[ExI] Consciouness and paracrap

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 20 February 2010 00:38, Gordon Swobe <gts_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- On Fri, 2/19/10, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> Would your mister potato-head have consciousness?
>>> After all it has the same i/o's of a natural brain and you
>>> think nothing else matters.
>>
>> It would have to be very special mashed potato and gravy
>> because it would have to do enough processing to sustain normal
>> intelligence, but if it did have this property then yes, Mr. Potato Head
>> would have normal consciousness.
>
> Nothing special about my mashed potatoes and gravy. In fact I made the potatoes with that dry-powdered potato mix -- not even with fresh potatoes -- and I got the gravy from Colonel Saunders.
>
> The brain has no internal neurons but the artificial neurons on the perimeter have the right i/o's. Conscious? or not?

The surface neurons would not be receiving the appropriate inputs from
the mashed potato and gravy, so they would not behave normally. Also,
there would not be enough surface neurons to interface with sensory
and effector organs, so there would not be any interaction with the
environment. You would end up with an inert lump, neither conscious
nor intelligent.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou