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chaseadam17yesterday at 10:30 PM2 repliesview on HN

I'd argue we don't even know what "intelligence" or "self-awareness" mean.

Humans are conscious which means we experience things, then we develop preferences for certain experiences, then we develop skills for achieving those preferences.

Without consciousness, what is there to be aware of? And why would intelligence emerge and/or what end would it serve?


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anon84873628yesterday at 10:42 PM

Intelligence is the ability to have an internal world model then run simulations on that model to choose an optimal course of action. This is true for humans down to flies. Most of what humans do is still the boring innate stuff; it's just that fancy abstract things like "skydiving" get the most attention.

Clearly other animals have "phenomenological experience" i.e. consciousness / qualia without being as intelligent as humans (or necessarily "self aware"). Many people believe consciousness is simply a side effect of intelligence rather than the other way around.

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