Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!oberon.usc.edu!robiner
From: robiner@oberon.usc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Testing for [] consciousness
Message-ID: <27608@usc.edu>
Date: 19 Oct 90 00:05:47 GMT
Sender: news@usc.edu
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 21
Nntp-Posting-Host: oberon.usc.edu

In article <MIKEB.90Oct16133635@wdl31.wdl.fac.com> mikeb@wdl31.wdl.fac.com (Michael H Bender) writes:
>In article <31@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>
>   >>In short, I think the distinction you are making between 'machine' 
>   >>and 'human' is largely artificial, it is based on a false 
>
>
>Likewise, the arguments "proving" the possibility of constructing
>consciousness are equally flawed! (By the way -- how can we build something
>we can't even define?)
>

Let's look at it another way.  Suppose I tell you that the material making
up my brain is not the same as yours.  Unless this premise alone is enough
to prove I lack consciousness, nothing else objective is left.

So, prove I lack consciousness.  Maybe I do, maybe I don't, but it's
all subjective anyway.  Why not let another machine decide if a machine
has consciousness.  (btw, that's what the space shuttle computers do!)

=steve=