From: Toby Weston (lordlobster@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Mar 04 2009 - 01:07:00 MST
If there is a detectable difference, then there is no reason that we couldn't create a machine that simulates you and passes whatever test for consciousness you propose.
Ok.
If there is no detectable difference, then there is no sense in asking the question.
Not ok. This Dennet, Blckmore take on consciousness is lacking in that it does't help me understand the origin of subjective experience, whether my motives are purely philosophical or engineering oriented.
In fact the statement that conciousness does not add anything is itself pointless: it helps understanding not one bit.
e.g.
A super inteligent, but not conscious, AI recieves an upload. The company that owns the AI demos the newly uploaded person to it's family. It passes all sorts of tests - Turing style and White box - the audience concluded that this really is uncle Bert. It does not have a body, it is not a zombie, it is a set of responses that has fooled the room. It may require 10x the processing power of a human brain to run. In this example consciousness is a performance optimization allowing complex behaviour to run on smaller hardware/wetware.
Uncle Bert is not conscious - this is not irrelevant for people considering the procedure.
(sorry no spell check)
I think your real question is "will I die?" which is understandable since we are programmed to fear death.
-- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com
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