On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 6:50 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I am claiming that when I receive anesthesia I become both >> unintelligent and non-conscious. I am also claiming that when any of my >> fellow human beings receive a anesthesia they behave unintelligently, but I >> can make no conclusion of any sort regarding the effect the drug has on >> their consciousness UNLESS I assume that the Turing Test is valid and >> Darwin's Theory of Evolution is true. > > > > So you agree that we do judge whether or not beings are conscious more > or less accurately > I think so, but that's only because every human being who has ever lived has implicitly assumed that the Turing Test is valid, it's only when it's applied to computers that people suddenly want to change the rules of the game. > > and so a theory about consciousness that predicts consciousness in some > situation might be empirically invalidated. > A theory of consciousness can be proven false *PROVIDED* you assume as I do that the Turing Test is valid and Darwin's Theory of Evolution is true; then a theory of consciousness is equivalent to a theory of intelligence. I can understand why armchair consciousness theorists are reluctant to make that equivalence, it makes their job far far more difficult because good intelligence theories are HARD, but if that assumption is not made then no theory of consciousness is scientific. John K Clark -- 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.
