RE; Turing Test

John E. Rylander (rylander@prolexia.com)
Fri, 31 Jan 1997 18:06:09 -0600

Two more quick comments, that I should have appended to my prior note =
for clarity's sake:

(I) If we're talking about consciousness in sense (a), the Turing test =
seems irrelevant. It's very relevant to sense (b). As noted in my =
prior note, many people miss this completely.

(II) Wrt fundamental physics (and hence evolutionary theory, by =
implication), consciousness in sense (b) is not especially puzzling at =
all, in principle. Sense (a) still is. (Why is it that we have a =
universe that has consciousness in it, in sense (a)? Evolutionary =
theory can speculatively explain sense (b), but sense (a) will likely =
either remain unexplained (physically) or will require another =
scientific revolution, at least wrt physical ontology.)