Referring to the "bugs" discussed in recent posts, Flandry says:
"'...it's a semantic quibble whether to call them robots or artificial animals.'" (p. 240)
It is not a semantic quibble. An animal has to be conscious. We do not describe a mechanical lion as an artificial animal. (See also the "beast of gold" in Testimony And Evidence.)
The bugs have sensitive instruments to detect light, sound, heat, magnetic fields etc but that does not mean that they consciously see, hear, feel hot, sense magnetism etc. Cameras do not see the objects that they visually record and to increase a camera's sensitivity is not to push it across a threshold from blindness into sight. The bugs have internal computers but a computer is not a brain. Flandry does use the word "brain" but in inverted commas.
Unlike animals, "robots" may or may not be conscious. Asimov's robots have positronic brains with consciousness and motivations, including potential conflicts of motivation. However, Asimov described his robots as mobile computers, thus failing to differentiate between brains and computers.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I wonder, however, how "conscious" bugs like bees, ants, flies, etc., can be. I think their "brains" are so tiny and primitive that they can't be more than a concentration of genetically hard wired instincts. I think insects are hardwired to to eat, work, or mate (where applicable). E.g., see "The High Ones."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
My younger sister asked, "Do flies know they're there?"
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Amusingly put! And I don't think flies consciously KNOWS anything. Everything they and other insects do is done via instincts.
Ad astra! Sean
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