[mod.ai] AIList Digest V5 #71

psotka%white.DECnet@ARI-HQ1.ARPA.UUCP (03/09/87)

Consciousness and memory appear to be connected: but 
what is the connection?  Davis in a posting on March 
7, 1987 offers the opinion that consciousness allows 
us to be good psychologists; to understand other 
humans in ways that a Turing machine could not.  It 
seems an interesting suggestion.  If consicousness is 
tied into memory, it is to personalize the memory and 
make it distinguishable from external events; the 
environment; the reality that exists continuously 
outside and that we use so intensively to support our 
mental apparatus.  The external world helps us to 
think in so many ways; cues for arithmetic in 
supermarkets; support for troubleshooting complex 
equipment (What would we do if we could not see the 
instruments?); questions raised implicitly by 
mystifying situations, etc. etc.  How can we tell what 
is our own input (memory) from what comes naturally: 
we are "conscious" of the real world and this 
consciousness becomes part of the record of the world.  
So consciousness is functional; we could not separate 
our memories from outside reality without it. 
At least, that appeasrs to be an interesting clue to 
add to the puzzle.
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