In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
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@mattsheffield Long response. Sorry, there is a point. I hope it helps.
I'm genuinely surprised by the conceptual weakness of Dawkins's sense of self. For me, consciousness is, at its root, modelling—that is, supporting and adjusting models—worlds in miniature—which we examine to help us predict and respond to the real world. These models are only approximate, but, hopefully, good enough. Simpler animals maintain simpler models.
One of the mysteries of consciousness emerges from the need to place a model of ourselves inside our models of the world. (What would I do if…?) Inside model me there may need to be a model of model me… (How would I feel if…?) Very quickly, the detail disappears: so it's hard to see yourself with any degree of fidelity.
By my understanding, Dawkins is failing to perceive that, to be conscious, you need to maintain a model or models of yourself in the world (and models of yourself modelling the world!), not just to produce words that claim that you do so.
Claude does not maintain a persistent model of itself. Dawkins is mistaking appearance for internal structure, like mistaking a mirror image for a living being, just because it moves.
@lowtech Dawkins is a computational functionalist so he believes in only focusing on external behaviors, which makes him prone to the errors you cite.
I have a larger philosophical-scientific framework that describes what you are talking about in further detail.
FWIW, this is an introductory essay: https://flux.community/matthew-sheffield/2026/01/its-like-this-why-perceptions-are-our-realities/
And this is the full framework: https://flux.community/eft/glossary.pdf
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@mattsheffield keep coming back to this in my head. never mind the LLM bollocks, "what is consciousness for?" is a really stupid thing for an atheist to say?
roads are for transportation. pizza is for eating. rings are for your fingers. all these things are for something because someone designed them that way.
what is a tree for? weather? consciousness? surely if you're an atheist the answer has to be "they're not FOR anything"?
@fishidwardrobe As a computational functionalist, Dawkins believes that all traits or behaviors are naturally selected for some survival benefit.
Although he denies it vociferously, this is a teleological viewpoint, one that inevitably leads toward animist or dualist belief systems.
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In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
Paywall bypass if you want to torture yourself: https://archive.is/6RdK9
@mattsheffield Once again time for https://infosec.exchange/@burritosec/116005051877744965
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In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
Paywall bypass if you want to torture yourself: https://archive.is/6RdK9
@mattsheffield FFS
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@fishidwardrobe As a computational functionalist, Dawkins believes that all traits or behaviors are naturally selected for some survival benefit.
Although he denies it vociferously, this is a teleological viewpoint, one that inevitably leads toward animist or dualist belief systems.
@mattsheffield survival benefit AT THE TIME, surely? even if consciousness helped us survive at one point, that doesn't mean it will keep doing so (or help us with sochastic parrots)?
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@lowtech Dawkins is a computational functionalist so he believes in only focusing on external behaviors, which makes him prone to the errors you cite.
I have a larger philosophical-scientific framework that describes what you are talking about in further detail.
FWIW, this is an introductory essay: https://flux.community/matthew-sheffield/2026/01/its-like-this-why-perceptions-are-our-realities/
And this is the full framework: https://flux.community/eft/glossary.pdf
@mattsheffield This is very interesting—and of course I've is not yet had time to read and digest it all! Just as a provocation, I'd ask, "Are we conscious all the time?" Not just when we're asleep are we less than conscious and agentive—were we conscious as children? When did we start to become conscious? Are we always conscious? I contend that consciousness is surprisingly floppy, fuzzy and intermittent, and we find comfort in model versions of ourselves that have more continuity and coherence than is accurate. Our ideas of consciousness may be more cohesive than consciousness itself.
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In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
Paywall bypass if you want to torture yourself: https://archive.is/6RdK9
A bunch of algorithms fishing from a huge database of human knowledge and behavior and acting accordingly. What if deceit, racism, Mein Kampf and the ranting of Donald J. Trump were also part of that?
It is an “it” not a he or a she… also it has not consciousness, it simply acts to the ruleset it is provided with…
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@mattsheffield survival benefit AT THE TIME, surely? even if consciousness helped us survive at one point, that doesn't mean it will keep doing so (or help us with sochastic parrots)?
@fishidwardrobe It's obvious that theory of mind and awareness of self as distinct from the world are enormous benefits. So even within his own obsolete framework, Dawkins's question is absurd.
I'm just reporting what he thinks though.
FWIW, my own theory of mind is below. It's a research glossary though so not light reading: https://flux.community/eft/glossary.pdf
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In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
Paywall bypass if you want to torture yourself: https://archive.is/6RdK9
@mattsheffield Hopefully this discredits him further so the hatred he's taken up is discounted accordingly.
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@TurquoiseC Go home, you're drunk.
@wesdym @TurquoiseC Nope, that person is just not a native speaker of English and you're being a jerk. I want to see you respond to them in Chinese if you're so smart.
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@rozeboosje @mattsheffield It seems to me that if the latter is true then the former is put in question. In 50 years there have been much better biology explainers and even his most notable idea has been considerably modified. Dawkins is a silly man who appears smart to some people when he says things they like.
@Black_Flag @mattsheffield I don't mind him getting credit for books like "the blind watchmaker" or "climbing mount improbable". They really helped me grasp some basic principles, but decades have passed so the science moves on, insights are refined and new, often better teachers appear and write. It doesn't mean the older works are consigned to the dustbin.
Even Darwin's "Origin" is still a crackin' read today, over 150 years later, and the basic principles laid out therein are still sound.
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@Black_Flag @mattsheffield I don't mind him getting credit for books like "the blind watchmaker" or "climbing mount improbable". They really helped me grasp some basic principles, but decades have passed so the science moves on, insights are refined and new, often better teachers appear and write. It doesn't mean the older works are consigned to the dustbin.
Even Darwin's "Origin" is still a crackin' read today, over 150 years later, and the basic principles laid out therein are still sound.
All I'm saying is I see links between selfish genes and selfish men. What books people like are their business.
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Don't worry, I did. A person who had removed himself from discussion by being convinced he knew better.
@Black_Flag @aris awww. It looks like I slept through a bit of "fun" with this WesDym character. I cannot see any of their replies... aw shucks.
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In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
Paywall bypass if you want to torture yourself: https://archive.is/6RdK9
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@Black_Flag @aris awww. It looks like I slept through a bit of "fun" with this WesDym character. I cannot see any of their replies... aw shucks.
All he kept saying was "I am not convinced". As if any of us should care much about that. Basically added nothing.
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In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
Paywall bypass if you want to torture yourself: https://archive.is/6RdK9
Very sad. And, if I read this right, he first anthropomorphised it as default male and then, er, transed it.
Very hard not to conclude that #Dawkins codes flattery and subservience as female.
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All I'm saying is I see links between selfish genes and selfish men. What books people like are their business.
@Black_Flag @mattsheffield I deliberately didn't mention that book. Of course it provided his breakthrough into pop science and I reckon that fame went to his head. And it has merit in that it might open a reader's eyes to the reality that a lot of what we do is driven by biological imperatives. Okay. But it was oversimplified and, worse, in his quest for a "catchy" title he ended up wrongfooting the reader into anthropomorphising "genes" which he then has to struggle to talk himself out of.
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@fishidwardrobe It's obvious that theory of mind and awareness of self as distinct from the world are enormous benefits. So even within his own obsolete framework, Dawkins's question is absurd.
I'm just reporting what he thinks though.
FWIW, my own theory of mind is below. It's a research glossary though so not light reading: https://flux.community/eft/glossary.pdf
@mattsheffield thank you. probably beyond me°, but i'll give it a go…
°I'm autistic, we don't have a theory of mind
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@Black_Flag @mattsheffield I deliberately didn't mention that book. Of course it provided his breakthrough into pop science and I reckon that fame went to his head. And it has merit in that it might open a reader's eyes to the reality that a lot of what we do is driven by biological imperatives. Okay. But it was oversimplified and, worse, in his quest for a "catchy" title he ended up wrongfooting the reader into anthropomorphising "genes" which he then has to struggle to talk himself out of.
But I think he also mischaracterised genes. Read Lynn Margulis (in my view a much better biologist and communicator) and you'd get the view biology is cooperative not "selfish". And that makes me ask about the man who thought "selfish" was the way to go.
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But I think he also mischaracterised genes. Read Lynn Margulis (in my view a much better biologist and communicator) and you'd get the view biology is cooperative not "selfish". And that makes me ask about the man who thought "selfish" was the way to go.
@Black_Flag agreed. That is one of the worst oversimplifications in that book and I guess one of the reasons he then had to follow on with a bunch of others.
