re: Relative consciousness (was: Alternate deductive route ...)

From: Hans Moravec <hpm.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 21:51:40 -0400

[1: human in physical world, 2: AI robot in world, 3: human in VR, 4: AI
in VR]

Russell Standish In-Reply-To: <3783CE64.FBD9C413.domain.name.hidden> from "Hans
Moravec" at Jul 7, 99 06:02:12 pm
>> [ 1: human in physical world,
>> 2: AI in physical world robot,
>> 3: human in VR,
>> 4: AI in VR ]
> We have already discussed the concept that conciousness is a relative
> concept. In your cases above, 1-3 would indeed be concious relative to
> our own, but case 4 would not (if it is an entirely deterministic system
> with no free will), and case 3 is arguable I suppose.

Ah, but you can embed nondeterministic process in deterministic ones
by taking all paths at each decision point. Any individual thread
through the branching tree will seem (be) nondeterministic.

And then later, I, outside, can interact with one of those threads,
and listen in on the being discussing its surprising life experiences.

> and case 3 is arguable I suppose

It seems a strange distinction to say someone's consciousness
is somehow not there when they're jacked into a VR. How about
if we forget about the VR, and just wall someone off from us,
so they can't interact. Or send them away to a distant star.
Are they then not conscious relative to us? Is there a
pont in making this distinction? In the wall, star and VR case,
we could make an effort and eventually reestablish communication.
Wouldn't it be clearer to simply say they're "out of touch with us"
rather than "they're not conscious relative to us"?
Received on Wed Jul 07 1999 - 18:53:01 PDT