Hacker News: tooheavy

New comment by tooheavy in "Artificial intelligence is not conscious – Ted Chiang"

tooheavy — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:26:29 +0000

I think the representation in a computer, the fact that it is merely stored instructions and data, destroys everything but domains of simulation and emulation.

New comment by tooheavy in "Your codebase doesn't care how it got written"

tooheavy — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 13:26:30 +0000

What are we going to do if codebases 'do' develop feelings about how they are written?

New comment by tooheavy in "Inferring car movement patterns from passive TPMS measurements"

tooheavy — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 15:34:57 +0000

With sufficient pressure resolution and monitoring, one could probably match movement patterns to road maps and know everything.

New comment by tooheavy in "How to Enter a City Like a King"

tooheavy — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 18:51:25 +0000

There are probably many ways to slice or unpack the topic, and it can probably be approached at least partially from many different perspectives in different disciplines, but it may be captured reasonably well under the study of social dynamics. I will leave specific scenarios to the imagination, experience, or history, however, but I did cite at least one example in the original comment.

New comment by tooheavy in "How to Enter a City Like a King"

tooheavy — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 15:31:05 +0000

Does anyone know the literature on adding people or individuals to groups, even an individual to a city? And the implications or outcomes of adding individuals of differing characteristics, potential for power, wealth, success, status, displacement, influence, or any number of other qualities, etc. I suspect this highlights fundamental elements of our social nature, our culture and societies, their values and problems. Maybe certain of those with power and influence will never want an honest and revealing evaluation on the matter, especially on specific entities.

New comment by tooheavy in "What is it like to be a bat?"

tooheavy — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 16:33:16 +0000

It's unfortunate there are pseudo-intellectual trolls on hacker news.

New comment by tooheavy in "What is it like to be a bat?"

tooheavy — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 15:55:29 +0000

It's more appropriate to ask you 'why' you do what you do, than 'how'.

New comment by tooheavy in "What is it like to be a bat?"

tooheavy — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 19:01:42 +0000

You could probably look at them differently if you tried. I wouldn't make a strong argument as I wasn't leaning strongly on a precise distinction in the moment, but to at least connote more maturity and activity and knowledge building in how, while why appears more conceptual, distant, more philosophical, idea-driven, than scientific. It may be viewed as similar to asking why there is something rather than nothing. Why we experience some matter rather than other matter seems more appropriate 'considering first person experience as granted, but the presence of others as well that presumably could have been the case'. Why we experience a specific location and time in reality seems more appropriate than how: we have accepted it has occurred and reoccurred virtually countless times, but we are but one case. This is perhaps two reasons I can see for using a distinction, but that doesn't mean I would pursue it or stand by it in a serious inquiry or exposition.

New comment by tooheavy in "What is it like to be a bat?"

tooheavy — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 14:07:57 +0000

I'm open to there being something in reality that explains being someone or a specific person. Having a specific location in reality raises the question of how it came to be and what are the possibilities or limits - it's a piece of unexplained information that suggests more information and explanation is needed. Saying it is meaningless or assumed actually appears to not explain anything. But I would have to think about it more.

New comment by tooheavy in "What is it like to be a bat?"

tooheavy — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 05:03:59 +0000

Materialism (perhaps physicalism as well) appears to be on shaky ground to me - it does not tell me 'why' I have the first person experience that I have, why I experience and embody the matter that is my person or being, a specific entity. Another way to look at it is to say there doesn't appear to be a region in the brain that defines why I experience the brain, that or this specific brain. From this perspective, I find it self-refuting. They appear only to locate or correlate matter and experience - to help explain 'how'. If I could experience other persons or beings in the first person, and the matter in each person explained why it is that I experience that specific person or entity, I might believe otherwise. To me, this simple fact makes it obvious there is something 'more' that must explain how 'being' relates to consciousness, otherwise, we are simply explaining how the brain modulates experience - very valuable, but less interesting and within reach and validated in everyday life (biochemically and physically, degeneration, damage, etc.). So I would say the brain appears to modulate what is responsible for first person experience. This may not be the correct way to look at consciousness, but it's the most intuitively appealing to me. Because we can't separate being from consciousness, I find the idea that we might create it in the near-term unbelievable. We might certainly create something that can operate with the same or similar results, but I'm not currently convinced it would actually have a subjective first person experience equivalent to the reason we experience the matter we experience. There may be a logical or philosophical way around this view, but as I'm not trained, it's not immediately obvious.