Brent meeker writes:
> > I don't doubt that there is some substitution level that preserves 3rd person
> > behaviour and 1st person experience, even if this turns out to mean copying
> > a person to the same engineering tolerances as nature has specified for ordinary
> > day to day life. The question is, is there some substitution level which preserves
> > 3rd person behaviour but not 1st person experience? For example, suppose
> > you carried around with you a device which monitored all your behaviour in great
> > detail, created predictive models, compared its predictions with your actual
> > behaviour, and continuously refined its models. Over time, this device might be
> > able to mimic your behaviour closely enough such that it could take over control of
> > your body from your brain and no-one would be able to tell that the substitution
> > had occurred. I don't think it would be unreasonable to wonder whether this copy
> > experiences the same thing when it looks at the sky and declares it to be blue as
> > you do before the substitution.
>
> That's a precis of Greg Egan's short story "The Jewel". I wouldn't call it unreasonable to wonder whether the copy experiences the same qualia, but I'd call it unreasonable to conclude that it did not on the stated evidence. In fact I find it hard to think of what evidence would count against it have some kind of qualia.
It would be a neat theory if any machine that processed environmental information
in a manner analogous to an animal had some level of conscious experience (and consistent
with Colin's "no zombie scientists" hypothesis, although I don't think it is a conclusion he would
agree with). It would explain consciousness as a corollary of this sort of information processing.
However, I don't know how such a thing could ever be proved or disproved.
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Sat Dec 02 2006 - 03:37:25 PST