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Original post by daxamite
So, new question. Has anyone seen it? (In a non-human)

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Sure, I'd call all animals conscious; they're capable of interpreting sensory input from their environment.


lol fup

[edited by - alexjc on June 16, 2003 5:48:47 PM]

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Original post by RPGeezus
I could be wrong, but I don''t think it''s even possible to prove that you are awake (as in, not dreaming).

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Actually, you can, given certain constraints on what it means to be awake or asleep... and on the concept of ''waking up''. I won''t go into it unless someone really wants to know, but I wrote a nice paper during my undergrad years that showed that Descartes'' argument was not reasonable.

Daxamite: brain waves don''t display turbulence, at least not in the traditional sense of that word. Furthermore, your alpha wave activity (7-14Hz oscillations) increases during sleeping states and depends on the stage of sleep you are in.

One of the most striking and interesting things that I have noticed is that when you open your eyes the electrical activity in your occipital lobe (at the back of your head... and is responsible for processing visual sensory information) is attenuated (decreased amplitude). The converse is true... when you close your eyes, this signal increases in amplitude.


Cheers,

Timkin

I don''t believe the quest for AI is burdened by the lack of a definition of consciousness.

Machines can display intelligence of a limited nature without being conscious.

And animals, birds and insects can definitely demonstrate the fact of being conscious without displaying intelligence.

I don''t think ''definitions'' serve to explain anything, anyway, they merely apply labels to concepts which we may or may not fully fathom.

As for Descartes and his "I think therefore I exist", it logically follows that if a block of ice does not think, therefore it does not exist, right?



Stevie

Don''t follow me, I''m lost.

"Daxamite: brain waves don''t display turbulence, at least not in the traditional sense of that word. Furthermore, your alpha wave activity (7-14Hz oscillations) increases during sleeping states and depends on the stage of sleep you are in."

Hmmm... according to the book I got, on a standard EEG machine alpha rhythm reach less "peaks and valleys" then during normal awake operation.

DAMN you "Growing up with Science"! That''s the last time I trust a kid''s book published in 1984.

This is the age-old philosophical debate on "soul" or "free will".

Isn''t it all just random quantum interaction rolling forward according to chaos theory anyway? If it isn''t, how do you prove it isn''t?

The best answer I''ve come up with is "free will is that, which makes you able to tell free will from random events." Not a good sign for free will, as that proof is circular :-)

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Original post by Timkin
Actually, you can, given certain constraints on what it means to be awake or asleep... and on the concept of ''waking up''. I won''t go into it unless someone really wants to know, but I wrote a nice paper during my undergrad years that showed that Descartes'' argument was not reasonable.

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You''ve got me curious. I would love to hear your argument for it.

Will

My air conditioning can interpret sensory input from its environment, detemrine it is cool enough, and shut itself off. But it is neither intelligent nor conscious.

Stonicus - based on your arguement that intelligence requires the "ability to learn", no your AC is not intelligent. However, once again it comes down to personal definitions: What is intelligence, and how does it relate to adaptability? Some would argue that many of the animals used as examples previously in this post would be considered to have at least a "basic" intelligence, while some would argue that these are just instincts. If one thinks of instincts as "certain abilities found to exist naturally in a given organism", it could be argued that your AC at least exhibits instincts, if not basic intelligence (it''s abilities were hardwired by it''s manufacturer, while in organisms hardwiring is done by nature).

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Original post by stevie56
As for Descartes and his "I think therefore I exist", it logically follows that if a block of ice does not think, therefore it does not exist, right?

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Actually, that doesn''t logically follow at all. Another way of saying that is "The fact that I think implies the fact that I exist". It is not logical to try and simply negate that and say "I don''t think implies I don''t exist". The proper negation would be "I don''t exist implies I don''t think".

"If I only had 6 months left to live I''d get back together with my first wife,
because 6 months with her would be like an eternity."
-Bobby Hall

Moreover, you don''t know what the block of ice is thinking

Actually, Descartes'' point indeed is that you cannot be sure that the block of ice exists. It could be a figment of your imagination or a bug in your sensory input (or a fabrication created by machines..).

The only thing you CAN be sure of is that you yourself exist in some way (in order to think about a block of ice, there must be a thinker ie. yourself).