X-Message-Number: 12593
From: "John Clark" <>
References: <>
Subject: imputing feeling
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 13:30:06 -0400

In #12589  on  Mon, 18 Oct 1999 Wrote:

    > Mike Perry (#12588) asks what would constitute evidence that a system has
    > feelings, or subjective experiences. The answer is that we must look for
    > anatomy/physiology (or possibly, but not necessarily, an analog) that we
    > have reason to believe is associated with feeling.

What kind of evidence is that? Since behavior counts for nothing in your world
view there is only one example (you) of something that is know for certain
to have feelings, therefore you have no way of determining how far a deviation
from that one example would cause a total loss of sentience. I don't have that
problem because behavior counts for everything I can know of in my world view.


    > I have suggested that the "self circuit" might be some kind of modulated
    > standing wave in the nervous system.

As I've said many times before your "self circuit" could never have been
produced by evolution, would not let us keep it if it did, and the entire idea
is about as useful in understanding the workings of the mind as a
"Beethoven Circuit" helps us understand the workings of a radio.

    >it doesn't help to impute feeling just by anthropromorphizing.

Why not? I think is helps a lot.

    >You could say that a compass "wants" to point north, or  that hot air
    >"likes" to rise, but clearly that is misleading, and equally so  to say

    >that a robot that seeks an electric outlet, to recharge itself, is 
    "hungry."

You said, without apparent embarrassment, that present day computers were
intelligent, therefore I can say without embarrassment that present day
computers are emotional, especially when there is not the slightest chance
of my ever being proven wrong.

    > Externally observed behavior is NOT everything

True, but externally observed behavior is the only thing you will ever "Know"
about a mind other than your own, everything else must first pass through
the lens of theory.

   John K Clark     

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