Re:Can computers become conscious?: My reply to Roger Penrose
by joe_the_user on Thursday June 02, 2016 @05:04PM
(#11826042)
I personally feel fairly clear on that though I may be wrong.
That's the thing. Many people feel clear about their particular explanation of consciousness. These explanations build on some simple intuitions, may resonate as true to others. But often don't agree with the other explanations other people make (or are fairly trivial).
It's fine for vague social consensus but very far from an engineering spec. Yet this consciousness thing seen as being shared between people like Penrose or new agers who give pure vitalist/fluffy-cloud explanations and those who attempt to logically coherent explanation.
It is I think awareness in the central part of the brain that [bring] in data from other parts and can think about it.
- Data that reflects data? Of course computers have that.
I personally feel fairly clear on that though I may be wrong. It is I think awareness in the central part of the brain that beings in data from other parts and can think about it. For example if you walk across the room you don't normally have conscious awareness of your leg movements because that happens with more simple neural networks but you can focus your consciousness on that if you want to analyse or modify your walk.
There are probably different levels of consciousness as you go from say humans to dogs to mice to flies etc. and it's a bit up to the individual what you call what. Modern AI systems are probably somewhere between flies and dogs. I'll give you that to get to the human level will take a while.