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First, Scale Up to the Robotic Turing Test, Then Worry About Feeling

First, Scale Up to the Robotic Turing Test, Then Worry About Feeling
First, Scale Up to the Robotic Turing Test, Then Worry About Feeling
Consciousness is feeling, and the problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why some of the functions underlying some of our performance capacities are felt rather than just “functed.” But unless we are prepared to assign to feeling a telekinetic power (which all evidence contradicts), feeling cannot be assigned any causal power at all. We cannot explain how or why we feel. Hence the empirical target of cognitive science can only be to scale up to the robotic Turing Test, which is to explain all of our performance capacity, but without explaining consciousness or incorporating it in any way in our functional explanation.
consciousness, cognition, artificial intelligence, causation, explanation, feeling, mind/matter problem, other minds problem
Harnad, Stevan
442ee520-71a1-4283-8e01-106693487d8b
Scherzer, Peter
6513617c-e5ec-4bd4-aeba-2d74a38b694a
Harnad, Stevan
442ee520-71a1-4283-8e01-106693487d8b
Scherzer, Peter
6513617c-e5ec-4bd4-aeba-2d74a38b694a

Harnad, Stevan and Scherzer, Peter (2007) First, Scale Up to the Robotic Turing Test, Then Worry About Feeling. Symposium on AI and Consciousness: Theoretical Foundations and Current Approaches AAAI 2007, Washington, DC, United States. 09 - 11 Nov 2007.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Consciousness is feeling, and the problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why some of the functions underlying some of our performance capacities are felt rather than just “functed.” But unless we are prepared to assign to feeling a telekinetic power (which all evidence contradicts), feeling cannot be assigned any causal power at all. We cannot explain how or why we feel. Hence the empirical target of cognitive science can only be to scale up to the robotic Turing Test, which is to explain all of our performance capacity, but without explaining consciousness or incorporating it in any way in our functional explanation.

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More information

Published date: 2007
Additional Information: Event Dates: November 8–11, 2007
Venue - Dates: Symposium on AI and Consciousness: Theoretical Foundations and Current Approaches AAAI 2007, Washington, DC, United States, 2007-11-09 - 2007-11-11
Keywords: consciousness, cognition, artificial intelligence, causation, explanation, feeling, mind/matter problem, other minds problem
Organisations: Web & Internet Science

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 264430
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/264430
PURE UUID: cf9d3b5e-ff2b-4d8d-b8fb-142026d6bced
ORCID for Stevan Harnad: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6153-1129

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 26 Aug 2007
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:48

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Contributors

Author: Stevan Harnad ORCID iD
Author: Peter Scherzer

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