The_Duck comments on Confused as to usefulness of 'consciousness' as a concept - LessWrong

35 Post author: KnaveOfAllTrades 13 July 2014 11:01AM

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Comment author: The_Duck 12 July 2014 02:24:18AM *  6 points [-]

A computer is no more conscious than a rock rolling down a hill - we program it by putting sticks in the rocks way to guide to a different path.

Careful!--a lot of people will bite the bullet and call the rock+stick system conscious if you put a complicated enough pattern of sticks in front of it and provide the rock+stick system with enough input and output channels by which it can interact with its surroundings.