4 ms·
How do I know you are conscious? I know I am, by definition, but you? The only thing I know about you comes from what you are saying, and if I see you in person
by GuB-42 4y ago
How do I know you are conscious? I know I am, by definition, but you? The only thing I know about you comes from what you are saying, and if I see you in person, that you are made of organic matter, and going deeper, that you have some sort of biological computer in your head.
The reason I think you are as conscious as I am is because you act and look a lot like the only conscious being I am aware of: me. I am made of the same stuff as you are and we grew up in roughly the same way, I have the same kind of biological computer in my head, you express emotions a bit like I do, etc... In other words, I think you are self conscious because you quack like self consciousness.
Quacking is all we have to determine what is conscious and what is not.
- DennisP 4y agoBut an AI doesn't qualify on some of those criteria.
- lucubratory 4y agoBut does it qualify on the ones that matter? I genuinely don't think it matters whether a person's mind is running on fat and water or silicon and copper. What should matter is if it's a person. We need a test for it that we're willing to stick to.
- DennisP 4y agoSince we don't know how consciousness arises, we don't know whether the physical substrate matters. It's entirely possible that it does. We also run different algorithms and have a different connection graph. I assume you are conscious because I am conscious and you're built the same as me. An AI is not built the same as me.
- grantcas 4y ago[dead]