On Sun, Feb 01, 2015 at 05:57:10PM -0500, John Clark wrote: > On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 2:44 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > > > And then there's consciousness, which everybody (presumably) knows what > > it is, but nobody knows how to test for > > > > Not true, EVERYBODY know how to test for consciousness, intelligence > behavior is the test, and and without exception every person on this list > has used that test at least once every single day of their lives. The > entire thing is completely uncontroversial UNTIL you try to apply it to a > computer, and then all of a sudden people insist on changing the rules of > the game because they don't like who's winning. >
Not quite true. We also know that other humans are constructed the same way we are. I think that if an ANN (artificial neural network) exhibits enough general intelligence to pass the Turing test, it would be considered conscious by most people[1]. But that is not the case right now. The computer programs passing the Turing test right now are faking it, Eliza style. Conversely, as we get to understand the neural basis of our own brains better, then potentially differently structured machines might be admitted to being conscious. Cheers [1] Of course there will always be some people who won't grant consciousness (or a soul) to a machine under any circumstances, just as there used to be people who didn't think black people, or women, possessed a soul. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- 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.
