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From: sa209@utb.shv.hb.se (Claes Andersson)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
Message-ID: <1995Jan20.153230.27315@gdunix.gd.chalmers.se>
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Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 21:49:12 GMT
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>>I think what was being asked for us to consider was this: Consider a machine
>>that was programmed to respond to stimuli the same as us, but had no
>>consciousness.  There would be no evolutionary reason for it to be
>>selected out, with us superior, if its behaviors were the same, and all
>>it was lacking was subjectivity.  Thus, it seems that there is no
>>evolutionary benefit to subjective experience per se.
>
>You're begging the question.  By assuming that "its behaviors [are] the same",
>you assume that consciousness has no behavioral consequences.  Naturally
>it will then have no evolutionary consequences either.
>
>By the way, evolution responds to "behavior" in a larger sense than
>"respon[se] to stimuli".  For instance, if consciousness takes energy
>to maintain, a creature without consciousness should have an evolutionary
>advantage over one that has it, since it could divert that energy into
>more productive uses.

 The other way around.. he refers to the part of our conciosness that obviously
can't have any meaning, at least nothing that means that it can't be substituted
with another function. Think about how many choises we make without our
conciousness swithced on. Don't you think that the rest of it could be "wired"
in the same way. If something hurts, why don't the body just retract the limb from
the source of pain and store the situation = The same result as you can hope to
get with a self awareness.

Claes Andersson. University of Bors. Sweden

