It certainly seems likely that any brain or AI that can perceive sensory
events and form an inner narrative and memory of that is conscious in a
sense even if they are unable to act. This is commonly the situation
during a dream. One is aware of dreamt events but doesn't actually move
in response to them.
And I think JKC is wrong when he says "few if any believe other people
are conscious all the time, only during those times that corresponds to
the times they behave intelligently." I generally assume people are
conscious if their eyes are open and they respond to stimuli, even if
they are doing something dumb.
But I agree with his general point that consciousness is easy and
intelligence is hard. I think human consciousness, having an inner
narrative, is just an evolutionary trick the brain developed for
learning and accessing learned information to inform decisions. Julian
Jaynes wrote a book about how this may have come about, "The Origin of
Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". I don't know
that he got it exactly right, but I think he was on to the right idea.
Brent
On 4/26/2021 4:07 PM, Terren Suydam wrote:
So do you have nothing to say about coma patients who've later woken
up and said they were conscious? Or people under general anaesthetic
who later report being gruesomely aware of the surgery they were
getting? Should we ignore those reports? Or admit that consciousness
is worth considering independently from its effects on outward behavior?
On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 11:16 AM John Clark <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 10:45 AM Terren Suydam
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> It's impossible to refute solipsism
True, but it's equally impossible to refute the idea that
everything including rocks is conscious. And if both a theory and
its exact opposite can neither be proven nor disproven then
neither speculation is of any value in trying to figure out how
the world works.
/> It's true that the only thing we know for sure is our own
consciousness,/
And I know that even I am not conscious all the time, and there is
no reason for me to believe other people can do better.
/> but there's nothing about what I said that makes it
impossible for there to be a reality outside of ourselves
populated by other people. It just requires belief./
And few if any believe other people are conscious all the time,
only during those times that corresponds to the times they behave
intelligently.
John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis
<https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>
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