Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aipna!cam From: cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Definition of (was Re: Testing for []) consciousness Message-ID: <3382@aipna.ed.ac.uk> Date: 28 Oct 90 23:55:11 GMT References: <27608@usc.edu> <1990Oct22.150143.13858@canon.co.uk> <26910@cs.yale.edu> Reply-To: cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) Organization: Dept of AI, Edinburgh University, UK. Lines: 18 In article mikeb@wdl31.wdl.fac.com (Michael H Bender) writes: [Describes phenomenon of people changing their minds for no apparent reason.] >I have not come up with any useful >explanation of this phenomenon, so far, that does not rely, at least >partially, on some form of consciousness. This is argument by failure of the imagination, a very weak form of argument. It is found in its most extreme form in those scientists who write papers in their final years lamenting the fact that science has already discovered 99.9% of what there is to know, and that there only remains a little boring detail before the whole grand enterprise lamely comes to an omniscient halt. -- Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.aipna 031 667 1011 x2550 Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK