2old4this
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Here's another off the wall idea. Can you spot the flaw in this classic reductionist argument?
Consider the human brain. It is conscious. But each neuron doesn't know what it is. Each neuron is not individually conscious. Concsiousness is an emergent property arising from the pattern of electrical activity across billions of neurons.
Imagine I were able to map each and every neuronal connection, and that I could measure precisely when each individual neuron fired.
If I choose to measure time at sufficiently short intervals, I would see that neuron 1 fired first, then neuron 2 and so on, right up to neuron ten billion (or whetever). It might be that the interval between some successive firings was only a nonsecond, or even a picosecond. But one is always be able to chop the interval up such that the firing could be seen to be at different times.
Now consider one particular neuron. It doesn't know or care whether it is connected to the others. The connections merely serve to relay messages so that it knows when to switch "on" and can tell its neighbours when to switch on too. So I might decide to replace that neuron with a light bulb which I simply switch on or off at the right moment.
In fact, I decide to do that with every neuron. I replace them all by lightbulbs, switching on and off at just the right moment.
Now I've got this vast complex three-dimensional array of mutually disconnected lightbulbs, all going on and off in exactly the same pattern as the original brain. Logically, it is as conscious as the organic brain was.
But notice how they are all now disconnected. In fact they don't even know where they are spatially in relation to each other. So it suddenly strikes me that rather than have them stacked up in this complicated manner, I could simply place them all in a line - so long as they all continue to fire at the allotted moments.
So now we have a very long line of light bulbs, flashing on an off. It too is surely as conscious as the original brain.
Now another thought strikes me. The first bulb and the second bulb do not have any individual sense of identity. Their only meaning arises from the point of time at which they are switched on or off. So why not just get the first bulb to fire once for itself and then a second time for the second bulb.
So I arrange this. And throw away the second bulb. I now do the same with the third bulb. Ultimately, I throw away all the bulbs except bulb1 - which is now flashing on and off more frantically than ever.
Lo, the world's first conscious lightbulb.
2old
Consider the human brain. It is conscious. But each neuron doesn't know what it is. Each neuron is not individually conscious. Concsiousness is an emergent property arising from the pattern of electrical activity across billions of neurons.
Imagine I were able to map each and every neuronal connection, and that I could measure precisely when each individual neuron fired.
If I choose to measure time at sufficiently short intervals, I would see that neuron 1 fired first, then neuron 2 and so on, right up to neuron ten billion (or whetever). It might be that the interval between some successive firings was only a nonsecond, or even a picosecond. But one is always be able to chop the interval up such that the firing could be seen to be at different times.
Now consider one particular neuron. It doesn't know or care whether it is connected to the others. The connections merely serve to relay messages so that it knows when to switch "on" and can tell its neighbours when to switch on too. So I might decide to replace that neuron with a light bulb which I simply switch on or off at the right moment.
In fact, I decide to do that with every neuron. I replace them all by lightbulbs, switching on and off at just the right moment.
Now I've got this vast complex three-dimensional array of mutually disconnected lightbulbs, all going on and off in exactly the same pattern as the original brain. Logically, it is as conscious as the organic brain was.
But notice how they are all now disconnected. In fact they don't even know where they are spatially in relation to each other. So it suddenly strikes me that rather than have them stacked up in this complicated manner, I could simply place them all in a line - so long as they all continue to fire at the allotted moments.
So now we have a very long line of light bulbs, flashing on an off. It too is surely as conscious as the original brain.
Now another thought strikes me. The first bulb and the second bulb do not have any individual sense of identity. Their only meaning arises from the point of time at which they are switched on or off. So why not just get the first bulb to fire once for itself and then a second time for the second bulb.
So I arrange this. And throw away the second bulb. I now do the same with the third bulb. Ultimately, I throw away all the bulbs except bulb1 - which is now flashing on and off more frantically than ever.
Lo, the world's first conscious lightbulb.
2old