>>> Bruno:Your desktop computer cannot be conscious, nor can my brain. >>> If you succeed putting my mind (software) in your desktop >>> computer, your desktop computer will still not be conscious, but >>> it will make possible for me to talk with you (as my brain does >>> now). Only a person can be said conscious. And person, like >>> nation, or game are immaterial (with comp), and not absolutely >>> "singularisable" (only relatively). >> >> Brent:This confuses me, Bruno. You always postulate 'comp', i.e. that >> the brain can be emulated. I had always assumed that this entailed >> the emulation being conscious.
I would say to this that consciousness is a property of a program, not of a computer. When a computer runs a program, the computer does not thereby become conscious. By analogy, other properties of programs include "being well written" or "having N^2 running time". When a computer runs such a program we wouldn't say that the computer is well written, or the computer has N^2 running time. In the same way we wouldn't say that the computer is conscious when it runs a conscious program. Hal
