From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Thu Feb 20 15:21:16 EST 1992
Article 3784 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Intelligence Testing
Message-ID: <1992Feb16.190318.9871@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Jan31.142711.17883@oracorp.com> <6184@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992Feb14.214304.21507@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1992 19:03:18 GMT

In article <1992Feb14.214304.21507@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>In article <6184@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>>In article <1992Jan31.142711.17883@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
>>>
>>>Jeff, the discussion is always about the *sufficiency* of the Turing
>>>Test, not its necessity. 
>>
>>You seemed to be saying you relied entirely on behavior.  I don't
>>think that's so.  I think that you, like me, conclude people are
>>conscious before they pass any Turing Test.  What basis do you
>>use then?  It's certainly not the Turing Test.
>>
>What basis do you use? It seems to me that yourself, myself and everone else 
>concludes that other people are conscious on basis of their _behaviour_,
>and TT is a subset of this observational test. Fact that other people look like
>us is also relevant but only slightly - if someone behaved like a zombie you
>would most likely conclude that he is not conscious even though he might 
>look human.

But we conclude that *we* are conscious on the basis of subjective experience.
It is *this* aspect of consciousness which we (or at least, I) am most
interested in.  It is also the aspect that, many claim, is not necessarily
reproduced when behaviour is (e.g., in a table-lookup).  Thus, the Turing
Test may eliminate those entities which we are *certain* are not conscious,
but cannot decide on those that actually *pass* the test.  For that, further
analysis is needed.

- michael
 



