Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aiai!jeff
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Simulating thinking is NOT like simulating flying
Keywords: analog, computer, digitial, mind, simulation, thinking
Message-ID: <2079@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 19 Mar 90 21:37:44 GMT
References: <20206@bcsaic.UUCP> <2053@osc.COM> <48c9f211.1a4d7@cicada.engin.umich.edu>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 17

In article <48c9f211.1a4d7@cicada.engin.umich.edu> zarnuk@caen.UUCP (Paul Steven Mccarthy) writes:
> I liken the question of "conciousness" to the question of "life".  Is a
> virus alive?  Pursuit of these questions may be a pleasant distraction,
> but they will never produce anything of value.

But maybe it's like the question of when humans are alive.  This
certainly matters to some people and it's hard to see why nothing
of value can be produced by considering it.

> These (fuzzy) terms represent concepts which simply do not 
> exist in reality.  If these terms do not reflect some aspect of
> reality, then there can never be a correct definition for them.

Maybe _you're_ not conscious, then?  It's one thing to say machine
consciousness might not be varifiable, quite another to say
consciousness might not reflect some aspect of reality.  It's
certainly reasonable to say it's an aspect of human reality.