In article ,
"pearl" wrote:

"Barb Knox" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"pearl" wrote:

[SNIP]
[re-ordered]

With respect to all mammals, birds, and reptiles, we know that
they possess a sufficiently complex neural structure to enable pain
to be felt plus an evolutionary need for such consciously felt states.

You avoided responding to this issue in a previous thread, so I'll try
again: We agree that animals possess sensors for various dangerous
stimuli (intense heat, cold, pressure, etc.), and that they are
neurologically complex enough to consistently respond in ways to avoid
such stimuli; BUT, the scientific state of the art is currently unable
to tell us if they have any SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE analogous to our
feelings of pain, or for that matter any subjective experience of
anything at all. One could build a small mobile robot that senses and
avoids extreme environmental conditions, but surely from seeing its
purposeful behaviour you would not leap to the conclusion that it had
"consciously felt states". Or would you?

Over to you. And please try to respond with your own thoughts, rather
than another large cut-and-paste.

Please try to stop being such a control freak.

I can't stop what hasn't been started. In this case I just made a
polite request with the hope of provoking some original thought. And it
worked:

Of course not. Your robot lacks a central nervous system, and life.

Its CPU + memory is a reasonable analogue of a CNS.

And as for lacking life, are you saying that evolved biological machines
have some "vital force" that other machines necessarily lack? If so,
that's a rather outdated view which lacks any direct evidence in its
favour and is made less and less plausible as we learn more and more of
the underlying details about how biological machines operate.

Suppose someone makes a mobile robot and gives it a "life-like" furry
exterior (when seen from a distance). So, when you observe its
extreme-stimulus avoiding behaviour from a distance, not knowing that
it's not biological, would you THEN conclude that it has "consciously
felt states"? If not, why not?


Note that I am not asserting that higher animals definitely lack
subjective experience, but rather that our ignorance of the material
underpinnings of subjective experience is so vast that we can not even
begin to answer questions such which animals (if any) have "consciously
felt states".


But I did respond to this in a previous thread, and I reproduce
that response - which _you_ avoided responding to - below.

[SNIP repeat of large cut-and-paste]


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| BBB b \ Barbara at LivingHistory stop co stop uk
| B B aa rrr b |
| BBB a a r bbb | Quidquid latine dictum sit,
| B B a a r b b | altum viditur.
| BBB aa a r bbb |
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