their claims are about things that they cannot physically experience
Scientists cannot physically experience a black hole, or the surface of the sun, or the weak nuclear force in atoms. Does that mean they don’t have knowledge about such things?
Does that mean they don’t have knowledge about such things?
It’s more complicated than “yes” or “no”.
Scientists are better justified to claim knowledge over those things due to reasoning; reusing your example, black holes appear as a logical conclusion of the current gravity models based on the general relativity, and that general relativity needs to explain even things that scientists (and other people) experience directly.
However, as I’ve showed, LLMs are not able to reason properly. They have neither reasoning nor access to the real world. If they had one of them we could argue that they’re conscious, but as of now? Nah.
With that said, “can you really claim knowledge over something?” is a real problem in philosophy of science, and one of the reasons why scientists aren’t typically eager to vomit certainty on scientific matters, not even within their fields of expertise. For example, note how they’re far more likely to say stuff like “X might be related to Y” than stuff like “X is related to Y”.
black holes appear as a logical conclusion of the current gravity models…
So we agree someone does not need to have direct experience of something in order to be knowledgeable of it.
However, as I’ve showed, LLMs are not able to reason properly
As I’ve shown, neither can many humans. So lack of reasoning is not sufficient to demonstrate lack of consciousness.
nor access to the real world
Define “the real world”. Dogs hear higher pitches than humans can. Humans can not see the infrared spectrum. Do we experience the “real world”? You also have not demonstrated why experience is necessary for consciousness, you’ve just assumed it to be true.
“can you really claim knowledge over something?” is a real problem in philosophy of science
Then probably not the best idea to try to use it as part of your argument, if people can’t even prove it exists in the first place.
Scientists cannot physically experience a black hole, or the surface of the sun, or the weak nuclear force in atoms. Does that mean they don’t have knowledge about such things?
It’s more complicated than “yes” or “no”.
Scientists are better justified to claim knowledge over those things due to reasoning; reusing your example, black holes appear as a logical conclusion of the current gravity models based on the general relativity, and that general relativity needs to explain even things that scientists (and other people) experience directly.
However, as I’ve showed, LLMs are not able to reason properly. They have neither reasoning nor access to the real world. If they had one of them we could argue that they’re conscious, but as of now? Nah.
With that said, “can you really claim knowledge over something?” is a real problem in philosophy of science, and one of the reasons why scientists aren’t typically eager to vomit certainty on scientific matters, not even within their fields of expertise. For example, note how they’re far more likely to say stuff like “X might be related to Y” than stuff like “X is related to Y”.
So we agree someone does not need to have direct experience of something in order to be knowledgeable of it.
As I’ve shown, neither can many humans. So lack of reasoning is not sufficient to demonstrate lack of consciousness.
Define “the real world”. Dogs hear higher pitches than humans can. Humans can not see the infrared spectrum. Do we experience the “real world”? You also have not demonstrated why experience is necessary for consciousness, you’ve just assumed it to be true.
Then probably not the best idea to try to use it as part of your argument, if people can’t even prove it exists in the first place.