On 29 May 2014 15:07, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 5/28/2014 7:14 PM, LizR wrote: > > On 29 May 2014 13:56, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > >> On 5/28/2014 6:48 PM, LizR wrote: >> >> On 29 May 2014 13:43, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: >> >>> On 5/28/2014 6:28 PM, LizR wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/innovators/2014/05/140528-lori-marino-dolphins-animals-personhood-blackfish-taiji-science-world/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_tw20140528news-lori&utm_campaign=Content&sf3097303=1 >>>> >>> >>> "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but Can they >>> suffer?" >>> Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) >>> >> >> Ah, so consciousness *is* both more difficult and more important than >> intelligence! >> >> I don't think it's more difficult - I think some very unintelligent >> animals can suffer. Of course there are different kinds of suffering. I >> doubt that suffering pain requires human-like consciousness, but suffering >> existential angst probably does. >> > > No one mentioned huiman like consciousness (well, no one except you). > > I mentioned it to raise the point that there are different kinds of > consciousness and that implies different kinds of potential suffering. > Even simple animals are conscious of the status of their bodies and so they > can suffer pain - but probably not boredom. >
True (although it doesn't obviously support the statement "I don't think it's more difficult") Consciousness is required for suffering, and we have very little idea which animals are conscious. Whereas we can tell how intelligent animals are by looking at their behaviour - their ability to learn and to deal with novel situations etc. Hence consciousness is more difficult to detect than intelligence. And if one believes your quote, it's also more important. Yes, I think it is more important. We would have no ethical qualms about > destroying an intelligent computer if we thought it was not conscious (e.g. > Watson). But I think it's impossible to completely separate the two. > If you can have an intelligent but not conscious computer it is. -- 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+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
