Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!utgpu!pindor
From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and consciousness
Message-ID: <CzsIwC.DFv@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <vlsi_libCzHB5I.Fn7@netcom.com> <3aj4a9$9ct@mp.cs.niu.edu> <3aukr2$t3h@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1994Nov23.184324.27664@oxvaxd>
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 1994 21:12:12 GMT
Lines: 33

In article <1994Nov23.184324.27664@oxvaxd>,  <econrpae@vax.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:
.............
>So, on this definition, being nice comes out as subjective, and being a
>prime-number does not.
>
How about "being right"?

>Rickert thinks the property of being conscious is subjective. This is a fairly
>common confusion. Clearly the property of consciousness depends on the
>_bearer's_ mental states, but it does not depend on the _attributor's_ mental
>states. In the terminology of the definition, consciousness depends on x's
>mental states, not on S's.
>
You seem to overlook the fact that S (and everyone but x) have no access to
x's mental states other than x's behavior (in a generalized sense; e.g. I 
include here results of various brain scans and alike). The question now is
whether you take a Platonic stance and say that it is "a matter of fact"
whether x is conscious, regardless if others can know it for sure or not,
or whether there have to be (at least in principle) a method for others to
determine unambigously if x is conscious for the question of conciousness to 
make an objective sense. It seems that you take the former stance whereas 
Neil Rickert takes the latter and observes that no such method seems available
(and I agree with him).
I do not think there is a unique way of deciding between these two 
philosophical positions, except perhaps Occam's razor which favors the second
one.

Andrzej
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
