[Stryke 9]

Yeah, except that's not the point of this thread.

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]I think your example of a tamagotchi is counterproductive.

It's perfectly feasable to think of a dog as a system (us too for that matter) if you could program an artifical construct i.e. one not designed by nature to react and interact in the same fashion as a dog; and it wouldn't be that hard, think of Lionhead's Black & White as an example of how AI can create an almost lovable entity. Give it the right amount of randomness and make it look like a dog then who's to say that it's any different from a real dog? It feels pain and reacts accordingly, gets hungry and reacts accordingly, feels sleepy etc.

Would the same level of humaneness be required for such a creature and if not, why not? I've thought a lot about this kind of thing before and I can only conclude that if we construct something that can positively or negatively impact our lives and that we can positively or negatively impact its life in the same fashion of the creature that it was built to emulate then why should it not have the same rights as one of natures creations? The workings may be different but the creature in esscence is identical.
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[Windrunner]

my god, this is a pure discussion on wheteher a machine can have feelings or not.

i mean comparing a tamaguchi and living breathing animal is just plain wierd.

[Blaise Russel]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
Yeah, except that's not the point of this thread.

Well, you could just extrapolate from my post and figure that my point is a general 'does it matter?' to the whole topic, not just the subject that initiated the question. I thought that I might as well be specific, address the underlying issue of 'non-conscious stuff doesn't matter'. 'Sides, seemed a better place to express such thoughts than the sympathy thread. Regardless:

Okay... so let's assume that a dog lacks consciousness, self-awareness, and is basically the same as a Tamagotchi, and we shouldn't draw distinctions between them. Right? Okay. Yes. Right. Good. Yes. Well then.

What? What does it matter? It's not conscious. So what? Some things are, some things aren't. Why should that change anything? What about the comatose; how shall we treat them? The unconscious, are they different to fully-conscious people? Are sleeping people the same as furniture? What?

[Stryke 9]

Your utter lack of interest in the world around you would disturb me were it not such a common phenomenon. There, there, now. Go back to your TV. That never gets complicated, or hard to understand, or any of those other awful things reality does.

Windrunner: But it's a distinction worth making all the same. Far too many people take intelligence for granted and don't explore what it actually means or where the line is drawn; and then you end up like my grandmother who's certain her computer is sentient and literally corrupts her files to spite her. Or you end up treating thinking beings like property, and, well, history is made of all the horrible things that occur when that happens. As is much of the modern day, in fact. Far too many people are far too unconcerned with whether, to use the metaphor, something bleeds when you cut it. The result's indistingishable from psychopathy. Yes, it seems like a rather obvious question if you don't think too hard about it, but it's precisely not thinking too hard about it that's a problem.

[Blaise Russel]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
Your utter lack of interest in the world around you would disturb me were it not such a common phenomenon. There, there, now. Go back to your TV. That never gets complicated, or hard to understand, or any of those other awful things reality does.

Oh, no, no no no... you have it all wrong.

I simply fail to see what relevance this question has to anything. Oh, sure, it's useful for the sake of knowledge, granted... but that's all it is useful for, as far as I can see.

What's so important about the quality of consciousness?



I just don't see how the matter is important. Now, if you want to assume that I'm ignorant or stupid or whatever and am incapable of considering the question, that's fine, but realise that, in your haste to get off by being rude and condescending, you've failed to consider that I may have actually thought about the question and not seen it as particularly useful, much like how I don't consider "Do I exist, or am I dreaming this?" a particularly useful question, though for perhaps a different reason. Actually, that said, I suppose that they both fall victim to the same killer: being unverifiable.

Who knows? Maybe you'd like to answer the question this time 'round, so that I could understand what the fuss is about, because I've never claimed to be intelligent or wise or particularly awake at the time of writing and may have missed the point entirely... rather than throwing 'dumb sheep' at me. Just a thought.

[Stryke 9]

How about reading the rest of my bloody post, where I explain in bloody detail why it's a damned important distinction to make. The fact that you weren't able to make the rather obvious logical connection yourself does not speak well of your non-sheephood, or the amount of actual thought put into the problem. Should you actually show evidence of having given the matter (or any matter) significant thought I will gladly reverse my opinion, but whining about my up-to-now perfectly accurate assessment and doing nothing else isn't gonna get much from me in the respect department, kiddo. Palming off knee-jerk apathy as the result of some kind of honest deliberation merits outright contempt as the foolish intellectual fraud it is.

Dismissing something from the onset as insignificant and thinking no more of it is nothing but intellectual laziness, something that merits no more respect or credence than its physical counterpart. There is nothing not worth thinking out at the very least to a satisfactory hypothesis, obvious and immediate practical applications or no, and refusing to think because it's not worth the incredibly small effort is to risk remaining totally ignorant on what may in fact be a very significant problem for the sake of a quick cop-out. Which is basically what you've done here.

[Blaise Russel]

Dude, chill. What the hell is your problem?

I just figure that there's not really much point in this discussion, seeing that there's no way you're going to prove anything either way. Far as I can see, it's all speculation. "Dogs are no different to Tamagotchis! No consciousness!" "I disagree, they're like humans, so they probably possess consciousness as well!" "Who says humans are conscious beings?" "I do!" "Well, I don't!"

Furthermore, my moral system isn't based on some rule like "Don't harm conscious beings." Why not? Why not harm conscious beings? 'Cause it hurts them? So what? That presumes you give a damn in the first place. 'Sides, may not be conscious in the first place. No, my morality is "enlightened self interest," I believe. Do to others what I'd like to have done to me, really. Consciousness doesn't really enter into it. Empathy does, I s'pose, but that doesn't really require the object to be sentient.

Bleh. I just can't find it in me to get worked up about unanswerable questions, sorry. Ones like these, anyway. Let's do the one about clones, that's always fun.

[Stryke 9]

So you treat the aforementioned chair just like you would a person. It must be interesting to be around you most of the time. That's presuming you aren't one of those freaky Internet people with fetishes involving being eaten, sat on, worn as clothing, hit with a hammer, and basically everything else.

Why the hell even bother post here, anyway? You don't care, fine, that's your problem. I don't care if I don't give everybody a warm fuzzy feeling inside every time I say anything. Some Nigerian peasant doesn't care about the nuances of a new macroeconomic theory being developed in Taiwan. Billy-Bob the janitor down at the local Burger King doesn't care if you don't like him putting his penis in your Whopper.  Find the one that doesn't fit (hint: It's the one who still seems to care enough to make several long, pointless posts to the effect that they don't know and don't care).

[Ghostavo]

What I think Stryke 9 is saying is that every undiscussed discussion is worth taking. Do not procrastinate anything, physicaly and mentaly.

Isn't it?

[Stryke 9]

That's what I was going to say, but I decided to focus more on how this topic actually is directly relevant to everyday life so we wouldn't get lost off in abstraction. But yeah, that too.

[Carl]

every living thing can see things from there own perspective. i an here, and i can look at you and sense the world around me, and you can see me and sense the world around you. can a machine do the same thing? does it have a perspective?

[Stryke 9]

How can you determine that, though? That's the point of the thread.

[Carl]

you can't, unless you can be that machine ala freaky friday.

[Mr. Vega]

But then it would still be you.

[an0n]

What a pile of ****.

Tamagotchi's are alive because they eat, sleep, ****, respirate (via electricity) and eventually they die.

They're by no means sentient, but they're alive.


Though I suppose a better way to put it would be to say that they're a life-form, but not necessarily alive or sentient.

[Stryke 9]

But they don't eat.

[an0n]

Yes they do. You give them carrots and whatnot.

[Stryke 9]

So you pretend to feed them. And you can mash strained carrots on your pet rock and call it a meal. Doesn't change reality.

[an0n]

Just because it doesn't eat the way we do, doesn't mean it's not still eating.