Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!canon!rjf From: rjf@canon.co.uk (Robin Faichney) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: intelligence is what? Message-ID: <1990Oct15.135114.3895@canon.co.uk> Date: 15 Oct 90 13:51:14 GMT References: <1990Oct11.195803.18308@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <26@tdatirv.UUCP> Sender: Robin Faichney Reply-To: rjf@canon.co.uk Organization: Canon Research Europe, Guildford, UK Lines: 24 In article <26@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes: >[..] >Consciousness: the existance of intellectual self-models as part of > an intelligent reasoning process. What is wrong with the ordinary concept of consciousness? I've always taken it to be roughly synonymous with awareness or being awake, in the narrow sense, and with sentience, in the broad sense (the latter being roughly the capacity for the former). Seems I'm not alone, either -- from the Concise Oxford Dictionary: conscious a. & n. 1. Aware, knowing, (of fact, of external circumstances, that, or abs.); with mental faculties awake.. consciousness n. State of being conscious.. Now I wouldn't suggest that a dictionary is the ultimate authority, but in this case I'd say that this is, indeed, common usage -- and I've yet to hear it proposed that a different, technical usage either does or should prevail among AI people, philosophers or psychologists. Of course you, like Alice's caterpillar (?), can use a word in any way you want, but you should be warned that communications difficulties may result.. ;-)