[ExI] Science or Scientism?

[John Clark]

On Sun, Nov 11, 2018 at 2:34 PM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:


>
>
> * > I have twice proven the undecidability of consciousness on this list,
> first as a consequence of Russell's Paradox and then later as a corollary
> to Rice's Theorem so I am halfway on board here.*


I don't need Rice or Russell's help to know that I can't directly detect
any consciousness except for my own.

> The problem is that unless ALL Turing machines are intelligent or NO
> Turing machines are intelligent, then intelligence is undecidable in
> Turing machines. In other words intelligence is either trivial property or
> undecidable as well.
>

You seem to be using the words "intelligence" and "consciousness"
interchangeably. I don't have a good definition of either one but for
intelligence I have something better, examples, lots and lots of examples.
Unfortunately I have only one example of consciousness and that example is
available only to me.

>
> *you will also have false negatives where you underestimate or fail to
> notice the intelligence of beings*


If I underestimate a being's intelligence that's my fault not the axiom's.
And it says if something behaves intelligently then its conscious, it does
NOT say if something does not behave intelligently then its not conscious.
The axiom may not be a perfect tool for detecting consciousness in others
but its all I've got; and even if its not true I'd have to believe in it
anyway because I could not function if I really thought I was the only
conscious being in the universe.

John K Clark



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