Re: Consciousness
- From: Ala Qumsieh <notvalid@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:34:26 GMT
iAgent wrote:
Consciousness has always been a big question bugging my mind especially creation of consciousness.
You're definitely not the only one.
We may build robots that show that they are conscious. But can we build robots that are really conscious.
It really depends on how you define "consciousness." The definition that I mostly lean toward is that conscious entities are aware of the effects of their actions on their environment. To that extent, we CAN build robots that are conscious.
How can one go about testing consciousness??
Not very easily :)
One thing that came to my mind in the morning was this
pain is a kind of sensation; extreme tiredness is painful; machines never get tired; they cannot experience pain like humans;
First of all, pain is simply a mechanism that indicates that something is wrong, and that some action needs to be taken to fix it.
Now, tiredness in humans is just an indication of a drop in stored energy levels. This, in turn, causes a sensation of pain that simply acts to drive us toward replenishing this supply of energy by consuming food, in order to relieve ourselves of this pain.
This is very easily simulated in machines. In fact, modern laptops can detect low battery levels. You can argue that this turns on a 'pain bit' that forces the laptop to modify its behaviour accordingly. For example, my laptop slightly dims its display, and slows down the hard disk. It will completely shut down when the battery is below 2%. Being immobile (heh), the laptop depends on its owner for its food, much like a baby depends on its parent.
Another example is the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, which knows the location of its docking station, and docks itself for recharging whenever its battery is below a certain (painful) level.
i think other than all emotions and sensations, pain is the biggest proof of our consciousness.
Really depends on how you define consciousness, but I agree that pain is a very important concept that hasn't been explored enough in robotics.
is getting discharged the only sign of getting tired for a machine?? Your views!!
Note: Whatever weird thoughts came to my mind, i just scribbled them. there maybe loop holes in the above written text. it seems to me incomplete too but i don't want to write an essay for now.
This topic has been discussed for years, and there is plenty of literature out there that will help you fill these holes and perhaps inspire you further.
--Ala .
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