[chromoblob]

How is consciousness relevant to creating AGI?

> Philosophy is just thoughts and thoughts about thoughts.

I think these thoughts contain (in an ideal variant of philosophy which doesn't exist yet) enough "philosophical content" to directly help create AGI. Why do you think philosophy is so irrelevant here?

> Philosophers can get so wrapped up in thoughts they say nonsense

If someone says nonsense, that should not discredit the general ideas/foundation.

[coretx]

If someone demeans the importance of philosophy, it teaches you a lot about the person doing so. In the western tradition, early philosophy and what we now call math where more or less the same. Look at the original meaning of the Greek word Logic/Logos for illustration. The world as we know it can't exist without it.

[nprateem]

I just don't believe it's possible to reason without consciousness. Combined with intelligence, memory, etc it leads to actual understanding rather than just imitation, which is where AI is today.

[keiferski]

I just don't believe it's possible to reason without consciousness.

This is called an argument. It's what philosophers make.

Your attitude is a pretty typical one: "Philosophy is stupid, but this philosophical viewpoint that I have is special and somehow not bound to the things that apply to philosophy." It's a very common and predictable move from those that lack knowledge of the subject; the New Atheists and the philosophy of religion are a very prominent example.

[mdp2021]

> I just don't believe

Is it possible to compute without consciousness? (Yes.)

Is it possible to perform calculation over ideas without consciousness? Apparently so.

> understanding

You should prove that a "formal" form of understanding would be insufficient for reasoning.

[chromoblob]

so what is that "etc"?