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The scope of their consciousness might be impaired, but they would still be somewhat conscious. However, if you literally cannot remember anything the moment y

by chroem- 12y ago

The scope of their consciousness might be impaired, but they would still be somewhat conscious. However, if you literally cannot remember anything the moment you look away from it, then yes, I would argue that constitutes unconsciousness. Without an internal state to influence your actions, all you're left with is reflexes.

jhallenworld 12y ago
Well it's an interesting point you make.. I've thought for a long time that consciousness is tied up with memory in a certain way: my theory is that you can not commit anything to long term memory that you were not first conscious of. Considering the huge amount of sensory data available this is really saying something. You could even conceive of the brain not working this way- that it could store sensory data for later perusal. But I'm pretty sure it just doesn't store anything which isn't first filtered by consciousness. I don't think it's yet understood how the brain keeps short term state. Neurons are pulse-based, so I assume short term state can at least be very crudely described as some kind of recirculating loop of these impulses. Neurons get tired, so it's difficult to keep such loops going for long. This gives us the feeling of effort to pay attention to something for a long time. Even so, I don't think memory like this is the whole story. There is a sensory-experience part of consciousness which is hard to describe. When I experience something as simple as the color orange it's difficult to find a good analogy with anything mechanical. You could say it's what you experience when your eye generates impulses for a certain wavelength of light, but just having a certain signal is not a satisfactory enough explanation of what "orange" really is. Time is another issue.. whatever consciousness is, it only happens "now". But what is now? If the brain is a computer then its state can be expressed as a number, perhaps written on a page of paper. You take the current state, the sensory input, follow some rules and determine the next state (and record it on the next page of paper). What's special about new states coming into being? I don't think much of anything.. so when you have a whole notebook of pages with states where is the "now"? Why does executing some mechanical process count as the feeling of experience?
- dougabug 12y ago
  "The feeling of experience" is likely the result of a mechanical process, in much the same way that the expression of DNA into RNA to construct proteins and regulate life is a mechanical process. If a robot can see its environment, see objects and people and places recognize them, remember them, knows where it is and that it itself is a specific type of object in that space, constructs and modifies models for all of that...how is that not "experiencing"?
MichaelGG 12y ago
Some people with brain damage can end up with strange side effects. One man lost the concept of left - everything on the left side of anything simply ceased to exist, even conceptually, for him. He might fail your test in some situations, but certainly be conscious. Additionally, any unconscious intelligence would pass this test. Even a human in an unconscious state might pass it.

by chroem- 12y ago

jhallenworld 12y ago

Well it's an interesting point you make.. I've thought for a long time that consciousness is tied up with memory in a certain way: my theory is that you can not commit anything to long term memory that you were not first conscious of. Considering the huge amount of sensory data available this is really saying something. You could even conceive of the brain not working this way- that it could store sensory data for later perusal. But I'm pretty sure it just doesn't store anything which isn't first filtered by consciousness. I don't think it's yet understood how the brain keeps short term state. Neurons are pulse-based, so I assume short term state can at least be very crudely described as some kind of recirculating loop of these impulses. Neurons get tired, so it's difficult to keep such loops going for long. This gives us the feeling of effort to pay attention to something for a long time. Even so, I don't think memory like this is the whole story. There is a sensory-experience part of consciousness which is hard to describe. When I experience something as simple as the color orange it's difficult to find a good analogy with anything mechanical. You could say it's what you experience when your eye generates impulses for a certain wavelength of light, but just having a certain signal is not a satisfactory enough explanation of what "orange" really is. Time is another issue.. whatever consciousness is, it only happens "now". But what is now? If the brain is a computer then its state can be expressed as a number, perhaps written on a page of paper. You take the current state, the sensory input, follow some rules and determine the next state (and record it on the next page of paper). What's special about new states coming into being? I don't think much of anything.. so when you have a whole notebook of pages with states where is the "now"? Why does executing some mechanical process count as the feeling of experience?

dougabug 12y ago
"The feeling of experience" is likely the result of a mechanical process, in much the same way that the expression of DNA into RNA to construct proteins and regulate life is a mechanical process. If a robot can see its environment, see objects and people and places recognize them, remember them, knows where it is and that it itself is a specific type of object in that space, constructs and modifies models for all of that...how is that not "experiencing"?

MichaelGG 12y ago

Some people with brain damage can end up with strange side effects. One man lost the concept of left - everything on the left side of anything simply ceased to exist, even conceptually, for him. He might fail your test in some situations, but certainly be conscious. Additionally, any unconscious intelligence would pass this test. Even a human in an unconscious state might pass it.