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Article 3471 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Multiple Personality Disorder and Strong AI
Keywords: consciousness,functionalism
Message-ID: <64839@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 4 Feb 92 18:06:18 GMT
References: <kokp5aINNiuu@agate.berkeley.edu> <1992Feb4.035646.11687@cs.yale.edu> <kosdpuINN4e6@agate.berkeley.edu>
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Reply-To: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
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In-reply-to: jvsichi@ocf.berkeley.edu (John Sichi)

In article <kosdpuINN4e6@agate.berkeley.edu>, jvsichi@ocf (John Sichi) writes:
>Dave Chalmers (in message 4371) and Drew McDermott (in 4442) gave the tried

Note: refering to "message 4371" and the like is totally meaningless
to the rest of us.  Please don't do it.

>Matthew Wiener (in msg 4398), suggested that the presence of the I/O
>generated by the (conceptually) separated node(s) would in some way
>inhibit consciousness in the rest of the subnetwork.  I suppose this could
>be true, but it seems like a very strong assumption,

Not much stronger than your original assumption that the network has
criteria C$ for being conscious in the first place.

>						      considering that the
>number of connections of a single neuron in the brain is at least six orders
>of magnitude smaller than the total number of neurons

Only if you count direct connections.  Try counting second and third and
fourth order connections instead.

>						       (sorry to keep
>focusing on the brain, but once again, there's not much else to go on at
>this point).

I try to keep my AI focus on the brain in my postings.

>	       Such a network would certainly not be robust in its support
>of consciousness.

Sure it would.  Closing off tiny subnets still maintains criteria C$.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)


