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Originally posted by oozyism
See we are using computers right now to discuss this issue, our consciousness is passed on to computers allowing it to do these things, and allowing it to make its own decisions.
oozy
I think this dilutes the idea of consciousness to meaninglessness. The computer doesn't think, or make value judgments, or have opinions about the words you send through it. To the computer, it is taking changing electrical signals from an input device, following a number of instructions in it's program memory, and performing operations based on those instructions. It is no more an active participant in the relaying of information than a pencil and piece of paper that you write things down on are.
Originally posted by Misfit
Originally posted by oozyism
See we are using computers right now to discuss this issue, our consciousness is passed on to computers allowing it to do these things, and allowing it to make its own decisions.
oozy
And just how is the human consciousness embedded into the computer just by typing words? The computer, in that scenario, is nothing more than a method of delivery.
The computer does not make its own decisions, it needs input before it can do anything. It does not think, it follows preset instructions.
I agree with mdiinican, you may as well say that had you called me on the phone to tell me this, that the telephone then has become conscious of itself.
Originally posted by oozyism
...our consciousness is passed on to computers allowing it to do these things, and allowing it to make its own decisions.
Originally posted by oozyism
Now if someone observes computers and computers alone they would come to a conclusion that they are conscious, that is how we perceive humans. We perceive humans as conscious beings because we look at humans without all the variables effecting it, those variables I believe is the passed on consciousness from another entity.
Originally posted by xmaddness
I think you may be confusing "information storage and transmission" with consciousness. Simply because something can transmit knowledge, does not make it conscious. If transmission of information was consciousness, then I could make the argument that all matter in the universe is then conscious. All matter in the universe has information stored within it. Whether that information is in the form of DNA, or in the form of a nuclear/molecular makeup, or even the elemental makeup of matter, perhaps even the size and frequency of quarks/strings in matter. All of these would then have to be called conscious under your theory, because each of these have stored information.
However, if everything is conscious, then having consciousness would no longer hold meaning, because everything is conscious.
[edit on 15-10-2009 by xmaddness]
I agree that if you don't take into account the fact that there is someone behind the keyboard, computers would seem conscious. But the same goes for anything that is handled by a conscious being. A rock bashing a coconut in the hands of a monkey isn't conscious, just because we ignore the monkey.
Originally posted by oozyism
"The computer does not make its own decisions, it needs input before it can do anything. It does not think, it follows preset instructions."
And humans do?
Originally posted by oozyism
Computers don't just store and transmit, they also process, they practically can do everything humans can, with an exception.
I grant you that we are made of different "stuff" then PCs, for example (neurons instead of silicon), however we are still computers and conscious ones at that.
> Hello, I am Eliza.
* Hello.
> How are you today.. What would you like to discuss?
* Conspiracies
> Tell me more...
* Why? Are you one of them?
> Why are you interested in whether or not I am one of them?
* Because if you're one of them, then you will try to brainwash me.
> Does it please you to believe I am one of them, then I will try to brainwash you?
* No, it's very scary.
> Are you saying no just to be negative?
Originally posted by chiron613
I'm not sure where you get the notion that somehow consciousness is "passed on" to people.
consciousness
computers are only as smart as the software and hardware developed by us allow it.