Q: Why do you not believe that other people’s minds exist?
A: It’s quite simple, really. I can be quite certain of my own existence – it’s the whole “I think, therefore I am” thing. But as for the existence of other minds, well, that’s a much trickier thing to prove. I can see that there are these funny-looking things that walk around and talk to me and generally do things that would indicate that they have minds like me, but I can’t really be sure. There’s nothing to distinguish my econ professor, for instance, from a robot that could pass the Turing test. Just because people act like they have minds doesn’t mean that they aren’t basically just machines responding to stimuli.
Q: But can’t you look in someone’s eyes when they’re hurting and see that they really feel that pain?
A: Furbies could make some pretty convincing displays of pain. People are just really complex Furbies.
