If I had to choose between deep blue and a virus.

The way I see it, consciousness is the deepest, most profound mystery in the universe. I think the power of Searle's argument is that whatever processes, or states, you can think of, they still pale in the face of the conscious experience. I think there is something essential in the experience of conscious, say for example pain, that could reasonably be believed to be absent in a system which only mimicked the outward or visible responses of an animal in pain, no matter how convincing the act was.

I asked Alex a while ago if he thought a robot could experience pain in exactly the same way he does. He said "yes" and I say "no". We are at a standoff, but I think that question is at the root of the issue.

Being free, as I am, to speculate, I will. I think that the uncertainty in nature at small scales, is, in some cases, made definite by some non-physical conscious action. Thus, since the virus is "driven" in part by quantum actions, I suspect that part of the action of the virus is consciously deliberate. On the other hand, Deep Blue runs strictly based on a program which has no random component (as we all know, the pseudo-random algorithms in computers are really determinate) and I suspect it has no trace of conscious experience.

Warm regards,

Paul

• Well, so a virus is more conscious than Deep Blue? - alexander - December 14, 2001 - 02:03 UTC
  • I don't know; it was only a guess. - pmartin - December 14, 2001 - 05:24 UTC
    • Paul,no driver is needed to"drive"uncertainty. Math does it all - alexander - December 14, 2001 - 15:45 UTC
      • Maybe yes; maybe no. - pmartin - December 15, 2001 - 03:16 UTC
        • When I ask where is higher dimension, I mean its signature. - alexander - December 16, 2001 - 17:51 UTC
          • It's called "TIME." Not hard to imagine... at least for me. - luis_hamburgh - December 16, 2001 - 22:24 UTC
            • Hey, I love Einstein's sctick, but Newton not a 'crock' - carefuluniverse - December 16, 2001 - 23:30 UTC
            • Luis, any equation to support your nut claim? - alexander - December 17, 2001 - 21:24 UTC
              • Don't have a stroke, old man -- I need you to stick around! - luis_hamburgh - December 18, 2001 - 23:01 UTC
                • What about the problem? - phillipmartin - December 19, 2001 - 19:08 UTC
          • You didn't comment on my answer - pmartin - December 17, 2001 - 06:44 UTC
            • Paul, cosmologists investigated it long ago. - alexander - December 17, 2001 - 21:43 UTC
              • Okay. Thanks Alex. (nt) - pmartin - December 18, 2001 - 01:31 UTC
              • Wait... wait... wait... Alex is retracting himself? - luis_hamburgh - December 18, 2001 - 23:07 UTC
                • Woah... - bladesinger - December 19, 2001 - 02:44 UTC
• Robots and "fake people"... - smartguy - December 14, 2001 - 06:56 UTC
  • Mark, clone identical biorobot (twin) and ask him. - alexander - December 14, 2001 - 15:57 UTC
    • His answer wouldn't be convincing. - pmartin - December 15, 2001 - 03:29 UTC
      • Do you understand what "identical" means? - alexander - December 16, 2001 - 18:01 UTC
        • Yes, Alex, but I missed it. Sorry. - pmartin - December 17, 2001 - 06:59 UTC
          • The more identical machine - the close the feeling. - alexander - December 17, 2001 - 21:49 UTC
            • The same goes for a radio - pmartin - December 18, 2001 - 01:38 UTC
              • yes, the more complex is system,the more hard to exactly copy it - alexander - December 20, 2001 - 00:25 UTC