Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.robotics,comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!redstone.interpath.net!hilbert.dnai.com!nic.scruz.net!earth.armory.com!rstevew
From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
Organization: The Armory
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 02:59:22 GMT
Message-ID: <CzyIz0.2sE@armory.com>
References: <3ap502$ed9@net.auckland.ac.nz> <3b0lkq$2ju@net.auckland.ac.nz> <3b19lc$2ds@mp.cs.niu.edu> <3b26d9$k0k@jetsam.ee.pdx.edu>
Sender: news@armory.com (Usenet News)
Nntp-Posting-Host: deepthought.armory.com
Lines: 55
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai:25528 comp.robotics:15720 comp.ai.philosophy:22714

In article <3b26d9$k0k@jetsam.ee.pdx.edu>,
Marcus Daniels <marcus@ee.pdx.edu> wrote:
>rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>
>>The real confusion is in choosing half of one description, and half
>>of the other.  That is, choosing the part of the first description
>>which denies free will, and coupling it with the part of the second
>>description which attributes consciousness.
>
>Yup. `Consciousness' is just *another*
>one of those scientifically-useless notions (like free will).
----------------------------------
Not at all. The process of "believing" that 1) there is a "you" TO believe,
and 2) the circularity that you believe that you are the "entity" which
observes all from "within" this body, and 3) takes credit for the actions
of this body, may be an illusion, yes, but a useful one, and a process that
does change the overall operation of the device/body and its actions,
despite being merely "first" among all other equally facetious ideas!! So
does it exist in another?? To know that let alone prove that about another,
or even ONESSELF, is an impossible task within this thing we call "life".
We cannot see into another's mind to see if they truly think or are simply
programmed to respond to us as if they were!!! In other words, the
evidence, taken at its most negative, leads us to solipsism, the belief
that we are the only "real" and "conscious" being! But giving self-comforting 
credence to the possibility that they ARE like we feel ourself to be
inside, aware and actively assuming credit, however fraudulent, for their
actions, is what grants us the faith to love, and to go on in this life, as
we are obviously social animals. To believe that we control is a necessary
belief. That we "both"; our body and our "mind"; are controlled by the
inevitability of tomorrow as a caused phenomenon, however it turns out, is
the only genuinely scientific thing we can say about such garbage as
"free-will". The existence of consciousness does not require "free-will" as
some idiots mean it when they panic over whether they are "real" or some
absurd sophomoric hypothesis when they first drop acid!! It is true that we
"exist" as entities, at least in the mind, and after all, that's the only
place we'll ever be, so get used to it!!! We are naught but an idea!!! But
so is everthing else, and cannot be shown to be other than an idea!! The
world is not made of atoms, the world is made of stories!! That the world
is made of atoms is just ONE of those stories!!! Wish I knew who said that
first, anyone? Was there a world before we "got here"? No! But there *WAS*
one NOW!!! The big bang is a model of matter, not of unwitnessed time. It
never *HAPPENED* per se. It's just what LOOKS like happened as *MIND*
expanded and became world and idea, two halves of the shared and unshared
world among us supposed individuals! Even separateness is naught but an
idea! There is actually no separation of MIND into BEINGS, separate
entities, just as there is no real distance, other than a perceived
temporal difficulty acting at a thing we call distance/time. In the MIND,
the big bang will never happen and has always happened at one and the same
time. The two are the coin faces of the illusion of awareness, Maya! And a
robot can be just as devout a Hindu as you, "Gunga-Din"!!! This "ineffable"
illusion of awareness is infinitely available to all devices in the world,
as they are all MADE OF IDEAS to START WITH!!!! They can grow aware, just
as do we!
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

