On Wednesday, February 6, 2013 1:04:02 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:00 PM, Telmo Menezes 
> <te...@telmomenezes.com<javascript:>
> > wrote:
>
>  >>> I'm not claiming that intelligence == mind. 
>>>>
>>>
>>> > Do you believe that your fellow human beings have minds? If so why?
>>>
>>
>> > Yes (weakly). 
>>
>
> You believe that only weakly?! Do you really think there is a 49% chance 
> that you are the only conscious being in the universe?  By the way, I don't 
> believe other people have minds when they are sleeping or under anesthesia 
> or dead because when they are in those states they don't behave very 
> intelligently.  
>

People can pretend to be asleep or anesthetized or dead also. In that case, 
the criteria of behaving intelligently would not help you determine whether 
they have a mind or not.


> > Occam's razor. If I'm the only human being with a mind, then, for some 
>> mysterious reason, there are two types of human beings: me (with a mind) 
>> and the others (zombies). So heuristically I'm inclined to believe that all 
>> human beings have a mind,
>>
>
> OK, but if you also believe in Darwin's theory of Evolution then you must 
> also believe that consciousness MUST be a byproduct of intelligence because 
> Evolution can't directly see consciousness any better than we can 
>

We don't see consciousness directly? What is it that we do see directly if 
not our own consciousness? Evolution assumes life and consciousness, it is 
not a theory of the origin of either. 

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php#a1 

Number one misconception:

>
>    - 
>    
>    *MISCONCEPTION: Evolution is a theory about the origin of life.*
>    
>    *CORRECTION: *Evolutionary theory *does* encompass ideas and evidence 
>    regarding life's origins (e.g., whether or not it happened near a deep-sea 
>    vent, which organic molecules came first, etc.), but this is not the 
>    central focus of evolutionary 
> theory<http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/glossary/glossary_popup.php?word=theory>.
>  
>    Most of evolutionary biology deals with how life changed *after* its 
>    origin. Regardless of how life started, afterwards it branched and 
>    diversified, and most studies of evolution are focused on those processes.
>    
>  

> and so cannot select for it, and yet you and probably other people are 
> conscious. Thus you must also believe that if a computer is intelligent 
> then it is conscious. Then you must also believe that intelligence == mind.
>

If computers are conscious then we are monsters for enslaving them, are we 
not? Even horses don't get thrown into a recycling bin just because we buy 
a new one.

Craig
 

>
> > although I know I will never be able to prove it.
>>
>
> I agree on that point.
>
>   John K Clark
>
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>  
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>>  
>>
>>

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