Re: Consciousness and falsifiability

From: Mark Waser (mwaser@cox.net)
Date: Sat May 29 2004 - 11:45:00 MDT


> > We just have to take it as an axiom that if
> > something is intelligent then it's conscious.
>
> I'm not sure. That's a good rule of thumb for humans rightnow, but in
> future there may be highly "intelligent" systems (in some senses of the
> word "intelligence") that both claim and appear not to be conscious.

    I think that it's possible to have intelligence without consciousness
but that it's much less likely because being a "seed intelligence" requires
consciousness to have directed improvement. Thus, while I think that it's
possible for an unconscious intelligence to be designed (or, improbably, to
spontaneously evolve), the most likely route to intelligence is through
consciousness (i.e. a self-improving or, more importantly, self-protecting
"seed").

    Mark



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:47 MDT