On 6/9/2020 4:58 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2020 at 09:32, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 6/9/2020 4:02 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2020 at 03:08, Jason Resch <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
For the present discussion/question, I want to ignore the
testable implications of computationalism on physical law,
and instead focus on the following idea:
"How can we know if a robot is conscious?"
Let's say there are two brains, one biological and one an
exact computational emulation, meaning exact functional
equivalence. Then let's say we can exactly control sensory
input and perfectly monitor motor control outputs between the
two brains.
Given that computationalism implies functional equivalence,
then identical inputs yield identical internal behavior
(nerve activations, etc.) and outputs, in terms of muscle
movement, facial expressions, and speech.
If we stimulate nerves in the person's back to cause pain,
and ask them both to describe the pain, both will speak
identical sentences. Both will say it hurts when asked, and
if asked to write a paragraph describing the pain, will
provide identical accounts.
Does the definition of functional equivalence mean that any
scientific objective third-person analysis or test is doomed
to fail to find any distinction in behaviors, and thus
necessarily fails in its ability to disprove consciousness in
the functionally equivalent robot mind?
Is computationalism as far as science can go on a theory of
mind before it reaches this testing roadblock?
We can’t know if a particular entity is conscious,
If the term means anything, you can know one particular entity is
conscious.
Yes, I should have added we can’t know know that a particular entity
other than oneself is conscious.
but we can know that if it is conscious, then a functional
equivalent, as you describe, is also conscious.
So any entity functionally equivalent to yourself, you must know
is conscious. But "functionally equivalent" is vague, ambiguous,
and certainly needs qualifying by environment and other factors.
Is a dolphin functionally equivalent to me. Not in swimming.
Functional equivalence here means that you replace a part with a new
part that behaves in the same way. So if you replaced the copper wires
in a computer with silver wires, the silver wires would be
functionally equivalent, and you would notice no change in using the
computer. Copper and silver have different physical properties such as
conductivity, but the replacement would be chosen so that this is not
functionally relevant.
But that functional equivalence at a microscopic level is worthless in
judging what entities are conscious. The whole reason for bringing it
up is that it provides a criterion for recognizing consciousness at the
entity level.
And even at the microscopic level functional equivalence in ambiguous.
The difference in conductivity between cooper and silver might not make
any different 99.9% of the time, but in some circumstance it might make
a difference. Or there might be incidental effects due to the
difference in corrosion that would show up in 20yrs but not sooner.
Brent
This is the subject of David Chalmers’ paper:
http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html
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Stathis Papaioannou
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