From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!utcsri!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!eff!news.oc.com!spssig.spss.com!markrose Fri Sep  4 09:41:34 EDT 1992
Article 6755 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!utcsri!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!eff!news.oc.com!spssig.spss.com!markrose
>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: what is consciousness for?
Message-ID: <1992Sep1.183909.4018@spss.com>
Sender: news@spss.com (Net News Admin)
Organization: SPSS Inc.
References: <1992Aug13.025506.2404@news.media.mit.edu> <1992Aug17.171723.5599@spss.com> <iordonez.715366473@academ01>
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 18:39:09 GMT
Lines: 43

In article <iordonez.715366473@academ01> iordonez@academ01.mty.itesm.mx (Ivan Ordonez-Reinoso) writes:
>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 find this last point rather opaque.  In what sense do computers have
a "full internal description of their own function"?  The process of 
compiling a program destroys most of the descriptive information the
programmer may have provided, and even more information about what the
program is doing and why is never reflected in code in the first place.
You could write a program that "knows what it's doing" in the sense of
constructing audit trails, or accessing internal state flags, or even
inspecting its own code, but all of this would take a lot of programming--
it's not inherent in the nature of the computer.  And even if it were done,
it's only a convenient fiction to speak of a program, or a module, or 
a line of code, knowing or doing anything.  The CPU by its nature is not
aware of anything more than the instruction and operand in front of its nose.

>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!

And the fact that we would reject the painter's definition shows that we
do have a notion of beauty that goes beyond mere greenness.  If it were 
true that we "don't have the least idea" what consciousness is, as you 
assert above, then there would be no way to criticize Minsky's definition 
(or anyone else's).

What do you feel is left out by defining consciousness in terms of 
observing or knowing?

>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.

One need not be a materialist to assume that consciousness has a purpose.
In most theistic systems, our consciousness presumably serves some purpose
of the gods.  In what systems does consciousness serve no purpose at all?


