X-Message-Number: 14739 From: "John Clark" <> Subject: more explanations Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 12:59:12 -0400 In #14727 Wrote: >I have never said the self circuit addresses all the philosophical problems I don't demand it solve all philosophical problems but it would be nice if it shed a little light on something, anything. >It is simply a possible mechanism (very vague and general at this point) >to explain subjectivity Explain why a standing wave creates subjectivity. Maybe I'm a little thick but it's not obvious what one has to do with the other. And to repeat, a standing wave of what? >It is neither necessary nor sufficient to prove sentience. A non-sentient system >might easily fool an observer, and a sentient system might easily fail the test. The Turing Test doesn't proved anything, it's just the best thing we have, in fact it's the only thing we have to study consciousness other than our own. >the Turing test is baloney in its own right and on its own terms. [...] >The self circuit DOES affect behavior These two statements are contradictory. And if the self circuit does things other than generate a feeling of self as you say then it makes as much sense to call it a self circuit as it does to call the RF generator in my radio a Beethoven circuit. >The automaton might also substitute speed of processing for the efficiency >of the self circuit. Huh? If a program is efficient it's fast and small. >It could provide rough-and-ready or quick-and-dirty solutions to problems of >living, bypassing complicated calculations. Interesting, so it would be easier to make a conscious computer than a non conscious one. >We already have examples of computer programs that no >one claims to be sentient, yet which (in limited areas) can fool those >interacting with them. I seem to remember Marvin Minsky saying that we already have sentient computers but we don't have intelligent ones. I don't know it that's true or not but I certainly can't prove him wrong. John K Clark Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14739