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From: sa209@utb.shv.hb.se (Claes Andersson)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
Message-ID: <1995Jan14.153326.20818@gdunix.gd.chalmers.se>
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References: <3f23q4$oc4@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> <1995Jan12.184559.2530@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> <3f5nuu$mks@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Jan 1995 21:49:51 GMT
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prem@ix.netcom.com (Prem Sobel) wrote:
>In <1995Jan12.184559.2530@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>
>stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Greg Stevens) writes:
>
>>In <3f23q4$oc4@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> prem@ix.netcom.com (Prem Sobel)
>writes:...
>>>It seems fantastic that in such a world life could survive at all.
>>>The body is so surprisingly frail. Look at what happens to a Leper
>>>just because the sensation is removed.
>>
>>Note, the original poster didn't say lack of reaction or
>>responsiveness to stimulus --note the second sentence.  This isn't
>>talking about a failure
>>of neurological mechanisms, it's talking about a lack of subjective
>>experience, while all else remains the same.
>
>The point is well taken, that if something is broken it does not
>work as it used to. Nevertheless, there is a failure of sensation
>and anyone who has experimented knows that one has a feeling of
>touch which extends beyond the physical. There is also the feeling
>that someone is watching you. These show that sensation and
>perception, and especially such things as the experience of yellow
>(or any other color) are an action of consciousness - usually
>mental consciousness. Observe a leper sometime, if you are brave
>enough to get close, and you will feel that something is missing !!!
>
>>While it is an interesting thought experiment, and brings up the point
>> that there is no evolutionary benefit to consciousness ...
>
>You have got to be kidding !!!! While it is possible to build a very
>accurate servo mechanism, perhaps with a computer controlling it,
>there is no way for that machine design to implement something that
>can anticipate and respond to any circumstance. Only living and
>especially thinking conscious animals manage to do this very well.
>Those that fail don't survive. Connsciousness is of survival benifit
>to say the least.

No, he isn't. If you create a machine that works exactly like a human
but isn't self-aware wouldn't it be able to work just like a human? Of c
ourse it would.. We could call it three layers: The input-layer, the
consciousness and the output. Our conciousness is aware of what
happens and what we do but what does it do? There is input to the
system and there is a memory and output. Everything that is put into
the system is put there either genetically or from the environment via
the perceptions. The self-awareness and conciousness cannot
use any other input than the available data and therefor it should be
possible to tie the input to the output without any self awareness.

Claes Andersson. University of Bors. Sweden


