David Makin wrote:
I disagree strongly., why are "Turing machines" obviously not consdcious ?
Turing machines are mathematical concepts, not materialistic entities. When programmed correctly, they are capable of miraculously sophisticated behaviour -- probably greater than that of human minds, potentially, due to the unlimited storage -- but they can't possibly be conscious. Here is a thought experiment: Suppose a Turing machine X with initial tape T_0 is `conscious'. Then, by definition of consciousness, it must be aware of its existence. Now, I suppose that cannot be ruled out in the following situation: 1. An electronic computer simulates X with the initial tape T_0, and is therefore conscious. But the Platonic abstraction of `X with the initial tape T_0' has always existed as a mathematical abstraction, so even before anyone built an electronic computer it must have been conscious. Even before the universe existed, `X with the initial tape T_0' has always had a predetermined set of future states. Going in the other direction, what about the following? 2. Two electronic computers each simulate X with the initial tape T_0. Are you suggesting that the `consciousness' therefore inhabits both electronic computers simultaneously? Finally, if Turing machines are conscious, then so are (by emulation) Diophantine equations.
Turing machines *with no method of sensing the outside world* may well be "obviously not conscious" but give the computer the programmed ability to self-evolve and sense the rest of existence - what then ?
Suppose you give the computer a method of sensing the rest of existence. Without loss of generality, it may as well receive a binary input stream through a USB port (or whatever). But, equivalently, we could write the same binary input stream on its initial tape, so this self-contained Turing machine behaves exactly the same as your `computer with a method of sensing the rest of existence'. Sincerely, Adam P. Goucher