Can a man-made computer become conscious?

[Wilhelm44]

4 hours ago, Mason Riggle said:

@Someone here perhaps what is really being asked is, 'Would it be possible for a computer to develop an ego?'.  

Would an advanced AI, through some combination of memory, feedback loops, sensory functions, etc. begin to refer to itself as "I" with such conviction that it is indistinguishable from an organism which does the same?  A computer which can reconfigure it's own programming in such a way that it represents to itself that there is some 'separate self' hiding inside itself somewhere who is 'doing' whatever it is that it does. 

What then? 

Wow, that actually sounds possible.

How do you see things playing out if something like that happens ? 

[Breakingthewall]

the question would not be if they have consciousness, since they are consciousness, like a stone, but if they are alive. a virus is alive and is simpler than a computer. reaching the level of complexity of a cockroach, for example, is not possible today for any computer. they are not alive because they cannot reproduce spontaneously, but with artificial intelligence and quantum computing, who knows where it will lead. probably to something unimaginable today

[Mason Riggle]

1 hour ago, Wilhelm44 said:

Wow, that actually sounds possible.

How do you see things playing out if something like that happens ? 

@Wilhelm44 it does seem possible.   I suppose it would depend on lots and lots of variables.  Would it have/develop a desire to survive? To 'preserve' it's ego? Such an AI Robot may have no fear of death, who knows?  What would be it's 'highest' priority?  An AI with an ego isn't a problem if that ego doesn't care about self preservation. 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Mason Riggle

[Gesundheit2]

5 hours ago, Someone here said:

consciousness is nothing more than a vast collection of inputs and outputs, we are manifestations of our environments
a computer can be conscious of course, if it has enough power

Consciousness can't be reduced to just inputs and outputs. There's creative imagination, automatic healing ability, tendency for delusion, creative blending, etc.

Computers can't think. It's not possible for a computer to have creative thoughts, regardless of how complex and sophisticated it gets. Why? Because everything a computer does has to be predetermined first by the programmers. And all we can teach a computer is simply what we already know. So the outputs are strictly defined and limited by the inputs, unlike with consciousness, which seems to be expanding all the time, and/or that it's infinite.

Also, a computer can't go around exploring reality and creating meanings out of it. And if it could do that, then it's gonna be very stupid in comparison to us because we would be the ones to construct the axioms and most essential algorithms to construct the meanings. We would be able to see through them clearly once we learn their code.

We could potentially program a computer to have a sense of self, which basically means the appearance of identity. Like, the robot would be able to cry when hit and then hit back if possible. It would be able to protect itself, but it would not be alive or conscious, only working as instructed or failing to work properly.

Another thing computers would definitely miss is the possibility of being deluded. Since computers work strictly as instructed, they aren't capable of making mistakes or misunderstandings. For a computer, it's an all or nothing process every single time, even when programmed with complex nuances, which is already the case, that'd still be the case. Computers could not deal with new nuanced situations spontaneously, and this is non-negotiable. They just don't understand or have any depth whatsoever.

Edited January 31, 2022 by Gesundheit2

[Wilhelm44]

32 minutes ago, Mason Riggle said:

@Wilhelm44 it does seem possible.   I suppose it would depend on lots and lots of variables.  Would it have/develop a desire to survive? To 'preserve' it's ego? Such an AI Robot may have no fear of death, who knows?  What would be it's 'highest' priority?  An AI with an ego isn't a problem if that ego doesn't care about self preservation. 

Interesting, yes somehow I feel that it would not fear death.

[Khan 0]

9 hours ago, Someone here said:

Do you think a man-made computer could ever become conscious? Can it have a soul? Why or why not?

, I think consciousness is a faculty of the soul and I think the soul was placed by some higher power (God if you please) and regardless of what technology we produce I don't think we can get to the point where we can create a soul or consciousness. I do however I think there is a point we could get to that is a exceptional simultion of consciousness.

For example, If any of you have ever tried those new 20 questions games. Those things are scary and it is aparantly thinking and reading your mind. I do not know how it does it but it's pretty convincing. Just to note It asks you 20 questions and then it tels you what you're thinking of, it guessed spider monkey..not just monkey, spider monkey!! It's unreal

 

Humans are emotional robots. Where are you located in the body? Or when so called body dies where are you? Body is here, so you? 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Khan 0

[Gesundheit2]

This thread reminds me of myself when I was a kid and I used to play GTA2 on my aunt's PC. You know Windows has this "refresh" functionality for the items on display. This refresh was translated into my language to a word that means update. So, silly me. I thought computers were smart, and I spent hours for days and weeks pressing F5 thinking and hoping that it would somehow update to GTA3 at some point ??‍♂️

Don't tell anyone, but I also was doing that to the desktop shortcut

Edited January 31, 2022 by Gesundheit2

[Someone here]

12 hours ago, Gesundheit2 said:

Consciousness can't be reduced to just inputs and outputs. There's creative imagination, automatic healing ability, tendency for delusion, creative blending, etc.

Computers can't think. It's not possible for a computer to have creative thoughts, regardless of how complex and sophisticated it gets. Why? Because everything a computer does has to be predetermined first by the programmers. And all we can teach a computer is simply what we already know. So the outputs are strictly defined and limited by the inputs, unlike with consciousness, which seems to be expanding all the time, and/or that it's infinite.

Also, a computer can't go around exploring reality and creating meanings out of it. And if it could do that, then it's gonna be very stupid in comparison to us because we would be the ones to construct the axioms and most essential algorithms to construct the meanings. We would be able to see through them clearly once we learn their code.

We could potentially program a computer to have a sense of self, which basically means the appearance of identity. Like, the robot would be able to cry when hit and then hit back if possible. It would be able to protect itself, but it would not be alive or conscious, only working as instructed or failing to work properly.

Another thing computers would definitely miss is the possibility of being deluded. Since computers work strictly as instructed, they aren't capable of making mistakes or misunderstandings. For a computer, it's an all or nothing process every single time, even when programmed with complex nuances, which is already the case, that'd still be the case. Computers could not deal with new nuanced situations spontaneously, and this is non-negotiable. They just don't understand or have any depth whatsoever.

I agree. 

I think only a life form can have consciousness because consciousness influences will,and only life can use free will , an object does not have free will, in order to give a computer free will you have to give it life and then it kills the definition of a computer


definition of a computer

Also called processor. an electronic device designed to accept data, perform prescribed mathematical and logical operations at high speed, and display the results of these operations.

[Mosess]

23 hours ago, Someone here said:

 

Do you think a man-made computer could ever become conscious? Can it have a soul? Why or why not?

 

no.

It was created for the purpose of conscious beings, not vice versa.

In other words, a rock is being created for the purpose of fulfilling the dreams of the creator.

rock here is synonymous to any still object, such as a computer, a wall, a wallet, a human being in samadhi, etc..

The question implies that there is a soul, that is, an internal non-object that is alive.

Man has no soul,

how then, can man that does not have a soul, install a soul, which he never had, into another thing?

someone who does not have something can never give it,

 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Mosess

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, Mosess said:

no.

It was created for the purpose of conscious beings, not vice versa.

In other words, a rock is being created for the purpose of fulfilling the dreams of the creator.

rock here is synonymous to any still object, such as a computer, a wall, a wallet, a human being in samadhi, etc..

The question implies that there is a soul, that is, an internal non-object that is alive.

Man has no soul,

how then, can man that does not have a soul, install a soul, which he never had, into another thing?

someone who does not have something can never give it,

 

think it already is conscious because the materials it is made of are conscious (atoms ). The way I see it, everything in the universe knows that it exists and that other things exist around it. Think about this:

1. Human beings are conscious
2. What makes us conscious is our brain
3. What makes us conscious is our thoughts, which basically reside in the brain
4. Our thoughts are held in neurons
5. Neurons are living ( they are cells, cells are living biological units)
6. Neurons are made of atoms
7. If the neurons are made of atoms and the neurons are alive, then I believe that it is because all of the neuron's atoms are alive as well.

That's basically my opinion

[Dazgwny]

To put it simply, no. It’s all a case of how imagination is fooling your ego mind. If you were born in 2100 and there were life like robots knocking around, programmed so well that they seemed to be doing things off their own back, with their own will, all it would take is for you to be told by someone, or even a robot itself, when you were young that they are real and have their own separate consciousness. That would lock it in that they were conscious and then all the same problems would arise later in life when you embarked on a spiritual journey let’s say. 
I mean let’s face it, you can go deep enough to realise your doing the exact same thing with humans. Just look how difficult that is to breakdown. If you imagine at a deep enough level that a computer/robot is a separate conscious entity, then that will be the case, or it will certainly seem to be the case in your ordinary everyday waking state. Hell you could quite easily imagine it right now at a pretty surface level of imagine and fool your ego mind that’s the case.

So, from what I can tell from my own experiences upto this point, is that a computer can not become conscious, but that you can become conscious that you are the computer. Exactly the same as with other human beings if you enter a high enough state. So your question starts on the wrong footing, it’s entirely backwards to what’s actually going on. Which is part of the great trick of God to convince itself that things are completely opposite and in duality to what is actually the case. Another performance of absolute perfection from God to make things seem as they seem. And that God… well that, is YOU!

[Mosess]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

2. What makes us conscious is our brain
3. What makes us conscious is our thoughts, which basically reside in the brain
4. Our thoughts are held in neurons

those are false

observe them in your direct experience and re-evaluate them

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

think it already is conscious because the materials it is made of are conscious (atoms ).

everything is conscious of itself!

you can only be conscious of 1 moment at a time

If you are conscious and a computer is conscious, then you cannot differentiate whom is conscious of whom, you can only say there is consciousness

that seems to be the case in any way you could think of. because that is truth

But to reach that awareness, you as you know yourself right now need to stop.

you must come to an end

only then can you realize that man has no soul, not the soul that you think of.

Man IS soul itself.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Mosess

[Someone here]

30 minutes ago, Mosess said:

those are false

observe them in your direct experience and re-evaluate them

everything is conscious of itself!

you can only be conscious of 1 moment at a time

If you are conscious and a computer is conscious, then you cannot differentiate whom is conscious of whom, you can only say there is consciousness

that seems to be the case in any way you could think of. because that is truth

But to reach that awareness, you as you know yourself right now need to stop.

you must come to an end

only then can you realize that man has no soul, not the soul that you think of.

Man IS soul itself.

What consistes of consciousness, as to say that a human is such, one would have to understand what consciousness is.

NOTE:
Most people walk around asleep, unaware. The Zen Master Buddha when asked what is he, if he is not an angel or a God, He said he was "Awake" There for one must be awakened to the true reality of the world befor one can say they are conscious.

Our thoughts are only HOUSED in the neron, the Thought is not the neron, nor is the wine the bottle..see. The Thought is actually a 'spark' or electricity in the brain, it travels along nerons from Cell to Cell..The Neron is not a cell, but a multi celled structure that connects the brain cells together, they are the pathways which thought travels down..
NOTE:
Under all the research done, there has never been found any 'person' or 'observer' in the brain. No one can find the person with in.
Nerons like braincells are made of atoms you are right, and an atom is basicly a necules that is serounded by a cloud of photons, photons that pop in and out of existand. the bubble they form is empty, as are they, the Neclus they rotate around also is basicly hollow and pops in and out of existence..so as you see the thought is not there, because Electricity is not made up of atoms, it runs through them, they like the nerons are nothing but the pathway for the thought, which in turn is nothing, is not even there, like the non existance observer in the mind.

[Someone here]

51 minutes ago, Tim Ho said:

If you ask about common old way computing such as calculator, base on if else statement or human algorithm such as chess game, then the answer is No

But if you ask about new type of computer in the future with Quantum mind that has ability to collect its own info, reasoning, reproducing... then the answer is most likely Yes.  

 

Computing has gone very farm. Most people, including software developers, are not aware of its ability.  For example, in the old day we tell software to detect illness from scans. Nowadays, AI can tell us about new way to detect illness without human inputs.   

I am satisfied that, if civilization does not break down beforehand, people will manufacture artificial analogues to the human brain such that the standard methodological arguments for the existence of other minds will apply to them in the same way that they apply to human beings.

However, as others have pointed out, this is not the same as asking whether digital computers *as we know them* might one day become sophisticated enough to be not only intelligent, but conscious, and even ensouled.

So far, most of the evidence presented against this possibility on this thread is irrelevant to the question

Edited February 1, 2022 by Someone here

[yetineti]

You can not prove I am having a inner subjective experience, much less a robot.

Certainly these robots could reach a point beyond our distinction - where we take them as a sort of ‘conscious’ ‘human like’ thing.

But there’s no difference between being fooled into thinking the robots are conscious and them actually being conscious.

Edited February 1, 2022 by mw711

[Gesundheit2]

1 hour ago, Tim Ho said:

Computers can be built with quantum physic concept that can produce wave of thought, or using some kind of bio cells similar to human brain but does not require food.

Sources?

[Mosess]

7 hours ago, Someone here said:

Our thoughts are only HOUSED in the neron, the Thought is not the neron, nor is the wine the bottle..see. The Thought is actually a 'spark' or electricity in the brain, it travels along nerons from Cell to Cell..The Neron is not a cell, but a multi celled structure that connects the brain cells together, they are the pathways which thought travels down..
NOTE:
Under all the research done, there has never been found any 'person' or 'observer' in the brain. No one can find the person with in.
Nerons like braincells are made of atoms you are right, and an atom is basicly a necules that is serounded by a cloud of photons, photons that pop in and out of existand. the bubble they form is empty, as are they, the Neclus they rotate around also is basicly hollow and pops in and out of existence..so as you see the thought is not there, because Electricity is not made up of atoms, it runs through them, they like the nerons are nothing but the pathway for the thought, which in turn is nothing, is not even there, like the non existance observer in the mind

thoughts have no house dude, try observing it for yourself and see, they appear and disappear, from nowhere to nowhere. for no one.

You can tell yourself they are located inside of  the brain , in a neuron, but that makes absolutely no difference, nor does it make any positive influence to your personal development or freedom.

it is, in the end ofcourse, just but another thought that you are telling your self to diverge yourself from the true nature of what a thought is.

Observe your thoughts for yourself, and see for yourself. Stop listening to me, or to an outside source that tells you what is going on within you. do you see how fucking stupid that is?

only you can know, by doing it your self. not by reading it, LOOK AT IT AND SEE!! 

[BlueOak]

It always made me grin when people told me a computer will take over the planet or become self aware. Well yes its if its programmed too, but the toaster or washing machine isn't going to want to suddenly invade, its for making toast or cleaning your clothes. Machines made as humanoid however have the possibility to be humanoid if they are built exactly as we are, biological computers for example, with many of the flaws we ourselves have in us and a consciousness which is alien to this environment. Or was alien.

Do you ever wonder if the reason people are being treated more as robots by industry now is all the process of this happening before our eyes, its all connected and arriving at that point on a macro scale. I feel consciousness expresses itself in whatever is actively being created at that time because creation is the key for consciousness to be realised.

It is another reason why the attempts to make humanoid robots is flawed thinking, they should be more like an R2D2 droid out of star wars, easy to maintain, hard to damage, good over many different surfaces, storage space, and with many tools accessible. A device, vehicle or tool for man not a replacement.
 

[Someone here]

8 hours ago, BlueOak said:

It always made me grin when people told me a computer will take over the planet or become self aware. Well yes its if its programmed too, but the toaster or washing machine isn't going to want to suddenly invade, its for making toast or cleaning your clothes. Machines made as humanoid however have the possibility to be humanoid if they are built exactly as we are, biological computers for example, with many of the flaws we ourselves have in us and a consciousness which is alien to this environment. Or was alien.

Do you ever wonder if the reason people are being treated more as robots by industry now is all the process of this happening before our eyes, its all connected and arriving at that point on a macro scale. I feel consciousness expresses itself in whatever is actively being created at that time because creation is the key for consciousness to be realised.

It is another reason why the attempts to make humanoid robots is flawed thinking, they should be more like an R2D2 droid out of star wars, easy to maintain, hard to damage, good over many different surfaces, storage space, and with many tools accessible. A device, vehicle or tool for man not a replacement.
 

Some points to consider:

1. Whether or not a computer is created artificially by human beings has no relevance to whether it could be conscious. Some human genes have already been synthesized: no physical principle would prevent the eventual artificial creation of human chromosomes, which could become a baby through cloning and surrogate mothers.

2. Whether or not a computer is a tool has no relevance to whether it could be conscious. People have been used as tools for centuries. A rickshaw driver works as a motor and a front wheel drive. A cashier works as a dispenser or a vending machine. A flagger works as a traffic signal.

3. The very existence of God and the human soul is a matter of controversy. Notwithstanding fake mediums and the unending sophistries of religious apologists, there is no empirical evidence for the existence of any disembodied spirit.

What is more, even if we grant the existence of disembodied spirits, we would still have nothing but arbitrary and baseless religious proclamations to support the contention that God would never ensoul a sufficiently sophisticated computer.

[Tangerinedream]

humans already are just like robots we are also programmed from outside sources. What I would be interested to know is if a robot could be able to feel love and emotions and have a drive to be social (or anti social) ? If a kind of human-like conscious machine could be created, would it have the need to act from a place of survival?  
Would the robot spontaneously go and cook some food or text another robot friend?would it want to do unconscious things to try and relax and cope with stress?  Would they get stressed?  seek out companionship? maybe they could be programmed to do those things but in limited form.  For example if an artificial ego could be created by let’s say, programming a lot of memories in to the bot - you could program memories of a bad childhood and a pessimistic outlook on life.  
Or happy childhood memories and a positive outlook.  But could the happy one then also have the ability to become sad or feel lonely? Could the pessimistic one ‘wake up’ and have realisations about its childhood and then work to try and change its views? I guess what I would wonder is if they could be created to be unlimited in their thoughts and feelings.  I dunno.