[ExI] Digital Consciousness

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 9:25 AM, Gordon <gts_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Consciousness does not necessarily follow from conscious-like behaviour,
>> but it does necessarily follow from reproducing the functional behaviour of
>> a system that we know to be conscious.
>
> That looks like a contradiction to me. How is the reproduction of
> conscious-like behavior different from the reproduction of the functional
> behavior of a system that we know to be conscious?

If we make a computer that behaves intelligently we cannot be sure
that it is conscious. However, if we make computer that replicates the
function of a human brain, replacing neurons with artificial neurons
that respond to inputs in the same way and produce similar outputs,
then we can be sure that the resulting hybrid has the same
consciousness as the original all biological brain. Note that this
does not depend on any theory of conscious, knowledge of whether the
brain is conscious, or even definition of consciousness.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou