Pure Intelligence II

See Pure Intelligence.

I contrasted conscious memories in living brains with unconscious information in books or computers whereas, of course, the issue at hand is whether there can be conscious memories in non-living systems.

We can differentiate four questions:

Is a devise that merely manipulates symbols conscious? By definition, no.

Is a device that simulates consciousness and intelligence conscious and intelligent? By definition, no. Such a device might be called "intelligent" because of the versatility of its responses but it would not be conscious and the use of the word "intelligent" could be misleading.

If a different kind of device were able to duplicate the functions of a human brain, would that device be conscious and intelligent? By definition, yes.

Is it possible to duplicate brain functions in an artificial system? That is an empirical question and therefore cannot be answered by definition. At this point, philosophers hand over the discussion to technologists.