From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!hou5f!ariel!vax135!cornell!prins
Newsgroups: net.ai
Title: No people or robots for Camus
Article-I.D.: cornell.3965
Posted: Wed Feb  2 12:50:51 1983
Received: Sun Feb  6 10:12:02 1983

Prem Devanbu has appealed to the essentially private nature of consciousness
to defend his notion that consciousness can not be created within a machine.
I think the crux of the argument is that consciousness is unverifiable since
it is purely subjective.  

The inability to prove the presence of consciousness does not preclude its
existence.  Every few seconds, by some accounts, a proto-conscious being is
evicted from a womb somewhere.  These little toddlers grow up to be all too
conscious brats.  Or so we suspect, since we can't be sure.

If Prem is willing to attribute consciousness to his friends (or perhaps only
some of them), then why not a machine?  How did his friends get so endowed,
consciousness being non-communicable and all that?  An argument on the
non-feasibility of machine consciousness must hinge on fundamental differences
between humans and machines, not on our inability to recognize consciousness.

But perhaps Prem is a purist.  Since no person or thing can be proven to be 
conscious, none of them are.  Then Prem, the only "I", somehow saw fit to
engage in a discussion barring consciousness from machines.  Who was he trying 
to convince?  Just a bunch of machines without consciousness, plodding through 
netnews.

/jan prins     {vax135,decvax,ihnss}!cornell!prins    [uucp]
               prins@cornell                          [ARPA]