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Machine consciousnessMachine consciousnessCan machines be murdered? Tate, M.A. et al Keywords: consciousness, artificial intelligence INTRODUCTION: This chapter in 'Consciousness and the Universe' emphasises the lack of depth of thinking that can be seen as a hall mark of the functionalist approach to consciousness theory. The first sentence makes the assumption that particular actions or more especially the combining of particular actions will produce consciousness. Characteristically in this sort of writing, no argument is presented, and conclusions are merely asserted. Computers/robots are making advances in mobility, face recognition and other functions. It is not clear whether the authors think that a machine performing just one of these functions could become conscious. At any rate, their main emphasis appears to be concentrated on generating some magic out of the combination of different modalities that occurs in the brain, although this point isn't really clarified. Relating consciousness to the combining of modalities has a certain plausibility in respect of recent neuroscience, in that consciousness in the brain is correlated with the global gamma synchrony extending across regionally located modalities. It is possibly awareness of this arrangement in the brain that has suggested that combining a number of functions could produce consciousness, although again this neuroscience background is not discussed or even mentioned. A general problem relating to this suggestion is that the synchronisation of action spikes across billions of spatially separated neurons bears little resemblance to computing. Although functionalism is probably still the dominant orthodoxy, there is now more of a ground swell of awareness of the differences between computers and brains, and the authors do feel it necessary to address these reservations. They seem to put forward the argument that the operation of the gamma synchrony could be digitally replicated, although this isn't really clear. No doubt a computer could in principle replicate such connections, but this leaves open the question as to whether the basis for consciousness in the brain relates to the connections as such, or the physical/biological structures that allow them. This could be a subject of some discussion, but no discussion appears to be considered necessary in this chapter. A further problem here appears to be that the working of human-made computers is fully understood, and provides no examples of structures that do not exist elsewhere in the universe without them producing consciousness. On the other hand, our understanding of the brain and more especially the neuron's complexity at the microscopic level is less certain. It is noticeable that while philosophy and psychology talk in terms of certainties with relation to the mind, the nitty gritty of neuroscientific literature is hedged by 'perhaps' and 'could be'. Furthermore, the gamma synchrony, as is admitted even in the most conventional circles, is only a correlate of consciousness. Is it consciousness that produces the synchrony, visa versa or some interactive process between neurons and the brain-wide synchrony? Mind-brain identity: The writers are also supporters of mind-brain identity. The core of the mind-brain identity concept is that mental states and neural states are identical. In a trivial sense this appears to be true of all theories of consciousness that are not dualistic, so that even a Penrose-Hameroff theory of consciousness could be argued to be a mind-brain identity theory. Thus Penrose argued that the mind was not identical to a computer rather than not identical to a brain. However, in modern consciousness studies mind-brain theories tend to travel with a certain hidden agenda. The mind is identical to the brain as described by neuroscience text books. So far so good, except that when we read such a text book, there is nothing in it which either requires or could generate consciousness. We are presented with a closed information system from which consciousness is entirely missing. Incidentally an end chapter, which may be found in some more recent books, giving a round up of current theories of consciousness does not constitute an explanation of why consciousness is missing from the main text. The problem we have in conventional mind-brain identity theory is that the mind is claimed to be identical to a brain that, as described, has no requirement for consciousness and had no way of generating it. Elsewhere this chapter has a rather confused take on some other theories of consciousness. Curiously, the authors appear to conflate quantum consciousness with epiphenomenalism. The assumption appears to be that any quantum states in the brain must be by-products of processes based on classical physics, suggesting a rather strange take on physics, and this is odder still because epiphenomenonalists tend to indignantly reject the idea of any quantum involvement. Another curious idea is the conception of persistence through time as the factor underlying consciousness. Admittedly awareness or record of lifespan to date is usually part of the contents of human consciousness, but it is another thing to say that this produces consciousness. A non-conscious computer only needs a clock to record how long it has been in existence. It is also noticeable in this piece that in a fashion reminiscent of twentieth century thinking cognition is frequently equated to consciousness or the potential for consciousness, while emotion or evaluation of sensory input is hardly mentioned. Recent neuroscience, however points to a significant involvement of these latter factors. |
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