site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

10
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I don’t see much of a difference between a simulated qualia of feeling the heart racing and having a simulated heart that races. Maybe there’s some shortcuts. 🤷‍♂️ it’s all very theoretical.

I don’t see much of a difference between a simulated qualia of feeling the heart racing and having a simulated heart that races.

Those are completely different things, though. A heart is a physical object made of atoms, and it has various physical characteristics that you would need to simulate in order to be said to be actually "simulating a heart," such as pumping simulated blood in a certain way or responding to simulated electrical stimulation in a certain way, etc. depending on how precise you want the simulation to be. If all you want is the qualia of feeling your heart, that doesn't require any of that.

It sounds like you were just using "simulation" in a different way, as to mean "qualia of feeling it" instead of something more like an "a model that imitates it." But then by the way you used it, it renders your original statement, the one that kicked this whole discussion off, pointless:

To have qualia you would have to simulate more than a brain, as qualia isn’t just felt or (in many cases) felt at all in the brain.

If by "simulate more than a brain" you meant something like "also simulate the heart and stomach and etc. where qualia is felt," and by "simulation of the heart" you just mean "the qualia of feeling one's heart" rather than "a model that imitates the heart," then the statement doesn't make sense, because a simulated brain could "simulate the heart" just by creating the qualia of having a heart, without having to also create an actual imitation heart to go along with the imitation brain.

The simulated “brain” that simulates the heart is a simulation of the brain and the heart. Frankly I don’t think anybody wants to be a brain in a box, so if this ever worked at all we would be simulating the brain and the body.

There’s no distinction between a simulation that creates a brain that thinks it has a body, and a simulation that actually has a body. The human consciousness depends on the entire nervous system.

The simulated “brain” that simulates the heart is a simulation of the brain and the heart.

This seems reasonable. And, again, going off this statement, it renders your original statement below completely wrong:

To have qualia you would have to simulate more than a brain, as qualia isn’t just felt or (in many cases) felt at all in the brain.

Because then we don't need to simulate more than the brain; we just need to simulate a brain which also simulates a heart (as in, the simulated brain creates the qualia of feeling a heart, without the programmers actually simulating a heart). So whether or not programmers simulated a brain AND a heart (AND a stomach and any other organ one might say is involved in qualia or feelings) really doesn't matter for the question of whether or not a simulated brain can have qualia. A simulated brain could just simulate those things.