On 8/18/2011 11:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 1:33 PM, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
According to Bruno we can look at how it works and conclude it's not a
universal computer and it's certainly not Lobian, so we conclude it's not
conscious. This accords with the common intuition that something conscious
has to be pretty complex and have memory at a minimum. I know a guy who
studies neuroscience and cognition who won't eat anything with a cerebral
cortex.
What about the idea that a thermostat is conscious and feels hot and
cold in its simple way? How would you devise an experiment to prove or
disprove that?
I'm content to say a thermostat is conscious of hot and cold and desired
temperature. It even communicates those things to us (via a dial). But
I don't think it's conscious in human terms because it doesn't have
memory and it doesn't learn. I agree with Jason's last post, an opinion
I've expressed before in slightly different terms. I think we will
eventually get to the point that we will be able to engineer intelligent
machines that act as if they were conscious. And then, in Bruno's
terms, we'll "bet" that they are conscious. Consciousness will no
longer be a unified concept, as "life" no longer is. We will
distinguish many kinds and degrees of consciousness and intelligence.
The "hard question" will not be answered, it will be bypassed. Sometime
in the future some cognitive engineer will be asked,"But what makes your
robot conscious?" And the engineer will answer, "Hypotheses non fingo."
Brent
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