[MD] Intellectual and Social

[Krimel]

[John}
Good for him, I wouldn't make a huge deal out of it.  Some of my kids and
some of my kittens have been fascinated with mirrors, others haven't.

I thought the issue of self awareness was the Turing test?  a goal which we
come closer to all the time as humans get more and more machine-like in
their programmed milieu.

[Krimel]
Actually the Turing test addresses the issue of how we would know that
someone or something has consciousness. It was proposed as a way of
determining whether machine or an artificial intelligence is conscious. This
does not work for animals or very young children because they cannot speak
and the test involves asking questions and evaluating the verbal responses.

And actually it is machines that are getting more humanlike. In fact if one
were so inclined I think a good case could be made for talking about a
cybernetic level which is the combination of human and machine intelligence.
You know the sort of thing I mean, online forums, Amazon, Google...

[John]
I fail to see how one can have any emotion without a sense of self.  I mean,
what would that even look like?  And if a creature lost all caring about
themselves, they would come to seem like an inanimate object, a cog, a
non-entity.

[Krimel]
If a lizard jumped off of a hot stove would that indicate self awareness to
you? How does one feel pain or hunger without a sense of self?