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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Penrose and Searle (was Re: Roger Penrose's fixed ideas)
Message-ID: <D0EL7t.69E@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <CzzuEu.F48@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <D01LqA.I9q@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <D03pCM.3sy@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <D0CxoG.25F@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 19:09:29 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.skeptic:97307 comp.ai.philosophy:23266 sci.philosophy.meta:15350

In article <D0CxoG.25F@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>,
Jeff Dalton <jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>In article <D03pCM.3sy@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>>In article <D01LqA.I9q@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>,
>>Jeff Dalton <jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
...................
>>>My usual example of a possibility is two programs that both generate
>>>TT-passing behavior but differ internally so that e.g. one generates
>>>consciousness while the other doesn't, or, say, one conducts an
>>>internal dialogue while the other doesn't.
>>>
>>Since we do not know how to judge presence of consciousnes except by giving
>>a TT, the above is meaningless. 
>
>I disagree, but I'm not sure there's any ppint in discussing it
>further.
>
If you (clearly) do not want to discuss the subject, there is not much to be 
said, although I feel that you say that you disagree, it would be a simple
courtesy to say why.
.........
>But the ordinary, tty-style TT (or indeed any TT that involves
>dialogue in English, Chinese, etc) probably won't help us when it
>comes to animals.  Right now animal consciousness and rights are much

Really? My understanding was that a line of attack on animal cosciousness is
to try to establish a communication with them, for instance by teaching chimps 
or gorrillas some sort of a language, isn't it? You are right that we observe
also their behavior, but I do not see this as a problem. It probably would be 
a fairly straightforward engineering task to build a robot preforming various
tasks on verbal commands. Passing a verbal TT is what is hard. And inability
to pass it does not exclude consciousness, see Helen Keller. Passing it
OTOH  is basically how we decide about other people's consciousness.

>more pressing questions than AI consciousness and rights.
>
I do not see why are these pressing, but this is perhaps another subject.

>>>Rather than trying to make out that I'm evil, why don't you
>>>say what it is that you think is important in the teletype
>>>TT?
>>>
>>Again you seem to interpret my statements as a personal attack on you.
>
>No, not as a personal attack.  Rather as rhetoric that suggests that
>criteria other than TT criteria are suspect.
>
No, but empty claims that TT is not enough without saying what more is required
are suspect. 

>>This is puzzling. I have number of times said that what is important in 
>>teletype TT is that it is relatively bias-free way of judging, which we also
>>rutinely use with other people. I am sure you do it too, and I was trying to 
>>make you aware of this.
>
>But there are other non-TT criteria than the ones you suggested.
>
What are they? I do not see ones which would not be much more bias-prone.
You keep repeating that you need more, but never clearly say what is this
more. If someone does not want to discuss openly his/her objections it usually
is a sign that biases he/she does not want to reveal are at play.

>>Since we know that mind resides in brain, only similarity of brain structure
>>can count.
>
>For being conscious, yes; but for our being able to tell other
>similarities may also help.
>
Tell what? That the entity is conscious? how? Could you please elaborate?
If other factors do not count how their presence can help in telling if 
the entity is conscious??

>>Why having four limbs or being a mammal should count?
>
>Mammal because the nervous system will be more similar to ours and
>the behavioral capabilities may make it easier to see that
>consciousness is present.  I doubt that 4 limbs makes much
>difference.
>
Do you mean that it would be easier for us to understand the entity's body
language? Perhaps, but note that this is misleading - we interpret dog's tail
movements even we do not have tails ourselves. And the body language is so
imprecise that programming a machine for this would certainly be much more
easy than to pass the verbal TT.
...........
>>Are you suggesting that one day we may have a better method of deciding if
>>soemthing is intelligent tha TT/behavior, right? In other words, no matter 
>>what a person does, how she/he behaves, we will test him/her using these
>>new criteria and pass a judgment, perhaps give out certificates, deny some
>>privileges etc?
>
>I will depend on the criteria whether any TT-passing humans might
>fail.  But such failure can happen only if some humans are not
>conscious (which seems unlikely) or the criteria are wrong.
>
It will also depend on what we would take this "precisely defined consciousness"
to be. And why would it be unlikely that some humans might not pass it?
Do you consider someone stoned on drugs as conscious? Or someone with a severy
brain damage? More "precise" definition which would not be based on people's
ability to converse 'sensibly', might produce surprising results.

>-- jd

Andrzej
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
