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From: marty1@houem.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Evolution of consciousness
Message-ID: <807@houem.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Feb-87 11:28:46 EST
Article-I.D.: houem.807
Posted: Tue Feb 24 11:28:46 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Feb-87 20:39:41 EST
References: <552@mind.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel
Lines: 78
Keywords: function, cause, epiphenomenon
Xref: utgpu comp.ai:261 comp.cog-eng:71
Summary: Consciousness facilitates interaction, in both machines and primates.

I'm sorry if it's necessary to know the technical terminology of
philosophy to participate in discussions of engineering and artifice.
I admit my ignorance and proceed to make my point anyway.

In article <552@mind.UUCP>, harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes
(I condense and paraphrase):

> DAVIS%EMBL.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu wrote on mod.ai:
> >	... if the system that [does] X first [is] conscious, then all
> >	future systems evolving from that one will also be conscious.
> I couldn't ask for a stronger concession to methodological epiphenomenalism.

In 25 words or less, what's methodological epiphenomenalism?

> >	In fact ... [maybe] conscious systems ... are
> >	*easier* to build within an evolutionary, biochemical context.
> Now it sounds like you're taking it back. 

I think DAVIS is just suggesting an alternative hypothesis.

> >	Hence, we have no real reason to suppose that there is a 'why' to be
> >	answered.

Then why did DAVIS propose that "easier" is "why"?

Let me propose another "why."  Not long ago I suggested that a simple
unix(tm) command like "make" could be made to know when it was acting,
and when it was merely contemplating action.  It would then not only
appear to be conscious, but would thereby work more effectively.

Let us go further.  IBM's infamous PL/I Checkout Compiler has many
states, in each of which it can accept only a limited set of commands
and will do only a limited set of things.  As user, you can ask it what
state it's in, and it can even tell you what it can do in that state,
though it doesn't know what it could do in other states.  But you can
ask it what it's doing now, and it will tell you.  It answers questions
as though it were very stupid, but dimly conscious.

Of course, the "actuality" of consciousness is private, in that the
question of whether X "is conscious" can be answered only by X.  An
observer of X can only tell whether X "acts as though it were
conscious."  If the observer empathizes with X, that is, observes
him/her/it-self as the "same type of being" as X, the "appearance" of
consciousness becomes evidence of "actuality."  I propose that we pay
less attention to whether we are the "same type of being" as X and more
attention to the (inter)action.

If expert systems can be written to tell you an answer, and also tell
you how they got the answer, it should not be hard to write a system
like the Checkout Compiler, but with a little more knowledge of its own
capabilities.  That would make it a lot easier for an inexpert user to
interact with it.

Consider also the infamous "Eliza" as a system that is not conscious. 
At first it appears to interact much as a psychotherapist would, but
you can test it by pulling its leg, and it won't know you're pulling
its leg; a therapist would notice and shift to another state.  You can
also make a therapist speak to you non-professionally by a verbal
time-out signal, and then go back to professional mode.  But Eliza has
only one functional state, and hence neither need nor capacity for
consciousness.

Thus, the evolutionary advantage of consciousness in primates (the
actuality as well as the appearance) is that it facilitates such social
interactions as communication and cooperation.  The advantage of
building consciousness into computer programs (now I refer to the
appearance, since I can't empathize with a computer program) is the
same: to facilitate communication and cooperation.

I propose that we ignore the philosophy and get on with the
engineering.  We already know how to build systems that interact as
though they were conscious.  Even if a criterion could be devised to
tell whether X is "actually" conscious, not just "seemingly" conscious,
we don't need it to build functionally conscious systems.

						Marty
M. B. Brilliant		(201)-949-1858
AT&T-BL HO 3D-520	houem!marty1