Jinksy

I glanced at Harnad's Turing Indistunguishability and the Blind Watchmaker to check on a reference, and saw this comment:

It got me thinking: isn't this more of a case for a biologist (neurologist/something to that effect) than a cognitive scientist?

Harnad sounds as though he's assuming the falsity of something that current science probably doesn't have the capacity to evaluate. The question seems to be this:

Would it be theoretically possible to construct a brain for a normal human body, such that the artificial brain would perform all the involuntary biological functions that a 'real' brain would (I'm not sure exactly what those would be, but eg. digestion, breathing, pulse regulation as well as more cerebral (but still involuntary) ones such as blind panic, pain, arousal etc.) without the construct necessarily becoming complex enough to have 'consciousness' as an emergent property?

I suppose my question is just 'are we currently able to answer the above question with any degree of confidence?'

FFT

Monkeys manage.

Oxymoron

Beats me how we can try to scientifically or philosophically argue about something we can't even define in those terms. Or rather, I'm deeply skeptical of any conclusions arrived at in such an argument.

Majestyk

Unless "conciousness" and "mind" are defined in the proposition, it is pointless to continue. Most often these terms are used as in a practically supernatural context, as in the OP's quote.

It seems to be a natural desire of ours to set ourselves apart from everything else by fantasizing that we possess some divine quality which is absent from every other species or even, groups of our fellow humans.

FFT

Jinksy's question is actually pretty simple.

"Is it theoretically possible to construct a brain for a normal human body which could regulate the same things a monkey's brain regulates."

general_koffi

Define 'consciousness' and 'mind'.

What kind of function do you want the 'unconscious' human to perform? Does it mearly extend to succesful procreation, or does it extend to general survivability of the species on par with what we've currently got?

Jinksy

You don't think monkeys are conscious?

I think you're imputing too much onto the quote. I don't know whether the author is religious or not, from what's written. Harnad doesn't distinguish between humans and other mentally advanced species in this respect (his wikipedia entry links to a piece quoting him explaining his vegetarianism by saying 'I told them I wouldn't eat anything that has a mental state'). He's just claiming that the existence of consciousness-resembling behaviour doesn't automatically prove the existence of consciousness. I think that's logically accurate (a creature could be an automaton with an advanced remote control link to another creature), but its being logically accurate doesn't demonstrate much. Logically two objects could sit motionless next to each other in space without any other influences and never cause each other to move, but it still can't happen in a universe with this one's scientific laws.

So I want to know if an organism as complex as a human can be run by a computer which doesn't necessarily have consciousness as an emergent property - or rather, I want to know whether we're currently capable of answering that question (since I suspect not).

For the sake of argument, a mind that recognises itself in the first person.

Oolon Colluphid

Maybe, maybe not. Okay then: fish manage. Ants manage. Worms manage. Sacculina barnacles manage. Within limits, a guided missile manages. See, these things may be conscious (whateverthehell that is). Should we ascribe consciousness to them too? We are highly derived fish, and worms, and eukaryotes. Unless you want to also ask 'does a slug's body require consciousness?' I'm not clear why you think our bodies might need it.

Breath

It might be relevant to ask whether human societies a la New York or Tokyo could manage without consciousness. Human individuals can function quite well without self-reference, as long as there is not too much human interaction. But a nest of a few million humans is something else.

Oolon Colluphid

Termite nests manage... :Cheeky: