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I agree about a dog, a cat or a rat, even a mouse or a canary, but I don't know if an ant is self-aware. It may be just queen-aware. OTOH, an ant's neural system is small enough that we can simulate it, I think. I don't know of anybody doing this, though.
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Yes even insects might be self aware, the problem here is that one cannot disprove or prove that they are also self aware. 
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If you're already convinced, then why did you ask the question?
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I was not sure the moment i asked the question, but after thinking about it and taking into consideration views from others, my view evolved and became more inclined to the fact that some programs can be or are already self aware. 
“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man or woman.”
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BupeChombaDerrick wrote: the fact that some programs can be or are already self aware
Such as? Name a few...
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
"Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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My view is that awareness is mostly about associating a stimuli to a particular response. At least any program that associates a keyboard input to a particular response is aware of those key strokes. So a word processor is aware if a keyboard button is pressed, but to be self aware a program only needs to have some self monitoring capability such as a feedback about it's performance.
“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man or woman.”
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BupeChombaDerrick wrote: a word processor is aware if a keyboard button is pressed
Not really in terms of "self aware", but it is "aware" of key presses when the system signals that a key press has been done. Two completely different definitions. It just sits there idling waiting for a keyboard press event to be triggered.
My idea of "self awareness" is one in which something can take care of itself without necessarily having interaction with something else. A word processor cannot and will not do anything until the user interacts with it.
BupeChombaDerrick wrote: to be self aware a program only needs to have some self monitoring capability
Which still boils down to someone coding that capability.
Looking through this entire thread, there are a lot of interesting points made by everyone...
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
"Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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Paul Conrad wrote: My idea of "self awareness" is one in which something can take care of itself without necessarily having interaction with something else.
But we interact with our environment and our own internal states thus we respond to environmental stimulation as well as to feedback from some of our internal mechanisms. Without this interaction we can be completely oblivious of our own existence.
Paul Conrad wrote: Which still boils down to someone coding that capability.
Even humans are hardwired to be self aware following some form of design. 
“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man or woman.”
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Cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") proposed by René Descartes.... I know this will probably really open it up some...
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
"Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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Well it seems you're already pretty convinced of what "self awareness" is (you defined it for us in an earlier post), so I won't comment on that.
What I found most compelling is your signature: "...every year find you a better .. woman."
SWEET! A better (new?) woman every year! I might actually enjo
NO WAIT, HONEY, I DIDN'T WRITE THAT.
PUT THE BAT DOWN!
OW. OW. OW.
David
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Empirical studies indicate that 20% of the people drink 80% of the beer. With C++ developers, the rule is that 80% of the developers understand at most 20% of the language. It is not the same 20% for different people, so don't count on them to understand each other's code.
http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/picture.html#fqa-6.6
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The "better man or woman" part is merely to be gender insensitive not that I'am a woman, I am a man. Just want to make women feel free to see that they are being considered in the statement.  so you can only "HONEY" me if you were a woman and I can only "HONEY" a woman. 
“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man or woman.”
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Your "Self Awareness" sounds to me more like "Self Sufficient" therefore under your definition anyone under the age of say 12 is non "Self Aware"
Self Awareness has to do with comprehending that the item/animal/person is what is doing/sensing/thinking something at that time. If the entity in question has the ability to understand and modify its action based on what it is receiving from its senses, Then the entity can act accordingly and modify its behavior and FUTURE behavior (however long or short that may be base on memory length) to either repeat or avoid the stimuli it received when it performed said action.
Thanks,
T
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Excellent point. Yes, self sufficient is more what I am thinking. I like your definition of self aware. A +5 for that
""Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
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That person would still be aware of self. He or she would just be confused .
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yeah, but i think memory has something to do with self awareness.
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Would that mean that people with alzheimer's disease aren't self aware?
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No, they are self aware because alzheimer's disease affects long term memory,but short term memory maybe responsible for self awareness.
“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.”
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Well but at least they are aware of what they recognize. 
“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man or woman.”
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Nice robot, any further advancement in this field will definitely lead to a completely independent robot (of course not one equipped with a deadly machine gun) that can go around and learn about it's environment. Nice link
“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man or woman.”
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I would argue that in this case Qbo did NOT pass the "mirror test"[^].
To do that Qbo would have to be shown a picture of "himself" and learn it and be able to differentiate between the picture and the reflection. (The training would have to be done very carefully so that a response indicating self-awareness could not be constructed just from a phrase assembly algorithm.)
There's nothing in the video of Qbo's response that indicates an understanding that what "he" saw was not a "representation" of him (picture), but was actually the instance of self.
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I agree, Q'bo can now (after this training) understanding or recognize that he is seeing a "Q'bo" in front of him, the verbal out put that "This is me" is nothing but a string variable they used during compilation.
If the robot could have seen that the object in the mirror was performing the exact same actions as it was at the exact same time and made the leap to understand that it was the same object that it was seeing THEN it would have reached a major milestone towards self awareness. A baby isn't told that what it is seeing in a mirror is itself, you can actually watch the comprehension wash over the babies face as it makes this realization.
This is the major difference in how a computer learns versus how a human learns I believe. Humans have the ability to make these "Leaps" in their learning and understanding of stimuli, Computers lack that ability at this point in time.
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Binding 100,000 items to a list box can be just silly ... no way, that can be only silly!
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Just trying to see what that has to do with thinking outside the box.
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