If a supercomputer one day could totally simulate a working brain, creating a 3D representation of all it's structure and synaptic firings, would that simulation be conscious? What would it be conscious of? Would it require physical sensory inputs to be conscious? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
There are SF stories about aliens exploiting literal human brains for alternative purposes than that of our being embodied agents with personalities performing acts in an environment. Heck, I suppose there are tales of our own future inventions exploiting our low-tech wetware for reasons that seem contradictory to their own available superior achievements / capacities. But to overcome their solipsist-like isolation and develop into an intelligence like us, simulated brains would either need to be remotely linked to or embodied in a robot in a "real" environment, or receiving sensory input of being embedded in a virtual body / world -- or at least be supplied (somehow) with pseudo-memories of such events simply to have a base of conceptions and data to formulate dreams, imaginations, and sense of "personhood" from. Whether or not a simulated brain could have experiences correlated to its sensory processing areas and to activity associated with introspective thoughts, is entering John Searle's Chinese Room territory, or the firestorms of debate ignited by functionalism versus his biological naturalism. That is, if anyone can figure out if what Searle means by "intentionality in human beings (and animals)" has anything at all to do with Chalmers' hard problem. Otherwise, if it simply concerns understanding language via expressing meanings with yet more language, or "intelligence" as in performing sapient behaviors (with robot body) or outputting wise or sensible sentences, then the substrate of hardware underlying computers, simulated brains, etc, is certainly capable of those affairs.
Speak of the devil in terms of lame, current attempts at faux memory fabrication, as well as memory revision in real brains [mere rodents!]: Scientists Create New Memories by Directly Changing the Brain: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130910142334.htm Possibility of Selectively Erasing Unwanted Memories: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130910140941.htm
What is taking so long to create conscousness? We should have a C3PO by now, one that can do dishes. What is the problem? It's just a neural net that can do things like suffer pain/pleasure, pay attention, get curious, get depressed, get excited, angry, feel bliss, hold grudges, throw tempertantrums, plan for world domination, worry about an afterlife, be neurotic, the list goes on... We should have machines now that have values and can make decisions. What's the hold up?
Daniel Dennett examines these ideas in his book 'The Mind's I', highly recommended. I tend to side with Prof, Roger Penrose who doubts that consciousness is possible in a purely algorithmic machine, as he explains in his book ' The Emperor's New Mind', also recommended. Would we even recognise consciousness in a machine? See other thread 'Will machines become conscious someday?'
