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Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!galileo.cc.rochester.edu!prodigal.psych.rochester.edu!stevens
From: stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Greg Stevens)
Subject: Re: Is CONSCIOUSNESS continuous? discrete? quantized?
Message-ID: <1995Feb28.011018.9841@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>
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References: <departedD3vKy5.M3B@netcom.com> <1995Feb25.180325.3029@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> <kovskyD4L7An.pn@netcom.com> <1995Feb26.213856.25826@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> <kovskyD4oAsD.8uI@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 95 01:10:18 GMT
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In <kovskyD4oAsD.8uI@netcom.com> kovsky@netcom.com (Bob Kovsky) writes:
>In article <1995Feb26.213856.25826@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>,
>Greg Stevens <stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu> wrote:

>>What in your observed reality leads you to believe that consciousness is
>>advantageous?  I'd think that any such belief was the result of sloppy
>>thinking and not-careful analysis, so I am curious about what leads
>>you to believe that consciousness is advantageous.  What about your
>>"observed reality" makes it seem so?

>	When I pay attention to what I am doing:
>	1.  I get in fewer auto accidents;
>	2.  My programs have fewer bugs;
>	3.  I don't irritate other people so much.

>	What about your "observed reality" makes you believe that 
>consciousness is epiphenomenal?  (Please comply with the following 
>rules:  no references to theory; no discussion of "inputs" or 
>"algorithms" of "adaptive agents"; report only on observations of 
>experience.)

I know that our feeling of control is just that -- a feeling -- and as such
can be induced by other things than accurate perception.  The fact that
I have known and been friends with schizophrenics makes me sure that it
is indeed very possible to have a subjective feeling of mental life
being epiphenomenal, but common sense tells me that such a feeling is
not necessary for it to be true.

Further, I can not report on how useful consciousness is compared to
not-consciousness based just on me experience, because I am not and
have never been a non-conscious mechanistic entity (that I know of,
anyway :-).  However, in my subjective experience, I have seen non-
conscious machines approach with increasing accuracy through time
the kinds of efficiency we used to only associate with consciousness.
Not referring to theories, but only to my "common sense," I don't see
why this improvement couldn't be extended indefinitely.

Greg Stevens

stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu

