Both of us believe something is actual. But neither of us is in a position to judge the actual thing - if it is one - is likely. And infer further on that basis.

It’s very hard to have such a strong data point as I and Pascal suppose ourselves to have, without feeling we are in a position to build an abstract likelihood ‘wager’ argument on it. But neither of us is right to build such an argument.

Even though the argument is supposed to be addressed to those who lack the inner sense as yet. I’ll bet Pascal had Christian faith as strong as my belief in my own consciousness. That is, it wavers - when I read a paper on illusionism; or Pascal read some pagan or skeptic - but it springs back.

Structurally, it’s a bit like Pascal’s Wager. The real puzzle there, I hope you agree, is how a smart guy like Pascal could fail to spot the weakness in it. Why THIS faith, rather than some other? But I think the answer is: if you have deep faith in THIS, from the inside, you feel it makes sense.

I find the whole problem perfectly insoluble. It seems like a real problem, with practical ethical implications - not some ‘how many angels’ pseudo-problem or mere verbal or conventional dispute. But I paw at it like a monkey-man at a monolith. I got nothin.

There is no reason to suppose consciousness is, specifically, a function of ‘compute’, as the cool kids call it, since you can have compute without consciousness. Seems conceivable. Unless panpsychism is true. In which case, again: nothing special about AI. A rock could be it - must be it.

If someone tells me they have hidden an Easter Egg somewhere - I have no idea where - that doesn’t give me a reason to suspect it is particularly here [looks in any particular place]. I shouldn’t expect the egg everywhere it could be.

Saying I have no rational basis for denying AI consciousness makes it sound like I should credit its likelihood more than I do, psychologically. But that doesn’t follow either.

I am just as comfortable as Julian is saying exactly what he says. Psychologically I instinctively regard it as obvious AI isn’t any more likely to be conscious than a pocket calculators. And surely the latter is not it. But rationally I find I have no real basis for that.

Of course we DO know otherwise from the inside, although illusionist arguments to the contrary are imho less absurd than folks say. But I can still see that, given how unlikely ‘conscious meat’ seems, physics-wise, a non-meat-based consciousness would, likely, reasonably, find it unlikely - wrongly.

The basic problem with this is that, from the outside - imagining you don’t know otherwise from the inside - it is not likely that AI is conscious, or pocket calculators … or humans. Because consciousness, back of the envelope, is pretty unlikely stuff around here [gestures at physical universe].

Democrats, far-right Republicans who wrongly sought to overturn a lawful election in 2020 & Republicans who at some point got crosswise with Trump all agree: both sides have a problem. This is a good article on an important topic but the obligatory both-sides treatment is unusually unhelpful here.

Turns out the friction of having to learn photoshop was a crucial firewall protecting society from the terrible taste of small business owners

“Oceania was rebranded Trumpiania. Oceania had always been branded Trumpiania.”

Impressive. Legally false AND irrelevant even if, per impossible, true.

Excited to start painting this with gouache. I find that when I combine media like pen and paint it’s either going to be a tinted drawing or a complete mixed media production lol this is a production

Immortan Joe-enomics?

Crazy to say D's should stand for maybe-right-wing-theocracy-but-maybe-not-quite-so-radical for the sake of 'keeping the court non-political'. Sarah Isgur drives me nuts. She's got this chirpy affect. You can imagine her doing voice-over for "Fargo". 'I dunno, maybe you shouldn't buy a woodchipper.'

Why would the seminar room possibility of being able to distinguish five-or-so flavors of originalism even be relevant to the question of whether you should expand the court, lest Alito-style activism wreck the liberal (and not in a partisan sense) social order?