From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Mon Dec 16 11:01:13 EST 1991
Article 2047 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael
>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Abstract question.
Message-ID: <1991Dec11.205104.9998@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1991Dec09.183012.5748@ecst.csuchico.edu>
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1991 20:51:04 GMT

In article <1991Dec09.183012.5748@ecst.csuchico.edu> tvangod@ecst.csuchico.edu (Tyler Van Gorder) writes:
>
>   I have a simple question to ask you people out in AI land.
>
>Do you think computers will ever have the capacity to feel love, hate,
>happiness, etc?
>
>Yes or no and why?
>

I depends on what you mean by "feel".  If you mean "will computers ever
*act* like humans do when they feel love, hate, etc."  then I will remain
agnostic.  Several people on the Net have recently claimed that certain 
aspects of brain function may not be computable, but I lay no claim to
understanding these arguments. 

 However, if you mean "will computers ever *have the experience*
of love, hate, etc."  then I think the answer is no, just as I do for other
aspects of subjective experience, such as qualia (sensation or "raw feels").
I believe that there are very good arguments against a functional
(or "computer") account of these phenomena.  The arguments basically claim
that even if you get the appropriate behaviour, it could still be the
case that the subjective experience is very different, or even absent.
We simply have no good account of the cause of subjective experience in
humans, but it seems clear (at least to many, although not all, philosophers)
that a functionalist explanation will not work.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I have no idea whether
a computer could actually *feel* emotions, although we have no
reason to believe that they could, and no way of determining if we
are wrong by empirical test.

- michael
 



