PhilGoetz comments on Eight questions for computationalists - Less Wrong

16 Post author: dfranke 13 April 2011 12:46PM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 17 April 2011 02:39:59PM *  1 point [-]

Do you expect lookup tables to be able to demonstrate convincing consciousnesslike behavior (a la Searle's Chinese Room), while still not satisfying your lower bound?

I expect them to be theoretically able to exhibit conscious-like behave, but don't endorse the idea that Searle's Chinese Room is a lookup table, or unconscious. Searle's Chinese Room is carrying out algorithms; and Searle's commentary on it is incoherent, and I disagree with his definitions, assumptions, arguments, and conclusions.

In practice, I don't expect a lookup table to produce any such behavior until long after we have learned much more about consciousness. A lookup table might be theoretically incapable of exhibiting human-like behavior due to the limited memory and computational capacity of this universe.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 17 April 2011 03:48:19PM 0 points [-]

A lookup table might be theoretically incapable of exhibiting human-like behavior due to the limited memory and computational capacity of this universe.

Yeah, that's my expectation. So confirming the actual existence of a human-like GLUT would cause me to sharply revise many of my existing beliefs on the whole subject.

My confidence, in that scenario, that the GLUT was not conscious would not be very high.