Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> Wrote:
" Consciousness can change behavior but it might not have to. Like a possum > can play dead." > So if something passes the Turing Test it is intelligent and probably conscious, but failure to pass the Turing Test tells you nothing for certain. Rocks don't act intelligently and so fail the test, we conclude that rocks are probably not conscious, but maybe just maybe rocks are brilliant and as conscious as you or me and are just playing possum. Maybe, logically it can't be ruled out, but I rather doubt it. " You decide whether to slow down or not." > And you made that decision for a reason or you did not. " Whether you do slow down or not is random" > OK, then there was a reason and its deterministic. " all of these things - teleportation, diamond impersonation, etc are no less unlikely than consciousness. [...] There is no way that mutation could produce that unless those things were already possible to produce." Yes, Evolution could not produce a perpetual motion machine, and in fact it could not even come up with things far more mundane, like a macroscopic part that can move in 360 degrees. Evolution is a blundering inefficient and very stupid process, it's just that until the invention of brains it was the only way complex things could get built. Nevertheless Evolution managed to produce consciousness and probably first did so more than 500 million years ago; I conclude that producing consciousness is not that difficult, intelligence on the other hand is an entirely different story " Life has no reason to evolve from non-life." > I doubt if that is true, but if it is then life evolved from non-life at random. " How can mutation produce consciousness if consciousness was not already a > potential?" > I never said there wasn't a potential. If consciousness is the way data feels like when it is processed I'd say that is a potential. And I can see absolutely no reason why 3 pounds of grey goo can make use of that potential but a microcircuit can not. " Your answer is that it must have since consciousness exists and evolution > is responsible for all properties of life." > Consciousness MUST be a byproduct of intelligence or it would not exist, but I know for a fact that at least one conscious being does exist in the universe. " But my whole point is that awareness is inherent" > Then why can't a computer be aware? Why is wet grey goo the only thing that can take advantage of this interesting potential? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
