On Wednesday, October 24, 2012 6:24:39 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: > > > I'm with John Clark on that - if a machine functions intelligently it's >> intelligent and it's probably conscious. Nothing magical about it. >> > > It's completely magical. Saying that it isn't doesn't explain anything. If > people stop at a stop sign, and then they are glad because oncoming traffic > would have resulted in a wreck, does that mean that the intelligently > functioning stop sign is conscious? There is no function which can > conceivably require an experience of any kind...unless you can think of a > counterfactual? > > > > You have an exaggerated standard of explanation. Is there any function > which can conceivably require gravity? >
Keeping the Earth from flying off into space requires gravity. That is a function that requires some condition which fits the description of gravity. > No, GR 'explains' by showing a precise relation between the metric of > spacetime and the distribution of matter. But it doesn't 'require' it. > The relation is there though. That is completely different from consciousness, where there is no measurable phenomenon that's there to require an explanation. > If intelligence of a certain level is always found to be accompanied by > reports of consciousness, > then we hypothesize that intelligent actions are a sign of consciousness. > That's fine for naturally occurring phenomenon, but how can you seriously entertain applying that to any toy or computer program that we design specifically to seem intelligent? > The difference between that and your fiat assignment of 'sense' to > everything, is that it points a way to produce consciousness and possibly > to test for it. > No, it points to way of assuming consciousness where none exists. Craig > > Brent > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/2rF5bM14NRoJ. 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.
