> What we are, with a bunch of charade like self stories
> automatically practiced. These stories are practiced at a
> very low primitive level in our brain. Hence they are treated
> as real, as are qualia.
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie
>
> Thus, giving a machine a self, with "conscious" experiences
> and the hubris to claim selfhood, is a matter of brain structure detail.
> --
> Frederick Martin McNeill
> Poway, California, United States of America
> mmcne...@
fuzzysys.com
> ******************************************
> "I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe."
> - Leo Rosten
> ******************************************
...machines might develop consciousness by Darwinian Selection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erewhon
“There is no security against the ultimate development of mechanical
consciousness, in the fact of machines possessing little consciousness
now. A mollusc has not much consciousness. Reflect upon the
extraordinary advance which machines have made during the last few
hundred years, and note how slowly the animal and vegetable kingdoms
are advancing.”
http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Butler/Erewhon/
...the extract from Darwin's Descent with those of Butler on the
domination of machines and of Huxley and Wells on "the final
arbitrament [i.e., judgement] of the
battle for life".
Butler presents two views of mankind's relation to machinery in "The
Book of the Machines", one of which is used to plead for the
destruction of all machinery in the kingdom of Erewhon, the other used
to plead for its preservation. Are the views really opposed? How do
they compare with views on machinery of any two other writers read
this term?
Butler prefaced the second edition of Erewhon with a disclaimer to the
effect that he was not poking fun at Darwin in "The Book of Machines".
The real target, he said, was the poor use of analogy. We have met
quarrels about analogy in Hume and Paley and it must be said that
Darwin, despite Butler's disclaimer, relies heavily on analogy to make
a case directly opposite to Paley's. Is Butler's disclaimer to be
accepted at face value? How well has Butler captured the Darwinian use
of analogy?
Erewhon is "nowhere" spelled backwards, with a slight concession to
pronouncibility. To what extent is reversal the principle of satire in
the book?
http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Literature/21L-448JDarwin-and-DesignFall2003/3EAFAB6C...
