CSE 719: Computational Theories of Consciousness, Fall 2009 ======================================================================== Franklin quotes (for bib info, see online bibliography) ======================================================================== 1. "Phenomenal consciousness is plausibly believed to exist in biological entities that have a sizable set of known features....But if all mammals are subjectively conscious, as these strong homologies suggest, why should consciousness not extend just as much to artificial systems that process information in much the same way?" (Franklin et al. 2009, sect.2, para 3) [THIS ASSUMES THAT PHENOMENAL CONSCIOUSNESS IS FUNCTIONAL, NOT PHYSICAL; E.G., FREEMAN THINKS IT'S DUE TO "NEUROPIL": "a region between neuronal cell bodies in the gray matter of the brain and spinal cord (i.e. the central nervous system). It consists of a dense tangle of axon terminals, dendrites and glial cell processes. It is where synaptic connections are formed between branches of axons and dendrites." (Wikipedia)] 2. "Harvey [2002] says '...the additional magic ingredient for [phenomenal consciousness] is merely a change in attitude in us, the observers.' ...I [Franklin] expect there to be software agents and robots sufficiently intelligent, sufficiently capable, and sufficiently communicative that people will simply asume that they are conscious artifacts..... The issue of machine consciousness will no longer be relevant." (Franklin 2003, last para.) 3. "...humans may eventually build conscious software agents and/or conscious robots [that are] so intelligent, so sophisticated, and so communicative that people will simply assume that they are sentient beings with phenomenal consciousness." (Franklin et al. 2009, sect.8, para 2.) [CF. TURING 1950: "I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted."]