On 8/20/07, Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- Samantha Atkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Huh? Are you conscious? > > I believe that I am, in the sense that I am not a p-zombie. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie > > I also believe that the human brain can be simulated by a computer, which has > no need for a consciousness in this sense. > > I realize these beliefs are contradictory, but I just leave it at that. They are not contradictory, until it is demonstrated that a perfect simulation/copy of a human brain *isn't* conscious. For the time being, it is certainly rational to expect such a copy to be conscious, since we the original copies are conscious. It does seem that consciousness is not necessary to produce an equally capable information processing mechanism as the human brain, but through introspection it obvious that these particular information processing mechanisms that we are are indeed conscious, and hence it is rational to expect a perfect enough copy to be conscious too. (An alternative way to explain away the non-contradiction is that we are living in a simulation, and there actually is nothing in this simulation universe that is or could be conscious, including our brains. We just erroneously assume that our brains create our consciousness, but actually our consciousness is located outside the simulation.) -- Aleksei Riikonen - http://www.iki.fi/aleksei ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&id_secret=33547770-fba85b
