Dear all
An interesting guess works of a few on consciousness itself as
MAYA? Read if you wish: KR IRS 20224
Even among non-neuroscientists, determining the origin and purpose of
consciousness is widely known as “the hard problem.” Since its coinage by
philosopher David Chalmers <https://consc.net/> thirty years ago, that
label has worked its way into a variety of contexts; about a decade ago,
Tom Stoppard even used it for the title of a play
<https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-incarnation-of-ideas-in-tom-stoppards-the-hard-problem>.
Unsurprisingly, it’s also referenced in the episode of Big Think’s
Dispatches from the Well above
<https://youtu.be/BjmPvovl-V4?si=jpQ3AyVmxTBMSseg>, which presents
discussions of the nature of consciousness with neuroscientist Christof
Koch, Vedanta Society of New York minister Swami Sarvapriyananda,
technology entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, Santa Fe Institute Davis Professor of
Complexity Melanie Mitchell, and mathematical physicist Roger Penrose.
Koch describes consciousness as “what you see, it’s what you hear, it’s the
pains you have, the love you have, the fear, the passion.” It is, in other
words, “the experience of anything,” and for all their sophistication, our
modern inquiries into it descend from René Descartes’ proposition, “*Cogito,
ergo sum*.” Sarvapriyananda, too, makes reference to Descartes in
explaining his own conception of consciousness as “the light of lights,” by
which “everything here is lit up.”
Mitchell conceives of it as a continuum: “I’m more conscious when I’m
awake,” for example, and “certain species are more conscious than other
species.” And perhaps it could develop even in non-biological entities: “I
don’t think that we have any machines that are conscious in any interesting
sense yet,” Mitchell says, but “if we ever do, they’ll be part of that
spectrum.”
The question of whether a machine can attain consciousness naturally arises
in host Kmele Foster’s conversation with Hoffman, who’s made serious
investments in artificial-intelligence research. As impressive as AI
chatbots have lately become, few among us would be willing to deem them
conscious; nevertheless, attempting to create not just intelligence but
consciousness in machines may prove a fruitful way to learn about the
workings of the “genuine articles” within us. Penrose’s theory holds that
consciousness arises from as-yet-unpredictable quantum processes occurring
in the microtubules of the brain. Perhaps, as Koch has suggested, it
actually exists to one degree or another in all forms of matter. Or maybe —
to quote from a song in heavy rotation on my childhood Walkman
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcn96HdDCKs> — it’s just what you make of
yourself. KR IRS 20224
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