Brent Meeker writes:
> > I'm responsible for a misunderstanding if you thought I meant "recording"
> > in the usual sense of the word, i.e. a copy of a limited subset (sound or
> > video, for example) of a subject's attributes over a period of time. What
> > I intended was a copy of all of the subject's attributes, but constrained
> > so that it will run the same way over and over, like an automaton. For
> > example, if you have an elaborate computer game with characters with
> > whom you can interact so they pass the Turing test, you can record the
> > whole session, including your keyboard inputs, and "play" it a second time.
> > The computer goes through exactly the same states the second time around,
> > but it really has no choice: the recording constrains its behaviour as rigidly
> > as a video tape constrains the behaviour of the video player and TV (actually
> > more rigidly, since there is always some variation between runs with analogue
> > systems). Would you say that the characters in the game are conscious on
> > the first run but not on the second?
> >
> > Stathis Papaioannou
>
> I think this turns on the referent of "the characters". If it means the sequence of
> computer states that represents the characters in that game - no. If it means the
> programs that represent the characters, programs that would have responded
> differently had circumstances been different, then - yes. At least that's the theory
> that consciousness depends on counterfactuals.
That's the the theory that I'm disputing. There seems to me to be no good reason
for it.
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Sat Aug 26 2006 - 07:22:53 PDT