On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 3:09 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 5/2/2013 7:47 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > >> Would anyone here say that a conditional (e.g., "if/else") statement" (in >> some program) is conscious? >> > > I don't think so. We make if/else choices subconsciously all the time. > My introspection tells me that conscious thought is a kind of narrative > story I construct. I think the function of this is to condense my > experience for memory and future reference when I need to plan or predict > based on my past experience. If I were designing an intelligent Mars Rover > that had to learn to deal with a wide variety of problems which I cannot > anticipate, this sort of selective memory narrative would be one component > of it's learning. > > Of course there are different levels of consciousness. A Mars Rover needs > a conception of "self" as being in certain place, having completed certain > tasks, having certain capabilities, etc. But it doesn't need to consider > its status among peers or reflect on its own computational methods or its > ultimate end. > > Brent > > Brent, I think you may be reading my question in the wrong way. I didn't mean to equate your consciousness with that of every if/else decision you make, but rather ask something like, "What does the shortest possible program that is conscious look like?" I have trouble seeing why some short piece of code like: if (x > 0) then do y() else do z(); Is not conscious of some property of x (whether it is positive or negative), at least when the two different functions y() and z() cause the program to enter different states. I find it harder to justify the consciousness of a program that did not do any selection, distinction, or inspection. In most programming languages, this is done using a conditional statement, such as an "if statement", a "while statement" or a "switch statement". Jason > > >> I think such statements may form the atoms of consciousness, as they >> represent the point at which a program's behavior diverges based on the >> inspection of some information. >> >> Conditional statements are required for any kind of intelligent or >> responsive behavior, which might be why consciousness correlates with it. >> >> Jason >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to > everything-list+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.com<everything-list%[email protected]> > . > To post to this group, send email to > everything-list@googlegroups.**com<[email protected]> > . > Visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/**group/everything-list?hl=en<http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en> > . > For more options, visit > https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_out<https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out> > . > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
