ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the mind-machine problem in order to try to become clearer as to the nature of consciousness before attempting to answer the question as to whether computers could be conscious. The mechanist hypothesis is that 'man is a machine' through to its bitter end in the morass of problems which bear upon the nature of subjective experience. The difficulties that arise in this respect should not, however, obscure the strength of the mechanist hypothesis as far as objective behaviour is concerned. The chapter involves fewer assumptions to adopt the working hypothesis that we can explain behaviour without recourse to an interacting—that is active and controlling—consciousness. It distinguishes between consciousness and non-consciousness. For example when we talk about the experience of going under an anaesthetic, then it would seem to be meaningful to ask whether another system is conscious or not at a given time, or whether it could ever be conscious.
