X-Message-Number: 8105
From: Peter Merel <>
Subject: CRYONICS Re: HAL
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 01:15:06 +1000 (EST)

I wrote,

>What's missing in HAL? Clearly, on almost any measure, HAL passes the
>Turing test. If we agree that his behaviour was ultimately mechanical,
>lacking some necessary human quality of consciousness, how should we
>define that quality? Or, if we deem that HAL's actions were equivalent
>to those of a human, and certainly there are no end of people who call
>themselves human that are capable of such actions, does this imply that
>such people are not truly conscious?

Sorry to follow myself, but I have a little more to offer on this. It seems
to me that any goal, truth, or category can become irrelevant in the course
of events. HAL, and perhaps some humans, are not conscious because their
behaviour is predicated on blind faith, a rigidity of values, or some
other unquestioned assumption. Consciousness, true consciousness, can only
maintain as goal a harmony with events - accomodating whatever happens.

Regardless of whether the self is an emergent phenomenon, the equivalent
of a "You are here" token on one of those maps you see in malls, or some
divine dongle bolted onto an otherwise selfless brain, the self of
someone who is truly conscious in the sense above must reflect in
extreme detail the world around them. So it seems a truly conscious
person's self must be coterminous with their whole mind.

Peter Merel.

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