Do computers have consciousness?

[Rayaan]

I don't think that a program or a machine could ever be self-aware or have a consciousness in the same way that we do. Maybe you can make them conscious to a certain extent (by programming them with recursive algorithms and whatever), but the consciousness won't be anything near to human consciousness. As a whole, I think that the level of complexity and self-referentiality that exists in the human mind is too deep and complicated to be accurately replicated in our artificial intelligence designs.

Interestingly, however, I've read in a few articles that a computer program can be thought to have consciousness - or a mind of it's own, so to speak - depending on how you define the word "conscious". There are certain definitions of consciousness in relation to computational properties that, when applied to the behavior of a computer program, the program itself can be considered to be "conscious" or "self-aware." You can see some of those definitions and their applications on page four in the link below:

Conscious Machines and Consciousness Oriented Programming


Edit: Moved this thread from Religion to Philosophy.