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points by kuhsaft 1 day ago | 0 comments
> Light waves are much different than tokens

It’s just a matter of quantization/information density.

Our digital systems have to quantize information into floating point representation.

Whereas biological systems don’t. Though there is some form of quantization, as the cells in your eyes can only sense specific wavelengths.

Different thinking animals have different sensory organs.

[–] proc0 1 day ago
Right, but we don't know how much that is necessary for a conscious system. Maybe processing light has certain properties necessary for consciousness. If we don't know this then for me the safe bet is to say it is not conscious unless the system is processing at least a similar stream of information that maps to light waves.
[–] kuhsaft 1 day ago
We do know this. There are animals that are blind. There are humans born blind.

You don’t need the same sensory systems to be conscious.

[–] proc0 1 day ago
We evolved to handle light as a sensory stream of data, whether a few are born without part of the system (usually the sensors and not the processing system) is something else. My point is more that we don't really know. The exceptions are not disproving how biological systems evolved.
[–] kuhsaft 1 day ago
They are disproving your extraneous requirements for thinking, sentience, and consciousness.

Or at least it’s proving that some of your requirements for them conflate with what you actually believe is capable of thought, sentience, or consciousness.