“Cows look calm, but really they are gay nymphomaniacs"

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Odin
Other apes are definitely self-aware, Chimps recognize themselves in the mirror, a monkey would view the image in the mirror as a rival.

As I've pointed out, this is meaningless. By your reasoning any decent image-recognition software is self-aware.

[Whaleboy]

I think we have to be careful when using terms like "self-awareness" of "consciousness" in this debate, if you consider them to be functions of human civilisation. For example, "Want" is relative to what other people have, need is absolute but premised on a "want" that relies on the self, relative to other people. This is similiar to the Buddhist "trans-ego"... they are civil human terms, so we have to be extremely cautious when applying them to other creatures, see my above post.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Eh, UR, it'd be extremely simple to program a robot to, say, turn on an LED when a video camera attached to the front saw the robot's reflection.

It is not "extremely simple" - image processing is exceedingly difficult for computers. A number of Web mail sites such as Yahoo! relies on this fact to keep out bots signing up for accounts. Another thing is, once a robot recognises an image, how does it tell if the image is itself or another robot that looks like it? This is another very thorny problem.

If this is so easy, we would have self-recognising robots already.

[Mr. Harley]

Maybe it's just a matter of time resources. If you spend 18 years programming a Kuciwalker - oops, I meant raising a child, you may also get sentient behavior.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
It is not "extremely simple" - image processing is exceedingly difficult for computers.

Depends on what it is. Anyway, you're still left with the problem that any decent image-recognition software is self-aware by your logic.

A number of Web mail sites such as Yahoo! relies on this fact to keep out bots signing up for accounts.

They use things much more complex than recognizing the image of what's probably boxy and distinctive.

If this is so easy, we would have self-recognising robots already.

Not really, given that there's not much point.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
Maybe it's just a matter of time resources. If you spend 18 years programming a Kuciwalker - oops, I meant raising a child, you may also get sentient behavior.

[Mr. Harley]

I just couldn't resist it.

[Last Conformist]

Kuciwalker wrote:
There clearly is a different pattern in humans than in, say, chimps, and so I see nothing to suggest that chimps would be self-aware.

I'm not seeing anything to suggest they aren't self-aware.

[Kuciwalker]

I'm seeing nothing to suggest that rocks are self-aware, either, just a dearth of evidence for their self-awareness. Point?

[Last Conformist]

That you're reasoning for believing that chimps aren't self-aware isn't very convincing. There is no compelling reason for either conclusion.

As regards rocks, the reasons to think they're might be self-aware are much weaker than for chimps, but we can't categorically exclude that they might.

[Kuciwalker]

That you're reasoning for believing that chimps aren't self-aware isn't very convincing. There is no compelling reason for either conclusion.

Same for the existance of God. If you have no evidence, or very weak evidence, or very circumstantial evidence for something, then you can either accept it immediately or assume it is false. I choose the latter.

[Whaleboy]

Occams razor Kuci, there is no question .

[Snotty]

Its a thin argument, considering that I have no way of knowing if the other human I am talking to is self-aware. Basing your decision to unnecessarily take somethings life on such seems a bit strange at best, if not just plain psychotic

Have you ever had a pet dog Kuci? Not a small yappy annoying one, but a big intelligent one?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Depends on what it is. Anyway, you're still left with the problem that any decent image-recognition software is self-aware by your logic.

An image recognition program sophisticated enough to recognise itself without cheating may well be self-aware.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Snotty
Its a thin argument, considering that I have no way of knowing if the other human I am talking to is self-aware.

I've mentioned, twice, my two reasons for presuming that other humans are self-aware: first, their brains are practically similar to mean, and since self-awareness is an emergent property of the functioning of the brain, they are quite likely to also be self-aware, and second, other humans have come up with the concept of self-awareness before me - and I've adopted the convention that if something TELLS me it is self-aware, without obviously being "rigged" to (like a program that's just printf("I am self-aware"), then it is self-aware. I find it highly unlikely that a nonsentient being would come up with the concept of self-aware.