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Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt
From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Minsky on Mind(s)
Message-ID: <2099@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Jan-87 18:43:37 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.2099
Posted: Mon Jan 26 18:43:37 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Jan-87 21:03:16 EST
References: <463@mind.UUCP> <464@mind.UUCP>
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 39
Keywords: processes, consciousness, epiphenomenalism
Xref: dciem comp.ai:171 comp.cog-eng:40
Summary: 


>      To telescope the intuitive sense
>of the rebuttals: Do you believe rooms or corporations feel pain, as
>we do?

That final comma is crucial.  Of course they do not feel pain as we do,
but they might feel pain, as we do.

On what grounds do you require proof that something has consciousness,
rather than proof that it has not?  Can there be grounds other than
prejudice (i.e. prior judgment that consciousness in non-humans is
overwhelmingly unlikely?).  As I understand the Total Turing Test,
the objective is to find whether soemthing can be distinguished from
human, but this again prejudges the issue.  I don't think one CAN use
the TTT to assess whether another entity is conscious.

As I have tried to say in a posting that may or may not get to mod.ai,
Okham's razor demands that we describe the world using the simplest
possible hypotheses, INCLUDING the boundary conditions, which involve
our prior conceptions.  It seems to me simpler to ascribe consciousness
to an entity that resembles me in many ways than not to ascribe
consciousness to that entity.  Humans have very many points of resemblance;
comatose humans fewer.  Silicon-based entities have few overt points
of resemblance, so their behaviour has to be convincingly like mine
before I will grant them a consciousness like mine.  I don't really
care whether their behaviour is like yours, if you don't have
consciousness, and as Steve Harnad has so often said, mine is the
only consciousness I can be sure of.

The problem splits in two ways: (1) Define consciousness so that it does
not involve a reference to me, or (2) Find a way of describing behaviour
that is simpler than ascribing consciousness to me alone.  Only if you
can fulfil one of these conditions can there be a sensible argument about
the consciousness of some entity other than ME.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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