On 11/24/2014 10:00 PM, LizR wrote:
On 25 November 2014 at 16:24, John Clark <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 8:36 PM, LizR <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
> We've made intelligent machines,
Yes.
> but I don't know of any conscious ones
If intelligent behavior is not a test for consciousness then how do you
know that
such machines are not conscious? For that matter how do you know that a
rock is not
conscious but your fellow human beings are conscious when they're not
sleeping or
under anesthesia or dead?
Well that's a bit of a non sequitur. You could equally well say if smelling of
raspberries isn't a test for consciousness, how do we know that light bulbs aren't unicorns?
As far as I'm aware none of us knows anything for sure. On the balance of probabilities,
however, I would say that rocks most likely aren't conscious, and that people probably
are (when not asleep etc).
As you must realize (not really being a bear of small brain) the point of the question is
how can we know whether anything is conscious or not - and I don't mean "for sure", just
ordinary beyond reasonable doubt sure. I think John is pointing the fact that intelligent
behavior is a common criterion for consciousness. But whether it's definitive, I'm not
sure. I think it depends on what kind of consciousness is meant.
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].
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/d/optout.
