From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra!klaava!amnell Sat Oct 24 20:44:38 EDT 1992
Article 7353 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra!klaava!amnell
>From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: We've Been Tricked- consciousness
Message-ID: <1992Oct21.163922.27440@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 21 Oct 92 16:39:22 GMT
References: <iordonez.719617253@academ01> <BwGKG0.M6@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> <nijmanm.719672415@hpas7>
Organization: University of Helsinki
Lines: 39

In article <nijmanm.719672415@hpas7> nijmanm@prl.philips.nl 
(M.J. Nijman) writes:

>lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (lincoln carr) writes:
>
>>How would everyone out on the net define consiousness?  I would start
>>by saying that consciousness is self-awareness, or apperception of
>>oneself.  Perhaps a good question in a Turing test would be "How do
>>you know that you exist?"
>
>Why is self-awareness a condition for consiousness? I can very well imagine
>someone (something ?!) being aware of what is going on somewhere without
>being aware of himself (itself). Think of it this way: there exist 2
>non-interacting worlds, W1 and W2. It can be true that an entity (call it P)
>in W1 is ONLY aware of what goes on in (a part of) W2, without being able to
>effect anything in W2 (since P is in W1), and thus not being able to perceive
>itself or anything effected by it. Thus P would be consious without being
>self-aware.

You have simply redefined the word `consciousness' to mean the strange
predicament of the denizens of W1.  The situation you've described is
certainly not in agreement with what I call _normal_ consciousness. 
But, there is no sharp demarcation intended in a real definition of
consciousness.  There is no real purpose to just trying to get all the
`conscious things' on one side of the divide and all the 'non-conscious
things' on the other side.  One could always come up with far-fetched
counter-examples by using one's imagination; as you've demonstrated.

The real reason for wishing to `define' or describe consciousness would
be to try to explain what it is, so that we can better understand
ourselves, and, since we're in comp.ai.philosophy, to understand what a
machine would have to be like before we should ascribe consciousness to
it.


-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
Graduate Student in Philosophy


