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From: grante@reddwarf.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Subject: Re: Penrose and Searle (was Re: Roger Penrose's fixed ideas)
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Matt Austern (matt@physics10.berkeley.edu) wrote:

: Similarly, I think Searle makes a good case when he points out that
: it's possible to imagine systems, like his Chinese Room, that probably
: could pass the Turing Test but that don't seem likely to be conscious.

Why not?  What about the chinese room characterizes it as not-conscious?

[...]

: The whole point of Searle's argument, though, is that it's possible
: to imagine a conscious and a non-conscious system that have
: identical behaviors;

Maybe you can imagine such a thing, but certainly can't.

Pardon me for being so thick, but if they have identical behavior,
then how do you know which one is conscious?  It appears that Searle
is begging the question when it comes to the Turing Test.  He assumes
that A is conscious and B is not, and then says the Turing test is
invalid becuase it fails to detect the difference -- when the only
difference was his initial assumption about what is conscious and what
is not.

--
Grant Edwards                                 |Yow!  I'm shaving!!  I'M
Rosemount Inc.                                |SHAVING!!
                                              |
grante@rosemount.com                          |
