Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!ira.uka.de!smurf!nadia!delos!merkur!rodney From: rodney@merkur.gtc.de (Rodney Volz) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Definition of (was Re: Testing for []) consciousness Message-ID: <1521825@merkur.gtc.de> Date: 28 Oct 90 15:51:26 GMT References: <27608@usc.edu> <1990Oct22.150143.13858@canon.co.uk> <3331@aipna.ed.ac.uk> Organization: HD Crashtest Center Lines: 33 X-Version: Rodney's UUCP modules 14/10/90 V1.17 In article <3331@aipna.ed.ac.uk> cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes: > Should AI ever succeed in making something with at least a superficially > plausible claim to being conscious, there will be no lack of people who > *think* it is conscious, and no lack of those who *think* it not. What > we need is a way of finding out the truth! The impression people have about computers depends very much upon their knowledge. A man who entirely understands the way a machine or a program works, will never say that this machine is conscious, but the ones not knowing too much about it, definitely will. If you were able to understand the mind of someone, so you knew exactly the way he or she was thinking, and *why* she would think that way; if you knew every neuron in his or her brain and its function, would you still call him or her being conscious? Imagine you had enough knowledge to build an equivalent to human brain; would your respect for it last long, then? The point is: Just build a thing that is so complex, that no one can understand the way it is built, nor the way it interacts with its surroundings. Everyone will say, that it's conscious. So, *is* it really conscious? You said you wanted to find out the truth - what *is* the truth, then? -Rod -- Rodney Volz - 7000 Stuttgart 1 - FRG ============> ...uunet!mcsun!unido!gtc!aragon!merkur!rodney <============= rodney@merkur.gtc.de * rodney@delos.stgt.sub.org * rodney@mcshh.hanse.de \_____________ May your children and mine live in peace _______________/