"Marvin Long, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, Joshua Bell wrote:
>
> > Heck, some of our disposable toys are capable of basic emotions. The
>love
> > that David portrayed wasn't even a very complex sort of love, almost a
> > Tamagotchi parody of love.
>
>As for our disposable toys, we have there an
>example of something designed to push well-known human emotional
>buttons--but you don't seriously think they feel, do you?
It's a Turing Test situation, IMHO. Until you can define what emotions are
and prove that you have them and that a Tamagotchi doesn't, I'm not sure I
want to make that call.
This is reminiscent of the "zombie" problem of consciousness. Is it sensical
to talk about something with all of the higher mental capabilities of a
human, capable of passing for a human and interacting with humans, but
missing some very specific part X?
Joshua
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