I have been more or less keeping up with this thread, though I have seldom posted or commented on it.
I just thought it was time to throw in my two cents.
To me, awareness is nothing more that the ability to respond to input and I believe all living creatures to be aware, even the single celled creatures. Food will elicit a response even in the most basic of lifeforms. Being conscious of this awareness is quite a different story.
Though I got slapped for using evolution as the progenitor to consciousness, it must be so. As the number and levels of inputs increased, it was necessary to coordinate this information. An inability to systematize this information would not have allowed the organism to function properly and it would fail to survive.
There may even be a certain awareness within the computer, after all, it has as much input as some lower lifeforms. Granted there are no instincts within the system, no life force that needs to survive or be fed, no emotion or desires.
I believe emotions and desires require consciousness and, IMHO, mainly birds and mammals have any level of consciousness in, albeit, varying degrees. With the non-conscious lifeforms, the responses are as predictable as any computer program.
Consciousness then, is no more than the awareness of the the brain's averaged compilation of the multitude of inputs. There will be favored responses to favored inputs. Fire, as an example, would be a favored input and would require the most immediate response. In the absence of extreme inputs, free will would be subject to Pavlovian responses, if any, or simply a favored response based on memory.
I just thought it was time to throw in my two cents.
To me, awareness is nothing more that the ability to respond to input and I believe all living creatures to be aware, even the single celled creatures. Food will elicit a response even in the most basic of lifeforms. Being conscious of this awareness is quite a different story.
Though I got slapped for using evolution as the progenitor to consciousness, it must be so. As the number and levels of inputs increased, it was necessary to coordinate this information. An inability to systematize this information would not have allowed the organism to function properly and it would fail to survive.
There may even be a certain awareness within the computer, after all, it has as much input as some lower lifeforms. Granted there are no instincts within the system, no life force that needs to survive or be fed, no emotion or desires.
I believe emotions and desires require consciousness and, IMHO, mainly birds and mammals have any level of consciousness in, albeit, varying degrees. With the non-conscious lifeforms, the responses are as predictable as any computer program.
Consciousness then, is no more than the awareness of the the brain's averaged compilation of the multitude of inputs. There will be favored responses to favored inputs. Fire, as an example, would be a favored input and would require the most immediate response. In the absence of extreme inputs, free will would be subject to Pavlovian responses, if any, or simply a favored response based on memory.
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
-- Homer Simpson
God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers
Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders
Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
-- Homer Simpson
God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers
Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders
Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
