Ezra Klein

They gave people ginger before exposing them to some morally distasteful event or something or image.

And the people who had the ginger were less disgusted because their stomachs were settled.

So our feeling of moral disgust is kind of channeled through our gut, which is such a weird idea.

But that's probably true of a lot of feelings and that it has enormous implications for this discussion about AI, whether it can be conscious.

Because feelings are not just signals.

They're not just bits of information.

They contain information.

You're getting a lot of information from a feeling.

But that's the residue of the feeling.

There's something more somatic about it.

And it's very hard to imagine how computers could get to that.

And feelings have no weight.

if you don't have a vulnerability, if you don't have the ability to suffer and perhaps be mortal.

Otherwise, a feeling is just more information.

And we know feelings are a lot more than that to us.

So William James writes about this.

You have feelings, emotions, and thoughts, right?

And emotions are more the physical manifestation of feelings.

I can tell your emotions.

I can't tell your feelings.