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Article 7028 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Brain and Mind
Message-ID: <exukjb.233.717347194@exu.ericsson.se>
Date: 24 Sep 92 15:06:34 GMT
References: <1992Sep13.194856.21976@meteor.wisc.edu> <1992Sep22.043249.4954@meteor.wisc.edu> <7209@pkmab.se> <1992Sep23.191351.5396@meteor.wisc.edu>
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In article <1992Sep23.191351.5396@meteor.wisc.edu> tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
>From: tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
>Subject: Re: Brain and Mind
>Date: 23 Sep 92 19:13:51 GMT

>In article <7209@pkmab.se> ske@pkmab.se (Kristoffer Eriksson) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep22.043249.4954@meteor.wisc.edu> tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
>>>I think psychology must proceed from consciousness as an axiom.

>>Ah. If consciousness is just an axiom, then what is to prevent me from
>>axiomatically declaring me and my computer the only conscious entities
>>in the world? If you can find an answer to why that would be a worse
>>solution that declaring that all humans are conscious, then perhaps,
>>it doesn't need to be given as an axiom.

>Subjectively, your proposal seems inappropriate, but I can provide no
>objective objection (linguistic aside: hmmmm....) to your claim. 

>>> I think error in either case is apalling:
>>>failing to grant rights to a conscious entity would be awful, but granting
>>>rights to a nonentity seems to me far more dangerous.

>>This way you could argue that no-one at all, except you, should be accepted
>>as conscious.

>Well, there are practical problems with implementing that policy. Solipsism
>is generally rejected not because it is disprovable but because it is
>impractical. In practice, most of us strongly suspect that most others
>of us are conscious, and we proceed from there.

>(On Star Trek, most people believe the android Data to be conscious, and
>grant it rights accordingly. This turns out well in general, but occasionally
>a bug or security flaw renders this judgement disastrous. My sympathy goes
>to the Evil Robotics Expert who referred to the android as "it", and thought
>it ludicrous to grant the thing an officer's commission. Granting rights
>to constructs "whose" putative experience we have no access to, even by
>analogy, is madly reckless.)

>>> Unless and until you can come up with such a test, I think we
>>>have to assume that all of our overblown toasters are just toasters, and
>>>all of the people are conscious.

>>You have not justified your arbitrary choice of drawing the line bewteen
>>people and everything else, in stead of somewhere else. Why not, for
>>instance, draw it between white people and colored people, as some have
>>done in the past? The point is: All you are left with, with your way of
>>handling consciousness, as to what is conscious and what is not, is an
>>arbitrary choice. 

>Well, more or less. All I am left with is an intuitive, that is to say,
>subjective choice. Unfortunately, the Turing Test and all such alternatives
>are equally subjective, and I do not see how an objective test can be
>possible.

>Assume an objective test were possible whether an entity had a subjective
>experience. How could we validate the test? Only by comparison with our
>subjective impressions! 

>Please note that self-report of consciousness is not identical
>to consciousness. Counterexample:

>        main(){printf("Yes, I am conscious!\n");}

>>And in particular, your arguments seem to lead to the
>>conclusions, that a better state of affairs in that regard, is not
>>possible, not even in theory.

>Agreed. That you may dislike my conclusions does not invalidate them though.

>mt

Star Trek cheats. Data is protrayed as a living organism--more like a bionic
man than pure machine. So, of course he *can* be a proper subject for the
ascription of mental predicates.  But "being conscious" is not yet a 
sufficient basis for the attribution of rights to an entity.  The entity 
must be a person, that is, a being conscious of its own self as a self 
over against other selves recognized as having their own independent self-
conscious.  And I believe it is in the quality of self-reference of 
all personal mind and activity that the possibility for moral choice--and 
therefore rights and responsibility--ultimately resides.


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