[ExI] Semiotics and Computability (was: The digital nature of brains)

[Gordon Swobe]

--- On Sun, 2/7/10, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:

>> As I use the word "consciousness", I believe the
> amoeba has none whatsoever. This unconscious creature
> exhibits intelligent behavior but because it has no nervous
> system I doubt very seriously that it has any conscious
> experience of living. It looks for food intelligently in the
> same sense that your watch tells the time intelligently and
> in the same sense in which weak AI systems may one day have
> the intelligence needed to pass the Turing test; that is, it
> has intelligence but no consciousness.
> 
> The amoeba is not only less conscious than a human, it is
> also less intelligent. 

The amoeba has no neurons or nervous system, Stathis, so "less conscious" is an understatement. It has no consciousness at all.

-gts