On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 11:07 PM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> That, as I keep saying, is the question. Assume that the bot can >> behave like a person but lacks consciousness. > > No. You have it backwards from the start. There is no such thing as > 'behaving like a person'. There is only a person interpreting > something's behavior as being like a person. There is no power > emanating from a thing that makes it person-like. If you understand > this you will know because you will see that the whole question is a > red herring. If you don't see that, you do not understand what I'm > saying. "Interpreting something's behaviour as being like a [person's]" is what I mean by "behaving like a person". >>Then it would be >> possible to replace parts of your brain with non-conscious components >> that function otherwise normally, which would lead to you lacking some >> important aspect aspect of consciousness but being unaware of it. This >> is absurd, but it is a corollary of the claim that it is possible to >> separate consciousness from function. Therefore, the claim that it is >> possible to separate consciousness from function is shown to be false. >> If you don't accept this then you allow what you have already admitted >> is an absurdity. > > It's a strawman of consciousness that is employed in circular > thinking. You assume that consciousness is a behavior from the > beginning and then use that fallacy to prove that behavior can't be > separated from consciousness. Consciousness drives behavior and vice > versa, but each extends beyond the limits of the other. No, I do NOT assume that consciousness follows from behaviour (and certainly not that it IS behaviour) from the beginning!! I've lost count of the number of times I have said "assume that it has the behaviour, but not the consciousness, of a brain component". How can I make it clearer? What other language can I use to convey that the thing is unconscious but to an external observer, who can't know its subjective states, it does the same sorts of mechanical things as its conscious counterpart? >> > The human race has already been supplanted by a superhuman AI. It's >> > called law and finance. >> >> They are not entities and not intelligent, let alone intelligent in >> the way humans are. > > What make you think that law and finance are any less intelligent than > a contemporary AI program? Law and finance are abstractions. A computer may be programmed to solve financial problems, and then it has a limited intelligence, but it's incorrect to say that "finance" is therefore intelligent. > When you say that intelligence can 'fake' non-intelligence, you imply > an internal experience (faking is not an external phenomenon). > Intelligence is a broad, informal term. It can mean subjectivity, > intersubjectivity, or objective behavior, although I would say not > truly objective but intersubjectively imagined as objective. I agree > that consciousness or awareness is different from any of those > definitions of intelligence which would actually be categories of > awareness. I would not say that a zombie is intelligent. Intelligence > implies understanding, which is internal. What a computer or a zombie > has is intelliform mechanism. If a computer or zombie can solve the same wide range of problems as a human then it is ipso facto as intelligent as a human. If you discover that your friend whom you have known for twenty years is actually a robot you may doubt in the light of this knowledge that he is conscious, but you can't doubt that he is intelligent, since that is based purely on your observations of his behaviour and not on internal state. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
