Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?

From: Torgny Tholerus <torgny.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 08:50:23 +0200

Tom Caylor skrev:
>
> I think that IF a computer were conscious (I don't believe it is
> possible), then the way we could know it is conscious would not be by
> interviewing it with questions and looking for the "right" answers.
> We could know it is conscious if the computer, on its own, started
> asking US (or other computers) questions about what it was
> experiencing. Perhaps it would saying things like, "Sometimes I get
> this strange and wonderful feeling that I am "special" in some way. I
> feel that what I am doing really is significant to the course of
> history, that I am in some story." Or perhaps, "Sometimes I wish that
> I could find out whether what I am doing is somehow significant, that
> I am not just a duplicatable thing, and that what I am doing is not
> 'meaningless'."
>
public static void main(String[] a) {

    println("Sometimes I get this strange and wonderful feeling");
    println("that I am 'special' in some way.");
    println("I feel that what I am doing really is significant");
    println("to the course of history, that I am in some story.");
    println("Sometimes I wish that I could find out whether what");
    println("I am doing is somehow significant, that I am not just");
    println("a duplicatable thing, and that what I am doing");
    println("is not 'meaningless'.");

}

You can make more complicated programs, that is not so obvious, by
"genetic programming". But it will take rather long time. The nature
had to work for over a billion years to make the human beings. But with
genetic programming you will succeed already after only a million
years. Then you will have a program that is equally conscious as you are.

-- 
Torgny Tholerus
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Received on Tue Jun 05 2007 - 02:50:37 PDT

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