[ExI] Meaningless Symbols.

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jan 10, 2010, at 5:43 PM, Damien Broderick wrote:

> On 1/10/2010 7:27 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> 
>> Gordon has in mind a special sort of understanding which makes no
>> objective difference and, although he would say it makes a subjective
>> difference, it is not a subjective difference that a person could
>> notice.
> 
> I have a sneaking suspicion that what is at stake is volitional initiative, conscious weighing of options, the experience of assessing and then acting. Yes, we know a lot of this experience is illusory, or at least misleading, because a large part of the process of "willing" is literally unconscious and precedes awareness, but still one might hope to have a machine that is aware of itself as a person, not just a tool that shuffles through canned responses--even if that can provide some simulation of a person in action.

As I understand it a lot of the decision process is sub-/unconscious and the conscious mind rationalizes the results often.  This does not mean that we are incapable of conscious logic and symbol manipulations, just that a lot of what we do isn't done that way.  

> It might turn out that there's no difference, once such a complex machine is programmed right, but until then it seems to me fair to suppose that there could be. None of this concession will satisfy Gordon, I imagine.

No difference.  If we were accidentally "programmed" to do whatever it is we do then there is no reason it could not be programmed on purpose, assuming our brains are just powerful enough.

- samantha