Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cscs!csmith
From: csmith@cscs.UUCP (Craig E. Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Consciousness
Message-ID: <1990Oct30.104302.15359@cscs.UUCP>
Date: 30 Oct 90 10:43:02 GMT
References: <10126@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Organization: CS Computer Systems, Hudson, MA, USA
Lines: 47

In <10126@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> larryc@poe.jpl.nasa.gov (Larry Carroll) writes:

>Consciousness is part of the Universe, therefore it must affect other parts
>of the Universe. (As evidenced by all this debate about the topic, which
>wouldn't exist if it weren't for the subject of the debate!)  

A grain of sand on the beach has gravitational effects on all of the
universe, but that doesn't mean it is significant.

> ... Just how we can
>objectively observe & measure it is unclear, of course, because we know so
>little about the form & function of the organ that generates it.  But the
>mere fact that we can't observe it directly & publicly isn't enough reason to
>say it can't be studied.  After all, no one has ever directly & publicly
>observed an atom; we must probe atomic nature indirectly & with instruments.
>(Indeed, it's one of the biggest ironies of this whole debate that the only
>phenomena we CAN observe directly is consciousness.)

I don't believe we can objectively observe or measure consciousness, 
because it is a concept which is too general, vague, and subjective.
I don't think the concept of consciousness is really very useful to 
Artificial Intelligence (even the word intelligence is too vague to
be of much practical value), and it will need to be replaced with 
more specific ideas relating to particular functions of the brain. 
Easily observed psychological phenomenon, while interesting, are not 
by themselves very useful in trying to determine how intelligent 
machines (like the brain) work, but can be useful in verifying models 
based on more solid observation of the internal structure, and operation 
of the brain. Trying to determine how the brain works from observable 
psychological characteristics is like trying to figure out the internal 
workings of a computer by playing video games on a terminal. It may be 
of some help, but not very much. Personally, I think that what we call
consciousness is merely an artifact of the functioning of some area of 
the brain that integrates, and prioritizes information from the senses, 
that has been processed, or stored in other parts of the brain. I would 
not say that we should completely abandon trying to build models of 
intelligent behavior based on psychological phenomenon, but I think 
there are severe limits on how far we can go in a reasonable time span 
with this type of approach, because it ignores too much of the complex
underlying processing that goes into the functioning of the brain.


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