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Article 4749 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Message-ID: <1992Mar26.195318.5074@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
>From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Date: 26 Mar 92 19:53:18 GMT
Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Sender: news@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu
References: <1992Mar25.161024.2081@oracorp.com>
Organization: Center for Neural Systems, Memory, and Aging
Lines: 27

In article <1992Mar25.161024.2081@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>
>As several people have pointed out, the standard notion of
>implementing a finite state machine involves getting the inputs and
>outputs right, (which Putnam's rocks manifestly don't). However, that
>notion of implementation is too strong if you want to say (a) that
>"being conscious" means to implement a certain kind of state machine,
>and (b) that sensation-deprived human brains are still conscious. The
>problem with the latter case (imagine a deaf, blind, paralytic) is
>that there are no inputs and outputs from the world possible, so
>whatever it means to implement a conscious being cannot require
>getting the *actual* inputs and outputs right.
>

Two points:  First, if someone is *completely* sensation-deprived
(no body-sense, no clue that time is passing), I would be
reluctant to call them conscious.

Second, "getting the inputs right" must mean that there is
a way of mapping states of the object to states of the FSA,
and states of the rest of the universe to inputs of the FSA,
such that the dynamics of the universe (including the rock)
corresponds to the transition table of the FSA.  It seems to
me that this can be done by applying Putnam's method to the
whole universe rather than just to the isolated rock.

	-- Bill


