Robots

We are still at the interface between sf like Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars and philosophy.

Can a "robot" that does not duplicate but merely simulates human mental abilities:

"...learn from its own experience..."?

-Adler, op. cit., p. 241.

"Learn" and "experience" become ambiguous. 

In my way of using the word, "experience" is close to being a synonym for "consciousness." At least, to "experience" x is to be "conscious" of x. Similarly, to "learn" about x is to increase our knowledge or consciousness of x. Several words have closely related meanings, all implying consciousness, from sensation through perception to self-consciousness. In these meanings, a robot that experiences and even learns from its experiences is indeed conscious and therefore is already duplicating mental processes. However, if the words, "experience" and "learning," are used to refer to any kind of external input into an artifact that is internally elaborate but that nevertheless remains unconscious throughout the entire inputting process, then that artifact at best simulates but does not duplicate human mentality. Its "...flexible and random connections..." (ibid.) enable it to adjust its performance in response to new inputs although that performance remains unconscious.

If an artifact were to pass the Turing test, convincing everyone over a long period of time that it was a self-conscious personality, but was then shown to have simulated that personality, then I would have a serious philosophical problem. But, if the artifact were engaged in processes that were described as "experience" and "learning," then I would also ask whether those processes had crossed a threshold into conscious, i.e., genuine, experience and learning.

As things stand, we can give a full account of electrical firings and electrochemical interactions within a brain without ascribing consciousness to those firings or interactions whereas we cannot fully account for human behaviour, including linguistic behaviour, without ascribing consciousness to that behaviour so we already have a problem of understanding how human beings pass the Turing test.

Partial answer: It is the entire organism, not just its firing and interacting neurons, that is somehow conscious.