"at this stage, you've just assumed the conclusion. you've just assumed what you want to prove.
No - what I'm pointing out is that the question "what are the ethical implications for turing machines" is the same question as "what are the ethical implications for human beings" in that case."
Yeah, look, I'm not stupid. If someone assumes A and then actually bothers to write out the modus ponens A->B (when A->B is an obvious statement) so therefore B, and then wants to point out, 'hey look, I didn't assume B, I proved it!', that really doesn't mean that they proved anything deep. They still just assumed the conclusion they want since they assumed a statement that trivially implies their desired conclusion. But I'll bow out now too...I only followed a link from a different forum, and indeed my fears were confirmed that this is a group of people who don't have anything meaningful or rational to say about certain concepts (I mean, if you don't realize even that certain things are in principle open to physical test!---and you drew an analogy to creationism vs evolution without realizing that evolution had and has many positive pieces of observable, physical evidence in its favor while your position has at present at best very minimal observable, tangible evidence in its favor (certain recent experiments in neuroscience can be charitably interpreted in favor of your argument, but on their own they are certainly not enough)).
If you're looking for a clear, coherent and true explanation of consciousness, you aren't going to find that anywhere today, especially not in off-the-cuff replies; and if someone does eventually figure it out, you ought to expect it to have a book's worth of prerequisites and not be something that can be explained in a thousand words of comment replies. Consciousness is an extraordinarily difficult and confusing topic, and, generally speaking, the only way people come up with explanations that seem simple is by making simplifying assumptions that are wron... (read more)
You all know the rules: