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Article 1617 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Consciousness (was Re: Daniel Dennett)
Message-ID: <YAMAUCHI.91Nov26024948@indigo.cs.rochester.edu>
Date: 26 Nov 91 10:49:48 GMT
References: <JMC.91Nov17135110@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <1991Nov17.190935.5546@husc3.harvard.edu>
	<DAVIS.91Nov25065812@passy.ilog.fr>
	<1991Nov25.101026.5866@husc3.harvard.edu>
Sender: yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi)
Organization: University of Rochester
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In-Reply-To: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu's message of 25 Nov 91 15:10:23 GMT
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In article <1991Nov25.101026.5866@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <DAVIS.91Nov25065812@passy.ilog.fr> 
>davis@passy.ilog.fr (Harley Davis) writes:

>>In article <1991Nov24.124945.5834@husc3.harvard.edu> 
>zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>MZ:
>>>So consider a machine that so resembles us in appearance and
>>>behavior, that it is undistinguishable from ourselves in both of
>>>these aspects.  However, at any given time, by assessing its
>>>construction, we may comprehend all causal factors that influence
>>>its behavior

>>>Now, David Gudeman has argued recently to the effect
>>>that our ability to analyze the machine's behavior in this fashion
>>>would constitute prima facie evidence to the effect that such
>>>machine lacks consciousness.

By this line of reasoning, psychology is an even more dangerous field
of endeavor than artificial intelligence, for if the psychologists
ever truly understand the human mind, all humans will suddenly lose
consciousness.  (One wouldn't want to be driving on the freeway when
this occurs...)

>>>I'd like to support this view by
>>>noting that if you accept Colin McGinn's arguments that there
>>>exists some property of the brain that accounts naturalistically
>>>for consciousness, but we are cognitively closed with respect to
>>>that property, i.e. our concept-forming capabilities cannot extend
>>>to a grasp of that property (see "The Problem of Consciousness"),
>>>then we would be forced to admit that, operational success
>>>notwithstanding, the machine has to lack consciousness.

What are McGinn's arguments?  Why on Earth should humans be inherently
incapable of understanding consciousness?
--
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Brian Yamauchi				NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory
yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu		Robotic Intelligence Group
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