Peter Jones writes: > Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > Various people write: > > > > > blah blah ...recording... blah blah... consciousness... blah blah > > > > But WHY can't a recording be conscious? How do I know I'm not in > > a recording at the moment? > > The question is why you don't regard the recordings in your video > cabinet as conscious. Well, if you do, you have probably murdered > some people by taping over them.
I'm responsible for a misunderstanding if you thought I meant "recording" in the usual sense of the word, i.e. a copy of a limited subset (sound or video, for example) of a subject's attributes over a period of time. What I intended was a copy of all of the subject's attributes, but constrained so that it will run the same way over and over, like an automaton. For example, if you have an elaborate computer game with characters with whom you can interact so they pass the Turing test, you can record the whole session, including your keyboard inputs, and "play" it a second time. The computer goes through exactly the same states the second time around, but it really has no choice: the recording constrains its behaviour as rigidly as a video tape constrains the behaviour of the video player and TV (actually more rigidly, since there is always some variation between runs with analogue systems). Would you say that the characters in the game are conscious on the first run but not on the second? Stathis Papaioannou _________________________________________________________________ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
