4 ms·

So do we not mean "conscious" as the opposite of "unconscious"? As in it's possible to knock out a dog - rendering it unconscious. But when it wakes back up it

by c54 10y ago

So do we not mean "conscious" as the opposite of "unconscious"? As in it's possible to knock out a dog - rendering it unconscious. But when it wakes back up it's not going to think about the fact that it's a dog (as far as we know). So what's the name for a dog's normal not-unconscious waking state?

gpderetta 10y ago
you are confusing begin unconscious, i.e. in a comatose state, with consciousness. Other than the similarity of the words, they have little in common. Being unconscious might imply that the mind is running in a state of little or no consciousness, but it is not defined by that. Assuming a cat or dog has no consciousness, it would still be called 'conscious' in his waking state.
brownbat 10y ago
That's a reasonable question, these terms aren't very clear. Philosophers who work on these issues tend to separate out individual aspects of conscious experience and discuss them under distinct terms, for clarity and precision. The main article isn't really following these conventions (most people don't even know about them), but for philosophy: Consciousness is generally the state of having subjective experiences. Like, you're conscious when you have some personal experience of things. Sapience is the capacity to act with reflective judgment. This definition is a mess, just bear with me for now. Self-awareness is, well, awareness of one's self. Introspection. There are probably others I can't recall right now. All of these are slightly different aspects of a phenomena we experience as humans, and we tend to lump them all together when talking about it, especially when asking if nonhumans can exhibit any of these properties. I think what we mean when talking about "conscious AI" is probably something more like "sapient AI" (possibly just "self-aware AI?"). A few millenia of discussion about the meaning of sapience summarized here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/

by c54 10y ago

gpderetta 10y ago

you are confusing begin unconscious, i.e. in a comatose state, with consciousness. Other than the similarity of the words, they have little in common. Being unconscious might imply that the mind is running in a state of little or no consciousness, but it is not defined by that. Assuming a cat or dog has no consciousness, it would still be called 'conscious' in his waking state.

brownbat 10y ago

That's a reasonable question, these terms aren't very clear. Philosophers who work on these issues tend to separate out individual aspects of conscious experience and discuss them under distinct terms, for clarity and precision. The main article isn't really following these conventions (most people don't even know about them), but for philosophy: Consciousness is generally the state of having subjective experiences. Like, you're conscious when you have some personal experience of things. Sapience is the capacity to act with reflective judgment. This definition is a mess, just bear with me for now. Self-awareness is, well, awareness of one's self. Introspection. There are probably others I can't recall right now. All of these are slightly different aspects of a phenomena we experience as humans, and we tend to lump them all together when talking about it, especially when asking if nonhumans can exhibit any of these properties. I think what we mean when talking about "conscious AI" is probably something more like "sapient AI" (possibly just "self-aware AI?"). A few millenia of discussion about the meaning of sapience summarized here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/