Smokeskin wrote:

People who inspire awe but try to make you reach wrong conclusions, aren't they what we call charlatans?

Only if they know they are spreading the wrong conclusions. People who do not care about the truth of their conclusions, just sounding good, are bullshitters (in a strict philosophical sense). But most philosophers actually try to reach the true conclusion - it is just that it is hard, confusing and most arguments are wrong. Fortunately there are other philosophers standing by to point out every flaw in their argumentation... which is of course why a TEDx talk with no questions actually completely misses the point. All those "it's obvious that" points are places where normal philosophers would - and do - pounce. It is part of the game.

Quote:

In the talk he mentions the workings of the brain on the molecular level and how consciousness arises from that. Then next thing, he says it is "obvious" that consciousness deals with semantics and meaning while a computer deals with 1s and 0s and is merely syntactic so it can never have consciousness. Eh what? The Chinese Room argument made some internal sense if you don't believe in a material foundation for consciousness, but now that he's acknowledged that he surely has to drop CRA.

Searle has to my knowledge never been a dualist. The CRA is all about whether you can get semantic meaning from syntactic manipulation; Searle himself has said that it has no bearing on whether it is impossible to make thinking machines - it is just that he doesn't think this kind of software can do it. Looking at even a brief overview of the CRA debate like this http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room shows that there is a lot going on. The problem is that Searle might sound like he has a knock-down argument when talking to a lay audience, while in the normal interactive philosophical context it is just one argument among many. His success was in formulating something that got a lot of people interested in this line of reasoning, not that it was a good proof of anything.

I've watched the video again, and I still think he is trying to explain the situation and problems regarding doing science with consciousness. Mind you, this does not mean I agree with all his points. I happen to believe that computers can do much more than mere simple arithmetic. Computers are quite capable of making decisions (if statements) and repeating actions (or instructions if you prefer that term) over and over. They are quite capable of getting input and producing output. They can even load new programs that considerable change their behavior. I think that computers can become conscious with the right programs.