Consciousness: Is it possible to implement it artificially?
Consciousness, in definition is the gut feeling in a living being which enables them to believe that they are in fact ‘alive’ and aware of their surrounding and aware of the fact that they control their lives; that they in fact are in control of their surroundings. So, it is factually correct to say that consciousness is a collection of thoughts, experiences, opinions, warnings, advices and commands that are embedded in a ‘being’ which are then utilized to ‘know’ that they are ‘alive’. This statement opens the pathway to another vivid statement: What if consciousness is programmed?
Ever since we were little, our parents told us what is right and what is wrong, what is dangerous and harmful, how interacting with certain things in the world could lead to good consequences or bad consequences. To rephrase this: We were programmed. We were told and made aware of how things work in this world. We grew up knowing these commandments, these rules and regulations, these facts that made us aware how things worked. To say the least, we evolved knowing these facts.
What if an artificial being could be programmed in every way possible to know what their surroundings are made of? For example, a snail is ‘programmed’ to hide inside its shell at the smallest hint of danger. Cows are ‘programmed’ to be herbivores. Birds are ‘programmed’ to know that they can fly. These examples do not defer so much from the fact that a phone is ‘programmed’ to receive and make calls and that, is the undeniable truth about consciousness; It CAN be programmed.
Food for thought: Given the situation where a computer is programmed to identify thousands of employee faces in a Fortune 500 company and given the fact that the computer never fails to misrecognize a face, wouldn’t you say the computer is conscious at detecting employees and their facial features? This begs the question, what if an artificial being could be programmed to lead a life similar to ours if the only thing that it requires is guidance on knowing what it needs to do in order to survive. Just what if.
Dinuka Jayasuriya
