I believe the biggest confusion ITT is due to the choice of very mechanical behavioral tests for a soul. (E.g. self-recognition in a mirror.) Let's test instead the self-recognition---and, indeed, self-transcendence---required to, say, write King Lear.

What if a humanoid robot responded to its hopelessly non-biological plight by writing a commensurable play? Could anyone really call it "soulless"?

I'm not using this immaterial self to explain *HOW* I experience. I'm using it to explain *THAT* I experience. Perhaps more precisely, to explain that *I* experience.

I saw V'Ger's planet, a planet populated by living machines. Unbelievable technology. V'Ger has knowledge that spans this universe. And, yet with all this pure logic, ...V'Ger is barren, cold, no mystery, no beauty. I should have known.

Known? Known what? ...Spock, what should you have known?

This simple feeling ...is beyond V'Ger's comprehension. No meaning, ...no hope, ...and, Jim, no answers. It's asking questions. 'Is this ...all I am? Is there nothing more?'

I'm still not understanding why you feel the need to use an immaterial *anything* to explain that fact that you experience. Again, it just sounds like an argument from incredulity. It sounds like you're saying "I don't know how to explain that *I* experience, so I'm going to guess a soul." or more accurately "I can't believe that *me* experiencing is a materialistic phenomenon, so I'm going to guess a soul."

Is this an inaccurate assessment?

You dont experience. There is experience, yes, but theres no you doing it. Theres no you experiencing experience.

Hogwash.

If there's no "you" then why do you have a name?

Why aren't you just a gelatinous mass merging into everyone else?

This is the one argument that simply cannot succeed. It is, in fact, the one thing of which I am absolutely sure. When you write something like this I can only shrug and move on to something else.

I responded to the paragraphs in reverse order. I passed on providing a definition of awareness because I assume you know what I mean and a definition is difficult to provide. For example, define red but not by naming objects which are red or talking about the wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. Define the color red itself, the perception and sensation of it. Convince me that when you see a traffic light, you perceive the same sensation that I do.


Science is wrong? Are you kidding? First, science is a human activity. Scientists are right or wrong. And they are wrong very frequently. So yes, it is quite possible that the scientists who believe the mirror test establishes self-awareness are wrong.


You want proof that I am self-aware? Well, I cannot prove it to you. That is my whole point, that demonstrating self-awareness is not possible. I know that I am self-aware, but I cannot construct the experiment that demonstrates that awareness in you.

You should have just stopped at "Hogwash", because at that point you had nailed it.

No, you dont know you are self aware. You believe you are self aware. What is the self that you are aware of?

It just takes a quick look to see that theres no you that is experiencing.

Splendour, I have you on ignore, but saw your post quoted by RLK

You do realise that a name is purely arbitrary and given to you by your parents right? There is no actual Splendour ( or whatever your real name is) that exists and lives life? A name is just a label.

Who is the "you" who believes that I am self-aware? That is me.

At this point, I am going to stop talking to you.

As I have said before in another thread, I can only see three possibilities:

1. You are not self-aware and truly have no idea what I am talking about.

2. You are self-aware but are too stupid to realize what I am talking about.

3. You are self-aware and are bright enough to know what is being discussed but the only tool you have to continue a debate is to dishonestly keep belaboring this point.

In all three cases there is absolutely no point in responding to you further.

I don't know. It would require a lot of thought. I am more of a Tennesee Williams fan, but if a computer wrote a play like "Glass Menagerie", it would be a change in the landscape. Of course, there are a lot of questions to be answered about the programming, etc. Could you program a computer to take all of the plays written on a subject, integrate them and regurgitate a simulation of those into a "new" play that created similar emotions. Could that be done by a machine that actually had no emotions?

You ask an excellent question which is difficult to answer.

The problem with programming a computer to DO anything is that it doesn't really answer the fundamental question of how self-awareness/consciousness could arise. This is why the most interesting experiment being worked on right now, imo, is the Blue Brain project.