🚀 go-pugleaf

michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
[...]
>>This doesn't help me if you are a Thing From Another World. If you act
>>like you think, and I open your head and find, say, it's full of worms
>>instead of B, I can't conclude anything either way. All I have is the
>>observation that don't have B. Just like if I open your head and find
>>a Chinese Room: I can't conclude anything.
>>What I want is a program (in the broad sense) to analyze the worms and
>>be able to draw some conclusions; it should be possible.

>Why "should" it be possible?  Is this a moral imperative (God wouldn't
>put us in the position of being unable to determine if a thing is
>conscious...)?  

Because I can think of a few things off the top of my head, like
temperature above absolute zero, some sort of directed energy that
could be moving information around, etc.

>What Searle is arguing (at least as I understand it, and
>argued for in a class paper several years ago) is that, whatever "should"
>be, it simply *is* the case that we cannot detect consciousness by objective
>means.  [...] This doesn't say anything about "thinking", but I don't
>see why you changed your terminology, since "thinking" can simply be
>defined in terms of behavioural output (that which thinks is that
>which acts like it thinks), whereas it's impossible for me to imagine
>such a move with consciousness.  
>In other words, with "thinking" the problem can simply be defined away.

That's why I changed my terminology: I consider it axiomatic that
consciousness can't be detected objectively (not that what I consider
axiomatic is of any interest; I'm just trying to make clear what I'm
asking).  I'm not interested in trying answer the question "Is it
conscious?"  If the controversy surrounding the CR is about
consciousness, then I have been totally confused. But I don't think it
is. I think it is about thinking or understanding. And I think the
point of Searle's CR article is that with "thinking" the problem
*can't* be defined away. Searle objectively analyzes a system, and
says that even though it's functioning like an understanding system,
it really isn't. I want to know how to objectively analyze a different
system and come to the opposite conclusion. It can't just reduce to
"If it ain't a brain, it ain't thinkin'", and I don't think anyone
believes that it does.

Charles Neveu   neveu@milo.berkeley.edu
Neurology Unit
UCBerkeley