>
> Russell Standish <R.Standish.domain.name.hidden>:
> > We have discussed a number of scenarios whereby being too thorough in
> > an investigation will reveal a concious object as nonconcious.
>
> Every one a canard.
>
> **** Consciousness is an attribution, not an objective fact ****
>
> But any attributed consciousness is conscious in its own eyes. This
> includes your consciousness, my consciousness and theconsciousnesses
> of characters in a movie, or the character represented by a
> Turing-test-passing HLUT.
>
> Sherlock Holmes, as I read the books, is conscious in his own
> eyes and has feelings and beliefs (I can tell you what some of
> them are), and so was my teddy bear when I thought about it a
> certain way.
>
>
> Should this idea be hard to grasp by people who imagine that whole
> universes exist simply by virtue of seeming to exist to the characters
> implemented in them?
>
>
> YOU exist simply by virtue of seeming to exist in your own self-model
> (which exists only insofar as you exist).
>
Hans, I understand you position perfectly well - I just don't happen
to agree with it, nor do I think it a particularly useful way of
thinking. We simply need to agree to disagree.
BTW, I like the idea of our own conciousness (the one we experience
directly) being generated by some kind of self-referential process,
but I neither agree nor disagree with it at this point. However, I do
think it is intrinsically a different process to the Turing type tests
we perform to attribute conciousness in external objects.
Cheers
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Dr. Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit,
University of NSW Phone 9385 6967
Sydney 2052 Fax 9385 6965
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
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Received on Tue Jul 27 1999 - 18:52:24 PDT