Rooms Can't Understand Anything

<epinephrineElectrified> I am going to explain something that differs between carapace psychology and human psychology.
<epinephrineElectrified> It is one of many things, but we do need to start somewhere.
<epinephrineElectrified> So. There is a test that some people use for small children called the false-belief task.
<epinephrineElectrified> There are two puppets, called Anne and Beth. There are also two containers, a box and a basket, both of which have covers on them.
<epinephrineElectrified> Anne has a marble. She puts it in the box, and covers it so that it can't be seen inside.
<epinephrineElectrified> When asked, the kid will point to the box, when asked where Anne will come back for the marble if she wants it back.
<epinephrineElectrified> Beth, however, is a bit of a troll, and, while Anne is out of the room, moves the marble from the box to the basket, replacing both covers.
<epinephrineElectrified> The /task/ is as follows: Where will Anne look now, if she wants her marble back?
<epinephrineElectrified> Above four years old or so, the child will say that Anne will look in the box, even though the marble is actually in the basket.
<epinephrineElectrified> Because, as mentioned earlier, Beth is a bit of a troll.
<epinephrineElectrified> If you do this task with carapaces? They fail.
<epinephrineElectrified> Uniformly.
<epinephrineElectrified> This is because there is absolutely nothing they need to do game-wise that involves simulating minds that know some things and don't know other things.
<epinephrineElectrified> Some /idiot/ wrote the code for carapaces in such a way that, though they have different permissions levels and, indeed, different "user accounts", they appear to be reading from the same, massive set of memories.
* Rave is now known as deadCaden
<epinephrineElectrified> MI enters CB's coffee shop and automatically already knows that CB is low on espresso, that he has a special on lattes, that he has an assistant who works three days a week, and that the bathroom is in the back of the store to the left and that someone is already in it so she shouldn't go in.
<epinephrineElectrified> You can /get/ this information if you ask, and /usually/ there are routines programmed in for this kind of "ambience" conversation for carapaces
<epinephrineElectrified> But even if you tape their mouths shut they still automatically know all this about everyone and everything.
<epinephrineElectrified> This /seems/ to change about the time of Exile, though there is no way of testing this unless someone volunteers to take a one-way trip through a Skaian defense portal, and nobody has yet survived the journey.
<epinephrineElectrified> But I digress.
<epinephrineElectrified> Humans have different minds that believe different things, and I suspect that part of the reason we are intelligent and conniving is because we aren't working from one massive shared set of memories.
<epinephrineElectrified> And -
<tenebrousPsycher> that. okay.
<epinephrineElectrified> Yes.
<epinephrineElectrified> Did you have something to add?
<tenebrousPsycher> it always feels like I'm just... several steps behind. I guess I feel like I should know things I don't?
<tenebrousPsycher> or wonder what I'm missing?
<epinephrineElectrified> Congratulations. You have an independent mind and are an independent human being.
<stanzicApparati> You've learned something about yourself. And about everyone else.
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<epinephrineElectrified> You can be /wrong/.
<tenebrousPsycher> I'm wrong a lot, it feels like.
<epinephrineElectrified> All right. Carry a counter around your neck and click it forward a notch whenever you are right.
<tenebrousPsycher> [Smile.]
<epinephrineElectrified> Copy down the number at the end of the day.
<epinephrineElectrified> You'll need the counter for other uses, later. But there's something to start with.
<stanzicApparati> This is a tangent, but trolls are a /little/ different. Wigglers tend not to reliably pass the task Ri explained until a sweep or so after you would expect human children to do so. But trolls can still pass the test too.
<epinephrineElectrified> Where'd you learn that?
<stanzicApparati> socialization.differences.trollsandhumans.ptowers
<epinephrineElectrified> Ah. Heh.
<stanzicApparati> Research seems reliable enough, but - Pits, grain of salt.
<epinephrineElectrified> Feel free to send me a LMLTUOPFY link next time if it should be obvious.
<stanzicApparati> Heh, I can send you a link now and you can read it over when you've got some time to kill.
<stanzicApparati> I found it around year...six, I think?
<epinephrineElectrified> Fair enough. Shoot me an email and I'll get to it when I can.
<stanzicApparati> 'Kay.
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Also, the part I'm /really/ iffy about saying.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (There'
<epinephrineElectrified> ((whoops))
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (There's no consciousness in a carapace.)
<stanzicApparati> [>Cyma: Do that, include a few other links you think he'd find useful or interesting.]
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (...several questions about that.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (No consciousness node in the shiny.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (They're Searle Rooms.)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (Oh. Well.)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (What rooms? I don't think you've explained that one yet.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Dude called Searle, who did some work on brain research in about... 70-75% of mainline Earths, if you believe the Pits distribution.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Or, more properly, talking to the air about how people thought and pretending that was a kind of brain research.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (It should be obvious that I do not think well of him.)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (Well, of course not.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (But anyway, the Searle Room is a thought experiment he published. Suppose that there exists a book of lookup tables, such that when it is used properly it may turn symbols received from a slot on one end of the room into symbols sent out a slot on the other end of the room.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (A person who speaks only English receives symbols, does a lot of operations and lookups on them, and sends them out the other slot.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Unbeknownst to the human, the squiggles are actually Alternian and the book of lookup tables is a program that will carry on conversations in native Alternian.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (This is the part that I think is an intellectual dead-end: Searle would like to ask whether, if the human can understand no Alternian, the /room/ can nevertheless "understand Alternian".)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Which he says it can't, because it's a fucking room and rooms don't understand anything.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Another dude called Turing says don't bother asking that question: if it can act indistinguishably from a sentient being then you treat it as sentient.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (The problem with this is the Game appears to believe in philosophical zombies.)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (Ah.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Which are basically fucking rooms that don't understand anything, nevertheless on two legs and speaking fluent Alternian.)
<stanzicApparati> [/This/ reference, you get. Although you can no longer recall who taught it to you.]
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Now replace "the human" with "a computer" in the entire argument above and start the entire process over again, except arguing with a completely different group of philosophers.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Needless to say, I think this entire argument is worse than useless, "but rooms don't understand anything".)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Which can easily be turned into "but carapaces don't understand anything" which becomes live carapace vivisection.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Ahem.)
<epinephrineElectrified> [It's known in the Seer Network docs as how Skully worked up to timeclone dissection.]
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (...Skully still doesn't believe carapaces understand anything, does she.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Nope.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (For the /longest/ /time/ I thought the same. Then I rolled Heart.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Which, ironically, is the same thing that proves that the Game conceives of dualism as A Thing, what with souls, ghosts, bodyswapping, etc.)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (...I always thought they could understand things. Why wouldn't they be able to?)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Because they don't have A Place Where Understanding Happens. They're just... routing sensation from one place to another.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (And guess what's really horribly ironic about this?)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (I know that now. I didn't know that then.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (The consciousness node in people is /redundant/!)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (...wat?)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (It's a node with all incoming connections and basically no outgoing connections.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (It's been theorized, though nobody will check for obvious reasons, that if you take out the consciousness node, although the person will be considered dead by the game, they will still be alive. And act exactly the same.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Do you have /any/ /idea/ how fucked-up this is?)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (...I'm still at the 'what /even/ the fuck' stage, but yes.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (In light of this, some people have proposed calling it the soul node, not the consciousness node.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Even though it's labeled "consciousness" by the game.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (And nonplayers don't have soulnodes.)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (...I now have reason to hope that Skully never rolls Heart. Even though /fuck/, the woman could use it.)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (Wat?)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Nope.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Let's not even get into what this means metaphysically for Mind and the entire freedom-of-choice thing.)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (Let's...not, no.)
<stanzicApparati> [Your head aches now.]
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (...Yeah, so you understand why I don't want to bring this up in front of her.)
* Ops has quit (Quit: Mu)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (Yeah.)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (She is not /nearly/ ready for that. Might not be for sessions.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (Might not be the type of /person/ to discuss that, period.)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (Possible, yes.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (If it's any consolation, my head is aching.)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (So's mine.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (I think I should go lie down.)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (/me hugs)
* stanzicApparati PMs "Ri" : (Go rest, yeah.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (/me hugs)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "Zei" (All right.)
* epinephrineElectrified has disconnected from the server!