Playing God - Conscious Computing

By CoBoi

Plain god : playing God

Conscious beings sand-boxing what it means to be conscious, only to find the other kids breaking the monkey bars.

1. A philosophical approach towards consciousness
2. The psychology behind How consciousness arises
3. Artful Intelligence consciously computing

Lost in translation

Before humanity was capable of creating a conscious machine, we asked ourselves what it meant to be conscious. In fact, we've been asking ourselves this very question since at least when people started writing. An interesting addendum to declaring an entity as conscious or existent, is that the declarer must be as well. I'm sure you've heard René Descartes famous line:
 
In English: "I think therefore I am", which means 'in order to exist, you must be capable of thought.'
 
But in French: "Je pense, donc je suis", means both: I think, therefore I am & I think, therefore I follow.
 
Did you know he actually wrote it in LATIN? "Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum". So what he really said was, 'Because I am capable of doubting my existence, I am capable of thought, which means I must exist.' As in, the very act of questioning Your existence is only possible if You already exists.
 
What's missed in English? There's an inlaid assumption in the derived, English phrase which seems to say, 'in order to exist you must be capable of thought'. That's ridiculous, though, it would imply that dirt doesn't exist. Which would mean that also earth worms don't exist.
I know what you're thinking, 'Descartes was, like, a philosopher, he was, like, talking about if his self existed'. good point! Descartes needed first to realize if he existed, before probing to see if anything else did. That's the truth choke-point that we're stuck with (as existentialists), so it needs to be examined first. Can you even draw a line between if you exist, or if just you self does? Are we ever truly qualified to define anything that doesn't come directly from Our Self? A question for another day, I'm sure.

From where does consciousness arise?

Neuro psychologists have been operationally defining 'consciousness', and you may be surprised at what they've found. Unfortunately for laymen, consciousness isn't as simple as just 'can it think', however they have come up with a model (that I deem 'close').
 
Integrated Information Theory defined some axioms which define and describe 'consciousness' scientifically. The first requirement is intrinsic existence. In order to exist, you must exist from your own intrinsic perspective, regardless of if there is any other conscious entity there to perceive it. The second is that every experience must have composition. An experience by a conscious entity can be broken down into smaller, simpler components. The third requirement of consciousness is differentiation, a conscious experience must be distinguishable from other separate experiences (barring Déjà vu, I assume). Given the previous axiom, it follows that a single conscious entity must also have an integrated, or unified experience. I don't know how I feel about their last axiom.
If you're interested to learn more, check out this image from the Integrated Information Theory - Wikipedia article 
  
From these starting operational definitions (deemed axioms), researchers have pushed into a very interesting discovery. They found that the number of neurons in a neural network is not directly related to the consciousness of that entity. Researchers believe that experience of consciousness arises from the number of connections in a neural network rather than the gross number or units. Do you want more proof, without having to dig it up yourself? Well you're in luck. People with damage to their cerebellum (where 60% or more of your neurons reside), often experience inability of smooth movement, balance, or in some cases even inability to execute planned or unplanned movements. In total, people have around 86 billion neurons, and the brain is estimated to have around 100 trillion connections (the network). that's around 1,000 connections per neuron. So each single part of this system is connected uniquely to (on average) a thousand other single parts?
 
These researchers didn't stop there, though, they integrated their research into a program that calculates entropy I have no idea how I would use it, yet, but I will find. a. way.
So where can we draw the line of consciousness? Just people? What about dogs and cats? What about butterflies and ladybugs? Earth worms? If you don't think worms are conscious, you may have a bone to pick with Darwin. Let's say, theoretically, you're still with me. If earth worms can be said to be conscious, then what about nematode worms? Fully grown at a size of less than a half of a percent of an inch (0.0039 in), the Nematode worm has a central nervous system composed of 300 neurons. For perspective, this worm's brain is far more complex than modern computing is capable of emulating (or at least was capable of when I wrote this).

Artificial Intelli-gentlemen

A hand written website can be composed of thousands of lines of code, and some of those lines (scripts and styles) reference other documents of even greater lengths. But editing and evolving a site with that much code on it is just not sustainable, which is why we use Content Management Systems (CMS - like wordPress). As you might imagine, somebody coming in and tinkering on one of these larger systems could break so many things in so many ways. The good news is that rookies are bound to make similar accidents, and are often easy for experienced developers to troubleshoot. The complexity of our entire internet (puny humans) is minuscule compared to the level of complexity in Gaia's genome (Cthulu).
 
Hacking biology We extincted a species of mosquito in Africa by infecting them with a genetic virus that rendered each mosquito sterile within 5 generations (~10 weeks). That's terrifying, we barely know how any of this works, and we're already implementing irreversible changes to life. Even though I am intensely curious about 'playing god', I also feel at my very core that tinkering with the biology of conscious entities is the next carefully balanced ecosystem that man kind will plunder through destructively. Recently, our friend the nematode worm was shown to be 're-programmable' . It was made to react differently to its only food source, salt. I can see that going wrong, and can imagine many other ways that clumsy men could mess everything up 'for good'. Humanity must be a cancer that's killing Gaia, and the people who are actually doing it won't stop no matter what. It seems like a constant community driving all life towards destruction. I only take solace in the fact that there's another which pushes in the other direction as hard as they can. As agents of unbalance, we are, together, balanced.
 
Never Not
They are a conundrum.
we are not.
Then are we?
Or are we knot?
 
There's no going backspace. So, who are our champions against those seeking rapid control through altering existing natural systems? Those starting from the ground up, who can build from scratch, create something from nothing. In the case of building AI, we have simulationists. So many intriguing interpretations of reality have been spun off of an idea of simulation, so let me clarify now, I will not be mentioning the Matrix... again... That's a simulation set way too far in the future to be tangible (At this time we cannot even create a nematode worm's level of neural complexity), Interestingly, you can't predict the outcome of a simulation/function, without running it. So is our life just made from some basic set of parameters, played out over an unimaginable number of iterations? Modern computing intellectual titans are attempting to understand this question by building computer simulations at the level of complexity of basic life. Others will recklessly employ techniques that 'work' in the short term, to their own ends. However, those that are laying this knowledge foundation may be able one day to repair the inevitable rampage left by big business genetics.