I think the best definition of consciousness I’ve come across is Hofstadter’s, which is something like “when you are thinking, you can think about the fact that you’re thinking, and incorporate that into your conclusions. You can dive down the rabbit hole of meta-thinking as many times as you like.” Even there, though, it’s hard to tell if it’s a verb, a noun, or something else.
If we want to talk about it in computing terms, you can look at the stored-program architecture we use today. Software is data, but it’s also data that can direct the hardware to ‘do something’ in a way that most data cannot. There is software that can introspect itself and modify its own code (this is used both for clever performance hacks and for obfuscation).
My view is that consciousness is a property of my thought processes — not every thought will have the same level of introspection, or even introspection at all. It’s something that my mind is doing (or isn’t doing, depending on what I’m thinking about). The property we ascribe to entities that we call ‘consciousness’ I would instead term ‘the ability to think consciously’ or ‘the ability to have consciousness’. It seems to me that my thought processes are software running on the hardware that is the human brain. If my mind were uploaded, and its software state written to permanent storage and then stopped running, I would say that this recorded state still has the ability to think consciously, but it is not doing so, since it’s not thinking at all, so at that time it is not conscious. (But of course it could be, if started back up.)
I think the best definition of consciousness I’ve come across is Hofstadter’s, which is something like “when you are thinking, you can think about the fact that you’re thinking, and incorporate that into your conclusions. You can dive down the rabbit hole of meta-thinking as many times as you like.”
Philosophers love to make overly simplistic statements about what computers can’t do, even when they’re pro-tech. “Someday, we will have computers that can program themselves!” Meanwhile, a C program I wrote the other day wrote some js, and I did not feel like it was worth a Nobel Prize.
I think they mean a computer that can translate imprecise requirements into precise programs in the same way that a human can, not just code that outputs code. I do agree that philosophers can tend to underestimate what a computer can theoretically do/overestimate how wonderful and unique humans are, though.
On the other hand, I don’t know any humans who know themselves quite as precisely as does an optimizing compiler which has just compiled its own source to machine code.
I like Hofstadter’s works, but I think he over-focuses on recursion and meta-thinking.
At a much more basic level, we use the word ‘conscious’ to describe the act of being aware of and thinking about something—I was conscious of X.
Some drugs can silence that conscious state, and some (such as alcohol) can even induce a very interesting amnesiac state where you appear conscious but are not integrating long term memories, and can awake later to have no memory of large portions of the experience. Were you thus conscious? Clearly after awaking and forgetting, you are no longer conscious of the events forgotten.
So perhaps our ‘consciousness’ is the set of all mindstuff we are conscious of, and thus it is clearly based on our memory (both long and short term). Even thinking about what you are thinking about is really thinking about what you were just thinking about, and thus involves short term memory. Memory is the key of consciousness, but it also involves some recursive depth—layering thoughts in succession.
But ultimately ‘consciousness’ isn’t very distinct from ‘thinking’. It just has more mystical connotations.
I think the best definition of consciousness I’ve come across is Hofstadter’s, which is something like “when you are thinking, you can think about the fact that you’re thinking, and incorporate that into your conclusions. You can dive down the rabbit hole of meta-thinking as many times as you like.” Even there, though, it’s hard to tell if it’s a verb, a noun, or something else.
If we want to talk about it in computing terms, you can look at the stored-program architecture we use today. Software is data, but it’s also data that can direct the hardware to ‘do something’ in a way that most data cannot. There is software that can introspect itself and modify its own code (this is used both for clever performance hacks and for obfuscation).
My view is that consciousness is a property of my thought processes — not every thought will have the same level of introspection, or even introspection at all. It’s something that my mind is doing (or isn’t doing, depending on what I’m thinking about). The property we ascribe to entities that we call ‘consciousness’ I would instead term ‘the ability to think consciously’ or ‘the ability to have consciousness’. It seems to me that my thought processes are software running on the hardware that is the human brain. If my mind were uploaded, and its software state written to permanent storage and then stopped running, I would say that this recorded state still has the ability to think consciously, but it is not doing so, since it’s not thinking at all, so at that time it is not conscious. (But of course it could be, if started back up.)
I can write programs that can do that.
Philosophers love to make overly simplistic statements about what computers can’t do, even when they’re pro-tech. “Someday, we will have computers that can program themselves!” Meanwhile, a C program I wrote the other day wrote some js, and I did not feel like it was worth a Nobel Prize.
I think they mean a computer that can translate imprecise requirements into precise programs in the same way that a human can, not just code that outputs code. I do agree that philosophers can tend to underestimate what a computer can theoretically do/overestimate how wonderful and unique humans are, though.
I don’t think anyone can yet write a program that can reflect on itself in quite the same way a human can.
On the other hand, I don’t know any humans who know themselves quite as precisely as does an optimizing compiler which has just compiled its own source to machine code.
I like Hofstadter’s works, but I think he over-focuses on recursion and meta-thinking.
At a much more basic level, we use the word ‘conscious’ to describe the act of being aware of and thinking about something—I was conscious of X.
Some drugs can silence that conscious state, and some (such as alcohol) can even induce a very interesting amnesiac state where you appear conscious but are not integrating long term memories, and can awake later to have no memory of large portions of the experience. Were you thus conscious? Clearly after awaking and forgetting, you are no longer conscious of the events forgotten.
So perhaps our ‘consciousness’ is the set of all mindstuff we are conscious of, and thus it is clearly based on our memory (both long and short term). Even thinking about what you are thinking about is really thinking about what you were just thinking about, and thus involves short term memory. Memory is the key of consciousness, but it also involves some recursive depth—layering thoughts in succession.
But ultimately ‘consciousness’ isn’t very distinct from ‘thinking’. It just has more mystical connotations.