Search

Two questions are distinguished: how to program a machine so that it behaves in a manner that would lead us to ascribe consciousness to it; and what is involved in saying that something is conscious. The distinction can be seen in cases where anaesthetics have failed to work on patients temporarily paralysed. Homeostatic behaviour is often cited as a criterion for consciousness, but is not itself sufficient. As the present difficulties in surmounting the ‘frame problem’ show, ability to size up situations holistically is more important; so is the explanatory role of the concept. Consciousness confers evidential status: if we ascribed consciousness to an artefact, we should be prepared to believe it, when it said its RAM was hurting, even though we could detect nothing wrong, contrary to our thinking of it as an artefact. A further difficulty arises from self-awareness and reflexivity.

Mind<>Computer: Attempts to mimic human intelligence through methods of classical computing have failed because implementing basic elements of rationality has proven obstinate to the design criterion of machine intelligence. A radical definition of Consciousness describing awareness, as the dynamic representation of a noumenon comprised of three base states; and not itself fundamental as generally defined in the current reductionistic view of the standard model, which has created an intractable hard problem of consciousness as defined by Chalmers. By clarifying the definition of matter a broader ontological quantum theory removes immateriality from the Cartesian split bringing mind into the physical realm for pragmatic investigation. Evidence suggests that the brain is a naturally occurring quantum computer, but the brain not being paramount to awareness does not itself evanesce consciousness without the interaction of a nonlocal conscious process; because Mind <> computer and cannot be reduced to brain states alone. The proposed cosmology of consciousness is indicative of a teleological principle as an inherent part of a conscious universe. By applying the parameters of quantum brain dynamics to the stack of a specialized hybrid electronic optical quantum computer with a heterosoric molecular crystal core, consciousness evanesces through entrainment of the non local conscious processes. This 'extracellular containment of natural intelligence' probably represents the only viable direction for AI to simulate 'conscious computing' because true consciousness = life.

Abstract. We consider only the relationship of consciousness to physical reality, whether physical reality is interpreted as the brain, artificial intelligence, or the universe as a whole. The difficulties with starting the analysis with physical reality on the one hand and with consciousness on the other are delineated. We consider how one may derive from the other. Concepts of universal or pure consciousness versus local or ego consciousness are explored with the possibility that consciousness may be physically creative. We examine whether artificial intelligence can possess consciousness as an extension of the interrelationship between consciousness and the brain or material reality.

This paper proposes an approach to designing behavior and its subjective world of a small robot to behave like an animal. This approach employs a hierarchical model of the relation between consciousness and behavior. The basic idea of this model is that a consciousness appears on a level in the hierarchical structure when an action on an immediately lower level is inhibited for internal or external causes, and that the appearing consciousness drives a chosen higher action. The computer simulation on a Mac shows the behavior of an artificial animal from reflex actions to catching of food. Its instantaneous consciousness that appears due to inhibited behavior is visualized with the behavior on the screen with use of colors according to emotions of the animal.

For a variety of reasons, consciousness and selfhood are beginning once again to be intensively studied in a scientific frame of reference. The notions of each which are emerging are extremely varied: in the case of selfhood, the lack of an adequate vocabulary to capture various aspects of subjectivity has led to deep confusion. The task of the first part of this article is to clear up this terminological confusion, while salvaging whatever is valuable from the contemporary discussion. The more important task of the second part is to discuss the moral issues inevitably involved in any treatment, scientific or otherwise, of the modern identity.

“Oscar” is going to be the first artificial person — at any rate, he is going to be the first artificial person to be built in Tucson's Philosophy Department. Oscar's creator, John Pollock, maintains that once Oscar is complete he “will experience qualia, will be self-conscious, will have desires, fears, intentions, and a full range of mental states” (Pollock 1989, pp. ix–x). In this paper I focus on what seems to me to be the most problematical of these claims, viz., that Oscar will experience qualia. I argue that we have not been given sufficient reasons to believe this bold claim. I doubt that Oscar will enjoy qualitative conscious phenomena and I maintain that it will be like nothing to be Oscar.

Shanon provides us with a well reasoned and careful consideration of the nature of consciousness. Shanon argues from this understanding of consciousness that machines could not be conscious. A reconsideration of Shanon's discussion of consciousness is undertaken to determine what it is that computers are missing so as to prevent them from being conscious. The conclusion is that under scrutiny it is hard to establish a priori that machines could not be conscious.

This paper is a response to Henley who criticizes a previous paper of mine arguing against my claim that computers are devoid of consciousness. While the claim regarding computers and consciousness was not the main theme of my original paper, I do, indeed, subscribe to it. Here, I review the main characteristics of human consciousness presented in the earlier paper and argue that computers cannot exhibit them. Any ascription of these characteristics to computers is superficial and misleading in that it fails to capture essential, intrinsic features of human cognition. More generally, psychological theory couched in terms of semantic representations and the computational operations associated with them is bound to be inadequate. The phenomenology of consciousness is a specific case marking this inadequacy.

For many decades, the proponents of `artificial intelligence' have maintained that computers will soon be able to do everything that a human can do. In his bestselling work of popular science, Sir Roger Penrose takes us on a fascinating tour through the basic principles of physics, cosmology, mathematics, and philosophy to show that human thinking can never be emulated by a machine. Oxford Landmark Science books are 'must-read' classics of modern science writing which have crystallized big ideas, and shaped the way we think.

This paper explores the suggestion that our conscious experience is embodied in, rather than interactive with, our brain activity, and that the distinctive brain correlate of conscious experience lies at the level of global functional organization. To speak of either brains or computers as thinking is categorically inept, but whether stochastic mechanisms using internal experimentation rather than rule‐following to determine behavior could embody conscious agency is argued to be an open question, even in light of the Christian doctrine of man. Mechanistic brain science does nothing to discredit Christian experience in dialogue with God or the Christian hope of eternal life.