Conscious computers are a delusion

Conscious computers are a delusion

Raymond Tallis

The notion that computers can think, or that one day they will do so, is rooted in one of two complementary misunderstandings. The first relates to the nature of computers and the second to the nature of thought. That these misunderstandings have had such a powerful hold on the minds of many otherwise intelligent people is due to a tendency to take useful metaphors – describing what computers do and how they do it – as literal truth.

Some have argued that thought does not require consciousness, so that computers can think, or will one day think, even though they will never be conscious. Thoughts, like other so-called conscious activities, are merely causal way-stations between inputs such as sense experience and outputs such as behaviour. They do not have to be conscious; indeed, consciousness contributes nothing to their causal efficacy. . It requires no equipment or subtle argument to demonstrate that this is nonsense. All you need is to focus on the thoughts you are having now. To deny that thought is conscious is self-refuting: you cannot deny the consciousness of your thoughts without being conscious of doing so. And to claim that conscious thought, or indeed consciousness, has no central role in our lives belongs to an extreme behaviourism that is not able to explain even ordinary human behaviour.

The key to understanding the delusions about computers and consciousness is to see the misuse of the word "information". Computers, minds and brains are, we are told, all in the same business, namely processing information. The mind is simply software implemented on the hardware (or "wetware") that is the brain. What seems to escape notice is that the word "information" has a different meaning in different contexts and that the computational meaning of information, as Warren Weaver, one of the great founding fathers of information theory pointed out, has little to do with the word as it is used in everyday life. It should not be confused with ordinary usage, which refers to knowledge consciously communicated between conscious human beings.

Playing devil's advocate (odd for a christian, I know), presuming machines could become sentient, how would anybody know?

Playing devil's advocate (odd for a christian, I know), presuming machines could become sentient, how would anybody know?

Well, the most direct way would be to actually be that machine and experience it first hand
(I'm not able to say how this could happen, though nor am I able to say how a machine might become sentient).

Playing devil's advocate (odd for a christian, I know), presuming machines could become sentient, how would anybody know?

The only thing that could confirm a machine is truly sentient for me is the successful uploading of consciousness that is mentioned a lot in pop culture, evidencing the human mind is similar to AI's. But that will likely take centuries, if it's even possible on the first place, and lets not forget the moral and societal implications if it happens...

Playing devil's advocate (odd for a christian, I know), presuming machines could become sentient, how would anybody know?

I actually think a machine could be conscious, but it would need to emulate currently unknown structures in our brains and possible our bodies as a whole.

I think this is actually (partially) falsifiable because rather than projecting onto a computer we are duplicating the relevant brain structures and seeing what happens. Maybe the android stays inert.

I actually think a machine could be conscious, but it would need to emulate currently unknown structures in our brains and possible our bodies as a whole.

I think this is actually (partially) falsifiable because rather than projecting onto a computer we are duplicating the relevant brain structures and seeing what happens. Maybe the android stays inert.

Personally I do consider that the whole body is relevant. For me the fixation on the brain is somehow misguided. Much of the brain is involved in receiving input from the senses. Notably, 80% of our usually understood physical senses use sense organs located in the head: eyes, ears, nose, mouth. The sense of touch is present in the head too but is also throughout the body. In addition to sensory input, the brain handles human languages which are a learned skill. Probably rational thought may be both facilitated and limited by the brain. (During an NDE for example, rational thought continues but is often accompanied by a vast intuition or ability to receive and comprehend answers in a moment.)

But consciousness more broadly is something else, in other eras the seat of consciousness was considered to be located elsewhere in the body, such as the heart.

I actually think a machine could be conscious, but it would need to emulate currently unknown structures in our brains and possible our bodies as a whole.

I think this is actually (partially) falsifiable because rather than projecting onto a computer we are duplicating the relevant brain structures and seeing what happens. Maybe the android stays inert.

Where's your often pointed out argument based on the Hard Problem: machines regardless of complexity, mechanisms of any kind, fundamentally only push electrons or atoms or gears about and do calculations, but there is an unbridgeable existential gulf between this activity and sentient self awareness, subjective consciousness, and perception. To say nothing about agency, thought, meaning, aboutness, etc. The elements and properties and parameters of these two categories of things are fundamentally different, demonstrated by the thought experiment of trying to weigh a thought. All of this meaning that machines will never be conscious.

Where's your often pointed out argument based on the Hard Problem: machines regardless of complexity, mechanisms of any kind, fundamentally only push electrons or atoms or gears about and do calculations, but there is an unbridgeable existential gulf between this activity and sentient self awareness, subjective consciousness, and perception. To say nothing about agency, thought, meaning, aboutness, etc. The elements and properties and parameters of these two categories of things are fundamentally different, demonstrated by the thought experiment of trying to weigh a thought. All of this meaning that machines will never be conscious.

But I don't think the machine would be attaining consciousness from its non-conscious constituents, I think it'd bear the necessary structure to become conscious in the same way we become bodies with consciousness. Perhaps a spirit inhabits it, perhaps the Ur-Mind makes a new alter by way of this machine, etc.

Like I said though it should be done in a falsifiable way that isn't mere projection like the computationalists fall into. The machine, upon being built, may end up completely inert.