From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!tamsun.tamu.edu!mtecv2!academ01!iordonez Fri Sep  4 09:41:34 EDT 1992
Article 6754 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: iordonez@academ01.mty.itesm.mx (Ivan Ordonez-Reinoso)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: what is consciousness for?
Message-ID: <iordonez.715366473@academ01>
Date: 1 Sep 92 16:54:33 GMT
References: <1992Aug13.025506.2404@news.media.mit.edu> <1992Aug17.171723.5599@spss.com>
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markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:

>In article <1992Aug13.025506.2404@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>>Then what might be the functions and the organs of what we call
>>consciousness?  

>I find this a very interesting question: what is consciousness for?
>Why did nature bother to evolve it?  What can't be done without it?

>>	We humans do not possess much consciousness.
>>	That is, we have very little natural ability to sense
>>	what happens within and outside ourselves.

[...]

>I would hazard a guess that consciousness allows us to observe and therefore
>change our own behavior; in effect it expands the range of objects we can
>manipulate to include ourselves.

I find very hard to argue about the use of consciousness when we don't
have the least idea of what it is. Defining consciousness as 'self
awareness' is a somewhat circular definition, and it would indeed,
as M. Minsky points, imply that we human have very little conciousness,
and that computers (which can have a full internal description of their
own function) might be more conscious than we are.

I don't think consciousness can be defined in terms of observing,
noticing, knowing. Minsky's definition is, in my opinion, specifically
cooked to make appear that machines are better than us in this regard.
This is like a painter who uses a lot of green in his pictures defining
beauty as the amount of green a picture has!

Asserting that consciousness must have a specific purpose implies taken
for granted a certain materialistic point of view, and is by no means
the only possibility.

--Ivan Ordonez-Reinoso
iordonez@mitras.mty.itesm.mx





