I agree with John. If consciousness had no third-person observable effects, it would be an epiphenomenon. And then there is no way to explain why we're even having this discussion about consciousness.
If we build computers that discuss and question their own consciousness and qualia I'd consider that proof enough that they are. The bigger question, is what machines might be conscious yet unable to talk about, reflect upon, or signal to us that they are in fact conscious? This requires a theory of consciousness. Jason On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 1:07 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 2/3/2015 10:00 AM, John Clark wrote: > > > On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > > >> If consciousness was just a lucky accident Evolution would >>> ensure that it didn't exist for long. >> >> >> > Only if it cost something to maintain consciousness >> > > Not so. Mutations happen all the time and nearly all of them are > harmful. In most animals If a mutation happens that renders it blind that > will be a severe handicap and the animal will not live long enough to pass > that mutated gene onto the next generation; but if it happens in a cave > creature it's no handicap at all and so it will get into the next > generation, the end result is that cave creatures are not only blind they > don't even have eyes, and yet they survive just fine. > > > But it is biologically costly to make and maintain eyes. > > In the same way if consciousness wasn't a byproduct of intelligence and > instead was just something tacked on that didn't effect behavior (and of > course renders the Turing Test ineffective) then a creature with a mutation > that stopped the consciousness mechanism from working would survive just as > well as one without the mutation. > > > But maybe it was "tacked" on to integrate information processing from > different independent modules, e.g. vision, language, touch,... which in > different developmental path, say AI, might have been organized in a > hierarchy or unified from the start. The latter might even be more > efficient, but evolution can't go back and start over, it can only take > small steps of improvement. > > Pretty soon nobody would be conscious, but I know for a fact that at > least one is. So either Darwin was wrong or consciousness is a byproduct of > intelligence. I don't think Darwin was wrong. > > >> So carbon atoms are conscious but silicon atoms are not. Well... I >>> can't prove that's wrong but I really think it is. >> >> >> > If you think atoms are conscious you're more mystic than Bruno. >> > > You're the one who was talking about a special connection between carbon > and consciousness not me. > > > I said carbon based life-forms, not carbon atoms. I'm sure we both agree > that intelligence and consciousness come from the organization of atoms. > > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
