From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!csd.unb.ca!morgan.ucs.mun.ca!nstn.ns.ca!aunro!ukma!wupost!uunet!psinntp!scylla!daryl Wed Feb 26 12:53:32 EST 1992
Article 3919 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: daryl@oracorp.com
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Strong AI and panpsychism
Message-ID: <1992Feb21.162210.29101@oracorp.com>
Date: 21 Feb 92 16:22:10 GMT
Organization: ORA Corporation
Lines: 39

Kristoffer Eriksson writes:

> If Putnam is right, then perhaps any arbitrary lump instantiates the
> computer and terminal that I am writing this message on. But, somehow,
> I think there is something important missing in rocks and other
> arbitrary lumps of matter, that is responsible for the fact that
> writing this message on a real computer will make it possible for you
> to read it, while writing it on a rock will not. So perhaps Putnam, or
> alternatively everyone refering to FSAs without further qualification,
> is overlooking something important.

I think your point is correct, however some people are uncomfortable
with it. The main reason that a real computer allows you to write
letters, etc. and a functionally equivalent FSA found in some natural
object (a rock, or a tornado) does not is a matter of interface.
Whether or not a tornado somehow instantiates a computer terminal, it
certainly doesn't instantiate it in a way that is useful to *us*. We
want our computer terminals to have inputs in the form of keystrokes
and outputs in the form of characters on a screen, and we won't settle
for some weird (but functionally equivalent) object that requires us
to use air-pressure variations (for instance) as input and output
signals.

Now, in the case of a system that is functionally equivalent to a
human brain, we feel much less comfortable with the idea that
something might be "equivalent to a human being, but not in a useful
way". Because morality is involved when you talk about conscious
beings, people are hesitant to say: "That rock may be conscious, but
since I don't know how to interact with it, I don't care whether it is
conscious or not". People feel much better if there is some objective
sense in which a rock is simply *not* conscious.

It seems that the overwhelming majority (perhaps everyone except me)
in this newsgroup feel that being conscious or not is objective,
independent of interface considerations.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY


