Brent Meeker writes: > I think we need to say what it means for a computation to be > self-interpreting. Many > control programs are written with self-monitoring functions and logging > functions. > Why would we not attribute consciousness to them?
Well, why not? Some people don't even think higher mammals are conscious, and perhaps some there are true solipsists who could convince themselves that other people are not really conscious as rationalisation for antisocial behaviour. On the other hand, maybe flies experience pain and fear when confronted with insecticide that is orders of magnitude greater than that of any mere human experience of torture, and maybe when I press the letter "y" on my keyboard I am subjecting my computer to the torments of hell. I don't buy the argument that only complex brains or computations can experience pain either: when I was a child I wasn't as smart as I am now, but I recall that it hurt a lot more and I was much more likely to cry when I cut myself. Stathis Papaioannou _________________________________________________________________ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
