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Article 3035 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Intelligence Testing
Message-ID: <1992Jan22.224502.7492@aisb.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 22 Jan 92 22:45:02 GMT
References: <1992Jan21.210028.6756@oracorp.com> <1992Jan22.215054.6912@aisb.ed.ac.uk>
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In article <1992Jan22.215054.6912@aisb.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <1992Jan21.210028.6756@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
>>Jeff Dalton writes: (in response to Marvin Minsky)
>>
>>> This whole point [whether a table-lookup program can be conscious]
>>> relies on "conscious processing" being something mysterious so that,
>>> for all we know, our coffee cups are conscious and just pretending
>>> not to be. Or some very simple program, nowhere near passing the
>>> Turing Test, is conscious, just not very bright.
>>
>>That paragraph does not make a bit of sense to me. I take the
>>behaviorist Strong AI position as implying that there is *not*
>>anything intrinsically mysterious about consciousness, that there is
>>*not* any reason to suspect that coffee cups are conscious.
>
>It's the claim that mere table lookup might amount to conscious
>that relies on consciousness being something that almost anything
>might have -- so that the whole burden of proof is on someone
>wanting to show that something i

Sorry: that should be:

wanting to show that something is not conscious.

>>Who said anything about being sure? If in the future someone thinks of
>>a convincing argument that the table lookup is not conscious, then
>>people will agree that the Turing Test is not sufficient to
>>demonstrate consciousness.
>
>I'm glad you think so.
>
>>> If that's all that's required, then let's start dancing in the
>>> streets.  No need to do all that hard cog sci work - just imagine
>>> a very large table and wait for the hardware guys to catch up.
>>
>>That also doesn't make a bit of sense to me. The proof that something
>>is, in principle, possible is not the same thing as achieving it (nor
>>is it the same as knowing *how* to achieve it).
>
>Proof that machine consciousness is possible in principle would be 
>enough to refute Searle, hence an occasion for rejoicing.
>
>-- jd


