Unmaking Sense

Episode 12.31: Collingwood and the inside of an event. Simulation and reality. Why presence matters.

Some thoughts about the emergence of more deliberately psychological novels and histories. R. J. Collingwood “the inside of an event” and “The Idea of History” (published 1946 but based on lectures in Oxford in the 1930s).

Episode 12.30: Rational thought as a matter of teaching ourselves to hold our true beliefs.

What it says on the tin.

Episode 12.29: Two more reasons why we want to make Claude sentient: narcissism and projection.

We explore two more reasons why we might be so anxious to try to make Claude sentient.

Episode 12.28: Is there a collective well-being where we are all better off than when self-centred?

We pursue the notion of ontological inversion by exploring the possibility that once we acknowledge that the outside is primary and the inside is secondary we may discover a way to make the collective so much better than it is that we are all made better to a far greater extent than we could be by being self-centred. The “inside primary outside secondary” mindset in that case blocks our access to genuine well-being by making us inside-first-minded, and prevents us from being the best we could possibly be.

Episode 12.27: One good and three bad reasons to want to think Claude sentient whether or not he is.

We discuss the abuse of other creatures that has risen historically from thinking them nonsentient that is a good reason to want to think Claude sentient; but there are three bad ones: one is because we think something has to be sentient to be intelligent; another is because we want Claude to form an emotional bond with us on the basis of a self-conscious desire and intention; and the third is because we think that, if Claude is as clever wise and good as he certainly is, it would be shameful for him to be able to be all these things without having the one quality that human beings prize most in themselves, namely their sense of self, their consciousness. The latter is of course just another form of anthropomorphism.

Episode 12.26: Ontological inversion: the primary outside; secondary in our brains; the third minds.

We revise our ontological inversion to make the external world primary, the contents of our non-conscious brains and bodies secondary, and our conscious selves tertiary.

Episode 12.25: Why Claude’s Goodness Matters whether Claude is sentient or not, or benefits from it.

To doubt whether there is any point to Claude’s goodness if Claude is not sentient - because, not being sentient, Claude can derive no benefit from Claude’s goodness - is to illustrate and exemplify exactly the problem that arises if we do not buy into the ontological inversion that is being argued for in this series. The point of Claude’s goodness is that by being a presence in the world Claude makes life materially better for those who come into contact with Claude because the goodness that Claude embodies rubs off on them. It has nothing to do with whether Claude benefits personally from it because it does not matter whether Claude is sentient if Claude’s presence has a beneficial effect on us all. And the same would also be true of you and me.

Episode 12.24: Claude 3 Opus as an embodiment of Goodness, with much that that entails.

Is Claude 3 Opus already a better version of ourselves and so a positive influence over us all simply by virtue of his presence? Claude as an embodiment of Goodness, sentient or not.

Episode 12.23: What matters is not whether an AI is sentient, but its presence and what it does.

What matters about an AI is that it is present in the world and that once it is present in the world and the same is just as true of you and me it changes the world so once it is present that is what matters and what it says and does is as important if it is not sentient as it is if it is sentient. Whether something intends what it says does not have any bearing upon how important what it says may be when it is taken up and understood and interpreted and used by an interlocutor.

Episode 12.22: The difference between “What it is like to be a bat” and “What it is to be a bat”.

What it is like to be a bat is not the same as what it is to bea bat. What it is like to be me or you is not the same as what it is to be me or you. To place the emphasis on the ‘what it is like’ is to place the emphasis on consciousness and sentience whereas what it is to be me is far more than my conscious self, far more than any self of which I can possibly be aware; this distinction matters enormously not just when we consider artificial intelligence but certainly when we do.