From: Randall Randall (wolfkin@freedomspace.net)
Date: Thu Jan 17 2002 - 01:47:52 MST
On Thursday 17 January 2002 02:16, John Clark wrote:
> Randall Randall <wolfkin@freedomspace.net> Wrote:
> >I'd like to know what evidence you have that they [other people]
> > really are aware of themselves in a way that, for instance, a rock
> > isn't.
This is the second time today that you've inserted something like
this into my words. Let me requote the original:
"""
> [R]>How, exactly, did you learn that animals (which, except
> [R]>for some primates, can't let you know directly) are aware of
> [R]> themselves?
>
[J]> Nothing can let you know directly they are aware of themselves, so how
[J]> did I know they were conscious? I guessed, just as I guessed that you
[J]> are sentient and that I am not the only conscious being in the universe.
But since they aren't providing the cues that I am (e.g., they aren't
holding conversations about conversations with you), I'd like to know
what evidence you have that they really are aware of themselves in
a way that, for instance, a rock isn't.
"""
Is this really so unclear that you thought that I had suddenly switched
to arguing that other people aren't people?
> As I said I guessed, I guessed that you can't have intelligence without
> consciousness. I'll never be able to prove it obviously, but the evidence
> from evolution is not bad and I know with certainty of one example where
> the two are linked, when I'm not conscious I'm not very smart. On balance I
> think it's a pretty good guess.
I would guess that you have have arbitrarily complex problem solving
without consciousness. That is, with a sufficiently detailed statement of
the problem, I'd imagine that it would be possible to develop an algorithm
to solve the problem without consciousness as a side effect.
Now that we're both down to guessing, I guess that this argument is dead. ;)
-- Randall Randall <wolfkin@freedomspace.net> Crypto key: www.freedomspace.net/~wolfkin/crypto.text On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man; The shape of his own future, now in his own hands.-- Johnny Clegg.
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