[ExI] Digital Consciousness .

[Gordon]

Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

>Simple qualia like ability to tell light from darkness
>are reproducible by single-cell organisms (Euglena)
>or trivial robots with a photocell and a few transistors.

>If you scrub the word clean from overweening philosophical
>crud it's very simple.

Euglena are remarkable in that they seem to know lightness from darkness. But do they really experience qualia? I think not. 

I think real consciousness is about knowing what one knows. I know about the period at the end of this sentence, and I also know that I know about it. How does that happen? How do I not only see it, but also know that I see it? I think there is something going on here besides ordinary chemical reactions *as we currently understand them*. There is something happening in the biology/chemistry/physics of the brain that we do not yet understand. I think we need to understand it before we can talk meaningfully about such things as strong AI and uploading.


Gordon
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