From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Thu Dec 13 2001 - 07:57:42 MST
Hal said
Michael - Do you believe that computer programs can be conscious?
This is not clear from your message.
If you do, then imagine that you find yourself one day to be a computer
program. Ignore the question of whether you are the same person as some
human precursor, just consider the future. If the computer is stopped
and re-started, are you the same person? If your program is copied to
another section of memory, are you the same person? If two copies of
your program are made, are they both you?
I think considering the questions in this way is helpful as it lets us
get past some of our intuitions and prejudices from our evolutionary past
where one body == one mind. We can think more clearly and analytically
about the problems by considering disembodied consciousness. That lets
us focus on the role of information and its transfer.
-----------------------------
Thats a good question, short Answer I would think, yes, they could be and
will be someday considered conciouss beings.
If the computer was stopped and restarted completely? I would think it
would still be the same 'person' primarily because only its transient state
had changed, not its form or the material that makes up the pattern. If the
program was copied from once segment of memory to another, since this would
be analogous to a destructive copying of a human neural pattern, I would say
that it was now a copy with the original destroyed. I would say this
because you could 'copy it' without 'deleting' the original, and they would
then both be conciouss entities that do not share subjective experiences,
similiar to the thought experiement of copying a human mind without
destroying the original that I outlined in my post. If two copies are made
and the original destroyed (deleted) you simpy have two new beings, but the
original had no subjective continuity of experience.
With computer intelligence the copying/destruction could happen so rapidly
that it is hard to consider as relevant, but just because it happens quick
or often doesnt make the question any less important or valid.
Michael
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