Jason Resch wrote:
On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 8:10 PM, soulcatcher☠ <soulcatche...@gmail.com
<mailto:soulcatche...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Let me explain with example. Suppose, that you:
1. simulate my brain in a computer program, so we can say that this
program represents my brain in your symbols.
2. simulate a red rose
3. feed "rose data" into my simulated brain.
I think (more believe than think) that this simulated brain won't see
my redness - in fact, it won't see nothing at all cause it isn't
conscious.
But if you:
1. make a robot that simulates my brain in my symbols i.e. behaves
(relative to the physical world) in the same ways as I do
2. show a rose to the robot
I think that robot will experience the same redness as me.
Would be glad if somebody suggests something to read about 'symbols
grounding', semantics, etc., I have a lot of confusion here, I've
always thought that logic is a formal language for a 'syntactic'
manipulation with 'strings' that acquire meaning only in our minds.
When I play a video game I am conscious. Presumably I would still be
conscious even using a fully immersive system like the vertebrain
system described on this page
( http://marshallbrain.com/discard8.htm ). If that is true, and you
agree with me so far, do you think a brain in a vat
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat ) would be conscious?
Would it be conscious whether its optic nerve were connected to a
webcam or connected to the TV/OUT port of a video game? What about a
human brain that spent its whole life as a brain in a vat from the
time it was born (assuming it were given a robot body for input, or
assuming it was given a computer game realistic reality)? I am
curious at what point you think the consciousness would cease.
I think that if the brain in a vat had sufficient efferent/afferent
nerve connections so that it was able to both perceive and and act in
the world (either real or virtual) then it would be conscious. If it
were very restricted, e.g. it only go to play the same virtual video
game over and over, it's consciousness would be similarly limited (I
think there are degrees of consciousness). And if it were too limited it
would "crash".
Brent
If you agree that the brain in the vat would be conscious in all cases
(even when given input from a video game) and you agree that a robot
body with a software brain would be conscious, why would it stop
working when you put a software brain in the same position as the
brain in a vat?
Jason
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