Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!genisco!arcturus!berry From: berry@arcturus.uucp (Berry;Craig D.) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Conciousness Message-ID: <1991May8.174622.20505@arcturus.uucp> Date: 8 May 91 17:46:22 GMT References: <2102@seti.inria.fr> <2124@seti.inria.fr> <11611@uwm.edu> <74193@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> Organization: Rockwell International Lines: 22 oistony@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Anthony Petro) writes: >however, an intentional system need not be conscious, and that's what >supposedly makes humans different. i'm not sure exactly how important >orders of consciousness are, but i imagine that at least a >self-consciousness such as we ourselves posess would be the necessary >criterion for pain. This brought to mind an interesting and unpleasant experience I had. While recovering from an appendectomy, I was given tranquillizers to force sleep, but what turned out to be insufficient pain medication. I ended up dreaming a series of dreams, each of which had as a central feature an "explanation" for the pain I was feeling (one notable example had me as a road being broken up with jackhammers!). I was in no ordinary sense "conscious"; I had no idea who I was or why I was experiencing pain. Yet the pain manifested quite clearly in dream sleep, and caused typical pain responses in that context (i.e., displeasure, anxiety, etc.) I am not sure if this really applies to the consciousness vs. pain dispute, but I find it rather interesting.