Is there any difference between "believing" that you are conscious and "actually" being conscious?

Question

If a sophisticated computer is programmed to "believe" that it is conscious, and answers the question "are you conscious" with a "yes", and can describe "what it is like" to be conscious... then is it conscious? Do you think that you could convince the computer that in some sense it was not just as conscious as a "real" person?

Answer 1

All we see are the behavioral outputs of a computer, if they correlate sufficiently to a high-standard Turing Test, it will not be enough to demonstrate consciousness.

Syntax is not enough for semantics
Cf. "Chinese Room Argument" John Searle

Answer 2

Yes there is a difference. It is possible for people to have lucid dreams. Although they believe themselves to be conscious, they aren't. So I suppose a computer could be programmed to believe it's conscious. However, it isn't conscious and never was (this could be said about a few people too)

Answer 3

I think there for I am, so if you are capable of thinking that you are consious then you are consious. As far as a computer goes, there is a difference between saying i'm consious and knowing you are.

I do believe however a computer could some day be designed to be consious.

Answer 4

To be conscious is to be completely free of all thought at all time right? In this state one deals with all life's situations perfectly with no pre-determined ideas of how to be in each moment, through use of non-productive accumulated ideas and opinions learnt, rather than those known to one as fact. With non-thought, non-opinions, no desires the truth bursts forth. To experience this is to know it. Right?
To turn on a computer to pit your wits against it's consciousness is an act of self willfull motivation. A desire to escape from being conscious, a desire to test ones own knowing with what's out there other than the self. To seek, to find out, to know more. But what use is there in knowing more, when the desired state is to be free from all thought. This present past-time is yet another form of escape from WHAT IS. Why do I choose to escape? Because I can not go with the flow of humanity who I see and feel are all going in the wrong direction. So I stop going with the flow, the race to be here and there, the having to do something to exist, to be, to prove you're alive. I know I'm alive, I escape to the internet, to amuse, to socialise with like minded ones. To share wisdom and knowlege, to learn more to forget. I could throw the computer out of the window, I have no need to convince it of anything, it is purely an inanimate object filling my study! If you are the controller of the complete system of shared words and information then you yourself have control over what everyone sees, learns and is effected by. This in turn will either teach or mislead individuals depending on their own ability to rashionalize for themselves, and this will be dependant on each individuals motivation to be here. What do I want? I want to teach. HA HA, I here you say, Who the hell are you, that you desire to teach. And teach what? You may even ask. I desire to teach all to let go of this life that we all lead, because it is killing God. To let go of escaping and to start to live. But there is the BIG PROBLEM. Not many desire to LET GO. And not many desire to just LIVE. Most desire much much more than that. Or is everyone else living whilst just YOU AND I play with words on a screen?
I say God bless the consciousness of the internet for giving me a place to air my thoughts and opinions while I await the big change. Or is it the BIG BANG. LOL.
Sorry if I bore you to tears.

Answer 5

It has nothing to do with belief. You are either conscious or you are not.

Answer 6

Well, you are what you believe, but that requires a mind, and a computer has no mind. Oh, and when you're dead, you are really dead, because there is no intellectual intercourse to be had.

Answer 7

"Men are not disturbed by things, but the view they take of things."
- Epictetus (55-135 A.D.)