Can a machine be conscious? How?

Journal of Consciousness Studies 10 (4-5):67-75 (2003)
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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.

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Stevan Harnad
McGill University

Citations of this work

Progress in machine consciousness.David Gamez - 2008 - Consciousness and Cognition 17 (3):887-910.
There us No Concrete.Stevan Harnad - 2004 - Res Cogitans 1 (1).
Zen and the art of explaining the mind.Stevan Harnad - 2011 - International Journal of Machine Consciousness 3 (02):343-348.

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