Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
The point is, we don't know, and we don't know how to find out, and we don't even have a good handle on how to properly phrase the question.
Your info is out of date. We know more and more, and we have a good handle on it. Of course there is a lot of work to be done. Decades from now I expect we will know much more about consciousness, self-awareness, intelligence and other brain functions & conditions, and we will define these things with as much precision as we now define brain death -- which is the one unambiguous brain condition we can now define clinically.
Right now, faced with your hypothetical robot which *asserts* that it is experiencing consciousness, we'd have no way of testing that assertion.
That would be challenging because it would not have the usual biological markers such as brain waves or a test for pain. (One way you test for brain death.) Plus you can program computers to mimic conscious behavior, as we do in video games for virtual robots.
Dealing with the robot would be a little like trying to determine whether a completely alien species on another planet was self-aware. Unless the creature was using technology, talking, writing or playing music or what-have-you, it might be difficult to tell. If you took a photo and it came up and demanded a look, the way chimps do in the Boston Zoo (my daughter reports), then you would know for sure. If you started taking pictures and the thing stopped and arranged its tentacles in what it considers a heroic or sexy (?!?) pose, it might be difficult for you to realize that is what it is doing. It might look like the creature is getting ready to eat you, or molt.
As I said, we can recognize emotions and behavior in earth mammals similar to ourselves, especially primates. You would not mistake a chimp posing for a photo for one that is about to attack you. (I wouldn't, anyway.) But it would be a challenge when dealing with octopuses, lobsters or tentacled land creatures on some other planet.
I saw a lecture by Jane Goodall the other day on UCTV. She not only understands what the chimps are doing and why, she know what they are thinking. She literally speaks their language, which is a lot more complex than I realized. She began the lecture by hooting out the greeting that chimps do when they meet a friend (anther chimp or Dr. Goodall). She gave several other hoots and sounds during the lecture, which was uncanny coming from an elderly woman, but perhaps not so surprising from an elderly British woman. (There is no enthusiast like a British enthusiast). Her detailed information on chimp culture, technology, language and thought processes was unimaginable 40 years ago.
- Jed
