On 26 November 2014 at 04:38, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I don't think John's post implied that "conscious" was another word for >> "intelligence". I think his position is that a being could be conscious >> without being intelligent (which would be consistent with "aware of one's >> self and surroundings"), but not vice versa. >> > > Exactly. > Ah, well that is a matter of opinion. It would mean that all the tests so far devised for intelligence that have been passed by computers, including some versions of the Turing test, may not in fact detect intelligence after all, if those machines aren't actually conscious, which they may well not be. This seems to me to be redefining intelligence (and perhaps consciousness). Personally, I think machines can behave in an intelligent manner without being conscious - or at least in a manner than most people not used to computers would consider intelligent (e.g. performing huge mathematical calculations very fast would be considered intelligent by most people before the advent of computers, as would winning the world chess championship). But this is getting very semantic-quibbly. If you guys want to redefine intelligence as being something that only conscious beings have, then fine, as long as you make it clear that's what you're doing I have no objection. We'll find another word for what machines (and unconscious parts of the brain) can do that merely looks intelligent. > > > I don't think "being conscious" is a simple unitary attribute. I think >> there are different kinds of "being conscious" >> > > Yes and I have rock solid, I would even go so far as to call it perfect, > evidence that the above is true; but unfortunately that evidence is > available only to me. You may have a corresponding sort of evidence, I > strongly suspect that you do, but I don't know it for a fact. > > This is also a matter of opinion. Some would say that one is either conscious or not, although what one is conscious *of* can vary a lot. > > -- 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.
