>> and you'll find a whole lot of things that most people wouldn't call "conscious"
> I disagree. I cannot think of anything with a nervous system engaging in the particular neurochemical reaction I'm talking about not being conscious. No example comes to mind?
Is a jellyfish conscious? Does it have the particular neurochemical reaction you are talking about?
> A machine which imitates some highly abstract equational description of thought is as close to thinking as a bird is to an aeroplane. The bird's heart will burn as much jet fuel as your machine will think.
This is actually a good analogy for our disagreement. Your definition of "thought" seems to inherently depend on the implementing substrate; and if it doesn't burn jet fuel, a bird doesn't really "fly".
But for me the substrate is irrelevant; I don't care whether a machine "really thinks", so long as it can solve any problem which I might have to "think" about otherwise.
> I don't care whether a machine "really thinks", so long as it can solve any problem which I might have to "think" about otherwise.
OK, well then your calculator satisfies your definition of "thinking".
I'm concerned to know whether a machine is doing what my dog is or I am. And mostly when people become hysterical or tedtalky (which is the same thing most of the time) about AI they are presenting an "I, Robot" future where androids dream of electric sheep.
> and if it doesn't burn jet fuel, a bird doesn't really "fly"
When I think, "I'd like my pen" and subsequently my arm moves to get my pen, my thinking is causally connected to my arm moving. My arm moving is some chemical my muscles do, in order to be connected at all with my thinking, my thinking has to be something broadly chemical too.
The plane doesn't move air out of the way because its flying. It does that because its burning fuel (etc.). "Flying" as a description of what the bird and the aeroplane are both doing isnt actually any physical process at all. Is a pattern they both very abstractly follow that we have invented. In this sense nothing in the universe actually flies: the bird does its thing, the aeroplane does its thing --- and from our point of view, they are both abstractly similar.
IT's our pov which makes them similar though. The airplane isnt distressed to burn too much. The bird is.
> I disagree. I cannot think of anything with a nervous system engaging in the particular neurochemical reaction I'm talking about not being conscious. No example comes to mind?
Is a jellyfish conscious? Does it have the particular neurochemical reaction you are talking about?
> A machine which imitates some highly abstract equational description of thought is as close to thinking as a bird is to an aeroplane. The bird's heart will burn as much jet fuel as your machine will think.
This is actually a good analogy for our disagreement. Your definition of "thought" seems to inherently depend on the implementing substrate; and if it doesn't burn jet fuel, a bird doesn't really "fly".
But for me the substrate is irrelevant; I don't care whether a machine "really thinks", so long as it can solve any problem which I might have to "think" about otherwise.