[Case]:
> I am not convinced that awareness is necessarily limited to > organic creatures. I think I agree with Magnus on this one. > There is every reason to think that self aware artificial > intelligences are not long in the future. > > I think it is even possible for the Internet to actually become > self aware. But at the moment even the internet which connects > millions of computers together all over the planet is simple and > primitive compared to the number of neurons and connections > made within the human brain. I fear that you've been playing too many video games. To suggest that robots can be programmed to be aware, or that the Internet may be self-conscious, is a trip through fantasy land. The test for awareness is not sensibility, analytical ability, or behavior. As I said before, awareness is the proprietary capacity to KNOW. It is not objectively verifiable, but it exists only in conjunction with sensible object (i.e., what we perceive as beingness). In other words, awareness is being-aware. Now, I will match your "almost agree" concession in one respect. What I call "sensibility" is not necessarily limited to organic creatures. Primary sensibility is the non-proprietary (undifferentiated or pre-intellectual) realization of value. It is my theory that value is the "force" that opposes negation and links the individual self to Essence. This concept is not unlike Pirsig's DQ, except that I don't define value as ultimate reality. Value is realizable only where difference is actualized, that is, in the awareness/otherness dichotomy of existence. Because the contingencies of this dichotomy are separated by nothingness, we can only be aware of value relatively. However, prior to any organic identity, value is the undifferentiated source of awareness. I, too, reject the notion of inanimate awareness as 'animisim'. Since you stated previously that "imbuing the mindless with mind and agency seems to me to be a regression in understanding not an advance," why are you now advocating AI as "self-awareness"? Processing and compiling data is no more an "agency of awareness" than the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Essentially yours, Ham moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
