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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12593