Brent, Of course not. Characters in video games are not real. They know nothing, and have zero consciousness.
Do you think Santa Claus is real and knows things and is conscious? I can't believe you'd even ask such a dumb question.... Edgar On Tuesday, January 14, 2014 2:33:35 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: > > On 1/14/2014 9:32 AM, Edgar L. Owen wrote: > > Brent, > > Again, you are making the mistake of thinking consciousness is some > single state that things either have or don't have. There is actually a > continuous non-linear spectrum from a thermostat through a mars rover > through all biological organisms to a human and possibly beyond. Each of > these has an awareness (I call it Xperience) defined strictly in terms of > its actual structure and how that works. All Xperience is simply alteration > of the forms of something in computational interaction with other forms, so > properly speaking every event in the universe is an Xperience so in that > sense everything is the universe has some form of what could be called > proto-consciousness. > > Where you want to define 'actual consciousness' on this spectrum is > pretty much an arbitrary definition. However it is defined, consciousness > is simply the same old generic Xperience which is fundamental to > computational reality. Normally consciousness is defined to denote some > level of self-descriptive Xperience, in the sense that there are internal > computational forms that tell an organism what it is Xperiencing and what > its state is and how it is changing. > > > So a character in a video game could know things and could even be self > conscious - contrary to your previous dismissal. > > Brent > > > So the answer to your questions is pretty much a matter of how > consciousness is defined. In all cases it's not any soul or ghost in the > machine added to a machine, biological or otherwise, but the operational > consequences of the structure of that machine, and its nature is strictly > determined by the operation of those actual structures. > > Edgar > > > > On Monday, January 13, 2014 11:09:29 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: >> >> On 1/13/2014 6:47 PM, Edgar L. Owen wrote: >> > Brent, >> > >> > For God's sakes, the "characters in a video game'" don't know anything. >> They are >> > completely fictional characters. You seem to have lost all touch with >> reality in your >> > zeal to find something to criticize. I can't believe we are actually >> having this >> > discussion... Do you also believe ghosts, trolls and fairies "know >> things"? >> >> Do you believe computations can realize beings that know things (it's a >> consequence of >> your theory if I'm not mistaken). What does it take to "know things"? >> You never answered >> my question as to what it would take to make a conscious robot. You >> evaded it by saying >> "conscious" wasn't well defined. And I agree that there are levels and >> kinds of >> consciousness. But choose one or two - what would it take to make a >> robot that had that >> kind of consciousness. What would it take for a robot "know things"? >> Does the Mars Rover >> know things? anything? >> >> Brent >> > -- > 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] <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> > . > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
