--- In [email protected], "PaliGap" <compost...@...> wrote:
...
> I don't think the Turing test helps. Barry may look
> and act in a way that is indistinguishable from a
> regular human being - but the question of whether
> there IS such a thing as "being Barry" is a fact about
> the world (either true or false) regardless of whether
> or not anyone can possibly tell.
This is often referred to as the 'zombie' problem. I've just read a book by
Susan Blackmore called 'Conversations on Consciousness' (just google it) in
which Blackmore interviews a whole bunch of top consciousness researchers. She
asks all of them if they think zombies could exist - i.e. she asks if there
were a robot that could behave indistinguishably from a person do they think
the robot would necessarily be conscious, or would there be "nothing that it
was like to be it".
The interviewees give a fascinating range of answers to this question (+ other
ones). I'd strongly recommend the book.
Geoff
