You are viewing the historical archive of The Philosophy Forum.
For current discussions, visit the live forum.
Go to live forum

Malcolm Lett

['Member']Joined: August 27, 2020 at 10:05Last active: June 26, 2025 at 01:246 discussions70 comments
Location: Chennai, India

Bio

Software engineer by trade, but increasingly focused on trying to understand the computational mechanisms underpinning consciousness and intelligence.

I don't have a philosophy background, but my study of interest has necessitated that I pay heed.

Originally from NZ.
Now living with my family in Chennai, India.

Favourite Philosopher

David Chalmers, Daniel Dennet, Immanuel Kant

Discussions (6)

Comments

In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
@"180 Proof" I wanted to follow-up on that discussion. I've since watched a few interviews and realised that Metzinger seems to have been one of the e...
April 30, 2024 at 07:56
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
Yeah, I'm talking about something quite different. Frankly, I don't care much for the arbitrary distinctions people impose on language vs non-language...
April 30, 2024 at 07:47
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
I struggle to grok the distinction between indexicals etc. I think the point you're making is that we are taught science through observing - ie: first...
April 24, 2024 at 08:19
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
Cool XKCD episode, and a nice metaphor. https://xkcd.com/505/ I've been thinking about this over the last couple of days. On first glance I found that...
April 24, 2024 at 08:06
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
I'm not sure if you mean "epiphenomenal" in the same way that I understand it. The Cambridge dictionary defines epiphenomenal as "something that exist...
April 24, 2024 at 07:23
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
Thank you. Yes, I think I have poured way too much time into this. Sure. That is indeed a different take. I'm taking what I like to think of as a trad...
April 22, 2024 at 15:56
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
That's a matter of opinion. Your statement depends on the idea that consciousness is special in some way - beyond normal physics - and that it's our c...
April 18, 2024 at 02:31
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
Just finished reading the review of the Ego Tunnel (https://naturalism.org/resources/book-reviews/consciousness-revolutions). I don't have much of sig...
April 17, 2024 at 12:23
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
Lol. It's a funny argument. Too simplistic, but might have some use. Just out of interest, I'll have a go. So, let's say that this kidney simulation i...
April 17, 2024 at 01:21
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
Sorry for my tardiness in responding. I think that just getting some clarity about the functional aspects of consciousness would be a huge leap forwar...
April 16, 2024 at 12:46
In: Exploring the Artificially Intelligent Mind of Claude 3 Opus  — view comment
Oh good point. I'd neglected to consider that. Time for a rethink. Thanks for pointing that out.
April 07, 2024 at 06:10
In: Exploring the Artificially Intelligent Mind of Claude 3 Opus  — view comment
I'm with you on that. The results that I've seen of LLMs, and particularly from @"Pierre-Normand"'s investigations, show clearly that the training pro...
April 07, 2024 at 04:32
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
Yes, I hope someone's done a thorough review of that from a psychological point of view, because it would be a very interesting read. Anyone has any g...
April 07, 2024 at 04:04
In: Exploring the Artificially Intelligent Mind of Claude 3 Opus  — view comment
There's some research being conducted by Steve Byrnes on AGI safety. His blog posts provide a very good introduction to the range of different kinds o...
April 07, 2024 at 03:35
In: Exploring the Artificially Intelligent Mind of Claude 3 Opus  — view comment
It looks like their initial "hello" phrase sets the tone of the conversation: As the only input to the second AI assistant, the keywords "Claude", "AI...
April 07, 2024 at 03:26
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
I assume that you are referring to the difference between the known physical laws vs something additional, like panpsychism or the cartesian dualist i...
April 07, 2024 at 02:51
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
I've read some of that discussion but not all of it. I haven't seen any examples of meta-management in there. Can you link to a specific entry where P...
April 07, 2024 at 02:21
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
Thanks. I really appreciate the kind words. The biggest problem I've had this whole time is getting anyone to bother to read my ideas enough to actual...
April 05, 2024 at 07:07
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
Thanks. Something I've suspected for a while is that we live in a time when there is enough knowledge about the brain floating around that solutions t...
April 04, 2024 at 10:30
In: On delusions and the intuitional gap  — view comment
Totally agree. Just adding more complexity at a computational process does mysteriously make consciousness happen. In my blog post I argue that there ...
April 02, 2024 at 13:01
In: On delusions and the intuitional gap  — view comment
Levine acknowledges that his argument is not proof. And Chalmer's view is based on his intuition about whether he can conceive of something or not. Pr...
April 02, 2024 at 12:46
In: On delusions and the intuitional gap  — view comment
Thanks for the discussion. My apologies, but I don't have the background to be able to respond to any of the detailed points. However, I have a descri...
April 02, 2024 at 00:53
In: On delusions and the intuitional gap  — view comment
If I understand you correctly. I think this is the non-reductive thesis - that the whole of consciousness is more than the sum of its parts, and thus ...
March 31, 2024 at 04:21
In: On delusions and the intuitional gap  — view comment
I understand this view. But I think it's an over simplification. On the one hand, given that the brain is itself, it should have no trouble knowing it...
March 31, 2024 at 03:42
In: The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness  — view comment
Also, a thank you to @"apokrisis" who introduced me to semiotics in a long ago discussion. While in the end I don't need to make any reference to semi...
March 30, 2024 at 05:11
In: On delusions and the intuitional gap  — view comment
It's wonderful how writing something down helps you clear up what you've been thinking. I had no idea I was going to bring up solipsism when I started...
March 29, 2024 at 17:12
In: What is a strong argument against the concievability of philosophical zombies?  — view comment
Yes he does use psychical, but I'm paraphrasing to put it into the context of the discussion here. What is psychical? If it's part of the physical rea...
March 28, 2024 at 10:52
In: What is a strong argument against the concievability of philosophical zombies?  — view comment
To be completely frank, I think you're agreeing with me. Chalmers' view is totally bonkers. But to be more coherent, what I'm trying to do in my own c...
March 28, 2024 at 09:51
In: What is a strong argument against the concievability of philosophical zombies?  — view comment
I could well be mistaken or overly simplistic in my understanding, but I believe I was just paraphrasing commonly stated descriptions of p-zombies in ...
March 28, 2024 at 08:23
In: What is a strong argument against the concievability of philosophical zombies?  — view comment
By the way, part of my question regarding definitions of p-zombies comes from a frustration. I have seen implicitly that definitions vary throughout, ...
March 28, 2024 at 04:29
In: What is a strong argument against the concievability of philosophical zombies?  — view comment
@"Wayfarer" I think that just gets to my point that the p-zombie analogy is used for different discussion purposes, and that the exact definition chan...
March 28, 2024 at 04:20
In: Is the philosophy of mind dead?  — view comment
As someone who comes more from, shall we say, a reductionist scientific viewpoint, and who is interested in using that viewpoint to understand human c...
March 28, 2024 at 03:42
In: What is a strong argument against the concievability of philosophical zombies?  — view comment
I've always struggled a bit with comparison of p-zombie arguments because there are many different interpretations of what a p-zombie is. For example,...
March 28, 2024 at 03:02
In: A hybrid philosophy of mind  — view comment
Yup. I thought you might answer something like that. So, the suggestion is that this is their proto-circuit nature. And in the same way, independent m...
October 17, 2020 at 08:00
In: A hybrid philosophy of mind  — view comment
An electric circuit with a gap is just a bunch of touching inanimate objects. At the moment that the circuit is completed, then suddenly the system is...
October 17, 2020 at 07:22
In: A hybrid philosophy of mind  — view comment
(Hey @"Pfhorrest", an annoying technical thing. Your images in your OP don't show up in latest browsers - in this case Chrome. Technically the issue i...
October 17, 2020 at 07:06
In: A hybrid philosophy of mind  — view comment
Thanks @"Pfhorrest", this is a nice summary of the variations on the topic, and of your particular stance. I'm still working through the whole thing, ...
October 17, 2020 at 06:55
In: A short theory of consciousness  — view comment
The only thing we know with certainty sufficient to take for granted is that the majority of humans are conscious. As our observations of the animal k...
October 04, 2020 at 08:11
In: A short theory of consciousness  — view comment
Hi @"Pop", I've read through your full article. I was very interested as you suggested in your OP that it tackles the hard problem of consciousness. H...
October 02, 2020 at 23:14
In: Are we justified in believing in unconsciousness?  — view comment
I think the overarching principle that you're describing, or perhaps better phrased as the logical extension of your argument, is Panpsychism. It's a ...
October 02, 2020 at 22:07
In: Presenting my own theory of consciousness  — view comment
I would rather say that there are three concepts here: 1. Representation of sense data -- ie: the interpreted form of the apple, as a neural state. 2....
October 02, 2020 at 20:44
In: Presenting my own theory of consciousness  — view comment
Yes, good point. I was trying to provide an easy introduction, but it does confuse the two concepts. Curiously, that has even come out from a response...
October 02, 2020 at 20:08
In: Presenting my own theory of consciousness  — view comment
Hmm, I didn't mean it that way. Perhaps I need to rephrase that section of the paper a little. It's more that I recognise that both are possibilities:...
October 02, 2020 at 19:57
In: Presenting my own theory of consciousness  — view comment
@"apokrisis" I just wanted to say that I really appreciate your comments. I always find new avenues for learning that come from them. So thanks a lot ...
September 09, 2020 at 09:14
In: Presenting my own theory of consciousness  — view comment
I'm fairly confident that both the input/output and output/input viewpoints are equally accurate and correct. It's just that they are, as I say, viewp...
September 09, 2020 at 09:04
In: Presenting my own theory of consciousness  — view comment
I think this comes down to our misconception of how memory and executive control works. We're convinced that we have complete control over every aspec...
September 09, 2020 at 08:37
In: Presenting my own theory of consciousness  — view comment
SaugB, I'll respond to your main question in a minute, but your mention of sleep and the unconscious caught my attention, so let me segue briefly to m...
September 09, 2020 at 08:15
In: Presenting my own theory of consciousness  — view comment
I'm not actually sure where the problem is here. I see the two as complimentary. As I have stated in my paper, the overall problem can be seen from mu...
September 09, 2020 at 02:09
In: Presenting my own theory of consciousness  — view comment
That statement assumes that semiosis only applies to language. But Pattee showed quite convincingly that it applies to DNA (in a link you shared, if m...
September 09, 2020 at 02:03
In: Presenting my own theory of consciousness  — view comment
I agree with you in principle that a computational approach may be a failed start. But I have a couple of points in response. 1. The computational app...
September 09, 2020 at 01:50
⇧