For a fuller context, here is my reply to Buck’s skepticism about the 80% number during our back-and-forth on Facebook—as a specific comment, the number is loosely held, more of a conversation-starter than anything else. As a general comment I’m skeptical of publicly passing judgment on my judgment based on one offhand (and unanswered- it was not engaged with) comment on Facebook. Happy to discuss details in a context we’ll actually talk to each other. :)
--------------my reply from the Facebook thread a few weeks back--------------
I think the probability question is an interesting one—one frame is asking what is the leading alternative to STV?
At its core, STV assumes that if we have a mathematical representation of an experience, the symmetry of this object will correspond to how pleasant the experience is. The latest addition to this (what we’re calling ‘CDNS’) assumes that consonance under Selen Atasoy’s harmonic analysis of brain activity (connectome-specific harmonic waves, CSHW) is a good proxy for this in humans. This makes relatively clear predictions across all human states and could fairly easily be extended to non-human animals, including insects (anything we can infer a connectome for, and the energy distribution for the harmonics of the connectome). So generally speaking we should be able to gather a clear signal as to whether the evidence points this way or not (pending resources to gather this data- we’re on a shoestring budget).
Empirically speaking, the competition doesn’t seem very strong. As I understand it, currently the gold standard for estimating self-reports of emotional valence via fMRI uses regional activity correlations, and explains ~16% of the variance. Based on informal internal estimations looking at coherence within EEG bands during peak states, I’d expect us to do muuuuch better.
Philosophically speaking, people put forth analytic functionalism as a theory of consciousness (and implicitly a theory of valence?), but I don’t think it works *qua* a theory of consciousness (or ethics or value or valence), as I lay out here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/.../why-i-think-the...-- This is more-or-less an answer to some of Brian Tomasik’s (very courageous) work, and to sum up my understanding I don’t think anyone has made or seems likely to make ‘near mode’ progress, e.g. especially of the sort that would be helpful for AI safety, under the assumption of analytic functionalism.
So in short, I think STV is perhaps the only option that is well-enough laid out, philosophically and empirically, to even be tested, to even be falsifiable. That doesn’t mean it’s true, but my prior is it’s ridiculously worthwhile to try to falsify, and it seems to me a massive failure of the EA and x-risk scene that resources are not being shifted toward this sort of inquiry. The 80% I gave was perhaps a bit glib, but to dig a little, I’d say I’d give at least an 80% chance of ‘Qualia Formalism’ being true, and given that, a 95% chance of STV being true, and a 70% chance of CDNS+CSHW being a good proxy for the mathematical symmetry of human experiences.
An obvious thing we’re lacking is resources; a non-obvious thing we’re lacking is good critics. If you find me too confident I’d be glad to hear why. :)
I’m having a hard time understanding whether everything below the dotted lines is something you just wrote, or a full quote from an old thread. The first time I read it I thought the former, and on reread think the latter. Might you be able to make it more explicit at the top of your comment?
For a fuller context, here is my reply to Buck’s skepticism about the 80% number during our back-and-forth on Facebook—as a specific comment, the number is loosely held, more of a conversation-starter than anything else. As a general comment I’m skeptical of publicly passing judgment on my judgment based on one offhand (and unanswered- it was not engaged with) comment on Facebook. Happy to discuss details in a context we’ll actually talk to each other. :)
--------------my reply from the Facebook thread a few weeks back--------------
I think the probability question is an interesting one—one frame is asking what is the leading alternative to STV?
At its core, STV assumes that if we have a mathematical representation of an experience, the symmetry of this object will correspond to how pleasant the experience is. The latest addition to this (what we’re calling ‘CDNS’) assumes that consonance under Selen Atasoy’s harmonic analysis of brain activity (connectome-specific harmonic waves, CSHW) is a good proxy for this in humans. This makes relatively clear predictions across all human states and could fairly easily be extended to non-human animals, including insects (anything we can infer a connectome for, and the energy distribution for the harmonics of the connectome). So generally speaking we should be able to gather a clear signal as to whether the evidence points this way or not (pending resources to gather this data- we’re on a shoestring budget).
Empirically speaking, the competition doesn’t seem very strong. As I understand it, currently the gold standard for estimating self-reports of emotional valence via fMRI uses regional activity correlations, and explains ~16% of the variance. Based on informal internal estimations looking at coherence within EEG bands during peak states, I’d expect us to do muuuuch better.
Philosophically speaking, people put forth analytic functionalism as a theory of consciousness (and implicitly a theory of valence?), but I don’t think it works *qua* a theory of consciousness (or ethics or value or valence), as I lay out here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/.../why-i-think-the...-- This is more-or-less an answer to some of Brian Tomasik’s (very courageous) work, and to sum up my understanding I don’t think anyone has made or seems likely to make ‘near mode’ progress, e.g. especially of the sort that would be helpful for AI safety, under the assumption of analytic functionalism.
So in short, I think STV is perhaps the only option that is well-enough laid out, philosophically and empirically, to even be tested, to even be falsifiable. That doesn’t mean it’s true, but my prior is it’s ridiculously worthwhile to try to falsify, and it seems to me a massive failure of the EA and x-risk scene that resources are not being shifted toward this sort of inquiry. The 80% I gave was perhaps a bit glib, but to dig a little, I’d say I’d give at least an 80% chance of ‘Qualia Formalism’ being true, and given that, a 95% chance of STV being true, and a 70% chance of CDNS+CSHW being a good proxy for the mathematical symmetry of human experiences.
An obvious thing we’re lacking is resources; a non-obvious thing we’re lacking is good critics. If you find me too confident I’d be glad to hear why. :)
Resources:
Principia Qualia: https://opentheory.net/PrincipiaQualia.pdf(exploratory arguments for formalism and STV laid out)
Against Functionalism: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/.../why-i-think-the...
(an evaluation of what analytic functionalism actually gives us)
Quantifying Bliss: https://qualiacomputing.com/.../quantifying-bliss-talk.../
(Andres Gomez Emilsson’s combination of STV plus Selen Atasoy’s CSHW, which forms the new synthesis we’re working from)
A Future for Neuroscience: https://opentheory.net/2018/08/a-future-for-neuroscience/#
(more on CSHW)
Happy to chat more in-depth about details.
I’m having a hard time understanding whether everything below the dotted lines is something you just wrote, or a full quote from an old thread. The first time I read it I thought the former, and on reread think the latter. Might you be able to make it more explicit at the top of your comment?
Thanks, added.