Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cica!iuvax!uceng!mfinegan
From: mfinegan@uceng.UC.EDU (michael k finegan)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: "self" consciousness
Keywords: philosophy
Message-ID: <3553@uceng.UC.EDU>
Date: 6 Feb 90 15:09:47 GMT
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Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati, College of Engg.
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roger@yuba.wrs.com (Roger Rohrbach) writes:

:-)    You'd have to locate the "out-of-body" stuff for me- must have missed it.
:-) There is a discussion of "immortality"- as a relative concept.  E.g., there
:-) is light reaching the earth from close to the beginning of time.  This light
:-) has been around awhile :-)
I have no plans to collect references in material I care not to reread.
If you read more of his material (or his mentor G.I. Gurdjieff's), I
think you will agree with me that they are not discussing 'relative concepts'.

:-) The physicist Geoffrey Chew hazards the opinion
:-) that light and consciousness are aspects of the same phenonomenon.
i.e. electromagnetic energy ? This is new ? A physiological perspective
certainly assumes that conciousness is electromagnetic ...

:-)     I'm looking at a conference announcement right now with invited
:-) presentations on "A Quantum Theory of Consciousness" and "A Trans-Temporal
:-) Apporach to Mind-Brain Interaction". Yes, it all sounds far-fetched. What
:-) of it?
I don't care if it sounds far-fetched. The title of a talk doesn't guarantee
information content.

:-) "Watching 'Wheel of Fortune'" is not a "level of consciousness".
Certainly, but it involves a certain level of conciousness.
:-) It is an activity involving sensory input, intellectual processing (not
:-) much!), and emotional stimulation,  all of which can occur with varying
:-) degrees of consciousness (my original point: consciousness as distinct
:-) from thought, feeling, etc.).
One cannot assume a priori that thought and conciousness are separate.

:-)  If you were implying that watching 'Wheel of Fortune'
:-) *evinces* a low level of consciousness,  I might agree.
:-) Roger Rohrbach                               sun!wrs!roger    roger@wrs.com
I was!

Next ...

kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) writes:

%-) What I've been calling "the self-description scale" shares the useful
%-) attribute of objectivity with the Turing Test.  Indeed, there is nothing
%-) in the TT or in my proposal that would upset a behaviorist, though I am
%-) no behaviorist myself.
Okay - but I made no comments about your 'self-description scale'

%-) Let me restate the self-description scale:

%-) For any object, there is a set of sentences which refer to that object.
%-) For any two objects, if object A can correctly affirm or deny each
%-) sentence which refers to itself when object B can do the same (mutatis
%-) mutandis), and object A can correctly affirm or deny some sentences which
%-) object B cannot, then A has superior self-descriptive capacity than B.
i.e. Double-talk is a sign of superior reasoning skills ? Maybe. :-)
Seriously, this sounds fine, but who judges 'correctness' ? A very intelligent
source (machine or otherwise) might be correct, with the judge incapable of
realizing it. Examples: a prodigous student and their teacher, Gallileo and
the church, etc.

%-) It's not formally a part of the criterion, but I should say that ordinary
%-) physical description of one's body and its relation to the surroundings
%-) is the main thing I have in mind.  I should also note that this is *not*
%-) the only criterion relevant to judgements of intelligence.
%-)
%-) Whether or not this scale has any relation to the various notions of
%-) consciousness proposed by psychologists and philosophers is a separate
%-) (but not unimportant) question.
Why do you guys always ignore the biological notions ?

%-) I do think this scale agrees roughly with everyday talk about
%-) consciousness - when you're asleep (ie unconscious) you don't have much
%-) to say about yourself (or anything else). Rocks have nothing to say,
%-) chimpanzees have only a little.
The concept of inner dialogue has been around for a while (cf. psycho-analysis).
This might be a necessarry pre-requisite for a computer to pass the Turing test
(namely, create an inner model of the enviroment, try out its planned responses
within this model, and see what happens - then actual present the critiqued
response to the enviroment). This is in line with a.i. developments in knowledge
representation.

%-) People will go on for hours ...
I now see why this topic has been discussed in comp.ai for so long (a year ?).

As Roger alluded to, maybe I should wake up and turn off the tv.

						mfinegan@uceng.UC.EDU