From: Dan Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Sun Dec 19 1999 - 16:26:48 MST
'What is your name?' 'John Clark.' 'Do you deny having written the
following?':
> OK, but what do you mean by that, if space and time were "Real" how
> would things be different?
If I were Menno, I'd mean by that argument not that the physical world
does not exist, but that we aren't Experiencing it. Indeed, going out on
a limb here, I'd assume that when he said, Left, Right, Back, etc. aren't
Real, he means that the spooky qualia of the Experience of Left isn't
real, that the Experience of Right isn't real, etc.
> >Can you look into my Zombie "mind" and see something there that is ''conscious''
> >of Time ?
>
> Yes.
No, you can't Look and see qualia in his mind. You assume that they're
there, but you yourself have pointed out that you can't Look. (Or, excuse
me, I quoted "Bob" saying as much, and you agreed with him.)
> I'd tell you how I do it but it would be pointless. If you are not a
> Zombie then I don't need to convince that I'm right. If you really are
> a Zombie then I might as well be expressing my artfully phrased,
> rigorously logical, morally uplifting, monetarily valuable, and
> politically advantageous arguments to a lump of clay. Life is just too
> short for that.
This argument is ill-founded, I think. Suppose most of what we think
about AI turns out to be wrong, and AIs turn out to be zombies. Heck,
suppose they don't even ACT like they have "qualia," though they *are*
keen and intelligent problem solvers; they're like Data on Star Trek. I
REALLY doubt that this will happen, and I seem to recall you do, too, but
it's definitely too soon to say that this is outside the realm of physical
possibility.
Do you mean to tell me that having conversations with Data-esque
artificial intelligences would be a waste of time? That it'd be no better
than presenting your arguments to a lump of clay?
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
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