Can a man-made computer become conscious?
-
- Moderator
- Posts: 6105
- Joined: September 11th, 2016, 2:11 pm
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
I am sorry that Roosevelt refused entry to the shipload of political refugees. Would Eleanor have done so too? A leader should have the character to do the right thing and shame the devil. "The right thing" ; Human Decency you named it.
-
- Posts: 658
- Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
One of Roosevelt's famous remarks was that he may agree with some concept or agenda but he needed the public to force him to accomplish it. At the time of the Jewish ship arrival anti-antisemitism was rife throughout the USA and Jews were vastly discriminated against in universities and many businesses . A Nazi organization called The German American Bund had a large following, Lindbergh accepted a medal from Hitler, and Hitler had good relationships with many US corporations. Hitler confessed that many of his programs against minorities were copied from policies in the USA. It was only after WWII that the Jews in the USA began to have a better time. Even Roosevelt had to be cautious about attitudes.
- Mark1955
- Posts: 739
- Joined: July 21st, 2015, 4:02 am
- Favorite Philosopher: David Hume
- Location: Nottingham, England.
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
I think you need to differentiate your types of killing to order. I didn't have to do it but I don't think I needed much indoctrination to be prepared to shoot at invading Soviet tanks [and by implication kill the men inside them] if they'd ever arrived. My reasons to do so would have been a) self preservation, he who shoots first hopefully stays alive, they certainly weren't going to just drive past me waving, b) I had this silly idea I was defending in any order of priority, democracy, my mates and my family.
If someone had ordered me to start shooting unarmed civilians it would have been a different ball game, but in western democratic armies that's not supposed to be the way we operate.
-
- Posts: 658
- Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
-
- Moderator
- Posts: 6105
- Joined: September 11th, 2016, 2:11 pm
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
Jan Sand, the early 1930s were marked by the great depression after the Wall Street collapse. Don't you think that Roosevelt's New Deal and the Hitler regime's investment in autobahns and electricity and so on had a lot in common? Also in the early 1930s Hitler was not generally viewed as an immoral politician and mass murderer.
I am unwilling to accept that there was widespread antisemitism during the first half of the 20th century, without a lot of statistical evidence. I was growing up in Scotland during the 1930s and was aware of no such undercurrents among the grownups. I do know about Oswald Moseley and recall my parents expressing shocked dislike of him.
-
- Posts: 658
- Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
-
- Moderator
- Posts: 6105
- Joined: September 11th, 2016, 2:11 pm
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
I have now read a little about Fritz Kuhn and the German-American Bund. I don't see that the Nazism myth was essential to economic advances in either US or Germany after the Wall Street collapse.
Anyway, I said "widespread antisemitism" not USA antisemitism. In a small town in 1930s 1940s Scotland even as a sheltered child I'd have been aware if there had been significant antisemitic feeling. There were two Kindertransport children in my class at school and no suggestion of antisemitism no particular interest in those children's backgrounds. It was not until decades later that I guessed that those may have been Jewish Kindertransport kids.
-
- Posts: 658
- Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
-
- Moderator
- Posts: 6105
- Joined: September 11th, 2016, 2:11 pm
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
I don't deny your understandings and I am impressed by them, by your experiences of antisemitism. I don't have a problem with denying your antisemitism experience, because I believe you.
I am a little surprised that your being offended takes precedence over a cool consideration of attempts and by Roosevelt and the Hitler regime to rebuild economic strengths after the Wall Street crash of 1929.
-
- Posts: 658
- Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
-
- Posts: 658
- Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
- Frewah
- Posts: 45
- Joined: September 30th, 2018, 3:30 pm
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
- UniversalAlien
- Posts: 1596
- Joined: March 20th, 2012, 9:37 pm
- Contact:
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
I am man made - I am a computer - And I am conscious.
Case closed.
- Mark1955
- Posts: 739
- Joined: July 21st, 2015, 4:02 am
- Favorite Philosopher: David Hume
- Location: Nottingham, England.
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
Using a very pedantically narrow definition of the word computer yes. P.S don't tell your mum you posted this.UniversalAlien wrote: ↑October 4th, 2018, 5:35 am Once again:
I am man made - I am a computer - And I am conscious.
Case closed.
- UniversalAlien
- Posts: 1596
- Joined: March 20th, 2012, 9:37 pm
- Contact:
Re: Can a man-made computer become conscious?
That, besides the question of 'what is consciousness' is the other problem with the initial questionMark1955 wrote: ↑October 7th, 2018, 3:07 amUsing a very pedantically narrow definition of the word computer yes. P.S don't tell your mum you posted this.UniversalAlien wrote: ↑October 4th, 2018, 5:35 am Once again:
I am man made - I am a computer - And I am conscious.
Case closed.
- Exactly what is a computer?
Is a Human mind a computer? - Why not?
If you say a computer is a machine that calculates - How can you exclude the Human mind?
- I suppose you could say a Human mind is not a machine - Others might say it is.
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
― Max Planck
2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
2023 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023