?" They'll tell you one, two, or three criteria, if someone fits those criteria they're a Christian. Almost without fail, Mormons pass any intuitive criteria for being a Christian.

Did you know many protestants say Catholics aren't Christian?

These fuckers really love gate keeping the word.

your original claim wasn't even about what a religious group believes. You used the word "nobody".

We don't need to talk about your original claim anymore though.

ah church leaders specifically. So you did mean something quite a bit different from the thing you said, thanks for clarifying.

Yes as far as I can tell, officially the majority of Christian churches, maybe all non Mormon Christian churches, consider Mormons non Christian or at the very least reject Mormon baptism. You are correct about that. Not the thing you said originally, but this new thing you're now saying, yes.

It's interesting that Mormons also don't accept the baptism of other Christian churches.

Anyway, I don't think this is the best metric for determining who we ought to consider Christians. I mean, 90% of Muslims are sunni, and a huge portion of them would say Sunni is the only real Islam, the other 10% aren't real Muslims. I wouldn't take that seriously from a sunni, and I don't personally take the comparable thing going on here from other Christians all that seriously. I mean, maybe if you're a Christian it makes sense for you to take that seriously, but I'm not beholden to any particular churches dogma and thus I'm not obliged to apply some arbitrary rule to decide Mormons, who are Christian by any obvious metric other than popularity among other Christians, are somehow not Christian.

so what do you mean?