Markup /zellig/20675

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>>20670
But the problem is, you wouldn't know if you constructed a machine that is conscious by accident. The distinction between a machine that just computes and a machine that computes and is conscious of that fact (even if accidentally) cannot be made, and that means that you cannot exclude machines from being conscious unless you make it an axiom, but that would end the discussion as axioms are to be accepted and not discussed. The alien example was just to highlight that fact in a more acceptable manner, as aliens are presumed to be biological entities. And the fact that something is not available to research does not mean it's not material. There are regions of universe that cannot possibly be studied simply because light speed is finite and the universe expands in a way that points sufficiently distant from each other move away faster than light. And in the case of consciousness the fact that I experience it in a material body doesn't make it more probable to be not material, especially that I can lose this feeling after a very material event of being hit in the head with a heavy object.