From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!torn.onet.on.ca!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Tue Jun  9 10:07:14 EDT 1992
Article 6102 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!torn.onet.on.ca!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael
>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: lights on, nobody home
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <5245@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil>
Message-ID: <BpDqqL.MMq@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1992 15:51:56 GMT

In article <5245@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil> nba1836@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil (Ken Burch) writes:
>
>So in the pursuit of a real robot, or an entity that can pass the TTT 
>(or TT, for that matter), we are looking to see if "somebody is home".
>If a thing is conscious, there must be somebody "inside" who is being
>conscious, experiencing the sensation of consciousness.

By definition.  "Subject-less consciousness" is like "dehydrated water",
"fat-free oil", or "McDonald's food", in other words, an oxymoron.   
In order for there to be consciousness, there must be a thing experiencing.
Experiences don't simply float around in the ether. 


>  We want to be
>convinced that someone is home in our AI creations, as we certainly seem
>convinced that someone is "home" in our own personal, individual cases.

"We" are "convinced" in "our" "personal" cases.  Just try to say that
*without* assuming a conscious subjective entity.  It just don't work.

>But how would our approach change if we believed that even in our human
>selves there was really nobody home, that our innermost self -- the ego,
>or soul, or "I" that says "I have a mind" -- was actually just a practical
>illusion supported by habitual wrong thinking and bad semantics.

"Who" would believe this?  "Who" is being fooled?  "Who" is hearing the
ego say "I have a mind"?  And, for God sake, "who" is experiencing the
illusion?  (Illusions, just like all other experiences, are *not* objective
phenomena.  Illusions don't exist without perceivers, that is, without
"selves" to see them.)

This position seems to me to be entirely self-refuting.  I'm sure that
there must be something that I'm missing.  If some"one" would care to
"enlighten" "me", "I" would certainly "appreciate" it.

- michael



