Bulletpoint Consciousness - An Introduction (ch17to 19)

What views are there on the consciousness of machines? CH.17

    When asked whether a machine has a consciousness, two answers are possible from two perspectives. A functionalist will say that robots have a consciousness because they can perform certain tasks as robots. However, an inessentialist does not believe that machines or robots can have a consciousness because there is no inner experience with machines.

    There are several arguments to indicate that machines could never have a consciousness. For example, based on your religion, you can say that God has only given a consciousness to man. It is also possible to say that robots have no consciousness, because only living organisms can have a consciousness.

    Searle coined the Chinese Room thought experiment with which he stated that a computer itself can never really understand anything. He thinks that man has intentionality and not a machine. According to Searle, intentionality is a subjective issue and therefore related to consciousness.

    There has been a lot of criticism on Searle. So there has been the 'brain simulator reply'. This means that there can be a program that can simulate the way neurons fire in Chinese brains. There are also differences of opinion about what Searle's thought experiment really proves. Finally, there is the argument that there are things that machines can not do. If we can do these things, it means that we are more than just machines and that we have something special, namely a consciousness.

How should a conscious machine be built? CH.18

    Kismet was the first robot to look like a human being. You might think that Kismet has no consciousness because it consists of metal and performs simple routine actions. Yet it is true that there is no place in Kismet where 'everything comes together' (as is sometimes said about consciousness).

    Suppose people have an X that ensures that they have a consciousness. If we want to make a conscious robot, then we have to figure out what this X is. McGinn wonders whether this X (which he calls C *) can exist in objects. He concludes that we can never know that.

    Stuart proposes 'engaged embodiment'; purposeful animation, perception, imagination and the ability to recognize experiences as own experiences.

    Aleksander came up with the Kernel Architecture (KA). The key mechanism in this is depicting: creating a direct representation where elements of the world are located that ensure that attention can be directed in a suitable manner.

How does unconscious processing work? CH.19

    Cheesman and Merikle distinguished between an objective threshold value (the level of detection by which a distinction is made between perceptual information on the basis of random phenomena) and subjective threshold value (the value at which participants say that they could not distinguish between perceptual information and that their answers come from random phenomena). .

    It is also possible that unconscious perception affects the emotions of people. Brain scans also show that unconscious perception can be found in the brain, for example in the amygdala.

    Opinions vary widely as to whether unconscious problem solving takes place. Broadbent and Berry have conducted studies showing that it is possible to unconsciously solve problems.

    There are three parts of intuition, namely cognitive processes, social skills and emotion.

Creativity can be seen as a way in which explicit and intuitive skills come together. However, it is not clear where creativity comes from. Perhaps creativity allows people to bring together cultural knowledge ('memes') in special ways to form new memes.