From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!cam Mon Oct 19 16:59:12 EDT 1992
Article 7277 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!cam
>From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Message-ID: <26893@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 14 Oct 92 23:49:37 GMT
References: <1992Oct12.221609.15695@news.media.mit.edu> <1992Oct12.224008.16222@news.media.mit.edu> <1992Oct13.085347.13831@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 23

In article <1992Oct13.085347.13831@klaava.Helsinki.FI> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes:

>I'm open to the possibility that a machine
>(conceived of in the reductionist way you suggest) could think, but does
>this automatically mean that its mind would be imbued with the same
>conscious experiences that accompany our thoughts, in all their wondrous
>splendour?  What I'm saying is that maybe machines could one day think,
>but they still wouldn't be conscious in the way we are.

Dennett's ingenious and interesting answer to this question is to
suggest that neither these thinking machines nor we ourselves are
conscious in the way we think we are, but that there are good reasons
why we, and they, could both be subject to the same kind of illusion:
not an illusion in the sense of a folly, but a useful illusion, a user
illusion, a virtual machine, which simplifies the operation of the
brain.

As it were :-)

-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205


