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This idea (#4751) is the only solution to the "apple problem" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternative solutions).

Assumption A1: Only programs that are people can, while running, constitute qualia/experience/subjectivity/consciousness.

This is the only solution to the "apple problem" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternative solutions).

This is the only solution to the "apple problem" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternatives solutions).

This may be too subjective, but I've always really disliked end-of-line hyphenation, of the kind currently used here. I find it pretty disruptive to the flow of reading, AND a source of visual clutter. That's a heavy cost for the supposed benefit of a justified margin, but we don't seem to be getting that benefit here either; the margin still appears jagged. A justified margin itself is unnecessary, if you ask me, but it can in any case be accomplished the other way, where small spaces are distributed between words in each line as needed. To me the latter method of the two is better for readability, no contest. I would advocate for the third/default method, here (jagged margin, no funny business), since justified margins seems needlessly formal.

The "Battle tested" badge should have a hyphen!
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/battle-tested

Bounties could pay out multiplicatively, up to a limit (e.g. 10$ per criticism, up to 3). This would preserve the incentive for bounty hunting after one criticism has already been posted.

Currently, a single gray "thread" comes off an idea, and splits off into sub-ideas. A single criticism in the above scheme would turn the whole thread red, which is ambiguous.

The quote

indentation bar

is red, which would cause visual confusion.

The yellow bubbles link to the ideas they are criticizing, which can be handy.

Could be optional, as I said. Rearrange top-level ideas as toggled. Maybe not worth the trouble. Just spitballing. See #4825.

Not understanding this criticism. Maybe my idea is unclear. I'm picturing the existing "column" of a discussion, repeated column-wise for each top-level idea. Current discussion content takes up only the left ~third of my screen, while the right two thirds of my screen is totally unused. The cost of using that real estate is more content (clutter) on screen, the benefit is less time scrolling up and down in one dimension, looking for given ideas and getting bearings, which I sometimes find tiring. A second dimension helps get bearings (e.g. "Oh yeah, this relates to that one over here near the middle of the third column." Rather than: "That one was ... 77% of the way down the page, hmm, what were some words from it that I can use to ctrl+f, grrrrr.").

Agreed on both counts, but I think the bountied idea survives this...
Recognizing and criticizing ideas could be a requisite for tractably synthesizing any possible explanation (I suspect as much).

Assumption A1: Only programs that are people, while running, can constitute qualia/experience/subjectivity/consciousness.

We could say a person is a program that can synthesize any possible explanation in finite time, excluding memory limitations. But this would again grant personhood to RNGs. For that matter, a counting program could just enumerate all possible binary strings up to its memory limit, in finite time...

Maybe... but "understanding" is too vague, I think. Doesn't understanding mean: can explain? But then this is just "can create any explanation" again. I think the core question is why a random program generator isn't a person, coming from Deutsch's definition of a person as a program that has explanatory universality -- can create any explanation (my thought here is that this definition isn't good enough on its own, given the random generator point).

Even if variations are agnostic to any meaning or context of the knowledge, why are they still not implicit? Anything is implicit from anything else, if implicit just means: follows from when a given change is applied... The whole question is where the change is coming from... (?)

If only some of the criteria are stored, and the rest are random, is it still evolution? Is evolution only happening if there is random variation? But we could program an LLM to do that as well...

If only some of the criteria are stored, is it still evolution? Then evolution is only the random part of the variation?

If only some of the criteria are stored, is it still evolution? Then evolution is only the random part of the variation?

only people can create explanatory knowledge

How is an LLM not creating new explanatory knowledge (even if worse than the existing, by any measure), by varying some existing written explanation? It could even vary and select by some criterion of its "choice", thus realizing Popperian epistemology.

It could be simulated, but maybe it's very hard/intractable to do so. Maybe personhood harnesses physics to do the evolving, like a windmill harnesses the wind. Programs implemented such that the laws of physics cause them to evolve (unboundedly)?

But why would the system ever re-evolve to the satisfaction of a niche already satisfied previously? If the programs evolved by the evolutionary aspect of the person already exist, there is no more need for evolution of them.

SOLUTION: The apple programs give rise to consciousness only in a given context. Only when run a certain way (by a person).

This wrongly implies speed is a property of programs, but it's a property of hardware.