AI & Consciousness

AI and ConsciousnessBy Anthony Patch

The advancements of today's technologies arriving from our ancestors in crossing spiritual thresholds, throws open philosophical doorways of debate regarding the achievement of human contextual consciousness within the realm of machine Artificial Intelligence.

Seldom do we enter into or hear discussions regarding consciousness, yet we are not of much use if we are unconscious.

We must define both intelligence as well as consciousness, the latter being the focal point of this presentation. Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.

While consciousness delves into both the scientifically material and the philosophical spiritual aspects of a mental state, residing both within and manifesting outside of the human brain. It is both a biological and spiritual phenomenon, filled with cognitive biases.

These biases illustrated here as arising from the realms of scientific discussions on the matter of what it means to be conscious.

One, consciousness is not a part of the physical world, rather a part of the spiritual world belonging to the soul. The soul being not a part of the physical world. This relegated to the traditions of God, the Soul, and Immortality.

Two, within the context of scientific materialism, consciousness is not a part of this physical world. Either it doesn't exist at all, or it is something else. Perhaps even, a computer program. Consciousness is not a part of science, as science is objective. With consciousness being subjective. Therefore, there cannot be a science of consciousness.

These two traditions of thought are paralyzing in their assumptions. It is therefore necessary to break out, realizing consciousness is a biological phenomenon, as well as spiritual in its origin.

There are four principle arguments arising from the discussions taking place regarding consciousness.

One, consciousness does not exist, it is an illusion.

Two, it may exist, but really something else, perhaps a computer program running within the human brain.

Three, what exists is behavior, the subject of 'Behaviorism'.

Four, maybe consciousness exits, but it cannot make any difference to our world. How can spirituality move objects?

We can define from a perspective of common sense, what it means to be conscious. Consciousness consists of all those states of feelings, observations, or awareness. As well, dreams are a form of consciousness.

There is in academic circles a debate known as the 'Mind-Body Problem'. It postulates: "How can consciousness exist in the real world?"

Each of our conscious states are caused by lower-level neurobiological processes in the human brain. And, they are realized in the brain as higher-level systems. Consciousness manifests as a condition of the systems within which it resides.

Human behavior is a result of the biological actions of molecules, whether conscious or unconscious.

Herein are the behavioral features of consciousness.

One, it is real and irreduceable, it cannot be eliminated. The definition between reality and illusion is the distinction between how things consciously seem to humans. And, how they really are. If it seems to humans they are conscious, then they are conscious. One cannot doubt the existence of one's own consciousness. Likewise, one cannot eliminate consciousness by showing it's an illusion.

Two, all human states of consciousness have qualitative characteristics. These states 'feel like something'.

Three, conscious states are by definition subjective, existing only as human experiences. A 'self' that experiences conscious states. Scientists will say: 'We don't know how our brains do it (consciousness), we cannot build a conscious machine'.

Four, the key to the power of human consciousness is that it manifests in unified conscious fields. Senses occur as part of a singular conscious field.

Five, consciousness functions causally in human behavior. Thoughts in a human brain are able to move material objects, as with the body. This is the result of sequences of neurons firing and terminating where acetylcholine is secreted at the axon endplates of the motor neurons, conducting through ion channels to the muscles. Acetylcholine is secreted upon conscious decisions having been made.

A new vocabulary is necessary within the contextual discussions of machine Artificial Intelligence with regard to such devices attaining human-like consciousness. For at the present, algorithmically they are capable only of modelling thus, reproducing the behavior of humans.

In silico consciousness.

-Anthony Patch