Quote: Original post by polymorphed
One can never know if another entity is conscious, because consciousness is a completely subjective experience.

Only if you take the solipsistic approach, and I don't think you honestly mean it. You do assume that other people are conscious, right?

Quote: Original post by Sneftel

Quote: Original post by LessBread
The Chinese Room example also presumes the consciousness of the person feeding in data.

Sure, because Searle was using it as a counterexample and used that consciousness to demonstrate that the consciousness of the man was not the consciousness of the system -- and then he took it too far, by presuming that there could not be an extra consciousness of the system of which the man was unaware. That was the only reason he made it a man as opposed to an automaton.

Quote: The brain isn't bound together -- both physically and operationally -- by rules and tasks but by blood vessels and the like.

Semantics. The brain is bound together by matter which obeys a set of physical laws.

Quote: What is the largest sensory organ of the body? What role does it play in consciousness?

*shrug* The skin I suppose, and I'm not sure.

One purpose is to make sure consciousness doesnt dry up. Or get sick or something.

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
You do assume that other people are conscious, right?

Hehe, yes.

Quote: Original post by polymorphed

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
You do assume that other people are conscious, right?

Hehe, yes.

Then at some level, you are willing to make positive inferences about something's consciousness even when you do not have direct knowledge of it. So why is person-hood more important evidence than the ability to communicate and understand?

I'm not sure about the Earth, but I'm sure the Internet is!

Quote: Original post by Daerax
One purpose is to make sure consciousness doesnt dry up. Or get sick or something.

I was asking about it as a sense organ not as a sack, but that does bring up questions about the degree to which we are conscious of our immune system. I'd say we are only conscious of it when it breaks down.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
For reference: Chinese room

Such experiments actually proves nothing.Human can tolk in nightdream,and so what? It's evidently that Turing machine must have perfect dictionary and translation system,and it's possible to use it for translation of human speech and even force Turing machine to speak with itself,via program listing hack.I think more effective way -please creator of this device to modify program slightly,let's Turing machine use :), :(, :Ь signs to show emotions ,caused by questions of human.Understanding of humour-that's all what we need in this situation[smile]

The point of the thought experiment is to disprove the idea that a Turing machine could be considered conscious: "... nothing but rote manipulators of symbols: they do not have conscious mental states like an "understanding" of what they are saying, so they cannot fairly and properly be said to have minds." (to quote from the entry). Looked at another way, the point of the experiment is to assert that understanding is a requirement of mind. Plugged back into what I was saying, the mind in the system belongs to the recipient of the message produced by the machine, not the machine. A calculator does not have to know what numbers mean in order to crunch them. A Turing machine does not have to know what words mean in order to string them together. That understanding belongs to the person using a calculator or interacting with a Turing machine. It seems to me that mirror neurons might be useful to discussing the experiment.

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
Then at some level, you are willing to make positive inferences about something's consciousness even when you do not have direct knowledge of it.

Yes, mostly because of society. If I were to parade around and tout myself to be the only conscious person in this world, then that would be very eccentric.

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
So why is person-hood more important evidence than the ability to communicate and understand?

I can never really know if another person is conscious or not just by talking to them, as you demonstrated with your chatbot example. I'll just assume that other people are conscious in the way I am, due to the fact that my behavior is quite similar in nature to other people's behavior. If I am the only conscious person in this world, then I'd expect my behavior to be quite radically different from the norm.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
The point of the thought experiment is to disprove the idea that a Turing machine could be considered conscious: "... nothing but rote manipulators of symbols: they do not have conscious mental states like an "understanding" of what they are saying, so they cannot fairly and properly be said to have minds." (to quote from the entry). Looked at another way, the point of the experiment is to assert that understanding is a requirement of mind. Plugged back into what I was saying, the mind in the system belongs to the recipient of the message produced by the machine, not the machine. A calculator does not have to know what numbers mean in order to crunch them. A Turing machine does not have to know what words mean in order to string them together. That understanding belongs to the person using a calculator or interacting with a Turing machine. It seems to me that mirror neurons might be useful to discussing the experiment.

Yea,i've been observing this process (maybe with mirror neurons?) for many years-in sityes animals become close each other than in nature and smarter.For example,one crow try do do something,another look at that.The most interesting when crows finds dry and hard bread in garbage,and last year I saw such case: mother with son was going near a road and son asked her:"mommy,why this birds wait until a car will appear and throw bread on asphalt? -I don't know,sonny,may be this is such play.You know,animals like to play." [smile]
If seriously,in your links "inteligence","understanding" and "consciousness " are often confused/mixed,but I doubt that this things always identical.Mirror neurons may be simply a tiny part of "information filter": filtered information becomes a foundation of new behaviour algorithm,based on saving such "cause and effect" pair(s) in memory.

Quote: That understanding belongs to the person using a calculator or interacting with a Turing machine.

"Information exists and has a sense only in mind of recipient when he(she) understand it"(c)S.Lem

[Edited by - Krokhin on March 17, 2009 12:19:47 PM]