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From: departed@netcom.com (just passing through)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
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References: <vlsi_libD45qrE.zx@netcom.com> <3ia2iv$3gd@lorne.stir.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 19:21:02 GMT
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In article <3ia2iv$3gd@lorne.stir.ac.uk>,
Robin Faichney <rjf1@stirling.ac.uk> wrote:
>Gerard Malecki (vlsi_lib@netcom.com) wrote:
>>In article <3hu5km$t61@cato.Direct.CA> aturner@Direct.CA (Allan Turner) writes:
>>>	But the real question is whether consciousness could be modeled by
>>>something that was not conscious.
>
>>Since humans who are presumably conscious have failed so far to come up
>>with a model for consciousness...
>
>If we don't have a model of consciousness, what do we mean when we say
>that something is conscious?

Here's a naive definition:
Something that absorbs information and acts on it, is conscious.
That definition would include a lot of entities that we _don't_ consider
conscious, like thermostats, so (still being naive) we can amend it to
include something like an inner space, such that the entity has an inner
life to some extent independent of the flow of information.
Others would want to bring self-consciousness into the picture, so they'd
say, such an entity as above that is able to depict itself, and act on
that.

I'd say an intuitive definition would be, "anything that can demonstrate
subjectivity is conscious."

We have trouble believing that any machine can be conscious because (seeing
the machine from the 'outside') it's tempting to regard the machine as
an objective entity.  But I don't see why one couldn't equip a machine
with a subjective world, which it uses to transform experience and act on
it ...

-- Richard Wesson (departed@netcom.com)

