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0 pointskeybored21d ago0 comments

It’s reductio ad absurdum. No one cares about teapots in space either (Russel).

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maxbond21d ago· 2 in thread

I agree that is the mode of argument; reductio ad absurdum is a brittle argument, because it only works if the analogy holds. I argued the analogy doesn't hold.

keyboredOP20d ago

> But it would fall flat because the toaster is not a compelling subject in a discussion of consciousness.

Teapots are not compelling.

> You don't have to believe that LLMs or AI agents are conscious to acknowledge that the argument for their consciousness is far more compelling than any other technological artifact.

God is compelling t billions of people.

Is Russel’s Teapot a bad argument in the God debate?

maxbond20d ago

> Is Russel’s Teapot a bad argument in the God debate?

What's the relevance? If the argument made here are was a good argument, it wouldn't matter if Russell's argument was bad. We could construct a bad argument using reductio ad absurdum right here and now and it wouldn't matter to either argument.

Can you be straight with me? You know the salient difference between asserting the consciousness of a toaster and the consciousness of an AI, right? It isn't a mystery to you why we would find one line of inquiry interesting and the other not so much?

For instance, it's probably a real possibility in your mind that I am not a human and am an AI. But you probably aren't entertaining the hypothesis that I'm a toaster.

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