creators_name: Harnad, Stevan creators_id: 63 type: journalp datestamp: 2006-12-22 lastmod: 2015-11-19 23:48:54 metadata_visibility: show title: Can a machine be conscious? How? ispublished: pub subjects: neuro-mod subjects: cog-psy subjects: phil-mind subjects: comp-sci-robot subjects: bio-theory full_text_status: public keywords: artificial intelligence, consciousness, Turing Test, mind/body problem, other-mind problem, artificial life abstract: A "machine" is any causal physical system, hence we are machines, hence machines can be conscious. The question is: which kinds of machines can be conscious? Chances are that robots that can pass the Turing Test -- completely indistinguishable from us in their behavioral capacities -- can be conscious (i.e. feel), but we can never be sure (because of the "other-minds" problem). And we can never know HOW they have minds, because of the "mind/body" problem. We can only know how they pass the Turing Test, but not how, why or whether that makes them feel. date: 2003 date_type: published publication: Journal of Consciousness Studies volume: 10 number: 4-5 pagerange: 69-75 refereed: TRUE referencetext: Baron-Cohen, S. (1995). Mindblindness: an essay on autism and theory of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cangelosi, A. & Harnad, S. (2001) The Adaptive Advantage of Symbolic Theft Over Sensorimotor Toil:Grounding Language in Perceptual Categories. Evolution of Communication 4(1) 117-142 http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/20/36/index.html Cangelosi A., Greco A. & Harnad S. (2000). From robotic toil to symbolic theft: Grounding transfer from entry-level to higher-level categories. Connection Science12(2):143-162 http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/16/47/index.html Harnad, S. (1982) Consciousness: An afterthought. Cognition and Brain Theory 5: 29 - 47. http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/15/70/index.html Harnad, S. (1990) The Symbol Grounding Problem Physica D 42: 335-346. http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/06/15/index.html Harnad, S. (1991) "Other Bodies, Other Minds: A Machine Incarnation of an Old Philosophical Problem"Minds and Machines 1: 43-54. http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/15/78/index.html Harnad, S. (1992) The Turing Test Is Not A Trick: Turing Indistinguishability Is A Scientific Criterion. SIGART Bulletin 3(4) (October1992) pp. 9 - 10. http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/15/84/index.html Harnad, S. (1994) Levels of Functional Equivalence in Reverse Bioengineering: The Darwinian Turing Test for Artificial Life. Artificial Life 1(3): 293-301. http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/15/91/index.html Harnad, Stevan (1995) "Why and How We Are Not Zombies. Journal of Consciousness Studies 1:164-167 http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/16/01/index.html Harnad, S. (2000) Minds, Machines, and Turing: The Indistinguishability of Indistinguishables. Journal of Logic, Language, and Information 9(4): 425-445. (special issue on "Alan Turing and Artificial Intelligence") http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/16/16/index.html Harnad, S. (2001) No Easy Way Out. The Sciences 41(2) 36-42. http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/16/24/index.html Harnad, S. (2002) Turing Indistinguishability and the Blind Watchmaker. In: J. Fetzer (ed.) Evolving Consciousness Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pp 3-18 http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/16/15/index.html Premack, D. & Woodruff, G. (1978). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 4, 515-526. Shear, J. (Ed.) (1997) Explaining consciousness : the "hard problem." Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1997. Turing, A. M. (1950) Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind 49:433-460. http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/04/99/index.html Whiten, A. (Ed.) (1991). Natural theories of mind: Evolution, development, and simulation of everyday mindreading . Oxford: Blackwell. citation: Harnad, Stevan (2003) Can a machine be conscious? How? [Journal (Paginated)] document_url: http://cogprints.org/5330/1/machine.html