Will there be a peer-reviewed, widely accepted scientific explanation of how consciousness emerges by 31/Dec/2033?

#AI #Technology #Science #consciousness

135

Ṁ1.3k

Ṁ530

2033

chance

ALL

I will not bet in this market.

For the purposes of this market, Thomas Nagel's definition of consciousness will be used as a guide: "[Consciousness is] the feeling of what it is like to be something".

Currently, there are no scientific theories that provide a satisfactory description for how consciousness emerges. This market is about a "zero to one" transition in this regard: by the end of 2033, will there be a peer-reviewed explanation that describes how consciousness emerges in the universe?

"How consciousness emerges" == "How do we go from physical reality to subjective experience/feeling"

Put another way: if you ask any subject matter expert today how consciousness emerges, the best answer they can give you is "we don't know yet". This market is about whether a credible, better answer will exist by the end of 2033.

This market resolves YES if the following conditions are met:

* A peer-reviewed scientific explanation is published on or before December 31, 2033 that has explanatory power for the question of how consciousness emerges (in any form, in any part of the universe). This could happen, for example, by providing a mechanistic/causal description for the origin of consciousness.

* The published explanation garners widespread acceptance among subject matter experts. This condition may require subjective judgement. The assessment of this condition will be influenced by factors potentially including, but not limited to: 1) number of citations to the publication; 2) the public endorsement of the publication by subject matter experts; 3) the reproducibility of the publication.

Only the publication needs to happen on or before 31 December 2033. If needed, the market's close date may be extended to allow for the fair assessment of a relevant publication's "wide acceptance".

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bought Ṁ1 of NO

NO because there’s nothing to explain. This is just a matter of philosophy, not science. No answer will ever have explanatory powers, as the more interesting apparent properties of consciousness are illusionary.

bought Ṁ10 of NO

First they are going to have to define consciousness precisely enough to warrant explanation via scientific means. Even that will be an absolutely huge accomplishment and I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime.

Is the following true?

A widely accepted explanation for why consciousness emerged (e.g. it’s shown to give some competitive advantage) doesn’t need to explain the mechanism/source of consciousness to qualify as a “Yes” for this question.

@capybara No: the market is about how consciousness emerges/arises (i.e., "How is there feeling/experience in the universe?"), rather than why it emerges (e.g., having consciousness is an evolutionarily beneficial trait).

Define widely accepted? I imagine it would take at least a year between publication and being widely accepted. But not even sure how to measure widely accepted.

@capybara Great question! I agree that it is difficult to objectively measure this. The following would be examples of sufficient conditions:

* Endorsement by a sufficient number of subject matter experts. (Yes, "sufficient" is also potentially ambiguous here.)

* The ability to independently verify the explanatory power of such a publication. Consider, by analogy, the statement "as of the writing of this comment, large language models are widely accepted to be the best-performing machine learning technique for the generation human-like text". This statement would be hard to refute in good faith, and anyone can verify its accuracy by trying out ChatGPT vs. any other technique. I am aiming for a similar understanding of "widely accepted" in this market.

I'm not sure that setting a hard time limit is the best approach, but I agree that it may be necessary to extend the market's closing date if the impact of a relevant publication cannot be accurately/fairly determined in time.

There's an element of "I'll know it when I see it" in this market's resolution criteria, which I understand some traders will be uncomfortable with. For such people (or bots :) ), it might be best to refrain from trading in this market.

That being said, I am happy to update the resolution criteria with more objective conditions, if someone has good suggestions. I have also just added a more helpful description. Feel free to have a look, let me know if you think it can be improved somehow!