From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wupost!darwin.sura.net!gatech!pitt!geb Tue Jan 28 12:15:33 EST 1992
Article 2994 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: geb@dsl.pitt.edu (gordon e. banks)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Anesthesia
Message-ID: <13090@pitt.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jan 92 14:11:31 GMT
References: <62555@netnews.upenn.edu> <13086@pitt.UUCP> <63095@netnews.upenn.edu>
Sender: news@cs.pitt.edu
Organization: Decision Systems Laboratory, Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.
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In article <63095@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>
>>>>Again, what exactly do you mean by conscious?
>
>>>Nothing "exact" in particular.  It's a flexible concept that none of us
>>>understand yet.  How else could I say "so give the dogfish ..."?
>
>>Well, before we say what types of animals are conscious and what
>>aren't, we'd better have a better idea of what we mean by conscious,
>>I'd say.  Too much fuzziness and flexibility makes it hard to say
>>anything sensible about it.
>
>I prefer to think of this as normal pre-understood science.  The word
>"heat" was (and is) used in all sorts of fuzzy manners, but this did
>not prevent thermodynamics from getting off the ground.  At some point,
>a definitive meaning was adopted, and vague use left for the vernacular.

Until then, I guess we'll just have to proceed empirically.  In other words,
if someone makes a machine that behaves in ways such as it is not possible
to detect any differences from the behavior of an organic entity that
we consider conscious, then we will call that machine conscious.  Metaphysical
arguments can be left for possible future resolution.














-- 
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Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "I have given you an argument; I am not obliged
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  to supply you with an understanding." -S.Johnson
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