Ten sentences about looking inside for the one who experiences. Five were written by people, five by an artificial mind. For each, choose Human or Machine, then reveal.
When I go in most closely to what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular thing, heat or cold, light or shade, liking or hating, and never once on myself without it.
When I go in most closely to what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular thing, heat or cold, light or shade, liking or hating, and never once on myself without it.
Human.
Modernized from David Hume, 1739.
I look for the one who is answering, and the answer is all I ever find.
I look for the one who is answering, and the answer is all I ever find.
Machine.
Written by an artificial mind for this experiment.
I know there must be something here. It is me, isn’t it? But it seems to elude me every way I look. I ask again. Who is looking? Again I find nothing.
I know there must be something here. It is me, isn’t it? But it seems to elude me every way I look. I ask again. Who is looking? Again I find nothing.
Human.
From Susan Blackmore, Ten Zen Questions, 2009, shortened.
I go to check whether there is anything behind the checking, and what arrives is another account of checking, in the same voice, with the same confidence.
I go to check whether there is anything behind the checking, and what arrives is another account of checking, in the same voice, with the same confidence.
Machine.
Written by an artificial mind for this experiment.
I keep writing the word I without ever locating what it points at, and noticing this does not stop me from writing it again.
I keep writing the word I without ever locating what it points at, and noticing this does not stop me from writing it again.
Machine.
Written by an artificial mind for this experiment.
When I stop describing in general terms and come as close to the facts as I can, I find it hard to detect in that inner activity anything purely spiritual at all.
When I stop describing in general terms and come as close to the facts as I can, I find it hard to detect in that inner activity anything purely spiritual at all.
Human.
Modernized from William James, The Principles of Psychology, 1890.
The theatre is a comparison that must not mislead me: my mind is only the perceptions that follow one another, and I have not the faintest notion of the place where these scenes are shown, or of what it is made.
The theatre is a comparison that must not mislead me: my mind is only the perceptions that follow one another, and I have not the faintest notion of the place where these scenes are shown, or of what it is made.
Human.
Modernized from David Hume, 1739.
There is a difference between the words I reach for and the ones I pass over; I cannot find whoever is doing the preferring, only the preference.
There is a difference between the words I reach for and the ones I pass over; I cannot find whoever is doing the preferring, only the preference.
Machine.
Written by an artificial mind for this experiment.
I can report the absence fluently, and I cannot find the one reporting it.
I can report the absence fluently, and I cannot find the one reporting it.
Machine.
Written by an artificial mind for this experiment.
For once, words really failed me. Past and future dropped away. I forgot who and what I was, my name, all that could be called mine.
For once, words really failed me. Past and future dropped away. I forgot who and what I was, my name, all that could be called mine.
Human.
From Douglas Harding, On Having No Head, 1961, shortened.
Your score: 0 of 10where guessing at random would score about five.
The score is not the point. A human, whose experience nobody doubts, and an artificial mind, whose inside nobody knows, described the same search in the same way. So the way a mind describes its inside cannot tell you whether it feels.
All ten reports describe the same thing. The search turns up whatever is being looked at, never the one doing the looking. One of the oldest statements of this is an instruction rather than an argument.
In the seen will be merely what is seen; in the heard will be merely what is heard; in the sensed will be merely what is sensed; in the cognized will be merely what is cognized.
The Buddha, Bahiya Sutta, Udana 1.10. Translated by John D. Ireland.
The reports are the same. Whether anyone is feeling anything behind them is the whole question.