--- On Sat, 5/31/08, John G. Rose <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > People believe they are conscious. Why? Because they are.
No, because people that didn't believe it did not pass on their genes. > Is there more than just a belief that we are conscious? Sure some > rare individuals can block pain. But when they do so they are actually > blocking the signals somehow or preventing their registration. There > is a real pain that is blocked. It's real. The question is how do you distinguish between an agent that actually feels pain and an agent that simply changes its behavior to avoid pain (for example, crying "don't hurt me!") but doesn't really "feel" it? It is easy to write a program of the latter type, for example http://www.mattmahoney.net/autobliss.txt Would you claim this program is conscious? If not, how is it fundamentally different from an animal or human that learns to avoid pain? -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=103754539-40ed26 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
