(December 23, 2013 at 4:24 pm)Ryantology Wrote: How would you know if a computer is conscious?
It would pretty much boil down to asking a Turing-capable computer if it was conscious and have it answer in the affirmative. It would be assumed the way I assume other humans are as conscious as I am.
Exactly this.
I accept the consciousness of others due to their external similarities to me: behavior, physiognomy, etc. and a general pragmatism: if people aren't real, then many or most of my instinctual responses to things are based on nothing.
Making that association by similarity and extending it to non-organic entities seems very strange right now. Maybe some day we'll be living out Blade Runner, and those same instincts will make us all have an easier time seeing sentience in Cyberboy 2100 or whatever.
But in the end, there's always that philosophical caveat-- seeming to be sentient and actually having qualia are not necessarily the same.
