In my little essay I tried to redraft the problem of consciousness — the “mind/body problem” — as the problem of explaining how and why we feel rather than just do.

It was not meant as a terminological exercise. The usual way we talk about consciousness and mental states uses weasel-words (“conscious,” mental,” “experience”) that are systematically ambiguous about whether we are just talking about access to data (an easy problem, already solved in principle by computation, which is simply an instance of doing) or about felt access to data (the hard part being to explain not just the doing but the feeling).

Nor was it meant as a metaphysical exercise: The problem is not one of “existence” (feeling indubitably exists) but of explanation: How? Why?

The commentaries were a fair sample, though a small one, of the issues and the kinds of views thinkers have on them today. A much fuller inventory will be presented at the 2012 Summer School on the Evolution and Function of Consciousness in Montreal June/July of next year. Think of this small series of exchanges in the On the Human Forum as an overture to that fuller opus.

I have already responded in detail individually to each of the 10 commentators (15 commentaries) so I will just summarize the gist here:

Judith Economos rightly insists, as the only one with privileged access to what’s going on in her mind, that it is not true that she feels everything of which she is conscious: Some of it — the part that is not sensory or emotional — she simply knows, though it doesn’t feel like anything to know it. I reply (predictably) that “know,” too, is a weasel-word, ambiguous as between felt and unfelt access to data. So if one is awake (conscious) whilst one is knowing, one is presumably feeling something. One is also, presumably, feeling something whilst one is not-knowing something, or knowing something else. If all three of those states feel identical, how does one know the difference? For if “knowing” just refers to having data, then it is just a matter of know-how (doing), which is already explained (potentially) by computation, and has nothing to do with consciousness.

Galen Strawson seems to agree with me on the distinction, but prefers “experience” (“with qualitative character”) to “feeling.” Fine — but “experience” alone is ambiguous; and trailing the phrase “with qualitative character” after it seems a bit burdensome to convey what “feel” does in one natural, intuitive, monosyllabic swoop. The substantive disagreement with Galen is about the coherence and explanatory value of “panpsychism” (i.e., the metaphysical hypothesis that feeling, or the potential to feel, is a latent and ubiquitous property of the entire universe) as a solution to the hard problem. The existence of feeling is not in doubt. But calling it a fundamental take-it-or-leave-it basic property of the universe does not explain it; it’s just a metaphysical excuse for the absence of an explanation!

Shimon Edelman is more optimistic about an explanation because there are computational and dynamic ways to “mirror” every discriminable difference (JND) in a system’s input in differences in its internal representations. This would certainly account for every JND a system can discriminate; but discrimination is doing: The question of how and why the doing is felt is left untouched.

David Rosenthal interprets the experimental evidence for “unconscious perception” as evidence for “unconscious feeling,” but, to me, that would be the same thing as “unfelt feeling”, which makes no sense. So if it’s not feeling, what is unconscious “perception”? It is unconscious detection and discrimination — in other words, internal data-doings and dispositions that are unproblematic because they are unfelt (the easy problem). If all of our know-how were like that, we’d all be Zombies and there would be no hard problem. David needs unconscious perception to be able to move on to higher-order consciousness (but that is, of course, merely higher-order access — the easy part, until/unless feeling itself is first explained). So this seems like recourse to either a bootstrap or a skyhook.

John Campbell points out that sensorimotor grounding is not enough to explain meaning unless the sensing is felt, and I agree. But he does not explain how or why sensorimotor grounding is felt.

Anil Seth reminds us that many had thought that there was a “hard problem” with explaining life, too, and that that turned out to be wrong. So there’s no reason not to expect that feeling will eventually be explained too. The trouble is that apart from the observable properties of living things (“doings”) there was never anything else that vitalists could ever point to, to justify their hunch that life was inexplicable unless one posited an “elan vital.” Modern molecular biology has since shown that all the observable properties of life could be explained, without remainder, after all. But in the case of feeling there is a property to point to — observable only to the feeler, but as sure as anything can be — that the full explanation of the observable doings leaves out and hence cannot account for. (Perhaps feeling is the property that the vitalists had in mind all along.)

The remaining commentaries seem to be based on misunderstandings:

Bernard Baars took “Turing Robot” to refer to “Turing Machine.” It does not. A Turing Machine is just a formalization of computation. The internal mechanism of a Turing Robot can be computational or dynamical (i.e., any physical process at all, including neurobiological).

Krisztian Gabris thinks feelings are needed to “motivate” us to do what needs to be done. That’s certainly what it feels like to us. But on the face of it, the only thing that’s needed is a disposition to do what needs to be done. That’s just know-how and doing, already evident in toy robots and toasters. How and why it (sometimes) feels like something to have a disposition to do something remains unexplained.

Joel Marks assumed that the Turing Robot would be an unfeeling Zombie. This is not necessarily true. (I think it would feel — it’s just that we won’t be able to know whether it feels; and even if it does feel, we will be unable to explain how or why.) Hence Joel’s question about whether it would be wrong to create a robot that feared death is equivocal: By definition, if it’s a Zombie, it cannot fear, it can only act as if it feared. (Witnessing that may make us feel bad, but the Zombie — if there can be Zombies — would feel nothing at all.) And if the Turing Robot feels, it’s as important to protect it from hurt as it is to protect any other feeling creature from hurt.

The only thing we know for sure — indeed, with a Cartesian certainty that is as apodictic as the logical necessity of mathematics — is that and what we feel.

Everything else we know (or believe we know), we likewise know “through” feeling — in that it feels like something to learn it and it feels like something to know it.

(It feels like something to make an “empirical” observation. It feels like something to understand that something is the case. It feels like something to understand an inference or a causal explanation.)

So feeling is certain, whereas physics (“doing,” in my parlance) is not certain.

But we are realists, trying to do the best we can to explain reality — not extreme sceptics, doubting everything that is not absolutely certain, even if it’s highly probable.

We are just looking for truth, not necessarily certainty.

“Experience” is a weasel-word because it can mean either feeling something — which is highly problematic (the “hard problem) — or it can just mean acquiring empirical data (as in: “this machine had the solution built in, that machine learned it from experience”) — which is unproblematic (doing, the “easy” problem).

So whereas it is true that the only thing we know for sure (besides the things that are necessarily true on pain of contradiction) is that feeling exists, neither everyday life nor science requires certainty. High probability on the evidence (data) will do.

And although it is true that all evidence is felt evidence, it is only the fact that it is felt that is certain. The evidence itself (doing) is only probable.

In other words, although they always accompany the data-acquisition (doing), the feelings are fallible. We feel things that are both true and untrue about the world, and the only way to test them out is via doings. It is true that the data from those doings are also felt. But the felt data are answerable to the doings, and not to the fact that they are felt.

And not only are our feelings fallible, as regards the truth: they also seem to be causally superfluous. Doings (including data-acquisition) alone are enough, for evolution, as well as for learning. Some doings are undeniably felt, but the question is: how and why?

When we are doing physics (or chemistry, or biology, or engineering) and causal explanation (rather than metaphysics), we have to explain the facts, amongst which one fact — the fact that we feel — seems pretty refractory to any sort of explanation except if we suppose that feeling is simply a basic property of the universe (whether local to the organisms in the earth’s biosphere [Galen’s “micropsychism”] or somehow smeared all over the universe [“panpsychism”].)

There’s no doubt that feeling exists, so in that sense feeling is indeed a property of the universe. But with all other properties — doings, all — we have become accustomed to being able(in practice, or at least in principle) to give a causal explanation of them in terms of the four fundamental forces (electromagnetism, gravitation, strong subatomic, weak subatomic). Those forces themselves we accept as given: properties of the universe such as it is, for which no further explanation is possible.

Galen’s metaphysics would require adding something like a fifth member to this fundamental quartet — feeling — with the difference that, unlike the others, it is not an independent force, it does not itself cause and thereby explain doings causally, but rather is merely correlated with them, inexplicably, for some doings.

And our justification for adding a fifth acausal force? The fact that it is inexplicably (but truly) correlated with some doings (all doings that we feel). If feeling had truly been a 5th force (causal rather than acausal), namely, “psychokinesis” (“mind over matter”), then that would indeed have merited elevating it to fundamental status, exempt from further explanation along with the other four.

But there is not a shred of evidence for psychokinesis as a causal force (and all attempts to measure psychokinesis have failed, because the other four forces already covered all the causal territory — doing — with no remainder and no further room for causal intervention).

So all we have, inexplicably, is the fact that we feel. I don’t think that that fact warrants any further metaphysics than that: feeling definitely exists — and, unlike anything else, exists with certainty rather than just probably. It also happens to feel like something to find out and understand anything we know. The rest is an epistemic problem: why and how does getting or having data feel like something (for feeling creatures like us)?

Neither “micropsychism” nor “panpsychism” answer this question. They just take it for granted that it is so.

GS: In order to reply, I’ll assume the truth of materialism/monism:

[1] materialism/monism is true.

And I’ll assume the real unproblematic reality of consciousness/ experience/ experientiality/feeling

[2] consciousness/ experience/ experientiality/ feeling is real.

The first thing to note, perhaps, is that

[3] *there is absolutely no evidence that anything non-experiential exists* (nor will there ever be).

So there is to that extent no evidence that panpsychism is ontically costly. It’s true that the explanatory power of physics (the human creation) doesn’t explicitly appeal to the idea of experientiality, but if in fact energy is experientiality—if in fact the intrinsic nature of what we detect as energy is experientiality—if, for short,

[4] everything physical is experiential (= panpsychism is true)

then physics is in fact talking about experientiality all along. And, crucially,

[5] the explanatory power of physics *doesn’t in any way conflict* with [4],

*and* [4] solves the ‘hard problem’ at a high level of generality—albeit without any prospect of their being any detailed useful explanation of the phenomenon of experientiality. So why not be open to the hypothesis that [4] is true?

Note that few people think we need an explanation of the existence of *non*-experientiality (ie of the physical as ordinarily conceived). Why should one think that one needs an explanation of the existence of experientiality? It is widely agreed that physics deals only in equations and numbers and structures, and says absolutely nothing whatever about the intrinsic nature of that which has the structure (he physical), so far as that intrinsic nature is something more than its structure. Russell was very clear about this.

There is I think very great danger of *misusing the idea of explanatory power* (there is a mindset that makes it extremely hard to really think through the case for panpsychism. It can take years to break through.) But consider: assuming [1] materialism,

[6] we know that some parts of the physical are experiential

and, as [3] states, we don’t know that any parts of it are non-experiential, and will never have any positive evidence that they are. One way of applying Occam’s Razor leads straight from [6] to the view that [4] everything physical is experiential. For [6], we know that some parts of the physical are experiential, and we have, yet again, [3], no evidence that any part of the physical is non-experiential. So why should we positively suppose, in the absence of any supporting evidence, that the physical is or must be fundamentally different in different parts—i.e. deny [4], and hold that the physical is definitely partly non-experiential? Especially when [4] solves the hard problem at a high level of generality?

One argument is this. If

[7] ‘radical emergence’ is impossible

(there are potent reasons for thinking this is so) then, given [4], the fact that we know that at least some parts of the physical are experiential), we can it seems deduce that

[8] experientiality must be a fundamental property of the physical.

So that either panpsychism is true (experientiality is fundamental property of all parts of the physical), or micropsychism is true (experientiality is fundamental property of some fundamental parts of the physical). If

[9] ‘smallism’ is true (the physical universe really does come in small bits)

and if

[10] there is only one truly fundamental kind of fundamental physical entity,

as many suppose, then it looks as if panpsychism wins out over micropsychism.

There is still, certainly, the mereological nightmare. Here I recommend William James’s A Pluralistic Universe.

Doings are observable by anyone (via senses or senses plus measuring instruments).

Feelings are observable only to their feeler.

The only feelings a feeler can feel are his own.

That other people and animals feel is a safe guess, because they are related to and resemble us.

That today’s man-made robots feel is as unlikely as that a toaster or stone feels.

That a robot whose doings are Turing indistinguishable from the rest of us for a lifetime would feel would be almost as safe a guess as that other people and animals feel. (Perhaps a biorobot would be an even safer guess).

A robot is just an autonomous causal system that can do some things that people and animals can do.

Cognitive science is about discovering the causal mechanism that generates our capacity to do what we can do. (We can think of it as discovering what kind of robots we are.)

No one but the Turing robot can know whether its causal mechanism does generate feeling.

And even if it does, not even the Turing robot can explain or know how or why.

As mentioned in the essay it is simply easy to explain why or how we do things the way we do by creating the biorobot. However, could we not extend this biorobot to feeling? Why is it we cannot say the robot also has feelings? Is it because the robot does not have a human brain or any brain that animals or human beings do? Could we not say that the “motherboard” of the robot or the controller is the brain of the robot? Can we not say that we ourselves are robots in a way? In the essay above, feeling, meaning, and explaining are all in a sense combined to meaning according to the philosophical perspective. If this is the case, then can one not say that feeling is all else that is not doing? Hence, the word feeling is used to describe all other actions that cannot be designated to the doing category. Therefore, in a sense, there are now only two things one can do-feel or do. We designate all our other actions of explaining, meaning, in tuition, ‘gut feeling,’ and all other to the word feeling. Now the question that comes to mind is if feeling is everything but doing then how or why is it that we feel? Imagine that the biorobot is doing something and is notified that its power is running low for some reason so it decides to shut down. Why did it decide to shut down? Can we acknowledge this as feeling? Why not? One can easily argue that the biorobot was programmed to shut down and therefore it has nothing to do with feeling, but then are us humans also not just programmed to ‘feel’ certain ways in certain scenarios by the rules of societies?

Take for example Genie the “fear child,” and consider her behavior. Genie was locked in and put far away from society for 12 years. The only human contact she had was from her parents. With such limitation, Genie’s personality was different and she was completely mute at one point as if she had no desires, no feelings. However, once opened up to the society and shown the outside world, Genie began showing signs in relevance to normal human behavior. Why is that? Is it because it was within her all along or did someone had to guide her or “program” her? This is something to think about and it could be noted that feeling is merely another part of society’s requirements and thus that is why we do it and although humans are not willing to say they are robots, in some way we can be seen as robots that are programed which is how we feel.

KG: “Take the pain example… what would happen if for some reason… a decision is made which goes against the evolutionarily ingrained rules of the system. For example, a hand is left in the fire… What would be the punishment of such behavior in a Turing robot (other than tissue damage)? Nothing, the robot would go on it’s own business with signals and internal warnings, but it would not feel the pain. Whereas a human would… feel pain, and would take away the hand… not only because of [genetic] programming, but because of… feeling pain.“

Yours is the natural intuitive explanation for why we feel — the one that feels right. “Why,” after all, is a causal question: Why do we pull our hand out of the fire? Yes, fire causes tissue damage, but that’s not what makes us withdraw our hand (unless we are anaesthetized): It’s because it hurts!

So surely that’s what pain’s for: To signal tissue damage by causing pain to be felt.

Why? So you’ll withdraw your hand. Because if your ancestors had been indifferent to tissue damage, they would not have had surviving descendants.

So you withdraw your hand because it hurts. And it hurts in order to cause you to feel like withdrawing your hand — and therefore you withdraw your hand.

Injury –> pain –> withdraw hand.

And the reason the feeling of pain evolved is because those whose ancestors felt pain were more likely to feel like withdrawing their hands than those who did not.

But let us note that what was needed, for survival, was to withdraw the injured hand — an act, not a sentiment. The pain was a means, not an end. It’s an extra step; and, as I will try to illustrate with other examples, a superfluous extra step, practically speaking. So the hard problem is to explain how and why this extra, apparently superfluous step evolved at all.

Suppose that what you had chosen for your evolutionary example of the adaptive trait for “motivational” scrutiny had been — rather than the withdrawing of the injured hand — the growing of wings, or the beating of the heart or the dilating of the pupil of the eye.

You’ll perhaps find it strange to ask about feeling the “motivation” to grow wings (though it’s a reasonable question), because growing is not something we ordinarily think of ourselves as “doing.” But note that the very same question you asked about the evolution of pain — and the “punishment” for non-withdrawal of the injured hand if no one feels the “motivation” to withdraw it — applies to the non-growth of wings. And the answer is the same:

If we are talking about evolution — which means traits that increase the likelihood of survival and reproduction — then for both the disposition to grow wings and the disposition to withdraw the hand from injury the “reward” is increased likelihood of survival and reproduction; and for both the lack of the disposition to grow wings and the lack of the disposition to withdraw the hand from injury the “punishment” is decreased likelihood of survival and reproduction.

The very same evolutionary reward/punishment scenario also applies to the disposition of our hearts to beat which is even more obviously something that our bodies do — or, if you want an example of something we do in response to a circumstantial stimulus rather than constantly, there’s pupillary dilation to light intensity.

Or, if you want something we do voluntarily rather than involuntarily — although that’s begging the question, because it is really the involuntary/voluntary distinction that poses the “hard” problem and calls for explanation — consider the implicit improvement in skills that occurs without any sense of having done anything deliberately (sometimes even without the feeling that we have improved) in implicit learning, or the changes in our dispositions caused by subtle Pavlovian conditioning or Skinnerian reinforcement when we don’t even feel that our dispositions are changing, or the voluntary take-over of breathing — usually involuntary, like the heart-beat.

And a disposition is a disposition to do, whether it’s to grow, to beat, to dilate to withdraw, to salivate, to smile or to breathe. So the question remains: Why the extra intermediate step of feeling, when the reward and punishment come from the disposition to do?

The very same reasoning applies to learning itself: We learn to do things — such as what to eat and what to avoid — by trial and error and reward/punishment. The consequences of doing the right thing feel good and the consequences of doing the wrong thing feel bad, so we learn to do the right thing. “Motivation” again. But again, it is the disposition to do the right thing that matters; the feeling of reward and punishment is an extra. Why? Both in evolution and in learning there are consequences (enhanced survival and reproduction in the case of evolution, and enhanced functioning and performance in the case of learning: eating nourishing things gives us energy, eating toxic things makes us sick) and the consequences are sufficient to guide our dispositions to do. But why is any of that felt rather than just done?

These questions are hard not only because of the underlying problem of causality, but because our intuitions keep telling us that it’s obvious that we need to feel. Yet the causal role of feeling is anything but obvious, if looked at objectively, which means functionally.

You assumed that a Turing robot would not feel. That’s not at all sure. But let’s consider today’s rudimentary robots, which are as unlikely to feel as a toaster or a stone. Yet even they can already be designed to withdraw damaged limbs, or to learn to withdraw damaged limbs. They need sensors, of course, but it’s not at all clear why they would need feelings (even if we had the slightest clue of how to design feelings!), if the objective is to do — or to learn to do — what needs to be done in order to survive and function. They need to detect tissue damage, and then they need to be disposed to do — or disposed to learn to do — whatever needs to be done.

If (sensible) anti-Creationism impels us to reject arguments from robotic design, consider that in evolution can be simulated computationally in artificial life simulations; and the kinds of traits we build into our robots can therein be shown to evolve by random variation and selection; the same can be done for computer models of learning (which just involve a change in simulation time scale), including computer models of the evolution of the disposition to learn (e.g., Baldwinian evolution).

And lest we propose the superior power of cognition over Pavlovian and Skinnerian learning, remember that the kind of information processing underlying cognition can be implemented (along with its power and benefits) computationally, in unfeeling machines.

So there is definitely a problem here, of explaining the ostensibly superfluous causal role of feeling in doing. And not only do our intuitions fail us, but so does every objective attempt at the kind of causal explanation that serves us so well in just about every other functional dynamic under the sun.

To be continued in the 2012 Summer School on the Evolution and Function of Consciousness…

I don’t think anyone on any side of this discussion has said that the brain is a Turing Machine. The one who comes closest, Shimon Edelman, explicitly says “I argue that feelings in fact are computations, albeit not Turing computations.”

A Turing robot (i.e., a robot capable of passing the Turing Test, indistinguishably from any of the rest of us, for a lifetime) is not a computer (Turing machine). It is a dynamical system, with sensors and effectors, and on the inside it may be implementing any processes — whether dynamic or computational — that give it the capacity to pass the Turing Test, Turing computation being only one among the many possible processes.

The “weak” version of the Church-Turing Thesis is that everything that is “effectively computable” for a mathematician is computable by a Turing Machine.

The strong version of the Church-Turing Thesis is that Turing computation (digital computation) can simulate and approximate (just about) any dynamical physical process in the universe, including sensors and effectors, as well as analog continuous, parallel, distributed processes (such as internal rotation), and indeed also just about any neuro-chemical brain processes (perhaps excluding quantum and chaotic processes). But that simulation is only formal. A purely computational airplane does not fly. And a purely computational brain does not cognize (nor, a fortiori, does it feel). Nor does a purely computational robot (a “virtual robot”).

It is an empirical question, however, what and how much of the actual internal functioning of a Turing robot (or brain) could be performed by Turing computation.

What’s sure is that it cannot be all of it.

BB: “I realize that traditionally Turing Machines are taken to be abstract versions of all possible computational implementations, including bio computation. If you can therefore prove, or quasi-prove, that something is possible or impossible for a Turing Machine that is taken to apply to all possible computers. The trouble is that the assumption is wrong.“

The strong version of the Church-Turing Thesis holds that Turing computation can simulate and approximate (just about) any dynamical physical process — not that it can stand in for any dynamical physical process. You can’t fly to Chicago on a simulated airplane; flying is not computation. But computation can decompose and test the causal explanation of flying (or cognition).

BB: “1. Turing Machines have no memory, and no time, and no string limits. Those are non-biological assumptions.“

Turing machines are formal abstractions, but they can be implemented in real finite-state dynamical systems, for example, digital computers (which do have memories, clocks and length limits).

BB: “2. Turing Machines are rigidly serial, when the brain is a massively parallel, and parallel-interactive organ.“

Yes, but as noted, nobody says the brain is a Turing machine, just that the brain can be simulated computationally by a Turing machine.

BB: “3. While it is argued that TM’s can simulate parallel and parallel-interactive computations, that is plausible only because TM’s totally ignore memory, time, and finite string limits.“

They can simulate them because the parallelism is simulated serially, in virtual rather than real time.

BB: “4. I believe that Stan Franklin and a colleague have given a formal proof that contrary to earlier claims, there are formal machines that are more powerful mathematically than Turing Machines. This vitiates the whole standard use of TMs.“

The subject of hypercomputation is controversial and I think the “hard” problem of explaining feeling is hard enough without complicating it with speculations about hypercomputation (or quantum mechanics!).

The weak Church-Turing Thesis stands unrefuted to date: Whatever mathematicians have regarded as computation has turned out to be Turing machine-computable.

The strong Church-Turing Thesis does not hold that everything is computer-simulable, only just-about everything.

BB: “5. Consciousness and qualia are biological entities, which are selectionist rather than instructionist in principle (GM Edelman), and reflect a huge evolutionary history — 200 million for mammals alone.“

No doubt. But feeling (i.e., consciousness, qualia) poses a special, hard hard problem, both for evolutionary explanation and for functional/causal explanation. This problem will be the subject of the 2012 Summer School on the Evolution and Function of Consciousness at the Université du Québec à Montreal in June/July 2012 in which many of the contributors to this discussion (including Bernie Baars) and many other thinkers will be participating. (The Summer School will also be in commemoration of the centennial of Turing’s birth in June 1912).

BB: “6. We have a long and repeated history of ‘impossibility proofs” designed to falsify important empirical advances. Newton’s action at a distance, the molecular basis of life, etc. These efforts routinely fail, though they sometimes do so in interesting ways.“

Explaining how and why we feel is hard (indeed, I think, impossible), but the reason has nothing to do with Turing machines or computation, nor with either the weak or the strong Church-Turing Thesis. (See “Vitalism, Animism and Feeling (Reply to Anil Seth)” in this discussion.)

BB: “7. There is no substitute for looking at nature.“

Logic is an ineluctable part of nature too…

Harnad, S. (2008) The Annotation Game: On Turing (1950) on Computing, Machinery and Intelligence. In: Epstein, Robert & Peters, Grace (Eds.) Parsing the Turing Test: Philosophical and Methodological Issues in the Quest for the Thinking Computer. Springer

That is, how and why the brain generates feelings (subjective experiences, or qualia) instead of just being an exact functional equivalent with “no one home”. Running a motor program of pulling away an arm to minimize tissue damage, without actually feeling anything in the meantime (for example).

It is rather speculative, but one approach is to try to think what could be the evolutionary adaptive advantage of such mental states.

Take the pain example. What would be the motivation to pull away the arm? It would be a long evolutionary selection process, that makes sure that when there is a pain signal, the arm is taken away, so there is no damage, or even death. But what would happen if for some reason in a decision point a decision is made which goes against the evolutionary ingrained rules of the system. For example, a hand is left in the fire. Let’s suppose, that such behavior could emerge randomly in complex systems like a Turing robot, and it is not inherent of a certain genetic configuration (it cannot be selected out). What would be the punishment of such behavior in a Turing robot (other than tissue damage)? Nothing, the robot would go on it’s own business with signals and internal warnings, but it would not feel the pain. Whereas a human would subjectively feel pain, and would take away the hand (except in cases of proving their trust in somebody) not only because of programming, but because of more immediate reasons of feeling pain.

It is rather speculative, but the main point I try to make is whether it is possible to think of a motivational value of feelings which could be adaptive (to motivate the following of the evolutionary selected behavior-program).

The weak point of the speculation is the randomly emerging behavior, which goes against evolutionary programming. What I had in mind is that perhaps complex systems are more error prone than we might think, and the evolutionary rules need support from subjective experiences (of pain for instance) to make sure an adaptive behavior is followed.

I realize that traditionally Turing Machines are taken to be abstract versions of all possible computational implementations, including bio computation. If you can therefore prove, or quasi-prove, that something is possible or impossible for a Turing Machine that is taken to apply to all possible computers.

The trouble is that the assumption is wrong.

1. Turing Machines have no memory, and no time, and no string limits. Those are non-biological assumptions.

2. Turing Machines are rigidly serial, when the brain is a massively parallel, and parallel-interactive organ.

3. While it is argued that TM’s can simulate parallel and parallel-interactive computations, that is plausible only because TM’s totally ignore memory, time, and finite string limits.

4. I believe that Stan Franklin and a colleague have given a formal proof that contrary to earlier claims, there are formal machines that are more powerful mathematically than Turing Machines. This vitiates the whole standard use of TMs.

5. Consciousness and qualia are biological entities, which are selectionist rather than instructionist in principle (GM Edelman), and reflect a huge evolutionary history — 200 million for mammals alone.

6. We have a long and repeated history of ‘impossibility proofs” designed to falsify important empirical advances. Newton’s action at a distance, the molecular basis of life, etc. These efforts routinely fail, though they sometimes do so in interesting ways.

7. There is no substitute for looking at nature.

Bernard Baars