X-Message-Number: 21729 Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 08:16:04 -0400 From: Francois <> Subject: About my thought experiment For Robert Ettinger What exactly is qualia, and why couldn't the digital version of a human brain express it as well as it's biological version? For Mike Perry The inhability to prove that an artificial system has real self awareness is an often used argument, and a very strong one. But to those who use it I would ask to prove to me that THEY have real self awareness. They can't. I accept that they do because I have self awareness and I observe them to look and behave like me. It's a "proof" by analogy. If the internal and external behavior of an artificial system were to match a human's behavior, I would have to accept that it is self aware. Of course, the debate could be settled once and for all if we figured out exactly what gives rise to self awareness. All we would need to do then would be to verify that an artificial system has the requiered characteritics. Francois --------------------------------------------------------------------- No lifespan shorter than eternity is acceptable --------------------------------------------------------------------- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21729