Overview
Can a computer ever have a conscious mind?
Do
not
SEARCH the internet for articles on this topic.
Just
read this prompt, and do your own thinking about thisissue.
Imagine that it is the year 3037. All of Earth's environmental and social problems have been solved, space travel iscommonplace, disease is a thing of the past, everyone lives very comfortably, and governments have so much extra cashthat they can afford to fund incredibly expensive scientific projects. Imagine that you are visiting one such project, ProjectTuring, which is housed in a massive space station hanging in on of Earth's Lagrange points. Project Turing is aninconceivably large structured array of very powerful supercomputers. For comparison, imagine the most powerfulsupercomputer of the 21st century, and imagine a supercomputer about a million times more powerful than that. Thenimagine several thousand billion of these super-supercomputers hooked together in a structured array many, many timeslarger than the 21st century internet. Project Turing is something like that, only larger, more powerful, and much, muchmore structured. (Computers can be made much, much smaller than they were in the 21st century, but even so, projectTuring is clearly visible as a disk from the surface of the Earth.)
After a brief tour of the enormous space station, you are taken into the control room for a brief speech from the projectdirector. She tells you that the computer array (named "
Turing
") is structured in exactly the same way as
a fully developedadult
human brain
, with the level of complexity found in the brain of the average adult human brain. The array containsaround 86 billion artificial neurones, (the same number as the brain) each one connected by artificial synapses to severalthousand specific other neurones, and by artificial hormones to the appropriate variety of artificial glands. Each artificialneurone behaves in exactly the same way as some human neurone, and each one functions in a way appropriate for itsposition in the array. Every structure in the adult human brain has a precise analog in the Project Turing brain, and sensorycenters, such as the auditory and visual centers, are hooked up in just the right way to take advantage of microphones andcameras in the control room. When it is turned on, the artificial brain, with its artificial senses, will function in
exactly
thesame way as a typical adult human brain. There will be nothing a human brain has that it doesn't have, and there will benothing a adult human brain does that it doesn't do.
(Thus the computer is
not
simulating
consciousness, it will be
emulating
all the significant adult human brain functions. 4/2/20)
When this artificial brain is turned on, will it make a conscious mind?
The basic question here is whether computers can have
minds
. "Consciousness," is the faculty of being aware of yourself,your feelings, your thoughts, and your surroundings. Most of your mental processes occur without you being conscious ofthem, which means that your mind is different from, and much bigger than your consciousness.
Most people seem to think that consciousness is the whole mind. This is a serious mistake. Your consciousness does not doany of your thinking. "Conscious thought" is just you being aware of what you are thinking. You also do a lot of thinkingthat you are not aware of, and this "unconscious" thought is just as much a part of your mind as the conscious stuff.
The proper way to understand the term "conscious mind" is as referring to a set of mental processes that include can and doinclude consciousness. There is no separate "unconscious mind." You have only one mind, and that mind is aware of someof it's processes at some times, and unaware of most processes most of the time. We call this mental awareness"consciousness." (If you want more information, see
https://www.sciencealert.com/harvard-scientists-th...
and
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is...
)
When an organism only has mental processes that cannot include consciousness, free will or self-awareness, it is hard tothink of that organism as having a mind. Insects, for instance, may have brains that are so simple that they cannot beconscious, free-willed or self-aware. If that is indeed the case, I would personally say that they do not have minds, eventhough at times they might be thought to be thinking.
Present-day computers do not have minds. This is very clear from their behavior and internal architecture. Even "chatbots"and other programs that _simulate_ conversations clearly do not have minds because the way they come up with things tosay is a randomized phrase-choosing system, and not a system that takes in information, interprets it, considers it andformulates responses on the basis of a developed personality, which is what adult human brains do.
The question for this topic could therefore be formulated as either: "Can computers ever have minds?" or "Can computersever be conscious?" or both. It doesn't really matter how you formulate the question as long as you remember the
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difference between mind and consciousness.
For this paper, you can see yourself as asking the question "can a computer ever have a conscious mind?
Your task is to explain the basic argument for computer consciousness, explain one argument agains computer
consciousness, critically analyze both arguments, say which one didn't fail under analysis, and explain why the other one
failed.
Remember at all times that this machine is not simulating anything. the machine is emulating adult human brain functions,
the way a paper ornithopter emulates the function of a bird's wings. (3/19/20)
A few semesters ago, I read a bunch of student papers on computer consciousness, and was surprised to note that almost all
of them completely ignored the basic argument for computer consciousness. Instead of discussing the argument for
computer consciousness, these papers assumed that computers could not be programmed to do what brains do, and asserted
things like "computers only simulate consciousness" or "computers are just programmed," without giving any reason to
think that either of these things are true. So I've rewritten this assignment to make it clear that 1. there is a basic argument
for computer consciousness and that 2. you are not allowed to ignore that argument.
If you ignore the basic argument for computer consciousness, you can get
exactly zero points for this assignment.
Basic Argument For Computer Consciousness (Pink Box)
Before the advent of neuroscience, people imagined that consciousness was a form of magic power that had no connection
to physical events. After neuroscience came along, it became apparent that:
1. consciousness (thoughts, feelings, emotions 3/8/20) was something made by the brain, and that
2. magic powers could not even begin to explain anything about the mind.
Neuroscience showed that the brain makes the mind by processing information (by means of neurones, hormones,
possibly glial cells, and so on) in a way that's very similar to the way computers process information. In fact, anything the
the brain can do in terms of information processing can eventually also be done by a computer, providing that
computer has sufficient processing power. The obvious implication of this is that, eventually, Inshallah an' th' creek
don't rise, computers will make consciousness.
The basic argument for computer consciousness can be summarized as follows:
1. The functional part of the adult human brain is made entirely of arrangements of neurons (and glands that affect
neurons).
2. The human brain makes consciousness by processing information with these arrangements of neurons.
3. Computers can process information exactly the same way that neurons do.
4. Given powerful enough computers, we could make a computer that does exactly everything that the brain does.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C. Such a computer would make consciousness exactly the same way that the brain makes consciousness.
Remember that the computer is not simulating consciousness, it will be emulating all the significant adult human
brain functions. (4/19/20).
Do not ignore this argument in your response to this prompt. (In fact, if you ignore this argument, you could easily get
zero for the assignment.)
Your assignment, if you pick this topic, is to:
First, state the argument for computer consciousness in your own words. (This is the argument in the pink box
above.)
Second, come to a conlusion about whether we have any rational reason to doubt this conclusion.
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If you decide to claim that computers can't be conscious, and your "argument" is "computers can't be conscious becauseconsciousness includes X, and computers can't do X," but you don't explain how
humans
do X, and you don't
prove
thatcomputers can't do X, then you
haven't
proved that computers can't be conscious, and that should be your thesis. (Do notignore this requirement in your response.)
If you decide to claim that computers can't be conscious because computers
only
simulate consciousness, you will have todeal with the fact that your argument basically proves that
humans
only simulate consciousness since the hypotheticalcomputer that you are saying would only simulates consciousness would be doing exactly what your brain does now tomake consciousness, so if the computer only simulates consciousness, your brain right now only simulates consciousnness,and so you're really not conscious.
If you decide to claim that computers can't be conscious because computers are
just
programmed, you will have to dealwith the fact that your argument basically proves that
humans
are
just
programmed since the hypothetical computer thatyou are saying would be
just
programmed would be following exactly the program that your brain follows now to makeconsciousness, so if the computer is
just
programmed, your brain right now is
just
programmed, and so you're really notconscious.
Don't forget that if you ignore the basic
argument
for computer consciousness, you could get
zero
for the assignment.
It should go without saying that if your
only
"argument" is "computers can't be conscious because some guy says they can'tbe conscious," then you
haven't
proved that computers can't be conscious, and your thesis should be that they can.
It should also go without saying that if your
only
"argument" is some poorly explained quotation from someone else, thenyou
haven't
proved that computers can't be conscious, and your thesis should be that they can.
If you cannot come up with a clearly understood, clearly explainable reason why computers cannot ever be conscious, thenyour thesis should be that, as far as you can tell, it is perfectly possible for computers to someday be conscious.
Important Note on "Imitation." (Magenta Box):
Sometimes students say that the computer won't "actually" produce consciousnessbecause it's only
imitating
or
simulating
what brains do. This is like sayingthat someone who imitates
Gene Kelly
won't actually be
dancing
, or that someonewho imitates Julia Child in
this video
, won't actually produce Bernaise sauce,or that an
ornithopter
(a device that imitates bird wings flapping) won'tactually fly.
Important Final Note (Red Box):
This prompt does NOT say that the scientists in the story make a computer to doanything different or less than what the human brain actually does. The computer is notrunning a simulation. The computer is not emulating only
part
of what the brain does. It is not emulating
just
the bits that make consciousness, or just the bits involved inmaking consciousness.
It emulates
the whole thing
. Do NOT pretend that scientists inthis prompt made a computer to do
different
things than what the brain does, and thencalled it "conscious."
That is not the story.
Again, if you ignore the basic
argument
for computer consciousness, you will not get a good gradefor this paper.
If you have a hard time seeing how anyone could oppose the idea of computer consciousness, you can go to
http://madwizard.com/fu_computerpro.htm
, and find an anti-computer argument to analyze in your paper. (If you can do
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two or three pages of analysis already, you don't have to read this page. It's completely optional.)