X-Message-Number: 21399
From: 
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 11:39:56 EST
Subject: emergence again

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Mike Perry writes again that he favors the view that, roughly speaking, 
semi-intelligent computers have a low level of consciousness. This is the 
"emergence" idea.

However, Mike also agrees that we may discover special anatomy/physiology 
underlying qualia. This is not easily compatible with emergence. If feeling 
just emerges by imperceptible stages as complexity and sophistication of 
information processing increase, then why would you need a special physical 
structure for qualia? 

He notes correctly that the inclination to reject the idea of feeling in 
computers is at least in part owing to the fact that we already build fairly 
fancy computers, but have no reason to attribute feeling to them. Or rather, 
the only reason would be arbitrary adoption of the emergence view, which 
leads one to the thermostat which "thinks" and "feels" at a low level. In 
fact, if you go that far, I think you have to attribute feeling and thinking 
to any object or system whatever. Barely conceivable, but extremely unlikely.

Robert Ettinger

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