stevie wrote: ↑April 20th, 2022, 12:10 pm
So you believe that a reasonable person would posit the consciousness of a computer/robot. Well,
Not to any existing computers or robots. But you're studiously avoiding the substance of the claim, which is that if a computer or robot exhibited behaviors relevantly similar to those of humans, then we would have the same grounds for imputing consciousness to them as we do for humans.
GE Morton wrote: ↑April 19th, 2022, 1:51 pm
Those patterns of behavior are the only evidence we have, and the only evidence we need, to ascribe consciousness to a system.
There is no scientific evidence for the ascription of "consciousness". The ascription is based exclusively on mere belief in "consciousness".
Sorry, but if by "scientific" evidence you mean empirical evidence, then we certainly do have it. Behavioral evidence is the only evidence we do have for attributing consciousness to anyone other than ourselves. Or are you perhaps arguing that "consciousness" is a meaningless term applicable to no one or no thing? Do you prefer a different term for describing the behavioral differences between your wife, neighbor, co-worker, cat, on the one hand, and your sofa, bicycle, and potted geranium on the other? Or are you claiming there are no behavioral differences?
You seem to be ignoring the point made earlier, that "consciousness" has two referents: it denotes, on one hand, certain patterns of behavior --- which are empirical phenomena --- and also certain internal, phenomenal states that we
infer accompany those behaviors. We know those internal states exist in ourselves, because we experience them directly. We infer that they also exist in others, because that assumption renders their behaviors explicable.
Strawman. Because it is known how an airplane works a reasonable person would not ascribe "consciousness" to an airplane.
No one has ascribed consciousness to an airplane. The point was that flying is a property, a behavior, of airplanes, just as consciousness is a property, a behavior, of certain organisms. Understanding the mechanisms underlying/enabling those behaviors doesn't render the terms for those behaviors meaningless or redundant.