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From: bwk@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Barry W. Kort)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Intelligence / Consciousness Test for Machines (Neural-Nets)???
Summary: Strive for higher consciousness.
Keywords: Sentience, awareness, self-awareness, consciousness.
Message-ID: <40680@linus.UUCP>
Date: 5 Oct 88 20:24:56 GMT
References: <1141@usfvax2.EDU>
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: bwk@mbunix (Kort)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, Mass.
Lines: 37

In article <1141@usfvax2.EDU> mician@usfvax2.usf.edu.UUCP,
(Rudy Mician) asks:

>When can a machine be considered a conscious entity?  

Consciousness is not a binary phenomenon.  There are degrees of
consciousness.  So the transition from non-conscious to conscious
is a fuzzy, gradual transition.

A normal person who is asleep is usually regarded as unconscious,
as is a person in a coma.  An alert Dalmation may be considered
conscious.

It might be more instructive to catalog the stages that lead to
higher levels of consciousness.  I like to start with sentience,
which I define as the ability of a system to sense its environment
and to construct an internal map, model, or representation of that
environment.  Awareness may then be defined as the ability of a
sentient system to monitor an evolving state of affairs.

Self-awareness may, in turn, be defined as the capacity of a sentient
system to monitor itself.

As an aware being expands its powers of observation, it achieves
progressively higher degrees of consciousness.

Julian Jaynes has suggested that the bicameral mind gives rise to
human consciousness.  By linking two semi-autonomous hemispheres
through the corpus callosum, it is possible for one hemisphere
to act as observer and coach for the other.  In other words, 
consciousness requires a feedback loop.

Group consciousness arises when independent individuals engage in
mutual mirroring and monitoring.  From Narcissus to Lewis Carroll,
the looking glass has served as the metaphor for consciousness raising.

--Barry Kort