Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> John Mikes writes:
>
>
>>Stathis, your post is 'logical', 'professional', 'smart', - good.
>>It shows why we have so many posts on this list and why we get nowhere.
>>You handle an assumption (robot) - its qualia, characteristics, make up a
>>"thought-situation" and ASK about its annexed details. Now, your style is
>>such that one cannot just disregard the irrelevance. So someone (many, me
>>included<G>) respond with similar mindtwists and it goes on and on. \
>>Have you ever ps-analyzed a robot? Professionally, I mean.
>>If it is a simple digital computer, it certainly has a memory, the one fixed
>>into chips as this PC I am using. Your and MY memory is quite different, I
>>wish somebody could tell me acceptably, HOW???, but it is plastic,
>>approximate, mixed with emotional changes, short and in cases false. I would
>>throw out a robot with such memory.
>
>
> I did put in parentheses "this of course assumes a robot can have experiences".
> We can't know that this is so, but it seems a reasonable assumption to me. If we
> had evolution with digital processors rather than biological processors do you think
> it would have been possible for animals with similar behaviours to those with which
> we are familiar to have developed? If so, do you think these animals would not
> really have "experiences" despite behaving as if they did? Since evolution can only
> work on behaviour, if zombie animals were possible why did we not evolve to be
> zombie animals?
>
> Stathis Papaioannou
Of course evolution is not some perfectly efficient optimizer. Julian Jaynes idea
the consciousness arises from internalizing speech perception would make
consciousness a round-about way of recalling complex practical instructions - one
that from a final design standpoint could have been done without the consciousness
but from an evolutionary standpoint might have been almost inevitable. I don't know
that I buy Jaynes explanation - but it shows that there might well be consciousness
even if zombie animals would have done just as well.
Brent Meeker
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Received on Sat Oct 07 2006 - 22:16:12 PDT