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From: harmo@cc.helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Testing for machine consciousness
Message-ID: <3324.2713728b@cc.helsinki.fi>
Date: 10 Oct 90 19:12:11 GMT
References: <3499@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <1990Oct4.154655.23004@canon.co.uk> <7@tdatirv.UUCP> <1990Oct8.120927.8648@canon.co.uk> <21@tdatirv.UUCP>
Organization: University of Helsinki
Lines: 23

In article <21@tdatirv.UUCP>, sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:

> Since
> this exact copy is indistinguishable in any way from a naturally born human,
> we can, as a shortcut, say that humans are 'machine-like' in construction.

Well, indistinquishable maybe, but still very different in certain historical
and conventional respects.
A copy of me would not be married to my wife or be father of my children.
I think such a creature differs from me in quite essential aspects.
There are many philosophers who would argue that the same applies to
"consciousness" (eg. Davidson, Sellars). Consciousness is something we
attribute to creatures partly because they have a certain convention-based
roles and a certain type of history in the human society. Consciousness of
animals (if you believe in such) or wolf-babies or representatives of other
cultures (if you this culture is very different from mine so that I can't
attribute the proper roles)  is a derived concept, they are not "really"
conscious. Machine consciousness would be similar to animal consciousness
unless machines start to grow into proper kinds of roles in society.
Note that this does not imply  that eg. representatives of other cultures are 
somehow inferior in information-processing capabilities.

 -Timo Harmo