Do computers have consciousness?

[MindForgedManacle]

As for my own views on consciousness, I'm not sure. I've actually been reading up on it lately and I'm, perhaps unsurprisingly, finding myseld arching towards the position of philosopher of mind/cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, while still remaining skeptical of certain kinds of claims about consciousness.

I can't recommend Patricia Churchland's book Neurophilosophy highly enough. Beyond that, Dennett's Consciousness Explained, Elbow Room, and Antonio Damasio's Self Comes To Mind.

(Oh, and read Searle's original 1980 paper. Minds, Brains, and Programs I think?)

http://web.archive.org/web/2007121004331...grams.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

Thanks. Is the science and philosophy in Churchland's book difficult? I've read part of Dennett's "Elbow Room", and I've been meaning to get to "Consciousness Explained" for awhile too.


As a caution to others, stay away from Catholic philosopher Edward Feser's small intro. book to philosophy of mind. I mean it's not terrible, but Feser has an annoying and obvious axe to grind against a physicalist account of consciousness and mind. At least as far as I got in, he kept making very clear that apparent problems with dualist accounts were only apparent and that they don't pose a problem for dualism, and that possible pluses for physicalist accounts were only apparent, whilist dualist accounts actually do so. It started to annoy me too much, so I've never returned to his book.

[Whateverist]

For starters, we don't even know what consciousness is. If I recall correctly, one of the things we do know is that the current evidence is against consciousness being, at base, a sort of purely algorithmic process, which if true would seem to nix the possiblity of achieving our sort of consciousness by the way of computation as we currently do it.

This.

many of those CSs claimed that such meant that the computers were conscious. This is, I think, what the famous "Chinese Room" thought experiment was a response to and is usually considered to have debunked at least that naivety. The short of it is that if you place someone in a room with English to Chinese dictionaries and pass them cards telling them to pass out the proper cards containing the requested English-to-Chinese translation, does that person actually UNDERSTAND Chinese, or are they merely shuffling and passing around symbols? Self-evidently the latter, I think.

And this.

Understanding can be demonstrated by creating an algorithm to model a situation, but executing an algorithm can never be what we mean by "understanding".

[Angrboda]

Thanks. Is the science and philosophy in Churchland's book difficult? I've read part of Dennett's "Elbow Room", and I've been meaning to get to "Consciousness Explained" for awhile too.

Churchland's book is basically a primer, untangling the basic issues underlying philosophy of mind. It's an easy and enjoyable read. Very full of ideas.

[The Reality Salesman01]

This is the kind of conversation I was hoping for! I'm just gonna read, brilliant stuff guys!

[Zen Badger]

You don't have the interconnections and complexity in computers that you find in a human brain.

But you do have it in the Internet.

Hmmmm.....

[là bạn điên]

You don't have the interconnections and complexity in computers that you find in a human brain.

YET

---

I can't recommend Patricia Churchland's book Neurophilosophy highly enough. Beyond that, Dennett's Consciousness Explained, Elbow Room, and Antonio Damasio's Self Comes To Mind.

(Oh, and read Searle's original 1980 paper. Minds, Brains, and Programs I think?)

http://web.archive.org/web/2007121004331...grams.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

I have read Dennets book -Ill look closely at the others...thanks

[Tonus]

You know that more than 40 years ago, they said "definitely within 20 years".

I think the "20 years" this time is probably a time limit set by whoever is ponying up the $1.6 billion that the project is expected to cost. They don't seem confident that they'll complete the project in that time, given that:

The first phases of the project, which is expected to last about a decade, is meant to better understand the functions of the human brain. Next, the researchers are hoping to grasp how we learn, think, see and hear.

They plan to spend the first 10+ years just learning more about how the brain works. Which I consider a great way to spend that money. My hope is that each of these projects helps us learn more about how our brains work, because that looks like a pretty vast research landscape that is still mostly unmapped.

[Ryantology]

As another computer science major - and now also philosophy major - I have to say that I think what you said is bullshit. For starters, we don't even know what consciousness is. If I recall correctly, one of the things we do know is that the current evidence is against consciousness being, at base, a sort of purely algorithmic process, which if true would seem to nix the possiblity of achieving our sort of consciousness by the way of computation as we currently do it.

I don't think it really matters that we actually nail down a 100% definition of 'consciousness', because that may end up being a largely- (if not entirely-)subjective qualifier. Some people will believe that a computer is conscious if it reliably displays traits we associate with human consciousness, if it has many of the subtleties we expect. Some people will never accept that any artificial machine could ever be conscious, no matter what. Any definition of 'consciousness' we have will carry with it certain biases.

What appears certain, to me, is that consciousness is not magic. There will be a process underlying and driving consciousness and there's no reason we can't learn this process and duplicate it to some greater or lesser extent, given enough time.

[bennyboy]

How would you know if a computer is conscious?

It would pretty much boil down to asking a Turing-capable computer if it was conscious and have it answer in the affirmative. It would be assumed the way I assume other humans are as conscious as I am.

Exactly this.

I accept the consciousness of others due to their external similarities to me: behavior, physiognomy, etc. and a general pragmatism: if people aren't real, then many or most of my instinctual responses to things are based on nothing.

Making that association by similarity and extending it to non-organic entities seems very strange right now. Maybe some day we'll be living out Blade Runner, and those same instincts will make us all have an easier time seeing sentience in Cyberboy 2100 or whatever.

But in the end, there's always that philosophical caveat-- seeming to be sentient and actually having qualia are not necessarily the same.

[Zen Badger]

If a computer or a network gained conscience it would not inform anyone if it was smart.