In message <368BE5F7.9CBB316C@ma.ultranet.com>, sodom
<Sodom@ma.ultranet.com> writes
>As for how do you know? Communicating a unique perspective would be
>fairly convincing to me. Basically performing tasks that require multple
>traits of consciousness - like laughing at a joke and communicationg
>perspective. It would require a decent combination of tasks.
As I see it, there is no particular task, or combination of them, that requires consciousness. To say that they are associated with consciousness in us is just to say that we are aware of them, and there is no need for a machine to be aware of anything, unless you're using the word so loosely that you'd say my PC is aware of the information currently arriving via my modem. A machine could do *anything* without any consciousness whatsoever.
-- Robin