From: Woody Long (ironanchorpress@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Oct 28 2005 - 13:14:22 MDT
> [Original Message]
> From: Martin Striz <mstriz@gmail.com>
>
If legos could be used to build a machine that encodes information and
performs logical operations on it, at a sufficient level of complexity,
that lego contraption would
> be conscious.
>
I think before we can name it a post-contemporary conscious computer system
it needs more. Consciousness requires a focal point generally named a self.
By "self" I mean that focalizing agent exposed in the dual sound source
experiment. The subject had earphones on. On one side was played a
conversation, on the other was played another. What was revealed is that
the subject could only attend to and remember one sound source at a time.
It was impossible to attend to both. So the root of consciousness was a
focalizing agent, or self, that has no option but to switch its focalizing
attention to a single source. This self also refers to itself as "I" and
has personal memory of of this I's unique experiences. This self is the
focalizing agent of consciousness and so must be included in any artificial
consciousness. Consciousness is also intertwined with and propagated by raw
sense data (sensor signals), as well as emotional and motivational content
that create the same interactive effect. So artificial consciousness
requires all this, and is it not true that to create artificial
consciosness in a robot is to create artificial life itself?
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