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

From: Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 09:15:30 +1000

On 08/06/07, Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden> wrote:

The top level goal implied by evolution would be to have as many children as
> you can raise through puberty. Avoiding death should only be a subgoal.
>

Yes, but evolution doesn't have an overseeing intelligence which figures
these things out, and it does seem that as a matter of fact most people
would prefer to avoid reproducing if it's definitely going to kill them, at
least when they aren't intoxicated. So although reproduction trumps survival
as a goal for evolution, for individual humans it's the other way around.
This just confirms that there is no accounting for values or goals
rationally. What we have is what we're stuck with.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Thu Jun 07 2007 - 19:15:36 PDT

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