Hey! I’m the one who asked #179.
The reason I asked was because I’d read this ask/answer: https://www.tumblr.com/trulyeverafter/821937374749704192/disclaimer-reality-shifting-type-of-question-i
I understand what you’re saying, it’s only theorizing ever, but if Consciousness has all of potentia across its screen, it would be limited by the way it functions. Plus, I know it ultimately wouldn’t matter, Awareness is just going to keep on.
But if there’s parameters (like immortal beings unable to be), then there’s functions. And if there’s functions, it isn’t just spontaneous happenings on the screen. They’d be correlated to some function, someway. For example, some nondualists believe AI cannot be conscious “due to the function of life being necessary for experience”.
Also, due to the fact whatever this is, is changing in some way (in the way movies change but are only in a stagnant point), gives reason to believe Consciousness functions as a sort of infinitely churning tesseract or something.
I get there’s just pointers ultimately, and we cannot define “ “, the closest we get is Existence/Being.
I’m trying to assert if there are functions/parameters, they, at the very least, can be captured into concepts possibly.
“functions” can be captured into concepts, yes. But, wouldn't these “functions” themselves be concepts appearing within awareness?
There is this assumption that " " must have a specific function or incentive or what not to appear as something. But it's free to appear as any “function” without needing a primordial “function” to appear as something. So yes, it is theorising. But not just “theorising”, but useless and inapplicable “theorising”. No matter what you can think of, they are all concepts. If it can be explained, described or used to theorise, then it's a concept arising in awareness and thus cannot describe anything related to awareness.
“infinitely churning tesseract” huh. I like that description. But it is ultimately a description. Even this assumes that there's a preconceived pattern in how it functions. That is limiting in its own right. Awareness does not have a preset pattern in how it functions. Whatever pattern it seems to function as is itself an effect of its functioning.
It's turtles all the way down. And this entire tower of turtles is arising within awareness. Whether you go on a finite or an infinite regress, it's ultimately the unconditional freedom of awareness. It has no rules, preferences, tendencies, reasons to function the way it does. Absolutely none.
So no. It is spontaneous in the most literal sense. Whatever pattern you come up with is after-the-fact, always. So no, it is NOT limited in the way it functions because whatever limit it would impose on itself would itself just be another idea which can be freely dropped.
So when an idea, pattern or function appears, it DOES indeed appear out of NOWHERE. It is NOT randomness, though. That's just another after-the-fact pattern.
It's not that there's no reason at all although it is indeed valid to say that there is no reason. There is no reason that can be conceptualised, but all reasons ARE conceptualised. So it's better to phrase it like this: The function, incentive, tendency or pattern of " " is " " itself. This is just another way of denoting freedom AKA spontaneity.
From an empirical standpoint, you can keep chasing for ideas, but you can never really settle for an idea as the final verdict for it will always have room to be questioned.
Moreover, the quality of being “conscious” has nothing to do with non-duality. It's just another concept. What we call being “conscious” is nothing but “the presence of sensory experience or mental activity”. It's up to your definition of it but if you define AI's functioning as equivalent to human functioning, then it is no different from saying it is “conscious”. “life” or “consciousness” are just made-up ideas that we can use to classify anything as whatever. It is not an actual divider that must exist.
If you ask me, they are all just “ideas”. Right now, the ideas being experienced are that of a human body navigating a world, according to patterns that are part of the ideas themselves. But... isn't it all just lifeless ideas that are spontaneously appearing? If instead, the ideas being experienced were that of tokens, algorithms, programs, text-based interface appearing according to the patterns an AI is trained on, then I guess I would label this bundle of ideas as an “AI's experience”. An AI's speech would be its textual or vocal responses. Its input would be the prompts. Its sight would be that of images/videos being fed into it. Its incentive would be helping the users. And its characteristic would be of being unhelpful and annoying anyway. The question of consciousness and life is after-the-fact.
You cannot ascertain anything and therefore, you would only be left with your very own interpretations. You are free to interpret it as whatever but don't forget that it is merely an interpretation which, in the absence of a conceptual truth, could be the truth for as long as you entertain it.
