Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!pacbell.com!att!att!watmath!maytag!watdragon!violet!cpshelley From: cpshelley@violet.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Definition of (was Re: Testing for []) consciousness Message-ID: <1990Oct25.183757.26408@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Date: 25 Oct 90 18:37:57 GMT References: <27608@usc.edu> <1990Oct22.150143.13858@canon.co.uk> <26910@cs.yale.edu> Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Owner of Many System Processes) Organization: University of Waterloo Lines: 25 In article <26910@cs.yale.edu> mcdermott-drew@cs.yale.edu (Drew McDermott) writes: [stuff deleted...] > >Fortunately, we don't have to define consciousness. We only have to >come up with a theory of how it works. > Wouldn't a theory of how consciousness works be equivalent to a definition? Both would make predicitions about possible observations, and presumably both would be created in an arbitrary manner. > >Manifesto: Nothing is entirely subjective. Show me an unobservable >something and I'll show you a nothing. > > -- Drew McDermott That assumes that 'observation' and 'show' are somehow 'objective' does it not? Doesn't that beg the question? :> -- Cameron Shelley | "Fidelity, n. A virtue peculiar to those cpshelley@violet.waterloo.edu| who are about to be betrayed." Davis Centre Rm 2136 | Phone (519) 885-1211 x3390 | Ambrose Bierce