Is Watson conscious?

Is IBM's Watson conscious?Is it aware, alert, responsive?Is is sentient? Can it feel?Is sentience necessary to being conscious?

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I've put this here in Coffee House, but depending upon the discussion that develops I can possibly move it later.

It seems Watson from IBM is very close to what most folk would recognize as being conscious, perhaps even having a personality. It has vision and speech capabilities, is capable of independent learning, of holding conversations, recognizing context based meanings and better at recognizing faces and attaching those faces to names and personalities than I am. It is versatile, can multi task, acquire new data on it's own, make independent associations, hold conversations, handle idiomatic conversation and do so in several languages.It seems aware of "self" as well as the limitations of itself. That often goes beyond what many humans seem capable of when it comes to self awareness.

Is seems the operative word here? Is Watson just a machine doing an impression of being aware?

If you'll tell me how I should go about answering the same question as it applies to you, then we can tackle the question of Watson.

Alan Turing's question was, "Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?" What is there besides what seems to be?

Illusion is reality then? If you accept that then you have your answer. So perhaps your final question is just a rephrasing of my question. Not an answer in my view.

I don't know the answer to my question. I'm not even insisting that my question is a valid one. But in any event, your doubts about me don't seem to answer the question either.

If there is no way to differentiate between the illusion and the reality is there really a difference?

How do you tell the difference?

I think all we can really ask is if there is any 'known' way to differentiate. There are lots of card tricks that I cannot distinguish from magic, but I still don't believe stage magicians ever actually do any magic.Again, perhaps you are simply asking the same question over and over again.

Look for the power cord.

quote:

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A philosophical zombie or p-zombie in the philosophy of mind and perception is a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except in that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.[1] For example, a philosophical zombie could be poked with a sharp object, and not feel any pain sensation, but yet, behave exactly as if it does feel pain (it may say "ouch" and recoil from the stimulus, or say that it is in intense pain).

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The notion of a philosophical zombie is used mainly in thought experiments intended to support arguments (often called "zombie arguments") against forms of physicalism such as materialism, behaviorism and functionalism. Physicalism is the idea that all aspects of human nature can be explained by physical means: specifically, all aspects of human nature and perception can be explained from a neurobiological standpoint. Some philosophers, like David Chalmers, argue that since a zombie is defined as physiologically indistinguishable from human beings, even its logical possibility would be a sound refutation of physicalism.[2] However, physicalists like Daniel Dennett counter that Chalmers's physiological zombies are logically incoherent and thus impossible.[3][4]

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Philosophical zombie - Wikipedia

Alessandro Volta made that plan obsolete before power cords were even invented.