As programmers we have to understand how we can program something to seem incredibly intelligent. If we had access to time and resources that universe "contributed" to us - we may be able to come up with the type of program that looks, acts, learns, emotionally reacts 100% like a normal human being. Even currently we can get pretty far using image recognition, sound recognition, learning algorithms and fast-lookup data structures. The question of free will is - at which exact point in developing those data structures and algorithms the program gains an illusion of controlling its own actions? Moreover — how can you verify that it did?
What the article essentially says is that our brain is nothing but a CPU, programmed over millions of years by natural evolution in a way that it gained all kinds of responses to multitude of various inputs (our 5 senses) in all kinds of combinations, self-improving learning algorithm, and that illusion of consciousness emerged as a by-product of this complex system. Pretty interesting what exact data-structure/algorithm/etc caused this peculiar side effect.
It could have something todo with the observation that our brain doesn't need to be whole in order to have consciousness. In different types of physical brain damage, even major ones, a human was able to remain conscious. Same could happen with the other part of brain damaged, which was healthy in another example. So I'm thinking - maybe our the sense of conscoiousness is like a potential difference which makes electrical current flow through the wire - you need to have multiple parts of brain with potential difference to create an illusion of consciousness. This is pretty vague but I like this concept - may be onto something. Consciousness does feel a lot like different parts of brain interacting, or one part /observing/ another and reacting to it just like it'd be reacting to the outside world.
Comments
As programmers we have to understand how we can program something to seem incredibly intelligent. If we had access to time and resources that universe "contributed" to us - we may be able to come up with the type of program that looks, acts, learns, emotionally reacts 100% like a normal human being. Even currently we can get pretty far using image recognition, sound recognition, learning algorithms and fast-lookup data structures. The question of free will is - at which exact point in developing those data structures and algorithms the program gains an illusion of controlling its own actions? Moreover — how can you verify that it did?
What the article essentially says is that our brain is nothing but a CPU, programmed over millions of years by natural evolution in a way that it gained all kinds of responses to multitude of various inputs (our 5 senses) in all kinds of combinations, self-improving learning algorithm, and that illusion of consciousness emerged as a by-product of this complex system. Pretty interesting what exact data-structure/algorithm/etc caused this peculiar side effect.
It could have something todo with the observation that our brain doesn't need to be whole in order to have consciousness. In different types of physical brain damage, even major ones, a human was able to remain conscious. Same could happen with the other part of brain damaged, which was healthy in another example. So I'm thinking - maybe our the sense of conscoiousness is like a potential difference which makes electrical current flow through the wire - you need to have multiple parts of brain with potential difference to create an illusion of consciousness. This is pretty vague but I like this concept - may be onto something. Consciousness does feel a lot like different parts of brain interacting, or one part /observing/ another and reacting to it just like it'd be reacting to the outside world.
Meh.