(1) To what degree did your beliefs about the consciousness of insects (if insects are too broad a category please just focus on the common fruit fly) change from completing this report and what were the main reasons for those beliefs changing? I would be particularly interested in an answer that covers the following three points: (i) the rough probability that you previously assigned to them being conscious, (ii) the rough probability that you now assign to them being conscious and (iii) the main reasons for the change in that probability.
(2) Do you assign a 0% probability to electrons being conscious?
(3) In section 5.1 you write
Iâd like to get more feedback on this report from long-time âconsciousness expertsâ of various kinds. (So far, the only long-time âconsciousness expertâ from which Iâve gotten extensive feedback is David Chalmers.)
David Chalmers seems like an interesting choice for the one long-time âconsciousness expertâ to receive extensive feedback from. Why was he the only one that you got extensive feedback from? And of the other consciousness experts that you would like to receive extensive feedback from, do you think that most of them would disagree with some part of the report in a similar way, and if you think they would, what would that disagreement or those disagreements be?
(4) A while ago Carl Shulman put out this document detailing research advice. Can you please do the same, or if you already have a document like this can you please point me to it? I would probably find it useful and I would guess some others would too.
Re: (1), Iâll focus on the common fruit fly for concreteness. Before I began this investigation, I probably wouldâve given fruit fly consciousness very low probability (perhaps <5%), and virtually all of that probability mass wouldâve been coming from a perspective of âI really donât see how fruit flies could be conscious, but smart people who have studied the issue far more than I have seem to think itâs plausible, so I guess I should also think itâs at least a little plausible.â Now, having studied consciousness a fair bit, I have more specific ideas about how it might turn out to be the case that fruit flies are conscious, even if I think theyâre relatively low probabilitiy, and of course I retain some degree of âand maybe my ideas about consciousness are wrong, and fruit flies are conscious via mechanisms that I donât currently find at all plausible.â As reported in section 4.2, my current probability that fruit flies are conscious (as loosely defined in section 2.3.1 is 10%.
In the meantime, the possibility of electron consciousness does not currently inform my actions.
Re: (3). Youâre right that Chalmers is âan interesting choiceâ for me to get feedback from. For example, Chalmers is a property dualist and panpsychist, which in some ways is about as different a position on consciousness from mine as you could find. On the other hand, Chalmers is (in my opinion) an unusually sharp thinker about consciousness, and also he has a deserved reputation for his ability to give critical feedback to others from the perspective of their own view. And, as hoped, Chalmersâ feedback on an earlier draft of my report was very helpful, and I invested dozens of hours improving the draft in response to his feedback alone.
There were a few other consciousness researchers (whom I wonât name) that I had hoped to get feedback from, but they werenât interested to give it. Thatâs not surprising, since my report is so different from the type of work that consciousness researchers typically engage with.
My report makes so many claims (or at least, âguessesâ) that I have no doubt that if other consciousness experts gave extensive feedback on it, they would find plenty with which they disagree. In some cases, I know from their writing some specific things they would disagree with. But in many cases, Iâm not sure where they would disagree, both because I havenât read all their works on consciousness, and because most consciosuness experts have only written about a tiny portion of the issues covered (at least briefly) in my report.
Re: (4). This question is beyond the scope of the intended purpose of this AMA, but Iâll make a couple brief comments. It would take a lot of work for me to write a similar document that usefully complements Carlâs, but I may do so one day. An old post of mine on this general topic is Scholarship: How to Do It Efficiently, but itâs pretty narrow in scope.
Quick note: I agree with Benito that itâs preferable to split different questions into separate comments, but in this case donât worry about doing so. Iâll reply to all your questions as soon as I can, though Iâm going to answer some other, quicker-to-answer questions first.
(Meta: It might be more helpful to submit individual questions as separate comments, so that people can up vote them separately and peopleâs favourite questions (and associated answers) can rise to the top.)
(1) To what degree did your beliefs about the consciousness of insects (if insects are too broad a category please just focus on the common fruit fly) change from completing this report and what were the main reasons for those beliefs changing? I would be particularly interested in an answer that covers the following three points: (i) the rough probability that you previously assigned to them being conscious, (ii) the rough probability that you now assign to them being conscious and (iii) the main reasons for the change in that probability.
(2) Do you assign a 0% probability to electrons being conscious?
(3) In section 5.1 you write
David Chalmers seems like an interesting choice for the one long-time âconsciousness expertâ to receive extensive feedback from. Why was he the only one that you got extensive feedback from? And of the other consciousness experts that you would like to receive extensive feedback from, do you think that most of them would disagree with some part of the report in a similar way, and if you think they would, what would that disagreement or those disagreements be?
(4) A while ago Carl Shulman put out this document detailing research advice. Can you please do the same, or if you already have a document like this can you please point me to it? I would probably find it useful and I would guess some others would too.
Re: (1), Iâll focus on the common fruit fly for concreteness. Before I began this investigation, I probably wouldâve given fruit fly consciousness very low probability (perhaps <5%), and virtually all of that probability mass wouldâve been coming from a perspective of âI really donât see how fruit flies could be conscious, but smart people who have studied the issue far more than I have seem to think itâs plausible, so I guess I should also think itâs at least a little plausible.â Now, having studied consciousness a fair bit, I have more specific ideas about how it might turn out to be the case that fruit flies are conscious, even if I think theyâre relatively low probabilitiy, and of course I retain some degree of âand maybe my ideas about consciousness are wrong, and fruit flies are conscious via mechanisms that I donât currently find at all plausible.â As reported in section 4.2, my current probability that fruit flies are conscious (as loosely defined in section 2.3.1 is 10%.
Re: (2). This question raises issues related to Pascalâs Mugging. I donât pretend to have a solution, but some especially relevant discussions are Pascalâs Muggle: Infinitesimal Priors and Strong Evidence, Why we canât take expected value estimates literally (even when theyâre unbiased), Modeling Extreme Model Uncertainty, and Sequence thinking vs. cluster thinking. As mentioned here, the Open Philanthropy Project remains eager to get more clarity on how we should think about making decisions under different kinds of uncertainty, and we expect to write more about this issue in the future.
In the meantime, the possibility of electron consciousness does not currently inform my actions.
Re: (3). Youâre right that Chalmers is âan interesting choiceâ for me to get feedback from. For example, Chalmers is a property dualist and panpsychist, which in some ways is about as different a position on consciousness from mine as you could find. On the other hand, Chalmers is (in my opinion) an unusually sharp thinker about consciousness, and also he has a deserved reputation for his ability to give critical feedback to others from the perspective of their own view. And, as hoped, Chalmersâ feedback on an earlier draft of my report was very helpful, and I invested dozens of hours improving the draft in response to his feedback alone.
There were a few other consciousness researchers (whom I wonât name) that I had hoped to get feedback from, but they werenât interested to give it. Thatâs not surprising, since my report is so different from the type of work that consciousness researchers typically engage with.
My report makes so many claims (or at least, âguessesâ) that I have no doubt that if other consciousness experts gave extensive feedback on it, they would find plenty with which they disagree. In some cases, I know from their writing some specific things they would disagree with. But in many cases, Iâm not sure where they would disagree, both because I havenât read all their works on consciousness, and because most consciosuness experts have only written about a tiny portion of the issues covered (at least briefly) in my report.
Re: (4). This question is beyond the scope of the intended purpose of this AMA, but Iâll make a couple brief comments. It would take a lot of work for me to write a similar document that usefully complements Carlâs, but I may do so one day. An old post of mine on this general topic is Scholarship: How to Do It Efficiently, but itâs pretty narrow in scope.
Quick note: I agree with Benito that itâs preferable to split different questions into separate comments, but in this case donât worry about doing so. Iâll reply to all your questions as soon as I can, though Iâm going to answer some other, quicker-to-answer questions first.
(Meta: It might be more helpful to submit individual questions as separate comments, so that people can up vote them separately and peopleâs favourite questions (and associated answers) can rise to the top.)
Thanks. That feedback was useful :)
In future, I will submit individual questions as separate comments.