From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra!klaava!amnell Mon Oct 19 16:59:49 EDT 1992
Article 7331 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra!klaava!amnell
>From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Message-ID: <1992Oct19.133435.18702@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 19 Oct 92 13:34:35 GMT
References: <1992Oct13.085347.13831@klaava.Helsinki.FI> <g87wsB1w165w@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz>
Organization: University of Helsinki
Lines: 23

In article <g87wsB1w165w@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz> system@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz
(Wayne McDougall) writes:

>Hmmm, excuse me for coming in late, but in what way are we "conscious"?
>That is, to what are you referring that is above and beyond thinking?
>I think I am asking for a definition of "conscious" as it may be being 
>shared by participants in this discussion (or may not be).

I don't know how many participants in the discussion would agree with
me, but any workable definition of consciousness would have to go beyond
mere cognition -- the capacity for thought, something like purposeful
use of information to achieve results (to just give a sketch) -- and
include sensory awareness of one's environment, self-awareness of
oneself as a thinking being, a history of interaction with similar
beings (something repeatedly stressed by Davidson in his criticism of
the Turing Test) and hence membership in a community of thinkers.
All this is not meant to be a real definition, but just something to
start the ball rolling, if anyone would care to push it further.

-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
Graduate Student in Philosophy


