Schwitzgebel's Splintered Mind
schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2009
Eric Schwitzgebel, a philosophy professor, writes about consciousness, introspection, and AI, including experiments with a Dennett-trained language model.
What HN saysCommenters say everything he writes is worth reading, and cite his posts on consciousness, introspection, and philosophical puzzles like the Dust Hypothesis.
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What HN people wrote when they linked it
pessimizer · 2021-09-05
Everything Schwitzgebel writes is worth reading: http://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/
including his blog, The Splintered Mind: https://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/
I got into him because of his thoughts on conscious experience and introspection, such as Why Did We Think We Dreamed in Black and White? and How Well Do We Know Our Own Conscious Experience: The Case of Human Echolocation. He ended up getting me (indirectly) into Mozi.
strogonoff · 2021-05-27
Some of the blogs I like, but don’t read enough (I almost ceased reading blogs at all lately):
- https://jacobian.org/posts/
- https://www.kalzumeus.com/archive/ (classic)
- https://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/
exratione · 2014-01-02
Also worth considering is Dust Theory, from the inventive mind of Greg Egan, which adds a simulation layer and time/space independence to the Boltzmann paradox.
http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2009/01/dust-hypothesis.html
And the FAQ for those who have read Permutation City:
http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/PERMUTATION/FAQ/FAQ.html
rtwld · 2024-11-07
Here is a (professional) philosophical perspective on the problem, with an interesting discussion in the comments http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2012/02/egg-came-first.html
abeppu · 2024-04-19
In 2022, a GPT-3 model fine-tuned on Dennett's writing was good enough that "Dennett experts" could only pick a real Dennett quote from a list of 5 quotes about 50% of the time. I don't know that anyone's tried on newer models. He's gone, but I wonder if we could continue to get insights from him for a while longer.
https://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2022/07/results-computerized-phi…
earthboundkid · 2022-07-27
danielrhodes · 2016-04-23
Curious if this only applies to visuals. What about voices or music? For example can you accurately reproduce your parents, siblings, or friend's voices in your head. Also, what happens if you take psychedelic drugs which produce visual hallucinations?
Also, I would assume the lack of visuals holds true for dreams as well? For dreams that you remember (if any), what were they composed of? Interestingly, some people dream in B&W and other people dream in color. [1]
[1] http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.de/2008/11/new-studies-on-black-and-w…
hyperpape · 2016-01-09
A slightly more interesting question, in my opinion: is the United States conscious?
http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2011/05/group-consciousness.html
http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2011/10/is-united-states-consciou…
woodchuck64 · 2012-12-27
Reminds me of Eric Schwitzgebel's question: is the United States conscious? http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2011/10/is-united-states-consciou… (and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbQi0tVNsdo)
saint-loup · 2012-11-25
>> That theory has the big advantage of being neither anthropo- nor neurocentric. It can be related to any physical system (biological or otherwise).
This advantage has a downside: the definition is so broad that any large, integrated system can be described as conscious. Of course, you can argue about what counts as "integration" and whether, say, Los Angeles is really a well-integrated system.
Reference: http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.fr/2012/06/why-tononi-should-rethink-…