(interesting thread -- what is it about a community mostly based around a 10+year old game that ends up with fairly civilized discussion about deep philosophy? I guess the fact that quake is so old means everyone here is a bit older too)

I basically agree with BlackDog's counter-zombie argument, and was going to try to make a similar argument (but probably in a much worse way). There is a potential counter counter argument: it certainly isn't possible with current science to build such a zombie machine, and it's possible that there are fundamental reasons from physics that it will never be possible, and further it's possible that the Mystery Of Consciousness (tm) lies somewhere in this gap (this is approximately what Penrose says in The Emperor's New Mind, which didn't exactly take the world of the philosophy of consciousness by storm). To me though, this argument has always seemed a bit like wishful thinking from people who would like the universe to be more mysterious than there is actually evidence for it to be. But that's probably my ardent atheism showing through.

The other point I'd like to make is that I've tortured myself with enough mathematics to know that the most abstract ends of the subject end up being just as empty and vacuous and "masturbatory" as any part of philosophy (the same can be said of large parts of theoretical physics too: http://xkcd.com/c171.html ) and just because something attaches itself to the "science" brand doesn't make it worthy and useful. 

I'm not referring to Descartes, Einstein, etc..: I admit they are brilliant mens. I'm just pointing up that nowadays philosophy "specialist"... (like the french Bernard Henri Levy.. I guess he is the worst case...) have a lot of opinion on all subject: They have a real talent to make try to resolve problems you shouldn't have if you didn't listen them !
OTOH I don't say philosophy is useless.. I just say I don't see how it can be useful... the more with pseudo "specialist" 

Worth having it up.

I've dabbled in philosophical musings a while ago....pretty damn interesting....but also a bit dry....so I don't think I'm going to try contributing! 

Well, I liked the man!

When humans constructed the first conscious machines, and talked with them, they asked, "what is this problem of consciousness you are talking about?". Ie they weren't much different from humans in that regard. :)

I don't like dualism. It sits strong with many people somehow intuitively, but isn't it just moving the problem behind the corner... if the soul resides on an astral plane, then what is it like over there? What is the astral plane? What happens when we fall to sleep, or die? Or when a baby grows up. Et cetera... this mystification only brings more questions and answers nothing.

I know some psychologists who are in pains as they think it's either 1) dualism or 2) if no dualism then the rest is rigorous proof there is no free will, everything is predetermined.

I don't share their point of view. To me it seems they look at the things extremely narrowly and do huge jumps of conclusion. 

I am a physicalist. Current knowledge in neurophysiology implies that cognition is an emergent phenomenon, arising from connections among the 100+ billion neurons in our brain. Included in these connections, I assume, is sensory input and motor output. Whether cognition can occur when cut off from all means of interaction with the "outside" world, is, I think, a critical question that must be included in any useful exploration of cognition.

I think that having a self-conception is important for any foreseeable sapient mind, but I don't think that we humans have a completely lucid self-conception. Have you ever been deluded as to what was occurring in your brain? Do you even know? Would that information be useful?

The questions I am asking in my research are:
1) What is cognition?
2) What is the most simple (and/or elegant) configuration of components needed for a cognizing phenomenon to emerge? 

another note, I think that we will soon be able to engineer systems capable of having cognition. Whether those things actually do become conscious, however, will depend on how they are "taught."

We might need to introduce a process of selection that mimics what mutation/natural selection did for us: namely, causing consciousness to arise.

Trial and error FTW. 

and so does quite a big part of academic philosophy. i personally would name foucault and derrida as philosophers of that same kind. BUT please don't judge on philosophy just with those folks in mind. analytic philosophy has been struggling for more than 100 years now not to be confused with that kind of phil (i tend to call blabber-philosophy simply 'literature' instead of 'philosophy').
again: if you think science is the best means for understanding the world (so do i), naturalistic philosophy will support your view! 

even if science could answer all your questions, why do you believe what you perceive is true?

i believe in consciousness solely because im thinking the thought. that other human beings have a consciousness on their own which i can compare to mine i am not sure of. they could easily just be a subset of my own consciousness.

also, if we take for granted that most human beings HAVE a consciousness, im quite convinced that each one is unique and different. 

this doesn't change anything at all about this discussion for anyone who argues to achieve results. 

If you produce a conscious being through artificial selection, have you actually understood consciousness? 

"even if science could answer all your questions, why do you believe what you perceive is true?"

Because it doesn't matter if we're hooked up to machines feeding reality to us or not. We still have to work and eat and shit, lest we die.

Those types of pseudo-philosophical musings drive me up the walls. They sound very deep, but they're not. 

what's with the machines bullshit?

can you PROVE what you perceive is true? no? so, then stop calling this pseudo-philosophical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes#Philosophical_work

Initially, Descartes arrives at only a single principle: thought exists. Thought cannot be separated from me, therefore, I exist (Meditations on First Philosophy). Most famously, this is known as cogito ergo sum, ("I think, therefore I am").

Therefore, Descartes concludes that he can be certain that he exists. But in what form? He perceives his body through the use of the senses; however, these have previously been proven unreliable. So Descartes concludes that the only indubitable knowledge is that he is a thinking thing. Thinking is his essence as it is the only thing about him that cannot be doubted.

but i see, you're a matrix generation troll. 

Hehe yeah that was my point :) 

Imagine a zombie BlackDog in a putative physicalist universe. Since everything is physical here there would have to be some physical process or condition responsible for consciousness occuring in me, which a zombie would have to lack in order to be a zombie. However, a zombie is supposed to be a perfect physical clone! Since it can't both lack and possess whatever attribute results in consciousness, the concept of a zombie makes zero sense in a physicalist universe.

That means that the zombie concept is built entirely on the assumption of a form of dualism to even make basic sense, and can't be used to bolster dualism for fear of circular argument.

First of all, I've stopped using the word consciousness to attempt to avoid conflating subjective experience with cognitive thought.

So zombies require dualism? Correct, becuase epiphenominalism is a form of dualism.

However, this new thought experiment doesn't require zombies:

Suppose we design a "conscious" robot (conscious in the sense that physicalists call something conscious). We build two of them. We put them in identical rooms. We turn up the temperature in the rooms to the point that the robots are feeling pain.

Okay, now suppose I'm one of those robots. They are phsyically identical, under identical conditions, and yet...they are very different becuase I'm experiencing one robot's pain, but I experience none of the other robot's pain. 

The standard idea is that humans have thier homuncolus, the inner self that watches as the outer self acts, usually called the consciousness.

The difference between a machine mind and an organic one will eventually only be the components. In the future we will have the ability to make exact physical copies of anything - which raises the issue of the intrinsic worth of the original, especially when you can remove flaws and improve in subsequent versions.

The lack of free will may be real, but since it's impossible to control it then it's not worth worrying about - achieving geneuine free will could well mean evolution to the infinate. The gnosticism or hubris involved in this speculation is evident - do other people even exist?

I'd say I'm a nihilist / pessimist when it comes to the big questions. 

If Descartes was so smart, how come he's dead? 

Okay, now suppose I'm one of those robots. They are phsyically identical, under identical conditions, and yet...they are very different becuase I'm experiencing one robot's pain, but I experience none of the other robot's pain.
And the other robot would feel that robot's pain (since the feeling of pain happens in the brain). What is the difference? Maybe they even behaved prettymuch the same way.

Maybe I didn't get this analogy.

In password databases you see that people very often have similar passwords. Proof against free will? Perhaps. ;) 

Well I've sort of run out of stuff to say on this specific topic, I don't think we really disagree on much, but I'm definitely failing to communicate the last 5%. Plus I would agree with anyone like wrath that accused me of borderline wankery, since this idea is in the same category as idealism, solipsism, existence of god, etc, and pretty much unresolvable.

So let's talk about stuff that has more meat, more details to chew on, like all these tangential questions you guys keep bringing up. From now on, pretend I'm a physicalist.

Consciousness (in the physicalist sense you guys keep using):

* Consciousness continuum: I take issue with the idea consciousness being a yes/no proposition, of a supercomputer "attaining consciousness" in the sense of crossing some threshold. It seems more plausible to me that all organisms are conscious, and that the more complex the brain, the more lucid the consciousness. Imagine the less lucid moments in your own life, such as dreaming, being half-awake, being very intoxicated, or being very young (3 years old, let's say.) These are all examples of being conscious, but less so. I imagine that less complex brains in animals and even in insects are similarly less lucid, but still conscious.

* Consciousness defined by nature of input: I also think it's important to think about consciousness as tied to sensory input, and I think each animal's consciousness is given shape and definition by what forms of input and what resolution/richness each form provides. For example, humans have a very detailed vision, as do many predatory birds such as hawks. On the other hand, dogs have good senses of smell, and their vision is less detailed and lacks color variation. I think this has a huge impact on what consciousness is actually like for these creatures. 

Though I'm not sure what is demonstrated by that thought experiment. Two disparate physical objects are prima facie, different - one of them is *here*, and the other one is over *there*. :) Distinctions don't get much more fundamental than that.

"Identical, different robots" is no more a problem for physicalism than are "identical, different carbon atoms", as I see it. Fascinating argument though. 

continuum;
It's a question of definition. And of ethics. I personally have no problem classifying certain organisms as "below" the threshhold of consciousness. Chances are, consciousness requires a certain amount of available neural matter. Bio-psychology is largely a matter of real estate and energy consumption. The mere presence of a central nervous system isn't enough.

nature of imput;

I'm not so sure about that. That's very much a question of the post-thalamus neural network. Sensory systems serves two purposes; to orient the organism in space, and feed it information about its surroundings. The fact that humans primarily rely on our vision to do that doesn't mean our sense of the world is different from that of a dog or a bird. We all need to build mental maps of our surroundings. If we use vision or olfactory input to do so matters less . Smelling it or seeing it or hearing it doesn't matter, we just need to know where we are in relation to the charging bear. And how best to proceed. 

I still don't understand what's the point of it? What do you expect to reveal? It's completely trivial to me. 

I was trying to explain my claim that a subjective experience is outside the domain of objective science, by creating a situation where there is a distinction that isn't physical.

But I'm done with that; I think we'll have a more interesting conversation if we move on. 

I recommend poking around on http://arxiv.org or the like to get an idea of where current AI research is going. 

this isn't interesting at all, imho.

it doesn't matter, brings us no insight into ourselves; only in the unlikely case of us creating a new consciousness being (or something that might have one) we should make sure to give it SOME means to express itself. Then it will.

More interesting question: will we understand it? or rather, will we be able to recognize whatever it will behave as conscious behaviour?