Comment on Long Cow is coming
wischi@programming.dev 4 months agoThe same is true for your brain. Show me the neurons that are fluent in Chinese. Of course the LLM is just executing code. And if we have AGI it will also just be “executing code” but so does your brain. It’s not code but the laws of physics dictate what your brain does. The laws of physics don’t understand Chinese, the atoms and molecules don’t understand Chinese. “Understanding Chinese” is an emergent property.
Think about it that way: Assume every person you know (execpt you) is just some form of Chinese Room … You first of all couldn’t prove that and second it wouldn’t matter at all.
kogasa@programming.dev 4 months ago
We aren’t trying to establish that neurons are conscious. The thought experiment presupposes that there is a consciousness, something capable of understanding, in the room. But there is no understanding because of the circumstances of the room. This demonstrates that the appearance of understanding cannot confirm the presence of understanding. The thought experiment can’t be formulated without a prior concept of what it means for a human consciousness to understand something, so I’m not sure it makes sense to say a human mind “is a Chinese room.” Anyway, the fact that a human mind can understand anything is established by completely different lines of thought.