If we were to discuss A.I and consciousness we’d have to make sure we didn’t wander into the philosophical arguments, because for one thing, from ancient to modern philosophers through to modern science the argument about, do we have this thing inside us called consciousness, has never been resolved and we won’t do it here. Another is the subjective feeling about something and how it relates. Another angle is, the argument about this “thing” inside us. This thing can also relate to a persons belief, be that having a soul, a gender, or in my case a spiritual belief that we are all one and connected to each other and the universe. I can’t prove I have that connection, just the belief that I do.
And those particular points can and will come into the consciousness debate. For obvious reasons and forum rules they can’t be discussed.
The way I see it, and correct me if I’m wrong, we can only discuss our own brain architecture and how we could replicate it in a machine. There are many parts to the brain that have different functions, be that how to open a door, using past experiences to problem solve, how we reward ourselves when we do something we perceive as “good” and…I won’t go on, but the list is extremely long and very complicated. So, we would need much technical data to even try to understand how replicating our brain would work and how it could “create”, bring about, make magically appear this thing called consciousness.
To think about consciousness simply and how we can put it into a robot we should ask ourselves, what is information! Why? Because that is what we know we have within us. But this leads to a question we can’t answer.
We know what information does, it gives us knowledge. Be that in the form of hieroglyphics, spoken words or written words in a book. Computers use one’s and zero’s as information. But when you look out from your eyes and then think about yourself, that inner self you feel you have that makes up you, from your personality to your likes and dislikes, your first kiss or bike ride, it’s all information stored in your brain. So, what is a brain cell? We have a hundred billion of them. Simply put they are a little bag of sea water. That little bag of sea water contains all that you are. Question!
How the heck has nature done that? How does it use a bag of water to store information? With all the knowledge and technical knowhow mankind has, we have no idea how nature does that.
Okay, let’s approach this another way. You are made of atoms, trillions of them. They were formed when a star exploded and ended up making you…and everything else we can see, smell and touch. The point I want to make is that if a mixture of atoms in the form of flesh can create consciousness why can’t a mixture of metal and circuits do so?
And then we’re thinking about what can or can’t contain consciousness.
I’ll end with this.
Most of science doesn’t like to believe humans have this thing called consciousness, they say it is a delusion, an illusion created by the brain as a type of survival mechanism. It’s needed to create that feeling of inner self to push us to survive. For them it’s all about our surroundings, upbringing, beliefs and the information we’ve collected, among other things, that make us human, no consciousness needed.
What I find curious though is that more and more scientists, engineers and technical types nowadays, who normally wouldn’t want to believe we have consciousness, like the idea, want to believe, they can put consciousness into their robots. It’s all about the amount of computations per second that their robot could do. Although humans do less computations per second than computers right now and um…we have it…or not!
Sorry, I’ve gone on a bit.
I think A.I and consciousness is a really interesting debate, but it quickly leads us to so many questions, many we can’t answer.
Edit.
I had to add this video. Apart from looking so real, you can talk to the NPC’s. The guy playing it tells one of the NPC’s that they are living in a simulation (at 5.52), but it doesn’t believe him. The NPC also says it will call the police.
Before we know it the NPC will think it has consciousness!
