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Article 3334 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: biesel@javelin.sim.es.com (Heiner Biesel)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and Panpsychism
Message-ID: <1992Jan31.163659.11670@javelin.sim.es.com>
Keywords: panpsychism
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation
References: <1992Jan28.004208.27238@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Jan28.153645.5237@cs.yale.edu> <1992Jan28.164410.9509@psych.toronto.edu> <21879@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1992 16:36:59 GMT

minsky@transit.ai.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:

...stuff about belief deleted...

>As for "consciousness" the situation is worse.  There are lots of
>mental phenomena sometimes called by that name, but so far as I can
>see, what they mostly share in common is
>_short_term_memories_about_recent_mental_states.  I don't believe that
>we are in any deep sense "self-aware"; we have virtually no sense of
>where our words come from, or how we walk, or how we see, etc.  We do
>remember that we recently smiled, etc., and this is very useful.  It
>keeps you, for example, from getting into wastefully repetitive loops.
>But "reflective" short term memories -- records of recent mental
>states that can be used as uinputs to other processes -- have many
>other uses, and (surely) many different mechanisms with different
>evolutionary histories and functions.  So as far as I'm concerned, it
>is the use of this word, as though it represents anything important,
>e.g., some irreducible attribute of mind -- that has kept philosophy,
>since the time of Kant, from contributing important insights to
>psychology.

True. However, "consciousness" is, for most human beings at least, the 
defining property of their own existence, and hence irremediably tied up with
their notion of mind. One can conceive of a "mind" capable of any of the
activities we are usually so proud of: logical analysis, poetry, whimsy,
dirty jokes, campaign rhetoric..., all without being "conscious". I, and
presumably Minsky, would consider an artificial construct capable of these
feats a "mind". Is it an interesting "mind", simply because it passes the
Turing test? Does it contain the experience of "I", rather than simply the 
concept?

Perhaps religion can offer an alternative: why not simply refer to that
self-defining consciousness as the soul, and leave "mind" to be that portion
of mental activity which takes care of the ordinary business of survival
in a complex world. The brain surely evolved to permit us hapless apes to
outwit small furry creatures so as to procure our next meal, and similar
mundane tasks. Sonnets and weltschmerz are therefore amusing secondary 
effects, to be eliminated in future releases.

Regards,
       Heiner biesel@thrall.sim.es.com


