[extropy-chat] Qualia Bet.

[Alejandro Dubrovsky]

On Thu, 2005-11-24 at 16:34 -0500, John K Clark wrote:

> If the Turing Test can detect intelligence but not consciousness then we
> must have a gene that manufactures qualia but doesn't do anything else, it
> can't effect behavior or the test would work. 
> We might value such a gene a
> great deal but to Natural Selection it's useless, in fact to Natural
> Selection it's invisible. Even if the gene came about by a lucky chance like
> a tornado in a junkyard assembling a 747 it would soon atrophy away after a
> few generations as the eyes of cave fish do.
> 
Not necessarily, it could just be a side-effect of the brain's
construction.  The colour of a neuron doesn't affect behaviour, but it's
probably quite well conserved since that's just what neurons look like.

> In short if Turing doesn't work then we have a gene that only makes qualia
> but Evolution could never provide such a gene therefore I conclude Turing
> does work for consciousness. Good think too because every single person on
> this list uses it every single day of their lives.
> 
But we don't just rely on the Turing test.  We also rely on
knowing/believing that the construction of the surrounding entities
resembles our own.  Imagine that the sole effect of
qualing/consciousness on behaviour was to slow down output of all
neurons by 10%, then zombie could react in exactly the same way by
performing the same slow down, but no qualing would take place.
Substitute the word magnetism for qualing if you prefer, the Turing test
would not detect magnetism.  (Yes you could describe the construction of
a machine to detect magnetism, tell the entity to stick it next to his
head, and give you a readout, while no such machine is currently
available for qualing/consciousness afaik.  This does not imply the
impossibility of such a machine).