(May 10, 2012 at 11:46 am)genkaus Wrote: Once you are able to make a series of gears, levers and hydraulic pumps that mimic all of human behavior, you'd simply be able to see where consciousness comes in…Capacity to perceive through senses and the capacity to perceive one's own thoughts, actions and motivations also form a part of human behavior…Once someone becomes capable of creating this complex piece of machinery, the problem of consciousness would be resolved.I’m not so sure of that. Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 35: The Measure of a Man explores this problem in an interesting dramatic form. The simulation of outward human behavior doesn’t prove that the machine has an interior subjective experience. In my opinion, no one can experience someone else’s subjective consciousness, which is what you are describing, not a link in the causal chain. Perhaps if some cybernetic link could be formed between an organic brain and a machine consciousness and if the sensory input from the machine was radically different for the machine (like echo-location), and if the human experience a whole different set of qualia, THEN I would consider that very compelling evidence of machine consciousness. But that’s a lot of ‘ifs’.
(May 10, 2012 at 11:47 am)Chuck Wrote: Why do you assume consciousness is some separate levitated entity,..Your [concept of] consciouness is nothing but a gap filler trying to, in one single bound and in nebulous and obscurantist language[, explain]…something whose detailed granular operation we have considerable knowledge of, but whose overall complexity as yet defies our ability to comprehensively model.
I am not a dualist and you do not understand my stance. I do not invoke a separate medium from an alternate reality to account for consciousness. My position generally aligns with pan-psychism. This view considers some mental phenomena to be inherent properties of reality, must like mass and charge. My position differs from materialism in that materialism denies the existence of all mental phenomena below some, as yet undefined, scale. It’s a subtle difference but one that, in my opinion, has theological implications. Because of the subtlety of the concepts involved, Genkaus, me, and others, have been very careful with how we express ourselves. The goal is clarity and specificity. It seems to me you would rather not delve into the details of your opinions since that might reveal how shallow your opinions really are.
