Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!epistemi!edai!cam From: cam@edai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Robots & free will (was Re: The limitations of logic) Message-ID: <263@edai.ed.ac.uk> Date: 1 Feb 89 10:55:27 GMT References: <3328@sdsu.UUCP> <43228@linus.UUCP> <539@uceng.UC.EDU> <3550@ingr.com> <226@UNIX386.Convergent.COM> <1374@arctic.nprdc.arpa> <9256@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> Reply-To: cam@edai (Chris Malcolm) Organization: University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Lines: 21 In article ap1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew C. Plotkin) writes: >>>from the viewpoint of quantum physics, the important event is the >>>MEASUREMENT, which need not involve consciousness per se. For example, >>>consider a measuring device which detects a quantum event and prints >>>the result on a piece of paper. The device is left alone in a room >>> >> The problem is entirely the fact that someone (with consciousness) >> had to design and build the measuring device. > >I always thought that the measurement takes place when the robot sees it, but >the state function doesn't collapse until a person reads the robot. > If the wave function collapses only when observed by consciousness, then one could devise from this an experimental test of whether a robot - or indeed any artificial or natural creature - had consciousness or not. On the other hand, one could regard this as the reductio ad absurdum of the notion that state function collapse happens at conscious observation. Chris Malcolm Department of Artificial Intelligence