From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!utgpu!pindor Fri Oct 30 15:17:56 EST 1992
Article 7420 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!utgpu!pindor
>From: pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: We've Been Tricked- consciousness
Message-ID: <BwuF24.L92@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCS Public Access
References: <BwL6LM.CL1@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <BwpHGD.EMy@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> <BwqppI.IsM@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <Bwsqpo.8EE@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 17:54:04 GMT

In article <Bwsqpo.8EE@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (lincoln carr) writes:
>In article <BwqppI.IsM@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>
>>Case of an infant seems to me to be a good example of the difficulties in
>>establishing where the consciousness begins. You would presumably agree that
>>a fertalized human egg is not conscious and that at a certain age a child is
>>definitely conscious. Now, do you see a clear moment where there may be 
>>a change of state from a lack of consciousness to its presence? Even if you
>>are ready to suggest such a moment, are you sure it is unambigous? And that
>>most people will agree with you? The only way out I can see from this dilemma
>>(short of a fundamentalist solution) is to assume that the consciousness
>>is formed gradually.
>>
>
>The same kind of difficulty arises when one asks the same kinds of
>questions about rationality.  If I want to support, say, minimum

I agree, but are you claiming that there is a very clear, unambiguous border
between rationality and a lack of it?

>requirements for consciousness, it is well within the scope of my
>imagination to conceive that, in the course of evolution, that there
>were beings just below these minima and that their progeny developed
>just above these minima.  There doesn't need to be any dramatic
>breakthrough, just a point at which the minima are met.  This would
>support the idea that minima of consciousness could be defined and
>that there is a point at which something could be called definitely
>conscious without saying that consciousness must come in degrees.
>
You are making from the start an assumption that there are these 'minimum
requirements for consciousness', i.e. a clear border between having
consciousness and a lack of it. What is your evidence for it? And where would
this border be in the case above (an infant)? Can an organism be arbitrarily
close to the minimum from below? And what is are the criteria for these
'minimum requirements'? Unless there is some sort of 'dramatic breakthrough',
a choice of the minimum is, to a at least some extent, arbitrary and I do not
see how for the cases close to (your choice of) minimum can you say that
an organism is 'definitely' conscious or not.

Andrzj Pindor
>
>
>
>-- 
>Lincoln R. Carr, Computer Scientist-Philosopher    lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
>"Treat all rational autonomous moral agents, whether in the form of yourself
>or another, never as means solely, but always as ends in themselves."
>                  Immanuel Kant, from "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals"


-- 
Andrzej Pindor
University of Toronto
Computing Services
pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca


